Aloha to Maui

We recently said goodbye to our first, and dearest, family pet. Maui, a Basset Hound, has been with us since we moved to Hawaii in 2003. We had been living in a small apartment in San Diego since we were married, and Daniel couldn't wait until we were in a house with a yard so that we could have a dog.

When we moved to Pearl Harbor, I went ahead of Daniel to secure our house, a small 2-bedroom duplex, and have our household goods (which we'd shipped two months ahead of time) moved into our new home. After unpacking and getting "us" settled, I was so excited when Daniel finally arrived to help me with furniture and items that were beyond my strength. However, when he finally landed in Honolulu, all Daniel was concerned with was getting a newspaper and finding a dog. A few days and $600 later, we had the sweetest Basset Hound named Maui. (This was the beginning of our tradition of naming our pets after the locales, i.e. Charlie - a Malti-Poo acquired in Charleston, SC; and Alamo - a lab/golden retriever acquired in Austin, TX.)

Maui had the best demeanor and was loved by everyone instantly. Even the neighborhood kids would come and ring the doorbell in the afternoons and ask if Maui could come out and play. Our funniest pasttime with Maui was to chase her as we were sweeping the floor with a broom. For whatever odd reason, Maui would go crazy and scatter so quickly she ran into walls trying to get away from the broom. 

My funniest memory of Maui was one night as we drove to a friend's house for dinner. Our friends loved Maui and always requested that she come along with us, so she was riding in the backseat of our SUV. Daniel rolled the windows down as he talked about wanting to have a dog who hung her head out of the car. I nagged him to roll the windows up, saying that I was scared Maui would jump out. As he insisted that dogs don't jump out of cars, Maui leapt out of the car and into oncoming traffic. Fortunately, she wasn't injured, but Daniel never again tried to get her to stick her head out of the window of a moving car or let her ride in the bed of his truck. 

At the beginning of November, Maui was injured and became paralyzed, not able to use her hind legs. At the vet's instruction, we cared for her on bedrest for almost a month until Daniel's saintly mother took the task on for us. Maui was never able to recover from her injuries, and she is now gone.  We'll miss her greatly but are relieved that she is no longer in pain.