Really, Really

I had to run up to Mom and Dad's for a quick pickup, and rather than putting Stella back in her crate, I decided I would take her with me.

She danced out the door in her new neckerchief and on her leash, but when I opened the car door, she totally wilted.  I told her to "load up," my all-time command to dogs to get in the car, and she pulled backwards, ears flat, eyes huge.  It took a minute, but then I realized what was happening.

Stella is a rescue.  As a tiny baby, she came into the system when the person who had her first tossed her and her sister out of a moving vehicle in front of a vet's office.  Fortunately, other than scrapes and scratches, she wasn't physically damaged.  Psychologically, though...  Does "even an animal" (a phrase I am not sure I trust very much) ever forget being treated like that totally?

Also fortunately, after that she was taken in by a rescue group in Madison that is wonderful.  She's had love, vet care, doggie companions, but she's never had a "forever home."  She's been taken to lots of events looking for the people who would keep her, and I suppose some of that was what she was reliving tonight.  Even though I know I'm reading it in to her behavior, I could almost hear her saying, "But you told me this was my HOME!"

I picked her up and placed her in the driver's seat.  Every other dog I've ever had automatically moved over to the passenger side.  She just sat trying to make herself as small as possible.  I finally got her to budge, and she was shaking as I cranked up.  I smoothed my hands over her, rubbed her, and talked to her.   Off we went.

The trip was brief.  Mom came out to hand off the items, and she put her hand through the partially open window.  Stella sniffed and licked, perking up just a little, but she was still clearly waiting for the moment when the door would open and her life would change again.  I started the car again, and we were headed back down the road.

She was puzzled but curious.

When we pulled up next to the house and I cut off the engine, she peered out the window.  When the scent of home hit her, she started wagging her tail.  I didn't have to fight her at all this time.  She unloaded, bounce mostly returned, and by the time we got on the porch, she was grinning and sassy again.  She pawed at the door with both front feet, chastising me for being too slow with the keys.  When I got the door open, she flew in and body slammed/hugged Chewie before racing around the living room.

I had a feeling she would be nervous when she got in the car.  I knew it might be a stressful moment.  We will probably have another one when I take her to the vet for the first time.  It's really important to me that she has good car experiences.  I want her to know that she's always coming back home.  This isn't another wayside station in her journey.  This is the place where the arms are open.  This is the forever home.

Stella Arrives

Tuesday, I got up early, loaded Chewie and Yelldo into the back seat, and headed two hours north to see a rescue pit bull.  She was beautiful and bouncy, but Chewie wanted nothing to do with her.  He was so deeply avoiding her that he turned his body in whichever direction she was not, like some kind of odd large white furry reverse weathervane.

So we loaded back up, drove back home, and I was very sad.

The lady at the rescue suggested that we needed a very young puppy to help Chewie feel less threatened, so after I took a long nap, I got up and started the search again online.  I sent several requests to rescues and shelters all over three states.  I asked for help on FaceBook.  I opened the PetFinder app on my phone.  Then I settled in to wait.

One of the FaceBook contacts responded to say that she had a pit who was about to have a litter of puppies.  If I were willing to wait 8 wks, I could be on the list for one of them.  It seemed like the best bet at the time, so I made my peace with it and went on about my life.

Then I got a message from the Madison ARK.  I had put in an application for Stella, a 5-month-old female, but I wasn't very hopeful after the debacle with the other young female in the north.  Stella had actually been on my radar for a long time; I remembered her adorable ears and her unusual light eyes from the search I had done before Dad's heart surgery this summer.  I talked to the people at the ARK, and I told them about my situation.  We agreed that I would bring Chewie out and see how he responded.  So yesterday morning, I loaded him into the car again and we set off.

Chewie behaved much better.  He walked along up and down the street in front of the rescue, and although he didn't seem to be very interested in being bounced on or playing, he did condescend to sniff her bottom and allow her to do the same, something he flatly refused to do in the meeting with the other dog.  I was hopeful. 

We took them in, and they continued to interact, and although Chewie would not engage her, he wasn't being the anti-dog weathervane, either.  The people at the rescue decided that he would probably just need time to adjust, and they asked if I would want to bring Stella home for a trial run.

I agreed.

We all came home, me driving, Chewie sitting in the middle seat and staring balefully out the window, and Stella confined in her travel crate in the back.  I pulled through Chick-Fil-A because Chewie always gets nuggets when he has to go do something, and after getting our order, we hit the interstate for home.

Upon arrival, I was fearful of how she'd react to all the other creatures and vice versa, so we shut her in her new big crate.  She was *most* unhappy.  She wanted to smell, to run, to play.  She saw her first cats as Dillon and Pearl came to stand in the doorway of the dog room, and she was fascinated.  Chewie and Yelldo came in to inspect the new addition, and Stella wagged and yipped.  

After an hour or so, I decided to see what was going to happen.  I put her on a leash and brought her out.  She bounced right across to Pearl who was watching from beneath the dining table and got her nose roundly slapped.  In true pit bull fashion, she blinked, sat back in confusion, and decided she loved Pearl too much not to try it again.   Poor Pearl....

Pearl has broken in too many dogs to be worried about something not very much larger than herself, so she held her ground, fluffed her regal mane, and growled like something from the pits of hell.  She looked like a pocket-sized grey lion.  Stella got weirded out and came and sat next to me.  Pearl simply looked down her nose at the dog and sashayed off toward the living room. Mission accomplished.  

