As many of you know, I, MJ, have three dogs. Correction: had. My oldest dog, the Golden Retriever Riley, died on August 8th while I was asleep in a hotel in Miami. He was 13 years old.
  We have lots of memories of Riley. When we still lived in Southern California, when Riley and I were a year old, my dad took him to the beach. It was high tide, and the waves were at my dad's (he's 6 feet tall) shoulders. Riley jumped right into the water, swam beyond the wave break, and bobbed up and down in the immense swell. My dad started yelling at him to come back, and soon a small crowd had gathered and they were calling his name, too. Riley stayed out in the ocean. My dad thought he was going to drown. So, in his jeans and t-shirt, he jumped into the water and swam after Riley. When they got to shore, the now-huge crowd broke into applause.
Riley was a-erm-cherishly plump dog. He spent most of his time lying around the house, save for my parent's evening cheese-and-crackers when he would go looking for a good scratch behind the ears. He seemed like a lazy dog, but, in truth, he was incredibly loyal. He developed a habit in the middle of his eleventh year, and it continued throughout the rest of his life. Every night, despite the fact that his hind legs were arthritic and he sometimes found it hard to stand up, Riley would climb two flights of stairs just so he could flop in front of my door (my room is closest to the stairs) and be near us as we slept. And every morning, he would go back down again. No matter how many times he fell, no matter how many chairs we used to block the way so he wouldn't hurt himself, Riley managed to get up. Every single night. That, in my opinion, is true loyalty.
Thank you, Riley, for all the memories you left with us. All of us-yes, even Romeo-will miss you. I'll never forget you buddy.

 Rest in peace.