Dear Ray,

My dearest Ray-how do I get through a day without you, much less try to get through this one, your first Rainbow Birthday? I thought you’d make it, I thought we’d make it to your tenth birthday, but as it turns out, none of the Sparkles litter did, as far as I know. A hard-luck litter for sure, but you, Chloe, and Dahey all knew great love in your homes, so maybe ….maybe…

I don’t know. I can’t ‘maybe’ my way through this.

I miss you.

I miss you.

I miss you. How can one be filled with something that isn’t something that doesn’t exist? I’m filled with the emptiness of your absence and the sadness just seeps out of me in ways that I don’t even realize until I’m startled by the realization that tears are rolling down my cheeks.

I often refer to you as the worst puppy I’ve ever met and I stand by that declaration. As a matter of fact, I clearly remember sitting defeated on the kitchen floor, crying because “Pit bulls can live up to seventeen years, and I can’t believe we’ll have to live like this for so long.” And now I’d give my eyeteeth for that time together cut nearly in half, but trainer after trainer, class after class, time after time, we figured it out together and you became my best boy connected to each other in ways I can neither properly fathom nor properly explain but connected we were.

The Gift and Theft of Time

I’ll always cherish that COVID kept me home for nearly two years. Two whole years filled with more hours at home with you and Julius that would have been spent in a car and an office. The view to my left was that of you boys watching me work or I’d glance over and to enjoy watching you nap. Your snoring was the most comforting sound I’ve ever heard and I fill that silence with anything I can now.

But I watched you and I saw the changes. I knew. Your rehab friends knew. Our time together, which for anyone who loves a dog, is never long enough was now on a countdown with an end too near and yet still unknown. But with all of the pain of knowing, and of seeing you physically shrinking away, I got the luxury of never taking that time for granted. I could now hug you every single time I passed by. I could kiss your head and whisper in your ear, “Mama loves you so much.” Every. Single. Time.

There were days when we worried it was the end, and I’d whisper to you to rally and try just for me. And you did. Every. Single. Time.

Until you couldn’t. Actually, you probably would have if I begged you yet again, but I knew that keeping you here was for me so on a bleak sad Friday I made the arrangements. I told you. There has never been a secret between us…except for maybe when I hid the nail clippers and clipped your nails while you slept. I told you, that in three days, you’ll leave this body and the pain behind. Trust Mama this last time because in two days, your struggle will be over. Trust me this last time, I’ll be with you every minute and at the end you’ll be whole again and you’ll watch over us as we have always watched over you.

That Tuesday morning, you didn’t want to go for a last walk, but wanted to get in the car, you walked right in the building and laid in my arms as you drifted off. Your kind friends at Rehab took such good care of us. I held you tight and loved you to the end and beyond. I was with you when you took your first breath and when you took your last and I will cherish the memory of every breath in between.

So, tomorrow I’ll do my best to get through the day. I’ll go through the motions and come out the other side as well as I can. Maybe Julius and I can do something together in your honor and he and I can continue trying to heal that Ray-Ray sized hole in our hearts.

“Welcome to the new normal” seems to be a phrase we bandy about quite a bit lately but at what point does this “normal” cease to be new and at what point is this at all “normal?” I used to be constantly complimented on my shoes and now I receive more comments about my face masks than anything else, who’d have thunk it a year ago? My workplace is still under work from home guidelines so pjs are often my new business casual and I recently discovered a treasure trove in my sweater drawers of long (six months!) forgotten items that I may either wear or purge.

March: In like a lion

We scrambled. We had kids, or grandkids, or dependents, or what-have-you who suddenly were plucked from their daily reality to, in many cases, not see their friends again. People learned to navigate Zoom, to relearn math (or was that just me?) and struggled every day to tap into reserves that we never knew existed.

In rescue, we “cleared the shelves” in March by doing very no-contact meet and greets and placed nearly all of our dogs so that fosters and all of the rest of us could navigate our “new normal.” Naturally, that didn’t last too long and requests trickled in. Really. I thought they might pour in but they trickled. Maybe some people were home and more able to address some underlying issues or perhaps they were pushed aside while we struggled to find our footing. Fosters took breaks in an effort to regain their balance and from my chair, the break in the action was a welcomed respite. While I do work from home, my office is upstairs-a land to which Ray is not allowed to venture due to his legs and Julius visits intermittently, so my “off time” was still a valuable commodity and snuggle time on the sofa was still a hard scheduled event. Having fewer dogs in adoptions meant fewer applications to work on and fewer calls to make. My weekends are now free and my home is even more organized than before. I think the “new normal” is feeling good to me.

