Red Fawn / Female
Found running loose and surrender to GEM
Very Loving Senior Needs Your Couch
Whelped: 9/11/1994
Adopted on 2/7/2004 by Jim and Gail Berning.

Our beloved Allie (we often called her Peanut) Crossed over the Bridge at noon today. Needles to say, our hearts are breaking right now and it is very difficult to even write this through our tears. But Allie was a strong girl, enduring a lot in her 14 + years and she would want us to be tough and tell her story.

I (Gail) will never forget the day she walked into our lives. We had just returned from our 5th anniversary vacation (Wisconsin to see the doggies) and the vet in Temperance had posted on the marque “Greyhound found”. I swivled into the parking lot and thought, I will see if this greyt is any greyt we know from around here. Well, the vet had found her on a dark fall night, pouring down rain, running on the country roads up in Temperance. She thought she was a deer. When she discovered she was not, she tried to get her in the car. Nothing doing. After finally getting wise to Allie, she pulled up way ahead of her and “cornered her” and scooped her up and put her in her car. The vet (Chris Ravery) says she will never forget that night. Anyway, the first I saw her in the vets kennel that day, I knew she was special. I called her an angel, and yes, I believe that angels lead her to Jim and I. We posted her registration numbers and found out she adopted out of Indiana 5 years previously. After contacting the owner and learning that she did not want Allie back, we decided to foster little Allie. And find her a good home. Well, after one hour in our home and with Mandi and Abbey acting as the perfect hostesses, we knew we were going to fail fostering! Allie had just turned 9.

Allie was a wonderful, sweet, tough old little girl and we have so many stories that we could share. But the most important of all is Allie truly lived up to her registered name: Aphrodite – the Goddess of Love. She was nothing but LOVE. After losing her soulmates, Mandi and Abbey, only 2 months apart, she felt lost. But with the help of acupuncture she rallied and gave us a year of the most wonderful, unconditional love any grieveing parents could ask for. She tried to do what I had asked of her the day we officially became her “forever home”……live forever! 14 + and still high spirited, right up until the end. Her little body could just not take it any more.

Jim and I remember the night before her 14th birthday. She went for a walk – which was unusual as she rarely walked any more. Then she went out into the yard and when she saw Jim get the camera, she decided she would run like the wind one last time. Jim got pictures and boy, she could still run for an old girl!!!! 🙂

That was the last time she tried to run. She turned 14 on 9/11/2008. This winter was hard on her. We carried her up and down the stairs and often ran out into the snowplowed back yard to pick her up when she had fallen as she went potty. She did not like being carried or having to be helped go potty, but she did it because she was tough. She got weaker and weaker as the winter went on. Her front legs not really being able to hold her up much either. But she tried! She loved to cuddle and the over the last year, she really never wanted to let me out of her sight (which was going, along with her hearing). She would follow me everywhere, and when I did not come home at the usual time, she would pace the house, sometimes for over an hour, until I came home and sat down and cuddled. SHE was the one who got me to bed at night -“mom can we just go to bed now?” as she gave me those awesome brown eyes and beautiful smile.

No, our lives have not been the same and we were so blessed to have her join our family of greyts! The vet told us she was a lucky girl to have lived her last 5 years with us. But we argued that we were the ones to be lucky. As I try to keep typing this, I pray that she is running free with her buddies, Mandi and Abbey, running witout weakness or pain and knowing that she has our hearts FOREVER!

She was my heart dog and I hope she will be there for me someday!
We love you Allie, Run Free sweet peanut, Run Free!
Gail & Jim Berning

Allie went to the bridge on February 8, 2009.

• Listing ID: 12273
• Call Name: Allie
• Pet Name: Allie
• Color: Light Brindle
• Sex: Female
• Adopted On: 02/07/2004
• Sire: Bara Buzz
• Dam: Miss Pib
• Adopted By: Berning
• DOB: 09/11/1994
• Deceased: 02/08/2009
• Littermates: Hades