Good dog

Everybody thinks their dog is the world's best dog, and through some bizzare kind of physics, it's true. All dogs are the world's best.
Our dog Wilma was one of the really good ones. It's killing me to use the past tense, but I have to, because she passed away today. She was old, and had been getting slower and more tired all the time. Late last week she stopped barking, and this week she stopped eating. My mom called me this evening to tell me that she had been put to sleep.
Wilma was a goofy dog, looks-wise and personality-wise. She was crooked-backed, and ran with a funny sideways gait. Her tongue almost always stuck out of her mouth. She had big brown eyes and a surprisingly loud bark for such a tiny dog. She was abused and neglected by her first owners, but that didn't turn her into a mean dog. She was kind and loving and always willing to come up and lick your hands and face every chance she got. She loved to steal my dirty laundry, and had a knack for grabbing my clean clothes out of the laundry basket and running off with them. Oddly enough she never stole anyone elses. She hid her treats all over the house, and I'd come home on visits and find little doggie biscuits tucked into all the corners of my room. She was terrified of thunder and rain, and would head straight under my brother's bed at the first sign of a storm. She hated baths, and for most of her life it was an olympic event to catch her on bath day. She seemed to know when we were getting a bath ready, and would hide under a bed where we couldn't reach her. We used to ring the doorbell and she'd charge out barking, forgetting she was supposed to be hiding. She'd give us a reproachful look when we caught her, but forgave us almost immediately.
Wilma was a runt. She came from a line of champion Shih Tzus, but wasn't "show quality". She was a champion in our eyes. She was with us for almost 16 years, which I know is longer than many dogs get, but it wasn't long enough for us.
Wilma, you were a good dog. A very good dog, and I miss you.
I don't have many good pictures of Wilma on my computer, and no way to scan in the others. So here's a picture of Wilma asleep in one of her favorite spots. For scale, it's a regular bed-sized pillow.