We're twenty-four hours into the experiment, and Stella has been off-leash since about 4 pm yesterday.  She's been round and round the yard, sniffing like Roux used to, the noise I always called "truffle pig."  She's eaten half a large bowl of dog food by taking two pieces out at a time and running into the living room with it.  She's consumed two small exerhides in an epic battle of gnawing that took about 30 minutes each to destroy something Chewie crunches like a potato chip.  She's charged to the end of her leash after some unknown woodland beast in the dark of night.  I think she's having a good time....

She's currently unconscious on the floor next to my chair on a blue blanket having worn herself completely out most recently by going around and around my yard, barking her high-pitched little squeaky toy bark at my crows, trying to engage Chewie or Yelldo in play, sitting in my lap and giving me kisses, chasing the four hundred toys she has dragged out from the basket on the hearth, and generally being the precious little diva she is.  

In time, I really believe Chewie will warm up to her, especially when he realizes that he will still get the same attention as before. He is already consenting to be sniffed more often and following us around the yard. I look forward to seeing them run and play.

I have plans for her, too.  I want to see if I can train her for agility.  She can leap about two feet straight in the air just when something startles her, so I think she will be good at it and it will be a good release for her.  I will have to train myself to work with her, but that will be good for me as well.  

I love her.  She's not what I had thought would come to me, but she's perfect.  I realized two things about that.  One, her name is Stella.  She came to me with that name.  That was the name I had sort of picked for a daughter if I ever had one.  It's a family name on my mother's side.  I have always loved it because it sounds a little old fashioned and also because it means "star," which she totally is.  Additionally, and this didn't come to me until last night, if she's 5 months old, that means she came into this world about the time my Roux left it, almost as if Roux sent her to me.  While I know that 's not the way the world works, I can't say that coincidence didn't touch me.  

We have a long way to go.  There is bonding that needs to occur between her and me, between her and my other animals, between her and my parents.  I really believe all that will come in time.  She is going to be the most loved little baby pittie anyone ever saw.  By Christmas, her level of spoiled-rottenness should have reached really absurd heights.  

Not Yet

I went to a craft show in Jackson a few weeks ago, and at the entrance were several animal rescue charities.  One of them had brought in dogs and cats to be adopted.  I put my hand up as a makeshift blinder and rushed by.  Once my friend and I were past them, I assumed I was going to be safe.

Not so.

We walked around looking at the booths.  We stopped to talk to one of my favorite potters and to buy one of his awesome dragons.  We dodged various unreasonably large baby carriages.  And then we turned one of the final corners.

The entire booth was covered in colorful paintings of pit bulls.  Roux's sweet pitty smile was on every canvas.  I felt like someone had slugged me in the stomach.  I couldn't breathe.

The booth belonged to a pit bull rescue from the north of the state.  They were selling shirts and paintings to raise funds for their organization.  I had to walk by it, and I'm embarrassed to say that it took me quite a few minutes to get myself collected again. I finally composed myself enough to come back, and I got some information from their group.  When I got home, I put it on my coffee table and left it alone.

Several days later, I checked out their website.  All those beautiful faces, all those brave hearts in need of a home... I fell in love with all of them, but one stood out.  She was an American Bulldog, and I sent a question to the organization about her.  Unfortunately, while she is good with other dogs, she views cats more as snacks than friends, so she is not a good match.

It's still so hard missing Roux.  Yesterday, I was in Big Lots, and they had the silly little dog Halloween costumes out.  It made me instantly think of how wonderfully patient Roux always was with being dressed up in silly outfits.  She wore reindeer antlers, New Year's hats, angel wings, and absolutely rocked a winter sweater.

I look at Chewie in his chair, and he seems lonely.  Yelldo does not play; he's too old.  I think about how much Chewie would love to have someone to romp with, but then my eyes track across the room to my cats, Pearl and Dillon.  They're peaceful and sociable.  What would happen if I brought a new dog I couldn't be absolutely sure of into their lives?

So it's not time yet.  Not yet.  When it's time for someone else to join my furry family, everything will fall into place.   We'll all be ready then.

Gifts from Furry Children

Yesterday, I had a migraine of the "hammer of God" variety that is always such fun.  I don't really know what caused it, but I suspect it has something to do with the upcoming "supermoon" we're expecting tonight.  My headaches seem tied to the phases of the moon as well as the phases of my body and the vagaries of the weather.  Since there was no supermegastorm destroying the world yesterday, I am guessing it was lunar pull.  Me and the ocean, I guess. The headache hit me hard and early, I took a Maxalt, and the rest of the day melted away into a hazy blur.

My cats and dogs hovered around me all day.  I suppose it was their way of checking on me.  I'm pretty sure they know when I'm sick.  Chewie spent most of his day sprawled out next to the couch.  Dillon, my little cat, stayed on me or beside me all day and on into the night.  It was nice to feel loved.

Other contributions from members of my furry family were less appreciated.  I got up this morning and stumbled for the shower without turning the light on.  The day after a migraine that bad my eyes tend to be fairly light sensitive.  I got clean and returned to my bedroom to dress, and when I finally turned the light on, the last of the critters' kindnesses was neatly laid across the foot of my bed:  a dead mouse.

It was bloodless and quite still.  This undoubtedly means that in the night while I was sleeping, either Dillon or Pearl brought me a mouse.  I know it wasn't Yoda; her Imperial Majesty doesn't lower herself to pursue food unless it's the canned kind.  Probably it was my big grey fluffy lioncat, Pearl.  She is the household huntress.  I keep thinking about her thought processes.  I imagine it went something like this.  "Mama has been sick all day.  There has been an absence of patting and love for me, even though I am furry and gorgeous.  Food will make her better.  I will bring her food.  I will provide.  She will be happy again, and patting and love will fall from the skies."  And voila, mouse.

