Tag Archives: Love

Kammie 

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings, ,

Kammie left this world this morning, after a lengthy illness, with her loving human mother by her side. She was nine years old.


We had the privilege of being Kammie’s foster family for 14 months. She was a sweet dog with an agreeable personality.  Her first human passed away which landed Kammie at one of the Cleveland shelters. She didn’t kennel well and was fortunate to be taken in by a short term foster family. They wanted the best for her so sent her on to our sheltie rescue. She was on thyroid medicine and antibiotics for a bladder infection. I met someone in a parking lot to do the transfer to get her to us. The plan was to get some weight off of her,she came to the shelter at 59 lbs, get her healthy and then find her a home.

Little did we suspect that she was home. She underwent treatment for several bladder infections that never really seemed to clear up. She came to our house in April of 2016. In July, after undergoing an ultrasound, she was diagnosed with several bladder tumors. At that point she was deemed unadoptable and we decided to provide her with whatever time she had remaining at our home.


So Kammie became one of our pack and a member of our family. She would bark and run outside with the other dogs. Sometimes she would then turn around and come back inside, her job escorting the others outside having been completed. She received a number of medications without complaint: Thyroid pills, piroxycam (to slow tumor growth), often antibiotics, and in the later days, tramadol for pain.  Not only did she take them without complaint, she would come and wait for them at the appropriate times. She was a good girl.

Kammie slowed down a little bit at a time with her back end getting weaker until by late this week, she could no longer walk. After a couple days when she had shown no improvement and the veterinarian thought the tumors had probably metastasized to put pressure on her spine, we knew the time had come.  Our time with Kammie was a gift and it was time to give her back. 

Thank you Kammie for sharing your time with us and letting us enjoy your gentle smile and spunky personality. We were blessed by your presence. Kammie’s medical care was provided for by Northeast Ohio Shetland Sheepdog Rescue. The love was provided by us.

A Better Place

Country Life, Dogs & Other Animals, ,

Harley was my idea of the perfect cat. He was a good mouser. He was regal and demanded respect yet he was also affectionate and loved his people. I had the pleasure of being Harley’s momma for 16 years. We lost him yesterday. He went in for a dental and did not survive.

It turned out that he suffered from a condition that I was not familiar with. Something called dental resorption. As near as I understand it, the tooth or teeth, begin to calcify at the root. This forms lesions and the calcification attachs the tooth to the jawbone so that it is hard to remove. There are more details and technicalities but I will spare you. In Harley’s case, the teeth were very hard to remove. In essence, by a few hours after the surgery, the amount of blood loss he suffered was too great and he succumbed. This was traumatic and unexpected for us because although Harley was old, he was in fairly good shape for his age. We picked him up from the vet’s and brought him home. He is now buried with our other furry family members that have gone before.

I first got Harley when I and a friend where hiking with our dogs on a path that ran beside my house. We made it about half a mile down the trail when a kitten of about 4 months came running up to me meowing. This was near farm land that was grown up and no longer used. I think someone dumped Harley there. He couldn’t have been born there, he was too friendly to be a feral kitten. He ran up to me even with our dogs and let me pick him up. My friend Becky said “you can’t leave him here”. And so I didn’t. He let me carry him all the way back home. He never struggled to get down. He soon became a part of our household.

I thought for a while on what his name should be, and finally came up with Harley. Now he is not named after the obvious Harley Davidson of motorcycle fame. His name was short for Harlequin because he was a black and white cat.

Harley made the move with us to our current house nearly 14 years ago.  It is an old farmhouse, built in 1830. Read as:  mice like it here! Harley was a supreme mouser. And catcher of moles, and chipmunks, and baby squirrels. Unfortunately for us, this was all in the house. We would not do well in this house without a cat. Harley taught his protege’, Morty to catch mice.

Once he had passed the torch, as it were, he gave up hunting. That was apparently something for the next generation.

In his retirement, Harley became ever more affectionate and communicative. Once we discovered that his teeth were bad, which is another story, he ate canned food. He would call to me first thing in the morning and again throughout the day whenever he wanted his canned cat food. I would put it in a crate for him (so the other cats and dogs wouldn’t take it) and in he would go. I would then close the door. Whenever he was done, he would call to me again so that I could let him out and put any remaining food away for next time. This usually made me smile because he communicated so well. 

He also followed me around for affection. He would sit on the arm of the couch beside me and squint his eyes with happiness. He would rub on my hand and ask for ear rubs. And if I was busy doing something else, he would sit on the back of the couch directly behind my head, for maximum closeness while I read, or watched tv, or talked. He was my kitten always.