In the Good Old Summertime

Businesses slowly open up as other restrictions are added. Working from home isn’t so bad when you have an inground pool in which to sit during lunch breaks. We baked and gardened and crafted and our dinners became “cleaner” and better due to more time near the kitchen coupled with the willingness to try different recipes.

Rescue continues on in the new format and we take on some more complicated cases while silently preparing against the onlsaught of Separation Anxiety cases that we know will arise when folks return to the workplace. In the meantime, we deal with Heartworm + dogs, broken pelvis, broken legs all of whom need us to make them better. There’s no question, it’s what we do, but heartbreaking when we can’t “do” for everyone who asks.

Fall Back Position

We’re still at home and people are losing their minds over whether or not Trick or Treat will be cancelled or how many people can attend a Thanksgiving meal. Maybe we’re just stir crazy or maybe we’ve forgotten how to “people” to some extent. We still aren’t doing Adoption Events but dogs are moving out and moving in. I’m hearing a lot of potential adopters say that it’s hard to adopt a dog these days. “Inventory” is low and callbacks are slow. Our highly adoptable dogs get multiple applications and our less sought after dogs continue to wait for the stars to align for them.

Closing Out the Year

We ended the year strong despite the challenges with 118 total adoptions, which was the lowest total since 2015, yet still highly rewarding.

Basically, we’ve reset and shifted some of our focus but in the end we keep doing what we do.

*Despite my years long radio silence, I have several draft posts collecting dust here so I’m trying to finish them at least a bit and publish them.

You know that meme?  The one where the cute dog is tucked into bed and asks to be told the story of his adoption/rescue again? I have to admit, we live that out at least weekly here.  No, the boys don’t actually ask for the story, but every so often as I’m tucking one or the other in, I lean over and whisper in his ear, The Story of Us.

With Julius I ask him if he remembers being a scruffy little puppy running the streets.  If he remembers “choosing” me and those first few days together. He’s my funny little man and he is Ray’s best dog friend and a good brother.

I ask Ray if he remembers that cold day in December when we “met.” His Sparkle Mama was having her babies outside in the cold and so many didn’t make it but as we rushed in and brought the little family to safety, two more piglets were born inside.

Ray was a little reluctant to depart the warmth of the womb and was eventually Katie pulled him out amid a slurry of green goo. You can see it on his little white fur above. “The little Green Guy” was the first name he ever had. I ask him if he remembers that.

I didn’t want a puppy and I didn’t want to adopt, I wanted to only foster adult dogs but seven years ago, not everyone in our house was ready for a Pitbull Type dog and I was outvoted. We adopted the green guy who we named Ray. I brought him home in the midst of a raging snowstorm, wrapped in my pashmina and curled in my lap. He was really quite literally one of the worst puppies ever and after about an hour with him the “adopt a puppy” faction abandoned me to raise the jumping shark alone. But that’s a story for another day.

The irony is that he was maybe always destined to live in my home. Quite literally.

Our house was for sale at that time and there was actually an offer on it. The woman and her adult daughter who were buying the house were waiting for funding approval that was dragging on way too long. Sparkle, Ray’s mama, belonged to the adult daughter who eventually reached out to me for help. A friend was keeping Sparkle and her brother but as the cold weather fast approached and puppies coming soon, they needed a rescue. When I asked her if she wanted to reclaim the dogs after the sale of the home, she declined saying she didn’t want the beautiful bamboo floors ruined and though puppy Ray had a field day with some other things, the bamboo held up.

On this day we celebrate the birth of my first-born dog, the day my life’s focus would shift. If he had been an easy dog like Julius, I would definitely be a lesser person. Ray forced me to grow and to learn.

My little green man. We are connected on such a level that Kevin jokes I must have given birth to him. It’s not too far from the truth, I suppose, I like to think I helped give Life to him and in return, he has shaped mine for the better.

Happy birthday to my Heart Dog, green guy Ray.

But after a 6 month hiatus, I’m posting twice in as many days.  While I confessed yesterday to feeling a bit too boring or mundane to write about, obviously Ray’s new legs have brought a new subject up to discuss.

Today was rough.  Very rough.  Actually, let’s roll it back; last night was rough.  Although I didn’t call to check on him, I worried all night.  Why didn’t I call?  Well, I wouldn’t have been able to talk to him and even if I could have, would that have helped?  I doubt it. I’ve already anthropomorphized his fear of being in strange surroundings and disappointment in me for allowing him to sleep overnight at the hospital.  I left him there ALL NIGHT with a painful leg, a painful spine and a lot of strangers.  Today as I was forcing pills down his unwilling throat, he peed himself and his new cushy bed.   I’ve decided it wasn’t because he’d just drank a bowl of water the hour before but because I terrified him in his drugged out state.

