transition

The day before my birthday, we had a very hard loss. Our two dogs, Zoe and Sadie, were romping and running all over our newly planted back garden, chasing squirrels and each other. And then, they weren't. This was sometime around 4pm, Jenny was home, but didn't think much about it for a while, and then she missed Zoe.

Thinking she'd gotten out, Jenny searched all over for her, but the sad discovery was that she had dropped in a corner of the yard, looking almost like she'd been running at full speed (legs akimbo) and just collapsed. Whatever, she was gone, and Sadie was distraught... in fact, we all were, as it sunk in. Heart attack? Don't know. She was but six, and it was indeed a tough six years -- she'd had surgery on both front elbows at six months, major cancer surgery and radiation two years ago, and routinely got sick from dissecting miscreant squirrels she managed to catch in the pasture. But she loved life, and she gave it everything she had in terms of enthusiasm and passion. Not unlike Jenny and me???

I couldn't write about it for awhile, and someone asked from the last posting, "one dog?", so I thought I should explain. Anyway, she was the greatest sister and littermate for Sadie. Sadie just moped around for two weeks, maybe three, and now she's got a little more spring in her walk, thankfully. But GUESS WHAT -- we all do, although Sadie doesn't know quite how good it will be, and she might not even recognize it when it happens, at first. WHAT? you might ask. Well, of course! The puppy was born last Sunday, and we pick her (or maybe him) out of the litter in early October, and she comes home later that month. This will be our seventh purebred Black Lab -- are we traditional or what? Works better to have two at a time (three is one too many, we also know)

Charger was my first Lab; he welcomed Jenny as a nearly blind, deaf but very lovable old dog of twelve who lived two more years, about as long as Labs go. We then got two seven week old puppies, Blarney and Murphy. Murphy died of a heart attack or seizure at 18 months, and Kringle replaced him (Blarney thought a little puppy was the dumbest thing we could do). When Blarney died at thirteen, we brought a rescue dog, Molly, home. Molly was a wonderfully smart dog, half yellow Lab and half Chow; unfortunately her Chow tendencies were hard to train out of her, so eventually this was a painful situation for all of us.
When Kringle died at thirteen of cancer, we brought two new pups -- Zoe and Sadie -- home at a time my parents were living with us in a three bedroom rancher in Summerland near Las Vegas (and they were not exactly dog people, whew, INDEED). Molly helped raise them, and they turned into the most wonderful Labs, affectionate and loving but also with a good bark for strangers that doesn't bother Jenny late at night at all.

Sorry for the reminisces; our dogs are really our children at this phase of our lives. Wonderful companions, loyal beyond belief, and loving always. Love to you all, Chuck