Remembering

Today is Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day.

I have been blessed to have shared the lives of many little creatures. Each had his or her distinct personality and I loved each of them.

When I was little I had rabbits; Snowball, Dusty, Spot and Zoozy.

I've had cats; Cleo, Tasha and Burton.

My birds were Cherry, Schroeder, Vandal, Buddy, Holly, Peri, Broc, Flirt, Bean, Holly II, Cloud, Buckley, Jake, Elwood, Stanley, Caulder, and Norris


 
 

And then there were my dogs, my babies;
Pete

Blondie


















Boots



















Cookie
 

Hermione












Penny












Louie













Claude










Zelda












Libby


Pylon


Porsche
 

Bentley


Lucy


Monty
















Morgan


Tsar













Winston













Samba
 

Fudge












Sky












Grace
 

Bailey



















Gibson



















Noah


Ocho

Sebastian













I loved every one of you and always will.


















Rest in peace.

At Your Service

I know a few people with service dogs and have seen many others. The dogs provide various services from being the eyes of the owners,  to predicting seizures, to helping the person thru bouts of PTSD. Dogs are amazing, but you all know that.

In our house Tess has her very own service dog. Mackey acts as her translator. Tess isn't great at communication so Mackey has taken on the job of telling us when Tess needs something.

Mackey wakes the three Portie girls every morning and tells them when it's time to go out during the day. She notifies them when it's meal time, though that isn't really necessary. But recently Mackey has started to tell me when Tess is in distress.

Tess is terrified of thunder and fireworks. After the 4th of July it takes weeks before she'll go out after dark. We've had a lot of storms this summer so at our last outing each night Tess doesn't want to go out. When I insist, she glues herself to my leg and will only go a few feet from the door.

If there is a sudden clap of thunder during the night Tess may have an accident from fright.

Toward the end of Noah's life, Mackey woke me a couple times during the night. When she insisted that I get up, it was just in time to catch Noah vomiting.

Last night it was thundering at bedtime. It took Tess a long time to settle down. She paced around the bedroom. At 3:30 Mackey woke me up by standing at the side of the bed, pawing at my arm. I told her to go to sleep, but she wouldn't stop. I got up to see Tess standing at the door. It took me awhile to get a shoe on over my bandaged foot but we finally got outside. Tess just made it out before she pooped.

I praised both Tess and Mackey and we all went back to bed. Mackey has some special sense of when the others, especially Tess are in distress.

This isn't the first time  we've experienced this. Fudge had a sense about the others being sick. He saved Morgan's life by pointing out an infection in the back of her throat. He wouldn't leave her alone and kept sniffing her mouth. The vet watched him, then examined her throat and found it. As she aged Fudge also stayed close to Morgan when she was outside so that she didn't get lost and came in with the others.

Monty had a slightly different ability. He would let me know when someone was getting into trouble and saved some of the others from hurting themselves.

So it's pretty neat that dogs can be service animals for both humans and their own kind.

Anger Management

One morning, two years ago I was angry about something. I no longer remember what caused my anger, but at the time it was strong. I took the dogs into the back yard and they ran off in many directions to do whatever and I walked across the yard until I came to a rock. Because I was angry and needed to release it, I kicked the rock.

It wasn't a big rock, about the size of a softball, but it was a rock. My anger shifted immediately as the pain shot thru my foot. Suddenly I was angry at myself for kicking a rock.

I thought the pain would subside soon but I was wrong. The pain continued for days. I had mangled the nail on my big toe. It turned black and stopped growing. The toe was also at a new and different angle than it had been.

The pain continued for weeks, then months. Putting a shoe on was torture. I went barefoot in the house and if I had to go out I wore a loose shoe or slipper.

Finally, after a year, I went to a foot doctor. He treated the damaged nail and said it would take months but should heal. That was a year ago.

Today I went back. The pain is still so bad that it keeps me awake at night. He said the nail was infected and arthritis has set into the foot around and below the toe.

So today he removed the nail. When it heals in about a month, he'll give me a steroid injection in the foot and we'll discuss surgery to repair the bone.

So take some hard earned advice, if you're angry, go into the yard and scream or swear or throw something, but don't kick a rock.

Still Here

Since I lost my boys I've been feeling an overwhelming sadness. Several times I've sat down to post but can't think of anything interesting to write.

My three Portie girls are old dogs who mostly eat, sleep and poop. We don't play games anymore or do much that would interest a reader.

All three went thru a few weeks of stress after the boys disappeared from their lives. I spent a lot of time pampering and reassuring them. Now they have developed new routines.

Norma Jean has a nerve condition that restricts her physical activity and she's also dealing with some doggie dementia that makes life a little confusing for all of us. She's still a happy girl so we adjust.

Tess and Lola both have some age related disabilities but they don't seem to know it.

Mackey tries to help with the older dogs. She wakes them in the morning and herds them around.

Sydney's dog aggression has gotten worse and she isn't allowed any contact with the other dogs. She does her own thing and with the help of a daily dose of Prozac, she's happy.

I've dealt with my depression by knitting obsessively. I made four dolls, a fox, two pigs, a mouse, two squirrels, an armadillo, an ostrich, an opossum, a witch, three Christmas animals a couple dogs, a cat and several others. I also knit a cowl and a blanket. As long as I'm busy knitting, the sad thoughts stay at bay.

When I spoke with Dr B about Norma Jean's problems, he was reassuring. He doesn't know what is causing her nerve damage but he says he still has more magic to use on her. He's been very supportive, knowing how painful it is to lose four dogs in a year.

I plan to keep the blog going, I'm just not sure what direction it'll take. Thank you to those of you who contacted me in concern about our silence. We're still here and we're pushing ahead.