Family pictures (sort of...)

In March, I got a new camera, and of course I had to start testing out the new capabilities of the camera and needed willing (or not) models for my efforts. In the last month, I've gotten a lot of pictures of the kids - our four rescued cocker spaniels. Three of them came from Oldies But Goodies Cocker Spaniel Rescue and one from Tired Dog Rescue

Truman

Truman has been with us the longest and is finally enjoying his spot as the senior member of the pack.  We call him our James Cagney because he is the smallest one, but he's the alpha - he's feisty.

He's very protective - especially of Gloria, and he's the one who gets the whole gang barking in the morning when he decides it's breakfast time (never mind what Mommy or Daddy, or the alarm clock say.)

But he doesn't like rain or snow very much.

Jacques

Jacques came to us from Tired Dog Rescue in Mississippi. We call him our southern gentleman. He had one eye removed, and the other is almost blind from glaucoma, so he doesn't go running with the others when they are let out. He is a quieter soul and makes his way around, but not in any rush.

 He's a beautiful boy who loves to sit on a lap (Mommy or Daddy) and get loving and give kisses.

I caught him shaking his ears - and then trying to be cool; like it never happened.

Buddy Bear

Buddy Bear has been with us the least amount of time (by a couple weeks less than Jacques.)  Buddy is funny because he's so mellow that it can be hard to get a picture of him with his eyes open. If he's standing still for more than just a couple of minutes, his eyes stat to droop and he's getting ready for a nap.

He had just gotten a haircut and was outside running around. 

Truman and Buddy Bear checking out some traffic on the street and making sure that the yard was safe.

OK, he's been sitting still for long enough - time for a nap.

Precious

Now let me introduce our Diva. Precious is the lady of the group and she is a DIVA. Along with Truman, she is one of the ones to start the whole pack barking.  She loves, loves, loves racing out the back door and doing circles around the back yard.  Along with her not liking to stand still, her coat makes it a challenge to get good pictures.

Oh Daddy, are you trying to get another picture?

I am definitely her person. When I go to sit in my recliner in the evenings she is jumping into my lap before I'm even sitting down.

So these are the key Rescue elements of my Rescue Garden who are with us now. Their predecessors have crossed the Rainbow Bridge, but we'll all be together again in our Father's house.

Santa's village

Santa and Mrs. Clause have been busy getting ready for a special season of blessings and joy.  Instead of trying to post too many pictures, or writing a post that goes on forever, I'm visiting around the house in several posts.  Today We'll take a stroll through the Christmas Village.

The village has been a work in progress for many years. It is one of Gloria's annual efforts. She has been picking out new pieces for literally decades as we find special buildings or characters or elements that she likes.  It has found a home on 2 tables 4'x2' and the bar for the highlands (there should be a joke in there somewhere, but it won't show up until after I have hit 'publish.')

The village shows a lot of our own interests, two churches, a coffee shoppe, a pet salon, toy shop, 2 dog walkers, several inns, but only two houses, and as you can see - a train right up in front of the whole scene.

The highlands (on the bar) also hosts a lighthouse, but I'm not sure why.  There really isn't a nautical theme anywhere else. I guess it's from living in Maryland right next to the Chesapeake Bay and going over to the Eastern Shore regularly to see Gloria's family.  The highlands also are home to the school and the residential neighborhood.

Down in the commercial district is the heart of the village.

There are a couple of frozen ponds in the park in the foreground and in the center of the village is the church. There are plenty of people (and dogs) out enjoying the fresh snowfall and getting ready for Christmas eve.

And we can't forget the kids.

Santa's Workbench Toy Shoppe is right next door to the Posh Pets Salon (with one of the dog walkers right outside the pet salon.) So we're ready for the two legged and the four legged kids.

There's a lot more going on from the tree lot to the inns, but this is just one stroll through the village.

Christmas Photo Day with the family

Well, the outside lights are up, not plugged in yet, but they're up.  I took advantage of the weather last weekend to get the outdoor portion done.  All that's left is getting some pine roping and finishing the front patio and hanging the big wreath on the outside of the garage.  That will be done (weather permitting) on the Friday after Thanksgiving so that evertything is ready to be plugged in on that evening.