This isn't the first time this has happened.  Despite all the efforts of me and my pest control guy, the occasional little brown field mouse finds its way in the house.  I saw Pearl stalking one last night in the laundry area.  I can always tell when she's scented something. She stares into odd nooks and crannies. She has a specific noise she makes when the is on the hunt, and her level of complete dedication to it is a little frightening.  There has been at least one other time when I woke up to find a mouse-present at the foot of my bed.

My grandmother's Siamese, Sammy, used to do that all the time.  He was twenty-something pounds of muscle, and when he was young, he'd go hunting in the field behind their house and bring her big field rats.  He'd lay them neatly on the back door mat, and since Nana hated all forms of mice, every time she'd look out the back door and see it, she'd scream.  I suppose Sammy thought she was screaming in joy.  He probably thought, "Yes.  I have made my human loudly happy.  Success."

As for my mouse gift, I removed and disposed of it.  The comforter is even now in the washer.  While I would really like not to wake up to another gift of this kind, I will take it in the feline spirit in which it was given.  It's nice to have something love you enough that it wishes to care for you, I suppose, even if it does come in the form of a dead rodent.

First Blackberrying of the Year

After walking the dogs this afternoon, I walked over to the blackberry bramble at the edge of my pasture and looked over the current crop.  I picked a few, just a small handful, and came back inside.  Chewie, being Chewie, watched me pick the berries and eat them, and he started nibbling them off the bushes.  I laughed at him, and he stopped long enough to give me a giant toothy grin before returning to his efforts.  He's a strange dog, but he's all mine.

After dinner, I kept thinking about the blackberries. I decided that I would go up to our country place tomorrow and see if the brambles there were bearing yet.  Then I looked up some recipes on Pinterest.  This led to combing through my Granny's recipe box looking for her cobbler recipe.  I realized that I had to have more and that I didn't want to wait.

The beauty of summer is that the days linger gloriously.  Even though it was fairly late, the tops of the trees were still golden. Grabbing a leash and Chewie, I headed out to our place in the country and the tons and tons of blackberries that grow there. Chewie loves it there.  I had the windows down, and as soon as we came around the last curve before the gate to the property, he sniffed the air and started woofing softly.  We made our way down to the brambles, and I picked until it got too dark to ensure I wasn't about to step in the middle of a snake. Chewie and I found our way back to the car in the last blue-purple light of sunset and the dim glow of a fingernail moon.

Blackberries are tricky and imperious little devils.  They are not a "something for nothing" fruit.  There is nothing docile or generous about them.  They're primadonnas.    If you go to pick what they have produced, they are going to take from you as well.  Usually I get hung on one of the vines and cut my arm or hand open. I have always thought of it as the "blood sacrifice" required to complete the picking. Today, as I carefully reached around the thorns and plucked the ripe berries, I felt the waving tendrils of green grab at my shorts, tenaciously hook my tshirt, and finally one reached out and snagged a handful of my hair. It was surprisingly strong, and it required a little careful finesse to free myself.  If you flail once a bramble captures you, it's kind of like that plant Devil's Snare from Harry Potter - more and more of them grab hold making the situation worse. Once I managed to extricate myself, I apparently had paid my tithe.  Nothing else attacked me.

Chewie watched the whole thing from a safe distance.  He ran careful circles around the reach of the brambles, caused a large wild turkey to explode upwards into the treetops with a sound like a localized hurricane, rolled rapturously in the tall grass, and wore his nose off chasing scents.  Eventually, he flopped down and watched me, moving only when I went to another section of the bramble.  I offered him a berry I'd picked, but he apparently had his fill earlier.  He sniffed it, mouthed it, and spit it out before looking up at me with a hopeful wagging tail.  Apparently, he's decided he'd rather have his bacon treats instead.

In a fairly short time, I managed to fill a quarter of the gallon-sized ziplock bag I'd taken with me.  I brought the berries home, washed them, and put them in the refrigerator.  I don't know what I'll do with them.  I might indulge in one of the recipes I found.  I might make a mini-cobbler.  Probably, though, I'll just nibble them whole and savor that special taste of summer and home and deep woods pasture land.  That is probably special enough a recipe all on its own.

Chewie Lives

Yesterday, I got mostly through a faculty meeting when a headache waylaid me.  I staggered upstairs through disgustingly-glorious sunlight to my Maxalt.  I took one and, per our usual routine, called to let my Mom know I'd had to take the big drugs.

She was out-of-breath, and once I managed to make my broken brain and her frantic speech connect, I understood that Chewie had gotten injured on his afternoon walk, and she was taking him to the vet.  I got off the phone and managed to drag myself home.  (Once again, recitations of "To Be or Not to Be" helped me focus.)

When I got home, I fell down.  Then I was unconscious for three or four hours.  When I woke up, Mom was sitting on the foot of my bed.  She had just gotten home from the vet. Chewie hadn't just been injured.  He'd been bitten by a snake.

He was just out doing his usual big fluffy white dog thing, and Mom said she saw him spring sideways in a giant leap.   By the time she got him back to the house, he was dragging his front paw and moving with great difficulty.  Mom never saw the snake.

The vet kept him overnight for medication and observation.  Roux walked around the house with huge eyes looking for him.  She kept coming over to me and hugging me as she does when she needs a little extra comfort.  Even the cats (who do not like him, even a little) searched for him.  When I put Roux up for the night, she seemed so sad sitting next to Chewie's empty crate.  This morning when I walked her and Yelldo, they were both very droopy.

I had another migraine today, but by the time I got home, Chewie was back.  He will need more medicine and more care.  He's restricted as far as his level of activity.  There will be no deep-woods foraging for him for a couple of weeks.  He's exceptionally lucky, though.  Mom told me that our vet had two dogs brought in yesterday with snakebite.  The other one didn't make it.

