Christmastime, or the Holiday Season, or whatever you call it is a time we get to pull out the totes of decorations and peek into the homes of our friends through pictures and posts.  I love having our Christmas decorations up and especially more so now that we’ve added prelit trees to our home.  The past few years we’ve played around with color schemes and added all the pretties that went with our most recent former home.  This year I was excited to see how the holiday decorating would unfold at this new house.  I’ve always abided by the no decorating before Thanksgiving rule, but this year I felt motivated and  the beautiful snowfall on the Saturday before sent me over the edge and I pulled out the tree and trimmings. (Timehop tells me I decorated early last year too.)

 

 
Although the fireplace in the living room still needs to be refaced and the mantle needs to be replaced, we are moving in the right direction. 

   

  Trim painting continues and has moved to the dining room, so there are a few things that haven’t yet been decorated, but it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

   
    
   
When do you decorate and do you switch up the design ever?

Much like my post at the end of October detailing why I didn’t participate daily in Pit Bull Appreciation Month, I chose to not do a daily thankfulness post in November. While I have done these posts in the past and I enjoy reading those of others; some have been silly and sweet and some very somber and I “get” why we do it, I have to admit that I didn’t think I could muster thirty things in thirty days that would cover all that I am truly thankful for.

Why?  Because when I sit and ponder all that I am thankful for I know that the list would be long and yet still incomplete so in a backward sort of thankfulness post, here are some of the things I am blessed to be able to complain about.

I lost my little Pampered Chef chopping  tool and haven’t seen it since April.  In April after having lived in a house we absolutely loved for only 16 months, we moved to our new house for Ray.  I love this sprawling home with all of the storage and none of the stairs so that our dog wouldn’t have to try and climb up and down every day.  I’m thankful for an understanding husband and all the things that made this move possible.

I have to get my roots touched up every four weeks.   In my mind I still have the same brillo pad Roseanne Rosannadanna hair that I had when I was 13 but in reality, my hair is healthy and grows at the rate of nearly an inch per month.  I’m thankful that things do change, plus I love chatting with my stylist.

Sometimes the house is too quiet. My daughter is forging a beautiful life of her own in her own home.  She and my granddaughter are on a great adventure together and have blossomed in their independence.  They’ve also opened their home by adopting two wonderful dogs and fostering others.

Sometimes the house is too loud… and messy.  Because they still come to visit.  Because we have friends and family who fill our lives and hearts.

I feel like I have very little free time.  I’m fortunate to have a job that I like and one that allows me the means to pursue my passions to be a part of some wonderful organizations who make a difference in the lives of animals.  Through the Allen County SPCA I’ve been honored to work with the Pet Promises team to assist pet lovers in the underserved portions of our community and through the Fort Wayne Pit Bull Coalition I’m able to help save lives and enrich homes through adoptions. I’m especially honored to serve on the boards of both organizations.

I can no longer wear my diamond wedding set. I’ve (obviously) had plenty food and drink on my table, so when the extra pounds layered on I waited too long for safety and ended up harming my finger for quite some time.  In the meantime, I poured over pictures to get ideas on how I would have my rings reset, after all shouldn’t this reset be big and bold for all to see how the love Kevin and I have shared has grown?  No, not necessarily.  I wear a new symbol of our commitment on my finger and it is the silver band he bought me last year for Christmas.  On it is engraved “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”  I’m thankful for loving someone who “gets” me.

And finally, I can’t find a way to couch this in a complaint, so I’ll just end by saying how thankful I am for all of you.  For anyone who has ever stopped by here and for anyone who has ever commented, I thank you for hanging in there with us and for letting us share a piece of our hearts with you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’ve been around rescue long enough, you see those easy dogs and you see the not-so-easy dogs and then there are the really hard dogs.  This story is mostly about the middle one.  But first, a little bit about Lucky, or as my daughter was calling him, Lucky Duck.  The Fort Wayne Pit Bull Coalition was working on a foster so that we could pull him and the first one we tried was a definite no-go.

Lucky is about a year to a year and a half old and the prospective foster dogs didn’t want anything to do with a youngin’ so he sat at the shelter a few days longer until my sweet daughter stepped up.  Asia has been on a break from fostering and we’ve tried a couple of dogs with Sugar who seemed unwilling to pay it forward and accept another foster sibling but we decided to give it a try.  Sugar met with Lucky and it was completely uneventful so with happy hearts we loaded the two into cars and headed to Asia’s where Chance awaited.  And completely took issue with another dog being near his mommy.  Since we had another foster lined up for Lucky on Monday, Asia agreed to keep him overnight and on Saturday while running around some, we would deliver him back to the Coalition’s veterinarian’s office for the weekend.

