We Love You Ellie Mae

We Love You Ellie Mae (Birthday Unknown – March 30, 2025)

Back in 2016, my wife had been longing for us to get a dog. I’d always been more of a cat person and hadn’t had any dogs since I was an adolescent living at home. In April of 2016 we heard from friends of my wife about a very good dog needing a home. The dog was already mature, loving, well socialized, and had lived with both cats and dogs. We had cats so we were keen on adopting a dog that wouldn’t have a problem with our existing feline family members. The dog, “Eleanor Mayfield” aka “Ellie Mae,” had been living with her second owner for many years until that owner lost her battle with cancer and despite the dog being exceptionally well loved among the owner’s close friends, none of those friends was in a position to take her in. When we heard about her, some of those friends had taken her in after the dog had briefly been put into a shelter, whereupon the shelter-staff recognized that this dog was a real gift and shouldn’t spend another night in the pound. So we went over to the friends house to meet Ellie Mae, and it was love at first sight. We took her back with us and so began our “forever home” period of living with the most wonderful dog we’ve ever had the honor to share our lives with.

Ellie Mae brought so much joy to our lives. She was so energetic for a middle-aged dog. We had so much fun going on daily walks and many long hikes through our favorite parks. Watching her excitedly run from one end of our big backyard to the other and back again, squeezing her squeak-ball in her mouth as she ran, was a near daily treat for us to watch. Ellie Mae delighted in riding in the car with us on road trips. She loved children and other dogs. There was definitely a period of adjustment as we learned the level of discipline she needed to join our pack, but she was an amazing dog who recognized boundaries like no other I’d ever met; though we also learned how sneaky she could be… I’ll never forget the day we discovered that she could fit through the very small cat door that was part of a metal child-gate we’d installed to keep her from going upstairs in our house. She could easily jump over the fence and we assumed that that was how she was getting upstairs and eating the cat’s food, however, one day I happened to witness her going through the small cat-door of the gate. I nearly fell over from laughing so hard. When I tried to get Ellie Mae to do this in front of my wife, we could tell she had that, “y’all are trying to get me in trouble” look on her face. When we finally got her to do it we just laughed and laughed. We ended up closing the cat-door part of the gate – the cats could jump over the gate as easily or more easily than Ellie Mae – and eventually we took the gate down when it eventually became obvious that Ellie recognized the boundary we had set and ceased going upstairs altogether; that and we stopped leaving cat food bowls down where she could get to them. But that was part of her recognizing boundaries, she could easily have gotten food off the counters where we put the food bowls for the cat, or eaten food off of our plates when we left them unattended on our (even lower than the counter tops) living room coffee table, but she never did.

It’s always hard to lose a family member / pet and this time is no exception. Our only consolation is the loving home we gave her for the last decade of her life and the joyful memories we made with her as our companion.

She was loved by all and will be greatly missed…

– SMiles Lewis