I am looking over at him right now.  He's lying in the floor being Chewie.  He's had pizza crust (one of his favorite things) and as many hugs and pats as he desires.  Even in my current state of semi-incapacitation, I am so happy to see him.  My big furry white dog child is going to be okay.  Everything else in the world can rock on however it wants to.

Snow Day

Yesterday before we left school, all the talk was of the incoming winter storm.  Preparations were made in case we needed to start school late.  Phone chains were checked.  Reminders were given to keep everything in the building safe.

I have to admit I didn't really expect any snow.  Every year, snow is predicted, and every year, the hearts of local children are crushed when we get four flakes or none at all.  Their bright little eyes glimmer with the thoughts of waist-high drifts which prevent the school buses from running, but the reality of living this far South is that if we get enough to cover the ground fully, we've had a heck of a storm.

I woke up about 4:30 as usual, my never-ending fear of oversleeping my alarm kicking in, and I wondered if it were snowing, but not enough to get up from my warm cocoon, dislodge cats, and go see.  Thirty minutes later, the alarm sounded, and I dragged myself out of bed and started the wait for notification.

District told us they'd notify us by 5:30 if we were going to try a late-start day.  At about 5:15, my phone started chiming.  The person above me on my phone tree, a person in my department I depend upon to get news, the actual email and call from the CO all told me I could go back to bed.  Late start was a reality.  I rolled over with great happiness.

About thirty minutes later, everything went off again.  School was officially called off for today.  Snow day protocol was in place.  I got up, looked out the window, and even in the dim light, I could see white everywhere.  Against all probability, we had snow.  I have to admit, I was glad to have been wrong.

I slept late, got up, took the dogs out, and got wet from the thick clumpy snow still falling.  Roux went out and came in quickly.  Chewie absolutely frolicked.  He loved the snow.  He ran in huge circles, kicking up mud and snow everywhere.  He dove face-first into the tiny drifts.  I laughed and laughed, and I realized as I did it that it was the first time I had really laughed in days.

I took some pictures, came in to get what I needed to fill all the birdfeeders.  When I went back out carrying the twenty-pound sack of birdseed, Roux slipped out with me, and she and Chewie took off before I could navigate the slick steps and get her collar.  Memories of the last time she ran off played back almost immediately.  Those 22 hours where I was waiting for Chewie and her to come home were some of the longest of my life.

I waited for several hours to see if they'd come back on their own before I grabbed leashes, bundled myself into forty layers and a purple hat, and headed after them.  I walked through the woods road to the far pasture calling their names.  I'm sure if the hunters who hang out across the road were there today, they got very tired of it.  As a teacher, I can be exceptionally loud when I need to be.  I made it all the way to the line of trees at the edge of that pasture and still, no dogs.

I stood and I called over and over, and just when I was thinking that I would have to give up and just go home, I saw a flicker of movement in the trees and heard the distant and longed-for jingling of collar tags.  Roux appeared and disappeared behind the trunks of the pines.  Then Chewie burst out of the woods in a blur of dirty wet white.  I captured him and put him on the leash, and we chased Roux down, leashed her, and we all went home.

I took the time to make breakfast, fought my ridiculous, useless coffee pot and managed to eke out a cup with it, got on Amazon and bought a new coffee pot so I can have the exquisite pleasure of destroying the one I have with a hammer, did some online research and browsing, and was as useless as possible.  I decided to watch Friends, and it has turned into a marathon.  It's been fabulous.

Roux has been sleeping all afternoon.  Chewie is mostly wiped out, too.  As I look at them, all I can think of is how grateful I am that they came when called.  If the weather hadn't been as nasty as it was, I'm not sure if that would have been the case.  Maybe we all got a chance to do some things today we don't normally do, and we all got it out of our various systems.  Tomorrow will be a return to what passes for normality around here.  I guess all good things, even the unexpected ones, must come to an end.

The Comfort of Dogs

Since I put up my last two trivial posts, I got news that distressed me.  I won't go into it here, but suffice it to say I am sad and full of frustration.  Despair on the day after Christmas.  How lovely.

And then Chewie came over and flopped his great big head over on me.  He's not the most patient of dogs, still being a puppy mostly.  He'd rather be slapping Roux with one of his outsized paws in hopes of getting a nip-and-run reaction than being held like the giant white teddy bear he mostly is. Tonight, though, when I started crying, he got down from his leather chair and sat by me for a long time with his head against my heart and just let me pet him.  Roux occasionally would shove him out of the way and do exactly the same thing for a time.  Then they'd swap.

Whenever I have a migraine, Roux always comes and gets in the bed with me when allowed, warm and still, not asking for attention, just helping to hold me in this world when the headache is trying to spin me away.

I have no doubt that they are sensitive to moods.  What never ceases to amaze me is that they can be such a source of comfort and ease just by their simple presence.  It is almost as though their gentle fur and warmth somehow soaks up whatever is wrong and makes it dissipate.

There is a lot to be said for having dogs around when you feel bad.

The Fun Just Never Ends

I woke up this morning to a really horrid stench.  I knew what it was, but I couldn't figure out where it was.  As I got ready, I looked everywhere for the source.  It wasn't until I went to the back to walk my dogs that I found it.  Chewie's normally snow-white self was covered in nastiness.  He'd had attacks of diarrhea in the night, and he, his cage, and even the wall behind his crate had paid the price.