Today if was time for a family Christmas photo.  We haven't done one before, but decided this year we needed some pictures with the new kids.  And since I'm not going to be able to be Santa at PetSmart (they changes how they're doing pet photos with Santa this year) I wanted to get my Father Christmas gown out and get some pictures with our kids.  You can't really see it, but the Father Christmas outfit is a floor length red velvet gown (for lack of a better word) with oversized sleeves and plush fur trim.  It's very impressive when I'm standing up (especially since I'm 6'4" tall.)

For the last few years I've been able to be Santa at a local PetSmart and have lots of fun showing off the outfit, but not this year.

So instead, I'll share some pictures with the kids.

From the left: Buddy Bear, Jacques, me, Truman, and Precious.

The bear over my right shoulder is wearing an outfit that my mother saved that used to be mine many many moons ago, a red plaid vest and shorts.  The bunnies over my left shoulder hang out on the couch when they're not filling in for the Easter Bunny.

And we don't want to forget:

Simba

I'll have plenty more pictures of the lights after Thanksgiving when I have them plugged in.  The tree will have to wait until December.  It doesn't go up until the first weekend in December.

TRADITION - can't mess with it.

This week I get to finalize the plans for various holiday activities at work, it will probably include a gift exchange, a wall to share pictures of holiday traditions, a giving tree with gifts for local children, a holiday sweater contest and maybe an extra surprise or two. (We've got to do something with homemade cookies so that I can make my Scottish Shortbread (As far as I'm concerned it's not really Christmas until I smell shortbread baking.)

Our Family is Growing

This year has been over taken with issues with the four legged members of the family.  Between Jume and October we lost four dogs, one to dementia and 3 to cancer,  There are earlier posts on this blog to each of them written as we had to say goodbye.

Now I am able to post about the healing we have found as new four legged children have entered the family.

Truman has been with us for about 2 years and has gone through all this with us.  I don't know what he is thinking about all of it, with familiar dogs leaving and new dogs coming into the house.

Shortly after Labor day we welcomed Precious to the family.

She came in as a foster for Oldies But Goodies Cocker Rescue, but we realized very quickly that she had found her forever home.  I am very clearly her person, and she is my dog (but don't tell Gloria - it's a secret.)

Precious has lots of energy and has lightened up the household with her youth and excitement. Every time we open the back door she races out, even if she was just out 2 minutes earlier.

About a week ago we picked up anothe Foster for OBG, his name is Buddy Bear.

He's found a home here as well, we just haven't done the paperwork yet.  We hope he'll get the collar off on Tuesday when he has an appointment with the vet.  He had a minor lesion removed from his eyelid and we don't want him scratching.

And on Friday we picked up Jacque from Tired Dog Rescue. He was transported up here from Mississippi by Rescue Road Trip.  We were told he has a wonderful temperament, and it's true.  Even though he's the newcomer to the pack, he is fitting in well.

It's a time of healing and filling the lonely places we were left with over the summer of losses. We have been fortunate to be introduced to these lovely new members of our family.

Our Old Man Hardy

On Tuesday we had to take another one of our furbabies to the Rainbow Bridge.  Here is a memorial shared by Gloria on Facebook.

We took a walk today! One that is all too familiar and that we don't enjoy. But never is that walk done alone. This evening we walked our beloved Hardy to the Rainbow Bridge. In your previous life you were tossed aside and wanted no more. 15 yrs was too old said your owner. You were blind and deaf and a hassle to deal with. We heard your story and sight unseen you stole our heart. Angels Terry Maguire-Casillas and Publio Casillas in Mississippi shared your story and Angels of the airPilots N Paws brought you to us. You were so adorable and all you wanted was to be cuddled and be loved. Your favorite spot - mommies shoulder, not daddies, but mommies. Snuggling had to be right between mommy and daddy. Food you knew exactly where it was. The eyes and ears may not of worked but the nose most definitely did. You grew older and slept longer and had a hard time standing up at times, but you still loved life and food! The memory started going and life seemed to be going in circles, but you still loved be cuddled by mommy and food well you're a cocker what more needs to be said. We are honored to have shared the last 2 1/2 yrs of your life. We walked you to Rainbow Bridge tonight with tears and much sadness. We held and snuggled you for the last time we gave you kisses and told you to run free and look at the beautiful colors and hear all the beautiful sounds at Rainbow Bridge. You took a part of our heart with you tonight, but left the rest of our heart with love and wonderful memories. Sweet runs and dreams our dear Hardy and until we hold you again!.