I’ve set up his new digs and already moved it.  We have him in a cozy spot in the family room (or is it the living room? or greatroom?) and I’ll camp out on the sectional so I can be nearby.  I’m glad we bought this comfy thing.  Anyone remember when he, Julius and I were sleeping on dog mats on the living room floor?

The House Shuffle

It’s a pretty open joke that we move.  A Lot.  When we got Ray and then Julius we lived in a house that we had just put an inground pool in.  That was a backyard paradise that kept dog toenails trimmed year-round.  We moved for several reasons, not the least of which was that it was in a different county from where Asia and I worked.  The next house was one of my faves.  It was large and the layout was great for the most part but after a short while multiple trips from the second floor bedrooms to the basement (to clean litterboxes) and back up and down and up and down didn’t make for an easy time on my old joints or on Ray’s.  We (the dogs and I) began camping out on the living room floor on cushy dog mats, plush blankets and sheepskin rugs.  After about 4 months of that we found a sprawling house that was one level and the basement was just extra space.  That’s where we lived when Ray had his first leg surgery, his TTA.  While that place was great and so unique, it wasn’t quite right so after yet another search we ended up here.

Here, is a lot less flashy from the outside but inside, or rather out back is the magic…a pool, or as I like to call it, a nail trimmer surrounding water.  We are mostly on one level, we’ve downsized, and we are much happier here… for now.  So, yeah, for the next few months, I’ll be sleeping on the sofa within a few feet of my baby while he convalesces and yea, we’ve moved a few times to accommodate his needs, so I ask, what would you do for your heartdog?

So much begins with Ray (this blog is a good example) and just like this blog, as life happens and change is as fluid as it is inevitable. When I began chronicling this little assembly, Ray was an infant and our kitties, especially Boo Kitty, were not too fond of him. My goal was to share our experiences and leave something of ourselves out there with the hope that maybe we’d help someone else who may be going through some of the same experiences. Little did I realize that sharing is not easy for someone as obsessively private as I am and ultimately I wondered if our daily lives had just become too routine?

Big Plans

Once upon a time, my hope was that Ray would earn his Canine Good Citizen and be a great ambassador in the community. Sadly this was not in the cards for us as Ray likes his small world. He was definitely not well socialized early and try as I might as we took class after class he learned more “obedience ” but also became steadily more reactive.

He’s also a “fool me once” kind of guy. He’ll walk into nearly any building but once that place turns out to be the place off surgeries and injections, the challenge was on to find new ways of coaxing him back through said doors.

Bum Leg

A few years ago Ray underwent TTA surgery on his rear left leg. Knowing Ray has an aversion to nearly everything, we were sent home with our own staple removers so that he would be able to skip that visit. Night after night he’d fall asleep in my lap and I’d sneak another staple or two out of his leg until I was finally done and after months of restricted activity, his left leg became his good leg.

Fast forward to this year. Yeah, I should have had the right rear done sooner. It likely should have been done the following year but when you have a dog who has to be drugged to come to the office and anesthetized for vaccines and nail trims, you hold off. You hope it will heal, you lift him onto furniture, you guide him off of furniture and you invest in supplements as well as stock pain relievers.

But this year we noticed a more pronounced limp and at his annual checkup we had x rays taken and his leg was manipulated again. This time the result was that he hasn’t walked (much) on that leg since the summer and while we tried even more drugs the buck finally stopped and Ray-Ray underwent a three hour TPLO and luxating patella surgery to hopefully repair some pretty bad damage to his leg.

The red circle shows his good knee and proper placement. The blue circle shows where his bad knee is.

What does it take to heal the Ray-Ray, it even to try? Well a lot of help and a lot of understanding. Before our office visit (side note- I tried to schedule the consultation without him being there) I gave him three acepromazine and two composure pros and all that did was take some of the edge off. He was still upright, alert and walking but I did get his muzzle on without a struggle. The tech, with her eyes nearly buggingout of her head wondered why he was still upright. The answer, “ Because he’s Ray.”

The surgeon and tech were so patient and accommodating with us that we get to skip the 2 week check in. I just have to send a video of his walking progress and he’s getting dissolving stitches so no stress there. “Because he’s Ray.”

We do have to do the 8 week check with x rays and that will be another sedation but here’s to hoping all goes smoothly. At this point I’m just worried because Mr Ray has never slept anywhere but home since the day I brought him home. I wish I could curl up in the post op with him but I’ll wait. His little recovery room is all set up for him here and I’m counting the minutes till I can bring him back home.