What started as a part of my daily routine, that last quick walk with the dogs in the morning, turned into a rushed festival of unpleasantness.  I took Chewie out, watched him struggle with the sickness, brought him back inside and led him to the bathroom.  When I closed the door, he started getting nervous.  Somehow I manhandled him into the tub and bathed him.  This is such a calm description for such a frantic episode.  He stood drooping and miserable while I washed him.  He tried to get out, I grappled with him, he slipped and fell.  Meanwhile, the time I needed to leave for school crept ever closer.

I dragged the pan at the bottom of his crate out to wash it with the hose, and Mom arrived, coming to the rescue.  She sent me to school, and finished things up.  She checked in on Chewie to make sure he wasn't dehydrating himself through being ill.

I worried about him all day.  By the time I got home, Mom had been forced to wash him twice using the hose outside.  I took him for one last walk, and no sooner had I stepped out the door than he pulled the retractable leash out my hands and took off.  I ran to the house and got my flashlight, and then I found myself walking down this deep woods path in the uneasy quiet of a Mississippi night.  I heard all kinds of things rustling, but none of them were Chewie.

I came back to the house and was about to go to the cut-over across the road when I saw his white form glowing in front of me.  I jumped out of the car and gently called him until he finally came to me, leash dangling.  He put his head on my knees and just leaned.

I need tomorrow to be less adventure.  I'm not sure I can stand otherwise.

Ducks and Books

Chewie is cavorting through the living room attacking his green squeaky duck.  He tosses it, chases it like it ran away, springs on it as if it has defied the will of God and man, and then gnaws it in brief contentment before repeating the cycle.  Roux is watching him a little warily from her perch on the couch.  Life rolls on.

Roux can stand now on her own for short stretches, but she still can't walk. I carry her outside like the oversized child she is.  If you don't think a pit bull is a hefty dog, then come tote mine.... Her appetite remains extremely good; I just fed her.  She drinks plenty.  I sneak her small treats, tiny bites of cheese if I have some, a morsel of my lunch, a strip of crust off my breakfast slice of bread.  She is alert when she needs or wants to be.  The rest of the time she snores in oblivion.  I am hopeful that tomorrow will be the day she walks some on her own.

When I wasn't dog-nursing today, I did laundry and read.  The laundry was just something running in the background.  It is probably my favorite chore because it is so low-maintenance.  So many other things can get done while it is being processed.  The sheer luxury of a day reading, though, and totally guilt-free, was fantastic.  I've read two-and-a-half books in the past three days.  I am now rereading The Hobbit, and unless I decide to do something else, I will probably finish it up tonight.  The feeling of ripping through text for pleasure is fantastic.  I just need to keep my Kindle adequately charged.

It has only just started to register that the summer is actually here, that everything is finally over.  Tonight, I was at my parents' house having dinner with them, and I caught myself with that twisting feeling that I always get at the end of the weekend when I know I have to go back and face a problem at school the next day.  Then I smiled.  There are no more next days to go back to.  For better or worse, it's all over now.  My mother looked at me and said, "Just started to sink in that it's summer, right?"  When your parent also has done what you do for a living a lot longer than you have, it sort of makes you transparent in certain situations, I suppose....

I want to write some things about some music I'm listening to lately, my current auditory obsessions.  I might get around to that in a couple of days.  I also have to finish up preparations for Brazil.  That is looming ever-closer, and I'm really no more prepared for it than I have been.  As usual.  I also need to do a thorough cleaning of my house, and, for the first time in a really long time, I want to have people over.  Yeah, the house is still ramshackle, but if I keep waiting for that to change, I may be 90.  Screw it.  They're not coming to see my house, right?  (right?)  I miss seeing my friends.  I'm going to see if I can put together a way to get some of them together.  It will probably have to be after Brazil, but I am going to do this.

For now, though, I'm just going to enjoy my book and my snoring dog.

Returned

I had mourned them all day and was trying to figure out some way to get up and force myself to go to the church to play for night services when I saw Roux's face appear in the lower portion of the glass of the storm door.  At first, I wondered if I was just seeing what I wanted to see.  I had, after all, been praying for that sight for hours, wishing for it, willing it to happen.  Then Chewie's big white head popped up next to hers, and I stumbled over to the door and managed to work the lock with through my tear-blurry vision to let them in.

I had been so upset because my biggest fear was that they had been taken by someone.  Nothing good ever happens for dogs that are stolen.  It's not like somebody takes them to a loving new home.  All I could see in my head was them being used for bait dogs and being so afraid and not understanding why someone would be so cruel to them.  The not-knowing was killing me.  With every passing hour and with every acre we searched it just seemed more likely that something like that had happened.  Only once or twice in my life have I felt relief as profound as when I saw them at the door.

Roux is not in the best shape this morning.  If the speed she is moving right now is the speed she was moving as she came home, I can see why it took so long.  She can just barely walk.  She has over-extended herself in the extreme.  I'm feeding her pain pills and carrying her outside, putting her on the couch, making sure she eats and excretes.  There is nothing else I can do for her right now.  She's been almost here before, exhausted to the point of collapse, but this actually is the worst I've ever seen it.  As long as she keeps taking in and putting out, keeps being responsive, then rest is the best cure for her.  I've panic-buttoned her before, but the vet has told me on other occasions that she just has to recover from these excesses.  I wonder how long it will take this time.

Somehow she managed to abrade the tough leathery skin of the pad of her front paws off.  Each step must be agony.  I can't imagine how far she must have walked or on what surface to have done that.  It would be the equivalent of the entire sole of your foot being covered in broken blisters.  I think this is the main reason she doesn't want to walk much, and I am trying as much as possible to carry her so she doesn't have to put pressure on her poor tattered paws.  What could have done that?  Regular grass or woodland walking should not have damaged her feet that way.