New Fosters and Old Friends

The Dog Days of summer are over and the garden has finally been getting some heat and humidity, but I think the planst are off cycle and we haven't seem the rolling blooms as the season progresses like we have the last two years.  I did discover a hibuscus growing in the front yard.  I didn't think that hibuscus could grow outdoors here, but this one has.  It's been blooming in the front corner of the house and is over 8 ft. tall.  It's been growing with a nandina and is intertwined in the multiple stalks of the nandina.

Inside the house the Dog Days arrived a couple weeks late.  With the passing of Sadie and Austin within 2   months of each other this summer, we had a dog shaped hole in our home.  Truman was enjoying getting all the attention since Hardy is sleeping most of the time these days. But we were feeling a gap in our lives and our laps - Austin was a cuddlebug who soaked up all the lap time he could get.

A call came out from Oldies But Goodies Cocker Spaniel Rescue (OBG) for fosters to help with the end of summer holiday crunch.  Thanks to all the fosters, OBG has not closed to new intakes, but the foster homes are getting full.  Since Gloria is not working outside the house she has had time to help with some transports for new dogs and has met several of the new dogs as they are being taken into OBG's care.  When the call for fosters cam out, we knew that we had space and love to share with some of these new kids.

The middle of last week we brought Precious and Fallon into our home as temporary fosters who were scheduled to go to a long term foster on this coming Wednesday.  If you're paying attention you've noticed that I used the past tense for those plans. Yep.

Precious - I found my forever mommy!!

What are you looking at?

Truman was even enough of a gentleman to show Precious where the food is kept, they're watching Mommy in the pantry getting dinner dished up.

Precious looks so much like Sadie that we are thinking of her as a younger Sadie. Precious does have a new mannerism that we're having a lot of fun watching.  Whenever we go to the sliding glass door to let her out, she crouches down, like she's taking a starting position.  And as soon as we open the door she goes tearing out the door, across the patio towards the bird feeder.  She runs up into the garden a few paces, turns around and runs across the width of the yard.  We don't think she's caught any birds yet, but she's scared some of the ground feeders.

Precious has gotten along well with Truman and Simba and leaves Hardy alone, for the most part.  We've decided she is filling the hole in our home and we've decided she has found her forever home, we're going to adopt her.

At the same time that Precious came for her "temporary" stay, we also got Fallon for a week before she moved on.

Fallon hanging out looking pretty in the living room.

Gloria got an email from someone in VA. who was interested in adopting Fallon.  Yesterday we took Fallon about 1/2 way there and met the potential adopter at a Petsmart for a ""Meet and Greet" to see how Fallon did. 

Can I have a forever home too?

You've probably guessed - Fallon has an adoption pending, One of the other OBG volunteers is doing the home check tomorrow and we are making plans to get Fallon down there, assuming the home check passes (a good bet since the same person has adopted 3 other OBG dogs in the past.)

A couple days after Precious and Fallon arrived, we got two girls who were scheduled as long term fosters.  They are bonded sisters and one is blind.  Since we are experienced with blind dogs, and we had room for a pair, we were a good home for them to come into.  The girls are named Bella and Leyla.  Bella is a year or two younger, Leyla is the blind girl.

This is Bella chilling out on the loveseat.

Bella getting some Mommy time.

It's hard work being so cute.

Right now she is laying/sleeping in my lap and I need to reach over her to get to the keyboard.  She's not adapting too well and we need to keep her crated most of the time to keep her from attacking Leyla, Precious, or Truman.  We've had make the decision  that our home is not the right place for her, even though she is a cuddlebug. If she could get along with the others then she could stay; but we don't want to keep her in a crate 20 hours a day.

