Rainbow Bridge Memorial

Dearly missed by the Deardorff Family

We met Aries in late July of 2006 about 2 weeks after her trip to the Northwest from Arizona. When Marchet let about half a dozen dogs out, a tall white girl named Come to Me Fifi established herself right up against my leg, as if she knew it was right where she belonged.

We thought we had driven to Woodinville to pick out a dog. Instead, this big sweet girl came right up and picked us out. And ours lives are infinitely better because she did.
It started off a bit rocky, as we tried desperately to unravel the quirky mystery that is a greyhound. But, once we fully grasped that she was just looking for routine, we got to meet the real Aries. Armed with her newfound confidence, she laid claim to every spot on every couch that we owned. She often charged a ‘petting toll’ to sit on any couch she occupied. Her collection methods for this toll were once described as ‘aggressively friendly’ and that was always a very fitting description of her.

All in all, her life was an incredibly healthy and happy one. In the beginning, she was an escape artist. Within a few months of living with us, she already learned how to open all the doors in our condo. We were out to dinner one night and got a call from the concierge of our downtown condo building telling us that Aries had just come down to the lobby. In the elevator. By herself. It turns out that she had learned to jump on the door handle and pull the door open. We finally had no other choice but to change all the handles to knobs – and in time Aries finally stopped trying to bust free.

I guess she figured we weren’t so bad to hang out with after all.

As she got older, Aries began slowing down. She didn’t want to walk quite as far and it became very obvious that arthritis, coupled with corns on her paws, were making things more and more difficult by the day. She never once complained though and she never once stopped demanding her ‘petting toll’ night after night. Unfortunately, once both of her back legs stopped working, there was very little we could do. With my wife and I by her side, our sweet gentle Aries peacefully took her spot on the Big Couch in the sky.Â
We want to thank everyone at GPI for all that you do. Neither of us had any idea what a tremendous gift this would be. And for this journey and this experience, we are extremely humbled and grateful.

In loving memory of Aries, April 4, 2004 – September 12, 2015