My world is an emptier place without a Harley Cat. But it is a better, richer place for having known him.

Lacey’s World 

Country Life, Dogs & Other Animals, ,

Lacey

Lacey died a week and a half ago. My life has changed in many ways. She was such a part of my life that I noticed immediately, the first morning after her demise, that my world was forever changed. Here is a list of things that are no longer a part of my day.

1) There is no tiny grey cat running to greet me at the bottom of the stairs in the morning, mewing fiercely to be incarcerated in her little blue crate so she could eat her special food made from whitefish. The other cats do not get this food because it would be pricey to provide for the other three cats as well, so she did her dining in the crate. A small bag lasted tiny Lacey for a long time.

2)There is no tiny grey cat scream/mewling repeatedly that she is finished with her “fish flakes”, as I called them, and is now ready to be released from her crate. How such a big voice came from such a slight little thing I do not know.

3) I no longer need to give Lacey her two different antibiotics that she received twice a day. I could not have survived without my trusty pill gun. Lacey lived on these antibiotics for the past year and half. Every time I tried to wean her off them, she grew a massive infection on her face. She had some tumors that kept her in a weakened state and seemed to harbor infection. In the beginning one antibiotic did the trick but later it took two different kinds.

4) No small grey cat shadows me, meowing to follow her and come fill up the water bowl. She said they were all going to die of thirst if the bowl was not filled right NOW!

5) I do not have to change the newspaper and pee pads that lined the woodbin near the wood burning stove. I did this one to two times per day. Lacey was confused by senility and seemed to think this was the place to pee. Oddly enough, she still did all her other business in the litter box. She had found what she thought was a designated place for most of her peeing and I was not going to argue, because at least it was predictable and some place that I could clean. One day my husband said “so we can’t put wood in the wood bin anymore?” My response was simple. No!

6) I no longer have to preplan if it is safe to leave an item on the dining room table in case Lacey became totally disoriented, as happened once or twice a month, and peed on the table, and hence whatever was on it.

7) We can have dog beds on the floor again because they are not considered by the remaining cats, to be in the “pee zone”. Same with blankets that fall on the floor. I don’t have to run to pick them up immediately. 

8) No more need to monitor Lacey’s where abouts to be sure that a dog is not going to sit on her slight body on the couch. Or that I do not jar her as I sit down, causing her to fall off the back of the couch.

In short, my life is an easier but emptier place, for Lacey was a loved part of our world. She was a lover of dogs, my affectionate companion, a compassionate and gentle soul. Easier is not always better. Lacey taught me her lessons and still has an affect on my world.

Kammie Comes Home

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings, ,

This is our foster girl Kammie the sheltie. She came to us in April. She ended up at a local shelter because her owner had died. A volunteer there took pity on her and took her home for a couple weeks because she was so sad and sickly, not adjusting to kennel life well. After a couple weeks on antibiotics for possible kennel cough, she was transferred to us at Northeast Ohio Shetland Sheepdog Rescue. A wonderful volunteer transported her to me since she was coming from a fair distance away.

Kammie is an easy dog to have around. She is 8 years old and quiet most of the time. She spends the majority of her time indoors curled up in a corner sleeping. She loves to spend time outside with our other dogs. She takes delight in barking at the others and playing referee during games of frisbee.

You may wonder why this beautiful girl is still here. First she needed more antibiotics for a respiratory problem, a possible relapse of the kennel cough. At the time Kammie arrived at the shelter, she weighed 59 lbs. She should probably weigh about 35 lbs. By the time we got her, she was down to 54 lbs. Now  she weighs in at 42 lbs! Yay Kammie! She was diagnosed with low thyroid. She receives pills for this twice a day, hence her new svelte shape . 

It was then discovered that Kammie had a bladder infection. She received antibiotics for this, to no avail. We tried a different antibiotic. Still no luck. At this point a culture was grown to see what antibiotic would work. There was only one oral kind that would work. After all of this, the poor girl still had blood in her urine. At this point the vet requested an ultrasound to look for another cause of these urinary troubles. It turns out that  Kammie has 3 tumors in her bladder. Two look to be malignant and the other is likely benign. So poor Kammie has terminal bladder cancer. She was not eating as well anymore and not as active.

She now takes a medicine made for humans that is an analgesic and has the side effect of slowing tumor growth. She was not eating as well and was more lethargic.  She has definitely perked up since she has been on this medication. She eats all her food again and is back to rowdy playing . 

The vet diagnosed her with a probable 3 to 6 more months. Kammie will live out the rest of her life with us and as a ward of NEOSSR. Even if we found someone who was willing to adopt her, we don’t think it would be fair for her to have to transition to another home at this late stage of her life. So this is Kammie’s last stop. She is home.