Bella's sister is Leyla, a slightly more mellow girl who doesn't let her blindness slow her down.

Leyla spending some time stretched out in Daddy's office.

Nap time

Is it time for the next photo shoot?

Leyla is another sweetie, but she's nor adapting well to all the other dogs.  She's been fighting and we've needed to keep her crated as well.  We really want to find them a long term home where they don't have to spend the majority of the day in a crate. But we know that that home is not here.

And along with the new fosters, Truman and Hardy have been great.

Truman is waiting his turn to go outside with Mommy.

We're trying to give them all attention and loving, but going from 2 to 6 in a couple days has decidedly made this into a labor day weekend.  It's a labor we chose, and we love, but a labor none the less.

By the way, I'm going to blame all the typos on Bella, she is still asleep in my lap.

Walking Austin to the Rainbow Bridge

We have another hole in our family again today.  Just two months after saying goodbye to Sadie we had to say goodbye to Austin.  He woke us early this morning and cried out.  We got him up in bed, but he was very lethargic. We kept him up there for an hour, giving him lots of love. When Gloria put him down he didn't seem to be able to use his back legs.  He woke us again a couple hours later and we put him up in bed with us again.  We knew that is was time to let him go.  Once the vet was open we called and they said we could bring him in immediately.  One of the doctors delayed her surgery schedule to help us let him go.

Yesterday he was walking around, eating, just being our lovable cuddle-bug. Last night I was sitting on the couch rubbing Gloria's feet and he came around the side of my chair and just put his chin up on the seat. He was looking for Daddy to get some attention.

He has left a hole in our lives, a whole that will not quickly heal.  We miss you Austin.

Austin came to us as a stray who had been micro-chipped, but the previous owner did not want him back when contacted. He had one eye damaged from trauma, but the other one was fine.  We took him in as a foster at first, but he quickly found a spot in our laps and in our lives. Since adopting him he has lost a battle with glaucoma and gone blind in the other eye and had to have it removed after it became infected while battling the glaucoma. But he adapted quickly and we learned that his hearing was not totally gone like we had thought.  And we had plenty of evidence that his nose still worked.  And there were still times he would beat me down the hall to the bedroom at night - he knew the routine, the kids get treats before we go to bed.  He'd be down the hall and on my side of the bed when I walked into the bedroom.

I was at a funeral yesterday and the preached said something I've never considered before.  He started with the bible verse "Joy comes with the morning;" and continued with "but the morning starts in darkness."  "The morning starts with darkness" - a comforting and profound and simple statement.  We are in darkness in our sorrow over losing Austin. But in this darkness is the promise of morning and joy.  We will hold on to each other in the darkness and wait for the promise of light.

Gloria and I thank everyone for their kind thoughts, prayers, and condolences.

Tough Choices Delayed

It was a rough day yesterday.  We took our cuddle-bug, Austin, in for an ultrasound.

About two weeks ago, Gloria discovered a growth inside his lower right lip. We got him into the vet and they said it was cancer.  This was only about a month after we had to Say Goodbye to Sadie. so it hit hard.  We took him in for blood work and x-rays a couple days later and they told us he had an enlarged liver.

They said we should try and find out what was wrong with the liver before we tried any surgery for the cancer on his lip since some of the sedatives need to be processed by the liver and just to know if the cancer had spread to the liver. If it was not cancer then it was probably cushings disease.  If it was cushings then there was a treatment, but it was for the rest of his life, and could get expensive with the meds and the tests to be sure that the meds were at the right dosage.

So, we got him into the Greater Annapolis Animal Hospital yesterday for an ultrasound to see  (hear?) what's going on.  We found out he has a large mass in his liver and the bile in his gallbladder is thickening.  Either one of these could be addressed, but with the combination of these two and the cancer in his mouth, there is too much to overcome, he probably would not make it through all the necessary surgeries

After talking with the doctor at the hospital, and a call with our family vet we know what we need to do.  We're going to watch him and focus on providing the best quality of life we can for his remaining months.