Chewie seems fine.  He is asleep in the big brown leather chair he has commandeered for himself.  He is less bouncy than usual, but still had enough vim and vigour to drag me all over the yard this morning on the leash for his morning constitutional.  I guess we will both walk.  It will be good for us both, too.

So, for awhile then, I will be a dog nurse.  I am happy to play the role.  It's not the first time.  Roux and I are old hands at this after cedar trees, knee surgeries, skunk debacles, and all her other adventures.   I only hope that this time, too, Roux will get better.  Even if she for some reason does not, though, at least she came home.  I know that may sound strange that it would be any consolation to me, and it will be a very small one, but at least I will know that she was here with me if something should happen and not out stranded in the wild or being harmed by strangers.

Missing

 I writing this because I have to do something to stay busy and give myself the illusion of control, or I'm just going to stand in my yard and scream until I die.

Chewie and Roux are both missing.  I let them out yesterday about 3:00 for some outdoor time.  I almost never let Roux out off her leash because she is prone to do things like wind up stuck in a tree or disappear for half the day.  However, she enjoys it so much that occasionally I do let her roam some.  Since Chewie came, they have been very reasonable about coming home before it gets late.  Her 12-hour adventures have been more like 5 or  6 hour jaunts.  He doesn't like to be away from the house for that long, and he's a good shepherd for her.  Also, she's not nearly as young as she used to be, and it's harder for her to be away for that long.

11:00 last night came and went, and no panting faces had pressed themselves against my front door looking for food and companionship.  I started to be uneasy, and I went outside and called them.  Then I waited.  1:00 came, and the Topamax said it was time to sleep.  I went out and drove around before I went to bed, something that usually brings them in.  No dogs.  I went to bed, and woke up twice during the night to check if they were outside.

At seven, when the light was good, I got up and went to the woods.  I called Mom.  She came.  We searched pretty much the entire section I live on and most of what is adjacent that my uncle owns, too.  There was no sign of them, no high pitched yelp signaling that Roux was up to her old tricks again and had gotten herself into a jam and needed help.  There was only distant birdsong from areas we weren't calling for them in and the sound of us moving through the woods.

I drove around the roads nearby, went out on a logging road across from my property on some land owned by UA to see if perhaps they had ventured out into that huge area.  There wasn't a single sign, no white curling tail, no bouncing red body.

It has been 21 hours since I saw them last.  Right now, the sweetest sound in the world to me would be the distinctive jingle of their huge collar tags, the noise I always hear as they shake their heads coming up on the porch just before I see them looking in.  I feel like a part of me has been torn out and destroyed.  I always knew that I might possibly lose one of them to an accident of some kind, conceivably to natural causes, and inevitably to old age, but to lose them both on the same day is probably going to be more than I can stand.

Puppy Life

This picture is old, but I love it.  He's LOTS bigger now.

Chewie, my Great Pyrenees puppy, is a challenge.  I love him, but some days I sort of want to drop-kick him. That sort of challenge.  Case in point:  I just had to stop writing to yell, "What the hell have you got," run over and take something plastic/electronic and inappropriate away from him.  He's now barking at one of the cats again, a habit I'm breaking him of with the use of an aluminum pie pan.  (Just.  Don't.  Ask.)

This is Puppy Life.  It's been so long since I've had a puppy or even a young dog around that I have forgotten what it's like.  It's a constant circus of clean up, run around, take away, hide, and throw out because it's destroyed.  Even more so than with a normal puppy with him because he's so freaking SMART.  It's not like he's a dumb animal; he's a terribly, terribly clever one.  If he sees something he wants, you can't even hide it from him.  He watches, notes where you put it, and then goes and gets it for himself later when you're out of the picture with a song in his heart and a cheerful, toothy little grin on his snow-white face.

There's also the fact that he is physically large.  He's only about five months old right now, and he's already about thirty pounds.  He's almost as tall as my pit bull.  He's on his way to being three feet tall and one hundred pounds when he hits maturity.  He's built like a football player, all shoulders and chest, lean muscle.  His favorite tactic is to walk up to things and smack them with his giant feet, objects, doors, other dogs, my cats (who loathe him), me...  He thinks this game is AWESOME.  The things he paw-punches, usually not so much.  Even Roux, my pit, sort of looks at him with a thinning patience sometimes, and she's the queen of Rock and Roll playing.

It's good that she's here, though, because the two of them do throw each other on the floor with such violence that stuff rattles on the shelves.  There's a neverending stream of snarling nonsense when they get going.  The cats sit on the backs of chairs and couches and watch, and I keep thinking that for them, this must be some form of modern day feline gladiatorial game.  I am almost certain they're silently saying, "One of you just KILL, KILL, KILL."  They always look disappointed when there's no bloodshed....

Chewie can be exceptionally sweet, though.  He follows me from room to room.  I can't decide whether he is herding me or protecting me, but I'll take it either way.  His breed is known for its guarding traits, and where I live and since I live alone, that's kind of nice.  Even when we're outside and all the other dogs have abandoned me, Chewie stays.  I'm hoping with continued instruction, his intelligence and sweetness will be the things that outlive this puppy phase.  I do not think I can handle one hundred pounds of frothing white insanity knocking me down every morning and then grinning at the resultant chaos, and I'm almost sure that the feline ninja association will take matters into their hands to prevent that as well.

More News

Roux's not poisoned.  The vet checked her, and she is exhausted and run-down.  They kept her for observation, but as far as I know right now, she is okay.  The relief was a physical thing, almost like being released from a big vise grip somebody had been twisting up.

