My blog for today

Gidget barks a lot. Two weeks ago a neighbor's house was broken into so we've decided to let Gidget bark most of the time. People need to know that Gidget Linn-Gust means business. But the barking doesn't seem to wear her out as much as it does us. Go figure.

The Anniversary of Daisy's Death Looms

It's the evening before Thanksgiving and all I can think about is how last year this time we were coming up on Daisy's last weekend with us. We had hoped she would make it to Christmas, but she only could last through Devlan's visit from Belize. Although I was disappointed that we have no houseguests for Thanksgiving this year, I am grateful for Veronica, our cleaning lady, who invited us to her house for an evening of Mexican food instead. On Friday, I will cook our turkey and our traditional meal. Sometimes when these first anniversaries loom, we need to mix up our plans and do something different. Over the weekend, I received an email from a man who had read my article in High Desert Dog about Daisy's cancer. He said his two-year-old German Shepherd was going through the same thing and wanted some help. His dog has been given just two weeks to live and probably will be euthanized next week because of the deterioration to the dog's hip from the tumor. I'm sure I'm more sensitive to all this now with Daisy's death happening a year ago on December 2, but no matter, it's still sad.I try to give Gidget extra attention and take her outside to play ball more. It's hard not to linger in the past because it is our path to the present but none of us should stay there. Enjoy the present while we have it. Happy Thanksgiving.

Rebonding with Gidget

When we let Gidget start sleeping outside her crate at night, she instantly gravitated to spending the night in bed with me. Unfortunately, this made Hattie mad (the dog who had been sleeping with me for some time) and she stopped sleeping with me. But after all my travel that culminated in multiple back-to-back trips in September, Gidget no longer wanted to sleep with me. Instead, I would find her wandering the house, like Chaco, at night, or her leftover fur would give away which piece of furniture she had been sleeping on. Yesterday the dog guardian (mom, whatever your choice is to call a person who takes in a dog like a human) of a dog named Joey, the Richmond, Virginia, SPCA mascot, knew it was time to euthanize Joey after almost 13 years of life. He had had cancer before but his body was failing him. I don't personally know Joey or his mom. He (she) friended me to his account on Facebook probably because we know some mutual people in Virginia. But seeing that Joey was going to transition this morning, took me right back to Daisy and the anniversary of her death just two weeks away. I couldn't help but let the tears fall. I wanted to hug my dogs and let them know I loved them. Nestle was okay at first but she ran away. Hattie and Chaco already were long gone. But Gidget stayed there with me and let me hug her to my heart's content. I don't know what goes on in Gidget's head, but in the past week or so she has been the most loving of a dog that she's been since we got her almost a year ago. It might be coincidence with her age development. Or it might be that she knows intuitively about Daisy's anniversary. Whatever it is, last night she slept with me.

Michelle’s Thoughts About Coping With Daisy’s Terminal Cancer Appears In High Desert Dog Magazine

While I’m traveling to Canada and Washington, DC, here’s my article that appears in the current issue of High Desert Dog magazine, www.highdesertdog.com (page 45) about lessons learned from Daisy’s terminal cancer.

Spring arrives as the Linn-Gust house

Despite the snow that is currently falling outside the window the pool is being opened tomorrow. Gidget has had 2 1/2 months to play on the winter pool cover and tomorrow we find out how much she likes water. She likes to walk toward the middle of the pool and create puddles to drink out of (and sit in). Our past experience has been that the dogs are afraid of the pool when they first are introduced to it but we'll find out for sure tomorrow. For the most part, the others have been easy– not getting in when we're in the house, etc. But Gidget might need a little more disciplining especially as I had food poisoning Thursday/Friday and she didn't get her walk. Instead she spent the day (as I lay on the couch) wreaking havoc with toilet paper and anything she could find in my shower. She managed to drag several items across the master bedroom. Right now she's outside chasing herself around the backyard in the mud.

Gidget is 37.7 pounds! Yikes!

I am in Chicago but the report from home is that Gidget now weighs 37.7 pounds. She's not quite six months. When I got Daisy who was about five to six months old, she was 26 pounds. She also had a parasite but yikes is Gidget going to be a big girl! About a week ago, it was like her legs grew in a matter of hours. I saw her standing out on the pool cover and at the same time Joe (who was looking at her out another window), and I remarked how long her legs looked. I'm attaching a few more photo of her and the others. Joe took Gidget to see the holistic vet, Dr. Wilson, yesterday because we've been having issues with Gidget eating everything in the yard and our concern for her intestinal tract. Joe talked to Dr. Wilson about how we would do things differently knowing hindsight obviously is 20-20 since Daisy died. I was thinking this morning about all the people who post on various sites how much the supplements and this or that that they gave their dog have been working. But I look back on Daisy's life and I don't think any of that would have helped even without the chemo that caused the tumor to rupture. It appears to me that Daisy's life was supposed to be short and we extended it because we thought we were trying to help her. Now I see that we should have tried to help her by keeping her comfortable and letting her go when she was ready which would have been sooner than we would have allowed. Lesson learned.

Settling in

It's been another week and I still can't believe that Gidget has just been with us about 1 1/2 weeks. She started going for walks last week with Nestle although Gidget's idea is to try and grab Nestle's leash so she can chew on it. She also is getting a second walk in the afternoon which is helping to wear her out– she's usually asleep by 7 pm! Last night she was up for a short time after plus a few bathroom breaks made mandatory by me but she is going to sleep easily and staying asleep until I get up at 5:30. She has not used the house as her bathroom in almost 72 hours. Yahoo! And she is playing a lot with the others, particularly Hattie. Gidget likes going outside during the day and finding out what Chaco is doing (he's been spending a lot of time in the sun out there) and then sometimes Hattie will follow and Gidget will chase Hattie all over the yard. Everyone on our walks keeps saying how cute she is but she would rather bark at people than let them talk to her. She loves going up the stairs and it's been interesting watching her develop. I don't remember this about Hattie. The best I can figure is that we have so little recollection of Hattie's puppyhood because she was sick. Right now Gidget is sleeping next to a bone.

Gidget at home

Life is slowly transitioning to our new normal. We were in such a routine for several years that I forgot how much work a new dog can be. Sometimes I scratch my head and can't believe we had six in the house at one time (Ginger and Elvis). Then we had different chaos when Daisy was sick. Now we have the chaos of four dogs, one of which is a scampering puppy. From where I'm sitting, I can see her outside running around with the others although she's standing at the door now, waiting for Joe to let her inside again. She's been such a squirmy wormy it's been difficult to get some good photos but I'm posting a few here.

Happy 9th birthday, Chaco!

It's hard to believe that Chaco came to live with us seven years ago today. I'm still in awe that for seven years I've been running around the park around my house because that means I've also aged seven years and that doesn't seem possible! But Chaco moving in was the start of a new journey for me, that or learning about the human-animal companion bond. It's obviously changed my life in many ways. And, as I write this, Gidget is snoozing on the floor in front of me after an hour of scampering around the house and chewing on a bone. She represents the start of a new journey in our house as well as we continue to transition our bond with Daisy to a much different one now that she has "passed on" to another life and help Gidget grow into an adult German Shepherd and work to keep her holistically healthy so that she may not live the short life that Daisy did. And it all began seven years ago when a quiet chow mix came peeking around the corner at our friend Jim's house.