I’m hopeful because our excellent surgeon is hopeful that this will definitely improve his mobility. He will never be a long home trail dog, but he never has been. Ray is our housedog in every sense. He likes his little world, he loves short and safe walks, he loves visitors and he loves his family.

In all seriousness I ask- what do you get for a dog who wants for nothing? I mean, I’m sure there’s some toy or treat that all the other dogs have that we may be missing out on, but for the most part these Peaceabull blockheads aren’t lacking much. I currently have a small stash of stuffies, bags of untouched treats and even a large bag of antlers held in reserve.

Ray and I have been talking all week, reminiscing about the day he was born. December first six years ago was a stark, snowless day hovering at the 32 degree mark when I received a call about a dog birthing her puppies exposed to the elements. By the time I arrived, three were alive and struggling for warmth while several others had already died. Two more pups would be born in the warmth of rescue while one of the original survivors would succumb to to much exposure. Of the two born in rescue, one was my little piggy. Arriving in this world covered in birthing gunk, my little green guy immediately stole my heart.

While I still had my heart and head set at that time on just fostering older dogs, fate would intervene and this little piggy would become mine.

But really, going back to the original question, certainly there be birthday treats and much celebrating- as much celebrating as this low-key family can muster. But at the end of the day, my gift to Ray and to Julius or rather their gift to others is the gift of time. When I’m home I make sure there is plenty of Mom and Pooch time. We snuggle, we practice our training and cues, we walk and we play. When I’m gone, these boys give up their Mommy so that other block heads can find homes.

So on December first, six years after the birth of my heart dog, I will be spending some time away before the celebration so that this December first can be remembered as another little boy’s special day. Adoption day for John Snow and a very happy birthday to my baby Ray.

Life is pretty good for me now, but my Foster Mama says I’m in a “holding pattern” and that this isn’t actually my home, although it seems pretty darned good to me. It’s definitely better than where I was. This whole year has been full of changes for me and it took a long time before I felt like this place was going to work out. I was in “the shelter” and then I went to several different homes but kept getting returned just for being me and it was making me sad, but Foster Mama says I’m now at the Peaceabull place for a while and I can decompress, whatever that means. 

I used to make lots of babies and because of that my back and my belly were sinking low to the ground and I also had wormys in my heart that made me feel tired all the time. Those things made me do what Mama says is my Eyore pose and it was how I was standing when she met me. The day we met, there were a lot of strange people around and I didn’t know what was going on, so I just stood with my head and my tail dripping from each end toward the ground like the branches on a weepy tree. I let the nice people pet me and lift my feet and look in my ears and other funny things and then I went back to the place from before-The Shelter. I didn’t really like it The Shelter because I got into a fight with a big dog and then everyone said I wasn’t a nice girl anymore and that I was going to be on “The List.” 

 

But then a while later the nice lady who volunteers at The Shelter took me to the Vet and left me there and Foster Mama picked me up and brought me here to the Peaceabull place. I didn’t really know what was going on at first and I wanted to be with Foster Mama and Foster Daddy and I wanted to chase that mean fat cat and hang out with those handsome boy dogs who live behind the gate. I did sneak out and see that big handsome Julius but he just ignored me. I saw Ray too and the first time he made a mean face at me and made scary sounds but the second time he Woo-woo’ed at me like a cow. I don’t get to play with them but sometimes Mama took me to see Bentley. She says he is my Brother-Husband because I’m going to live with him some day but we won’t make babies together. I like Bentley because he licks my ears and one day he sent me a blankey to lie on that smelled like him. 

 

Bentley and I haven’t seen each other since before I went back to the doctor for more ‘jections. I didn’t like those. I had to spend the night and got a ‘jection each day and they hurt and made me feel sad and tired again. When I went back to the Peaceabull house I only wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep but after a few days I was starting to feel like my normal self again.

 

The whole time I’ve been here the really nice people have been coming to visit me each week. Foster Mama calls them “My Parents.” She says they’ve been waiting for all of the wormys to go away so that they can adopt me and take me to live with Bentley. They are so nice and I always know when they are coming. I sit and watch the street and when I see their car I get so happy because they bring me treats and give me lots of pets and one day they even brought me a brand new fluffy pink blanket. Brand new! I was so excited to have something of my very own that was so soft and cuddly that I immediately showed how much I loved it by beginning to shred it like I do with all my stuffies. I thought for a minute I was going to get in trouble but they just laughed and let me play. I sleep with that blankie every night. It means a lot to me because when I was homeless I didn’t have anything that belonged just to me. I had a hand me down collar and a rope for a leash. 