After the two consultations yesterday, we're thinking he probably has three to six months left.  We will cuddle and snuggle and continue to spoil him as much as we can in the time left.  If he looks like he's in pain, we have some painkillers, but once he starts losing his appetite we'll know it's time to say goodbye; again.

We don't think he'll object to the extra cuddling and snuggling.  A couple years ago we had some friends over to the house after we had gone out to dinner and were sitting in the family room visiting.  I was holding Austin and petting him.  After awhile I put him down and he walked over to Gloria and she picked him up and held him for awhile.  When she put him down he came back over to me. This went on for most of the visit and finally our friends were laughing and told us what was happening.  We never noticed, but he had us trained very well.  He would walk in front of us and sit down and we would pick him up.  We've been onto him ever since, but we let him get away with it as much as he wants.

On another front, Hardy is not doing very well.  He is slowly deteriorating and suffering from dementia.

He is  almost 18 years old now and is totally blind and deaf. He spends most of his time sleeping. When he is awake he walks in clockwise circles most of the time.  He has even worn a bare spot in the grass in the yard right where he likes to pace in circles.  We can also see him having a more difficult time laying down and getting up. We think it's arthritis and are giving him what we can to make him comfortable.  But lately he's been getting stuck more and more around the house.  He seems to have forgotten, or lost, the ability to back up.  We've found him stuck a couple times between the toilet and the bathtub and he can't turn around or backup to get out.  

I've been talking to Gloria about his quality of life and we have been working ourselves up to the point of letting him go, but now with Austin, I don't know if we can say goodbye to three (including Sadie) in such a short time.  But we know that we need to make the tough choices.

Giving Mommy Kisses

It's part of fostering and adopting the older and special needs dogs that we've been taking into our lives for years.  It just seems so tough right now, to have to make the hard choices for so many in such a short period of time. And we don't want to lose sight of Truman. He's doing fine, but not getting as much of our attention as the others.

We'll make the choices we need to make and I'll keep posting pictures and reflections of the process we're going through.

While the garden outside is getting almost too much rain (I really need to do some weeding, but it's raining and I don't need to do it that urgently) thie rescue garden inside is weathering stormy times as nature follows her course and we have to learn to say goodbye again.

Saying goodbye to Sadie

We took Sadie in as a foster about 3 years ago when her mom was going into a nursing home and couldn't keep her anymore.  We promised her mom that we would take care of her and find her a good home.  We've never found her the right home and she’s been part of our family here ever since.  Tonight we’re going to have to say goodbye.  She’s 15 years old, has cancer, glaucoma, and a persistent ear infection that the best specialists in the area cannot clear up.  We've seen her slowing down over the past couple of weeks, and she’s stopped eating.  We've been through this enough with our elderly dogs that we know it is time to say goodbye and let her go.

I’ll remember her as the one who was so attached to me that she had to sleep up in bed between my legs. When I came home from the hospital after my heart attack she wouldn't let me get more than about 6 feet away from her for most of the month I was recovering at home.  She has never been a lap dog, but she makes sure she has a spot where she can see me and keep an eye on me when I’m home. She follows me from room to room and when it’s time for bed she’s been known to stand in the living room and bark, calling me to the bedroom down the hall so that she can get up in bed. She usually beat me down the hall and was waiting on the corner of the bed by the time I got to the door.  She had an assertive personality, her nicknames have included “Sassy Sadie” and “Princess Sadie.” She’s a barker and that was why we had to insist that any potential adopters lived in a single family home – she would have been a poor neighbor in an apartment or row house.  She also did not do well at adoption shows since she was usually trying to dominate the other dogs by barking and carrying on.  So we were never able to find the right home and we became her forever home.

Tonight we have an appointment at the vet to let her go. We've done this before, and we’ll probably do it again, but it’s never going to get any easier. I’ll hold her in my arms on the drive over; we’ll carry her in and a little while later we’ll leave without her.  We’ll come home and give the other three some extra loving and attention and going to bed tonight won’t be the same.  I’ll have too much leg room.

We'll meet again at the rainbow bridge.