Tyrion the Corgi

Hey Tumblr world,

We haven't been here in a while. And it brings me great sadness to share that Tyrion crossed the rainbow bridge on May 9, 2025.

I have been writing down a lot of my thoughts as I process my grief and the loss of my one and only fur baby. My Notes app is getting extraordinarily long so I thought I'd bring it back to our roots and start posting on Tumblr again. After all, this is where we started documenting Tyrion's life, and where we met so many of our corgi friends, both online and in person!

Our world is completely shattered, but we take comfort in knowing he’s no longer suffering. He brought so much joy to our lives for 11.5yrs, and it’s weird to think that sometime in the distant future, Tyrion’s time with us will just be a blip in our timeline, though we will have a permanent corgi-shaped hole in our hearts. 

He was so delicious and fictitious, and absolutely corgilicious! He loved to chase sticks, balls, and squirrels. He hated the vacuum cleaner, tolerated our struggle-snuggles, and all squeakers had to be destroyed. A sweet potato with a side of turkey leg, he was a whole snack, and we miss him so much. 

I hope he’s frapping freely beyond the bridge, policing all the fun, and snarfing all the treats. 

Until we meet again, my little hwyaden. Thanks for making me a dog mom, and a crazy corgi lady. Brave boy, your watch has ended. 

Sweet bubba boy, I can’t believe it’s been a year since you crossed the rainbow bridge. That’s a whole year without hearing your clicky-clacks on the floor throughout the house, scritching your cow belly, and booping your delicious snoot.

I still miss sharing my snacks with you and forcing you to struggle-snuggle with me (I can’t prove it, but I think you loved it).

It’s weird that my phone is no longer running low on storage due to the millions of pictures I’d take of you.

The grief has gotten easier but it’s still really, really hard.

1) He was losing interest in kibble, and home cooked meals were the only way to get him to eat;

2) There’s a “cancer survival” recipe that my canine lymphoma support group swears by, and I was desperate;

3) I wanted the very best for my boy.

We still had two giant turkey necks in the freezer and one day I finally decided to make broth with it. As I tore the cooked turkey meat from the bones, I kept thinking about how Tyrion stood by my feet as I prepped his meals, and how I’d sneak him a taste of the turkey (or chicken or salmon). Time and time again, I’ve regretted not being able to give him his favorite foods before he passed—before he completely lost his appetite. But as I tore off the turkey meat, I felt a sense of peace and happiness, knowing Tyrion was able to eat like the king that he was in those final weeks.

I take adult ballet and tap classes. This past June, the studio closed and all students were referred to another studio off Gayton Road. Being on this road makes me sad. It’s the same road to the vet where Tyrion was diagnosed. We’ve driven up and down Gayton Road so many times with tears in our eyes.

We did all we could to socialize Tyrion when he was a puppy—took him dog parks, sent him to daycare, went to corgi meetups, took puppy classes. But like his humans, he turned out to be a grumpy introvert who merely tolerated other dogs and only had a small circle of friends that he actually liked. He soon became a menace at dog parks, and afraid that he would either incite a fight or get injured by another dog defending itself, we stopped going altogether and accepted that he simply doesn’t like other dogs.

One year ago.

It was a gorgeous day so I annoyed Tyrion by taking a bunch of pictures of him. I’d like to think it was simpler times, when he was cancer-free, but I have a suspicion that the cancer was already developing and his symptoms had started a month before. He had uncontrolled diarrhea that would not go away, and we spent many nights at Urgent Vet. We got an ultrasound done one night where the vet noted she didn’t like the way gas was traveling through his GI tract, but couldn’t see anything concerning (incidentally, she was from the same hospital where Tyrion would be diagnosed 7mos later).

When we first brought Tyrion home, we were still living in our first house. As we scrolled through the pictures, Ryan remarked how despite only living in that house for two years, there were so many memories that took place. Honestly, if we didn’t have Tyrion, I wouldn’t have taken as many pictures as I did and we wouldn’t have those memories of the first house. It was a great house for us; a cute little cape cod, but in the wrong neighborhood.

Even in the early years of living in our current house, we had forgotten how drab it looked. With its monochromatic floor tiles, popcorn ceiling, and wood paneling, this house was hopelessly stuck in the 60s before we applied some paint and took a sledgehammer to a few rooms. We wouldn’t have taken so many pictures if it weren’t for Tyrion.

13 Weeks

My darling bubs,

After battling cancer beside you for 13 weeks, we are now on the other side at 13 weeks without you. These 13 weeks have simultaneously flown by and moved like molasses. We were already fortunate to have those first 13 weeks with you, but I wish we also had these past 13 weeks with you too. At this point, if chemo was successful, you would’ve been in remission, and we’d be road tripping, hiking, playing ball and sticks, eating cheese together, and struggle-snuggling. You would relapse, because cancer sucks, but we’d take it day by day, just like we did during those first 13 weeks.

We’re never going to move on, but we’re trying our hardest to move forward. In the past 13 weeks, we traveled to get some reprieve from our grief; we almost bought a new house with amazing new snoofs and smells that you would’ve loved (we’ve talked about “huge tracts of land” an embarrassing amount of times); we purged tons of our junk, which involved a lot of vacuuming and I know that would’ve upset you; we started sharing your favorite things with other doggos, which was much harder for me than I expected; and we played with some kittens that you would’ve adored too.

Glimmer #4

A few years ago we went out with some friends to watch polo at a winery out in Charlottesville (don’t ask us about the rules of polo—we never figured it out). While we were setting up our tent, Tyrion managed to wander off, and I found him lounging in another family’s tent next to us. He was looking real pleased with himself and the other family didn’t mind his company at all. He usually stayed close to us and rarely left our side, but I guess at that moment he thought we were taking too long with the tent and took matters into his own hands—erh, paws!