 

I didn’t even have a name of my own, because on my paperwork I was called Princess 2. But foster Mama says that is all going to change. I have my own name and after something called One More Sleep, I’ll have my very own home.

It’s no secret to Facebookers that Bryn obviously lasted here past her ‘trial period,’ though it has been a bit rocky.  The first night we were so worried about all of the variables that we broke our own cardinal rule and Bryn slept in the guest room with Kevin.  He is a light sleeper and we figured that would be a better way to gauge her manners but we knew that wouldn’t last because of the amount of traveling Kevin does would necessitate a better plan.

A Rough Start

The second night it was just me and all of the four legged creatures in the house and I’d say it was eventful.  The Princess was not so much about the crate.  She busted out of a wire crate, (easy peasy for pretty much any pittie) an airliner, a tension gate and a stand up gate.  

I actually found her standing in the living room after this…actually, Julius and I found her there.  Luckily he was pretty neutral about the whole affair and she was close enough to the door that I just had to push her out. No kitties were eaten during this foray, so we figured out finally that while she was averse to confinement in one sense, she was perfectly content to dwell in her room with the door closed and thus we found a way for Bryn to live with us Peaceabully.

To say it’s been a challenge is putting it mildly.  Her prey drive is such that just to potty her, we gather the cats, put one behind closed doors because he will walk right up to her and shoo the other one, put my boys behind a gate, cover low windows where she may see a cat and proceed from there.  Every. Single. Time.

Decompressing

The upside is that as the days and weeks rolled on, her sweet spirit emerged.  She plays with toys, she wallows in the sun and has the biggest smile ever.  Heartworm treatment is never easy but I guess considering she is crated and rotated out of her very own guest suite, she is feeling pretty happy.

After all, she gets her own daybed with doggie stairs, my Amazon Echo, (as did Margeaux) and room service.

The Best Is Yet To Be

Very early in her stay with us, I had her at one of our adoption events, being handled by a “lucky charm” volunteer and wouldn’t you know; this woebegone dog who splayed out on the floor in the back of the action found herself a family to love her.  They spent time petting and loving on her as I told them the good, bad, and ugly of what I knew so far, what I had been told and what I had yet to verify. Not to be deterred, they filled out an application and after they were approved I set up a time for a meet and greet.

Bentley and Bryn

Meet and greet number one turned out to be great.  It may have been love at first sight, but due to the heartworms and presence of reproductive organs, the plan was to take it very slow and do multiple intros.  We’ve parallel walked, we’ve played on leash a bit and while Bentley is obsessed with Bryn’s ears, she seems so steady with him.  Unflappable is the word I would use to best describe Bryn. She is unflappable.

Her family has been eager and yet patient, visiting Bryn, bringing her thing to let her know she is loved already and have spent time with her each week.  As much as I can tell that she is happy here, I’m excited about how much better her life is going to get and she doesn’t even know it yet…

 

I guess it’s time to talk about how we came to foster the little Princess. It was just another Saturday and we were doing assessments of some dogs for intake. Most were dogs whose owners had contacted us about surrender but one was from a shelter in another town. She was either the third or fourth assessment of the day and Asia, my daughter, was meeting people in the parking lot and getting paperwork filled out while getting some of each dog’s story. 

Princess was on the E list at the shelter. We were told she was dog aggressive, had chased a cat and had busted through a screen (though no one could articulate why). Immediately I was on edge. Why would we waste a spot on a dog like that? Furthermore, she didn’t want to walk anywhere on her own, so there she stood with her head hung down mirroring her woebegone tail. No spark. She stood for all of the poking and prodding of the assessment with the stoicism of one who has seen it all and could no longer care about the outcome until the rawhide test. 

We’d found something that she was interested in and she caught a bit of a spark and seemed almost alive. Then during the parallel walk and brief interactions we were pleasantly surprised that she seemingly had no desire to attack the other dog. It was during this time that between looking at this dog who still had a small spark and the pleading face of my daughter that the word vomit erupted. “If she passes assessment, I will foster her.”  

Wait. What?

She obviously passed but some of her backstory was emerging and I hated the name Princess due to our own over use. I was thinking of Cecilia but I didn’t want her to break my heart or shake my confidence so I settled on Bryn which sounded enough like the beginning of her “old” name.

She was presented to us as four, but her paperwork said five and she looks to be closer to six, is heartworm positive, has some broken teeth, skin tags and some suspicious lumps. That, along with an unknown level of “cat chasing” was going to make her a trial foster just to see if she could remain peaceabully at the assembly.

Check back to read about the first full weekend.