My doctor's appointment got moved.  I have longer to wait now for whatever my sentence outcome will be.  I know realistically that this is only going to be the start of something; it always only ever is with this process, but I had mentally prepared myself to wait until Thursday of next week.  I had prepared myself to be strong only so much longer.  Now I have to gear myself up for more waiting.  I have to convince myself I can jump this next hurdle, too, when what I want is to lay down and just look at it with tired sad eyes.

I'm reminded of the old quote about us never being tested more than we can bear.  Immediately after that come Mother Teresa's anecdotal words, "Then I wish God didn't trust me so much."  Absolutely freakin' ditto, Sister.

My Guy

What can I say?  You know I'm a sucker for a cute blonde....

Chewie is growing more and more adorable every single day.  I don't know how in the world I'm going to be able to let him go.  I don't even want to.  He's getting puppy-fat, and I swear every single time I see him, he's grown taller.  He's going to be just a gorgeous dog.

Whenever I go outside, he is there by the door waiting with that gentle, quizzical expression and that soft wooly coat, and I have to reach down and pat him.  He is such a fuzzy little wookie.  He loves the Puppy Chow.  He loves the vitamins the vet sent.  He loves the little rawhide treat bones I got him to help him teethe.  He loves the deer antler Roux and Yelldo dragged up.  He loves everything.

That's always a gift.  He's precious.  Whether he stays with me for good or whether he eventually goes to another home, he will make someone a great pet.  Right now, he can keep on being "my guy" until he's ready for that decision to be made.

Menagerie

I've had this poster since grad school, part of the decor of my living room.  I've begun to notice something sort of prophetic about it, though....  Except for the black and white spotted cat on her shoulder, this is me.  I have this menagerie currently living at my house.

Stay with me now....

The black cat with the devil eyes is Yoda, Queen of All She Surveys, Destroyer of All that Pisses Her Off.  Except for the tail, it is a very good likeness.  Behind her is grey Pearl looking grumpy because Yoda is getting attention.  To the back of the grouping is young Dillon, sitting where the others have sort of shoved her.

Down on the floor, you have Yelldo the beagle/dachshund  and Roux the brown dog.  I suppose that big white monster shoving them both out of the way is Chewie or rather Future Chewie when he gets his size on him.

I suppose this needs to have my name instead of Cheron.  Maybe I should have become a vet instead of a teacher.  It sure would have saved on the upkeep around here.

Great Pyrenees?!

I took Chewie to the vet this morning after my own doctor's appointment, and he does indeed have mange.  Mange and every form of intestinal parasite known to man.  Great.  Here we go vet bill deluxe....

I asked what type of dog or dogs might make up his illustrious pedigree, and I was expecting to hear some form of lab in there based on his head shape and paw size.

"Great Pyrenees.  If not pure bred, then almost."

Knock me down with a freaking feather.  That is a big, BIG, dog.  I mean BIG.  And unusual for these parts.  We don't herd sheep upon the mountains here, you know.  Somebody threw out bastard royalty on me.

Of course, this isn't the first time.  Britta, my first pit bull, was pure bred.  She was crazy as all get out, but she was 100% pit.  This little boy appears to be another little diamond in the rough.  Very, very rough, as it turns out, and maybe that's why somebody tossed him.   I suspect it has more to do with the general fecal nature of the composition of their souls, personally....

The vet told me that Great Pyrenees are herding dogs, gentle shepherds, good with protecting stock, loving and gentle with kids.  Chewie, then, should rehome easily.  He'll be somebody's gentle giant.  I hope I can find him a house full of kids to ride him like a big white horse.  I rather suspect, as he reaches that size, that he'll like that.  The thought of it makes me happy, too.

Animal Issues

I was trying to read today when I heard my little dog barking frantically.  When I went outside to check out what was going on, I found that the dogs had treed a large black cat which made the mistake of coming down when it saw people.  Roux gave chase into the woods, and Mom (who was down for a visit) and I tried to follow to see if we could prevent Roux's destroying the cat.  Ultimately, we were able to get Roux out of the woods, and we tracked the cat down as well deep in the woods near the creek. I don't know if it ran there or if Roux dragged it there.

It was very much alive, and after navigating the woods with my knee, Mom and I used a large bathtowel, a two-front approach, welding gloves, and a lot of distraction to capture it.  There were no visible wounds, but I could tell that Roux had gotten her mouth on it.  That means she did "the shake" with it probably, and that's devastating.  Roux herself came home with her face cut to ribbons, so this tom gave as good as he got.  He is very large, and if Roux had not shut her eyes, he'd have blinded her on one side.  I crated the cat and took him to my vet.  I still don't know the outcome since he had to be calmed before he could be worked with.

My knee is twinging, Roux is exhausted and sore, and I don't know how Warrior Prince the Cat Lord is.  It has just been a very long day.  I hope this is my animal day for this holiday.

Scorpions and Starlings

This past week was filled with lots of animal oddness. It started with Roux injuring herself in a bizarre way last Saturday. She was outside to play for awhile during the afternoon, and when she came back to the house, she had two pencil-sized pieces of cedar impaled through her paw crossways. I still don't know how she managed to get the first one in, much less continue on to get the second one sideways.

I called Dad, he came down and picked us up, and we took her to the vet for emergency surgery. I stayed with her while the vet rendered her unconscious and cut the wood from her poor paw. She has stitches between most of her toes, but she, in her typical pit bull manner, doesn't seem to notice it much. She stayed at the vet for the weekend, and now I'm cleaning the sutures each day with peroxide and shoving an antibiotic down her throat twice a day, but other than that, she's doing okay.