 

Lucky is one of those dogs who weasel their way quickly into your heart with his big-headed, floppy lipped awesomeness. After running our errands we were both nearly in tears thinking he’d have to go back to a kennel even for a weekend so I began searching my brain for an alternative.  Finally, I decided to call an approved adopter who was waiting to meet a couple of our other dogs.  I explained to her that while we had talked about Lucky possibly being too large (at 72 pounds) he actually wasn’t too big (it being mostly head) and that he is also completely awesome.  Being that they lived nearby, they came to meet Lucky and decided to take him home at least until Monday to convince their female dog that she loved him too.  After just half a day I received a text confirming that he was awesome and the following day a text arrived that he was too awesome to not become a part of their family.

Lucky has that je ne sais quoi that everyone just responds to immediately which contributed to his finding an home practically before becoming officially available.

Brown Bear is a completely different story. As you can see, they look quite similar, though Lucky weighs in at 72 pounds, Brown Bear might be closer to 50 pounds.

However Brown Bear was pulled into rescue in August, has been adopted and returned once and has gone two other times to prospective adopters for a trial run only to be returned. He is now in his second foster home and while everyone has great feed back and has been heartbroken to not take him, his search for a forever home continues.

When I first met Brown Bear, I admit he wasn’t my immediate favorite due mostly to the sound of his bark which sounds like something between a duck and a rusty nail scraping on slate.  After spending more time with him I see his sweet and loving soul.  He has lived with children from toddler aged to 18 years old, other dogs and with cats.  I’m told that he was extremely appropriate with the young children and that his only downfall is his exuberance while walking on leash.

He is the strongest small dog with the biggest heart, ever. Someday his family will come and he will be settled, so until that day, he has a small army of caretakers to wrap him in love and help him along on his journey.

 

 

 

 

On a day that seemed like a day from Bizarro World two very strange things happened and I learned something that I already knew.

First, Ray who doesn’t really get to interact much with other dogs got to take a very nice walk with Sugar.

Of course they know each other from when she was our foster, but well, we’re talking about Ray and his social skills are a bit slow. It took a couple of weeks of just looking at her before an intro and then once they met, we kept the interactions short and sweet.

The other thing? I didn’t want to write about it:  The stigma! The embarrassment! but I think it’s important in the lesson that can be taught. Julius just finished a 10 day bite quarantine (in-home).

Oh my dawg, it pains me hurts me embarrasses me to say that. My Julius, my ambassador of welcome, my little black pit bull, now has a record. While I would blissfully love nothing more than to sweep this under a rug and move on, I believe  that in the long run it will be better to share this reminder and possibly even better that it was Julius, which makes it that much more unexpected and that much more impactful.

I picked Julius up at Day Play as usual, only it wasn’t a usual day.  Because of some scheduling conflicts, I sent him on a day that he doesn’t typically attend, thus with many dogs he doesn’t know well.  When Ray was a younger asshole pup I remember hoping that the magical age of two would bring a bit of maturity and settle him some.  It actually happed for him right around 15 months, which was a relief but that 2 year mark always seems to be the standard by which personalities are more settled.  Julius, who is still open and friendly is now just over two and a half and slightly less tolerant of the youngins shenanigans.  This is possibly from his stint as Foster Step Father to the Sugar Babies, or just from his natural maturing but on that day, he was napping contentedly when a dog stepped on him and startled him awake and he lashed out at the nearest dog, who unfortunately for her was an innocent bystander.  There was no “fight” and no one had to be “pulled off” of anyone else but Julius did administer a puncture to a muzzle and that was enough to result in the necessary notifications to Animal Care.

 

  

We’re fortunate that since it didn’t happen here at home, at least it happened in a place that he is known, loved and cared for and he wasn’t regarded as some rampaging black pit bull who suddenly snapped and got out of control (as they all eventually do, of course.)  He hasn’t been banned but we are now going to limit his days to those in which there aren’t too many hyper puppies and keep him with his established group of friends.  I must admit, that it took quite a while to not feel like my kid was the school bully and that I must have done something wrong for this to have happened, but it reminded me of something that in my proud-dog-mom-smugness have let slip from my mind. As I’m so often out in public with not only my own dogs but with various adoptable dogs from the Pit Bull Coalition as well as Allen County SPCA, people ask, “does it bite?” and my response is nearly always “every dog with a mouth can bite” but it is up to us to not put them in a situation where they might.

Not making excuses here, but Juli’s incident may be the most difficult one to predict or guard against.  What can I do to help?  Well, I can be thoughtful in the decision making process as to whether or not he should go to Day play on a certain day.  Reports from that day were that he was being “off” and clingy with the girls, wanting lots of attention so maybe being more mindful of his mood at home.  With Ray’s TTA rehab walks I might need to remember that a few minutes of clicker training or walking (both of which Julius enjoys) would go a long way toward stimulating his mind and tiring him.  Remembering that even the happiest of dogs have off days just like humans is so important to maintaining that good balance and finally, remembering that all dogs could bite.

So, that’s our story.