Cassius, Day 24

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings, ,

Dog, Greyhound, Cassius

Twenty four days in and I can’t imagine how we ever lived without this boy. He has added a tremendous amount of life back into our home.

He continues to learn our ways quickly.  He has progressed from “you have food, I will eat it”, to “maybe I can take this while they aren’t looking”.

It didn’t take long for him to discover the comforts of couches and chairs. Now we are working on “move over”.

Cassius is the goofiest dog we have ever had by far. If that big dopey grin doesn’t put a smile on your face, there’s no hope for you.

We are in love!

Greyhound, Dog, Cassius

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Thoughts On Life, , ,
Friends
Me and my friend Becky in Bar Harbor, Maine, 1998.

The last year has been quite a time of change and loss for me. Last June my mother died. Two of my very close, dear friends died of cancer related illnesses, one in March and one in May of this year. In June we lost our beloved greyhound, Phoebe, to a traumatic injury as a result of cancer. And yesterday my one-time mother-in-law, and always mother, left this earth.

For a while I was feeling very mortal, not to mention old. I dare say I was somewhat depressed. This seems understandable considering the losses I have had to bear. Now I am reaching the point of being retrospective. I would not want any of my loved ones to continue to suffer their worldly pains and infirmities. Ok, maybe a selfish part of me wants that so I could still have them with me. But the other part of me knows that it is selfish and too much to ask. Sometimes love is letting go. At least for me.

And so it is time to reframe my outlook on life. It is time for the last pictures of me and them, taken during their end days, to come down and be replaced with pictures of us in the good times. Pictures of us living our lives and embodying the joy we shared. Pictures that embrace life! My friends and family were not their illnesses. I will honor them by remembering the love.

Family
Family-my brother, me, and my then mother-in-law at Stan Hywett in 1998

The memories and love are but one part of the experience though. The rest is what I choose to do now. My loved ones are gone. I am not. It is still my time on this earth. Time to live by one of my favorite quotes, the author is unknown to me.

“I shall pass this way but once. Therefore, any good that I can do… or any kindness that I can show-let me do it now for I shall not pass this way again.”

It is my time to show perseverance, caring, helpfulness, occasional goofiness, and undying love. I shall take the parts that they have left me and use them to help pave the way for the rest of my life. The life that is still to come. They will go with me and continue to make a difference in the world. We are but a sum of our experiences and what we choose to do with them. And my friends, I choose to go on joyfully living, taking the bits of each I have known who have gone before me, with me. Onward!

Tribute to a Dog

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings, ,

Dog-Phoebe with Bunny

Phoebe has been gone from us a week now. Her loss came suddenly and was a huge shock. One minute she was running around being her silly self. The next minute she was crying out in pain. Her femur had fractured. We briefly considered amputation. But upon seeing the x-rays we discovered that it broke because of weakening from a bone tumor. And with further x-rays we learned that there were questionable  spots on a rib and her heart didn’t look quite right. Then the vet told us that by this point the cancer had usually spread and even with treatment her average life expectancy would be six months. Phoebe was already 10 1/2 years old. Although we struggled with the choice, there wasn’t really much of a choice. We didn’t want her to suffer a surgery and what would follow. We loved her enough to let her go.

Dogs-Phoebe and Baxter

I cried almost all of the first day. The second day I was greatly improved. I only cried for half of the day. As time goes by I cry less. The good memories take up more space. There is definitely a large void in our home and our pack of dogs. Although Phoebe was a lazy hound, she had a big presence. Her favorite thing was car rides. You can see how happy she is that she and Baxter were loaded up in the car to head out for a hike. Phoebe demanded car rides. She got depressed if more than a few days went by without her getting one. Particularly if any of the other dogs got a ride and she didn’t. She would stand staring at the door waiting for us to get the hint. So she was often my passenger on the way to pick up an order of Chinese take out, or a run to the store to buy more dog food. She liked the ride to Tractor Supply for the dog food best. She was allowed to accompany me into the store to get the dog food. She was not above jumping into the cars of guests when they left their car doors open. After all any car ride is a good car ride, right?

Dog-Phoebe

Phoebe was a retired racer that we got from Greyhound Adoption of Ohio. She was nearly two years old when we got her which is fairly young for a rescue dog. Although we are sad that she is gone, as the tech from our vet’s office said, we were able to give her 8 1/2 really happy years.  That is a life well lived.