The next fun with nature moment came Tuesday. My TA was building boxes to help pack up my classroom for my big move at the end of the year, and she suddenly stepped away and said, "I think I just saw a scorpion." My TA is an extremely level-headed and reliable individual, and if she says she saw a scorpion, I believe her. I got up and limped around to the pile of flat boxes and began to lift them gingerly to see if I could locate the insect. Sure enough, after a couple of minutes, a brown scorpion about two inches long fell out of the flat box as I tilted it.

My TA, the student taking a makeup test, and I just kind of looked at it for a minute. Scorpions just aren't common here. However, I wasn't awed enough not to know what to do with a crawling nasty. My trusty Crocs flops smashed it flat. I do have to say though, that they're not very easy to kill. I had to step on it several times before it crushed. I am also glad it was a small one. Otherwise, I'm not sure a flip-flop would have been sufficient.

Since then, I've been surreptitiously looking around on the floor for "friends" of his/hers and praying that one was both male and alone. The thought of it having laid eggs in those boxes as little "surprises" for me to find when I open all those boxes in August is just shudder-inducing. I think I'll get some Raid before then. Surely Raid works on scorpions, too?

Anyway, Friday afternoon right before the last bell, I started hearing high-pitched shrieking in the stairwell outside my room. I stepped out to see what merriment prompted this, and I saw a poor little starling just crouched in a puddle of sunlight on the landing. The kids were backing away from it like it was rabid Bengal tiger. I knew with the bell about to ring, the next thing to happen would be that someone would harm it, either accidentally or on purpose, so I grabbed the first thing that came to hand, and empty file folder box, and eased my damaged knee down the stairs.

The little bird is one of the many that nests in the nooks and crannies of our old building. Occasionally, they come inside our building when one of the upstairs doors gets left open. They flutter around in a pitiful fashion, and of course, they are terribly distressed every time the classes change because of the noise and motion of several hundred active teenagers moving around.

As I approached it, it didn't move at all. I just placed half of the empty box over it. A student brought me a file folder and I slid it under the box, and then I slid a ring binder under that allowing me to lift the box with the bird safely contained in it. I got it up the stairs and took it out on the upstairs walkway. I opened the box. I was afraid that it was injured or shocked, but when I removed the lid, it flew away straight and true. My heart lifted with it as it soared away. It was a good ending to a bad animal week.

I hope next week will have less of a menagerie in it. I think I have had enough of bird and beast to last me for awhile. If not, well, I guess I will just have to continue to be creative with my solutions....

Weekend (or Gimme the HEMI)

Roux's home. The poor baby has staples in a six-inch line up her leg, and she's getting around in painful slowness, but she's home. The vet said that upon inspection of the injury it appears that her ACL injury occurred because it deteriorated because of natural causes. He said this sometimes happens in dogs and that in the next six months to a year it may happen again in her other leg. He said there's nothing that can be done to prevent it; apparently, it's a genetic issue. As I watch her limp from room to room, I pray that this is all for her. If her other leg goes, I'll do whatever I have to by way of surgery, but it will be so much better if she can recover from this and be healthy and happy.

Friday, while I was waiting to hear about Roux's surgery, I went with my parents to go see my uncle, and we wound up stopping on the way at a car dealership instead. Dad needed a new vehicle. With gas prices going up and the reliability of his 1991 truck going down, it was time. Although I don't think they intended the purpose of the trip to be purchasing a new car, Dad came home in an 07 Chrysler Pacifica. It's big enough for him to fit in and it gets really good gas mileage. We took it north today on the rescheduled trip to see my uncle, and it was very nice. I think he's excited about having it, and I think it's about time. It's the first "new" vehicle he's had since 1981. He was way overdue.

While he and Mom were conducting their business, I was somewhat left at loose ends, so I talked to some of the salesmen, roamed the lot, and drooled over the Chargers. I was standing and staring at their curving loveliness when all the headlights started flashing. I stepped back, a little startled, and one of the salemen stepped out with a handful of keys. He said, "Pick one." I started making noises saying no because I cannot trade cars right now, even though I want almost nothing in this whole world more than a big-HEMI Charger. I didn't want to be a test-drive tease. He just smiled, and said again, "Pick one. You want to drive the red one?"

The red one was a big HEMI R/T package, and it was fine in every way, but it was not the one that made my heart skip a beat. The one that made me want to cry was a big HEMI 08 in a color called Titanium. I smiled at him, and I swear I felt like a kid in a candy store when I pointed at it and I said, "That one. I want to drive that one." He handed me the key and told me to have fun and went back inside.

Oh BOY, did I have fun. I didn't trust myself to test drive it long. Otherwise, I'd still be driving it. That was the second one I've driven, but the other one didn't have a HEMI, and oh what a difference that makes. As soon as I got it around the block and out onto the open road, I just floored it to see what it would do. I swear, it felt like the thing stood up. There was no hesitation, no pause, no sickening moment of waiting for the rush, just pure power and a purring roar from the engine. The RPMs kicked high briefly to meet the immediate demand, and I was doing 85 before I could even blink. I was giggling like a fool and furtively looking around me for highway patrol before sanity returned and I slowed down to a speed less likely to get me arrested. There was almost no traffic on the road, so I slowed down to crawl so I could hit it again to hear it roar and feel it fly. It was so amazing. All I could think was, "I LOVE this car. I LOVE this car!!!!"

The day when I have one of these for my own is going to have to come soon. When I got back to the dealership and parked it, I felt a great loss at turning the ignition off and getting out. I just wanted to keep driving it, not at daredevil, lawbreaking speeds, but at every speed. Maybe the legislature will give us a 200% raise soon and I'll be able to afford one....