Sweetie Goes Home

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings, , ,

Sweetie

It was a rough weekend. Why? Because our foster dog, Sweetie, went to a wonderful new home. She is a busy, driven girl, who is a challenge at all times. She was our kind of dog. She spent her time following whichever of us was moving. Our every act needed to be supervised. If we sat still, she made up her own activities. Chewing on daddy’s shoe, picking up bits of bark from firewood to chew and scatter around the house, snuffling cats. One time she even chewed on a corner of the coffee table in front of us as if to say “I can’t help myself, I’m bored, can’t you do something”. Most people would probably say Sweetie was a challenge and just too much. We find this type of dog to be rewarding and full of character.

Sweetie

Although letting her go was hard, one of the hardest for me in a few years, we are comforted by the fact that she is going to a wonderful home that we think will suit her perfectly. Sweetie will be living with a younger couple that hikes and camps and wants to take Sweetie on these excursions with them. Additionally, the wife works from home so Sweetie  will rarely be alone. We couldn’t have asked for a home more suitable for her. All this activity and companionship will give her a fulfilling life. It is a match made in heaven.

So although I cried for some time after Sweetie left, I know she is in the best place for her. She is an only dog and can have her fill of attention unlike at our house. She has a cat sibling and at some point, plans to go to a dog park. She had a good connection with her adopters and they obviously fell in love with her. Still, it is Sweetie. She lived in our home and was a part of our lives for five months. Perhaps she will be one of the ones that I pretend is still my dog and that she is just staying with someone else. Although sending them to new homes makes my heart hurt, it makes me feel content at the same time.

Good bye little girl. I know you will have a good life. Momma still loves you. As does your new momma. You are a blessed little girl.

Sweetie

The Caring Revolution

Thoughts On Life, ,

20151130_212543

Ok, it’s December 1, I think it’s safe to say the “C” word. The Christmas season is here. One of the things I do every year over this season is to get the above two books out and put some of the suggestions in them into action. They are full of good deeds and thoughts to do for, or share, with others. Be a bit of a Christmas angel if you will. Some of the items are physical acts, such as take Christmas cookies to your neighbors. Others have more to do with thoughts and how you treat people.

Sometimes I flip one of the books open at random and do what the suggestion says. Other times I look through the choices until I find one that strikes my fancy. I don’t manage to perform one of these acts every day but I figure, some is better than none. Just my little contribution to try to make the world a better place.

Readers, if any of you perform any thoughtful acts over this Christmas season, I would love to hear about them. Inspiration from others will feed the kindness and maybe we can have a Caring Revolution! Just post them in the comment section below. I challenge you to try it!

And for today, your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is below. It’s free and you can do it wherever you are. At first glance I thought it was an easy one, but then again maybe it’s not. Let your journey of spreading joy begin!

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Thoughts on Surviving Grief

Dogs & Other Animals, Thoughts On Life, ,

20151023_154345

I think everyone wants to know how to make the pain stop after losing someone dear. I have had a lot of experience in this regard in recent years, suffering a number of human, canine, and feline losses. I don’t think you can really make the pain go away. You might be able to distract yourself for a while or become numb for a time but the grief is still there. What does ultimately help is the passage of time.

So how do I cope? I realize that the love I shared with the one who is gone is proportionate to the pain I feel after their passing. In a twisted way the pain is a gift that I have because of the depth of love and relationship that was shared.  And with the especially meaningful relationships the grief morphs into a wistful longing of what was and keeps the memories fresh. The sharp pain does subside. It is replaced by these memories. I carry them with me and they become a part of who I am. I never do lose that hollow spot that they filled in life but the images help to keep them close to me so that they are always with me.

Each of these passings of a loved one takes a piece of my heart with it. You would think that after a while my heart would be all used up. This is not the case. I learn something about love each time and am able to love again and again. My heart and love have the capacity to grow. I hope that my emotional heart is getting bigger. I know it’s not getting any smaller.

Duncan-Best Smile Ever

Duncan was this soul mate and best friend for me. When he passed, it was all I could do just to drag myself around and do the bare necessities for days. My heart physically hurt for days too. My world seemed so empty. At every turn, he wasn’t there when he should have been. Two and a half years have gone by. The sharp pains are gone. I function and go about my life and enjoy it. I am happy. Life is good. Have I stopped thinking about Duncan? Not for a day. He is a part of who I am. He goes with me everywhere.

For me this relationship was with a dog. That is the case for some. Others have this experience with different beings. Anyone who was a major presence and part of your life might have the same effect.

Why do I write this? Because I am wallowing in grief? Definitely not. I write so that those experiencing something similar might take some comfort in it and so that those who don’t understand might gain some insight.

The ultimate gift, given and received, is taking that love and honoring it. Love is never wasted. Cherish it and put it to good use by continuing to spread it around.

Dakota