Hattie puts her paw down

Over the past three weeks, we've been having some remodeling and repair done on our house. Some photos are below, not because they show the remodeling, but because they show the dogs during the remodel. It seemed to be more difficult than several years ago when we did the big remodel on the house although then we only had three dogs because that was right before Hattie was born and Hurricane Katrina hit. Daisy also was very friendly, something Gidget has yet to learn since she's afraid of her shadow although getting better, so we could often leave Daisy out with certain workers. Nestle is noisy so she couldn't be put in a bedroom or all of us would have needed a drink at 10:00 am to deal with her. We had some carpet removed and replaced with laminate flooring and then the next week we had the remaining carpet replaced with new carpet (shag! I never thought I'd like shag!). Because the carpet is in the opposite ends of the house, we (all six of us) had to be outside all day last Monday. That was hell. It was breezy and not very warm in the shade. When the workers went to lunch, we let the dogs inside with us and Nestle refused to leave the couch when it was time to go outside. That evening after they left, Joe was in his office with the dogs (we had replaced the flooring in there a year ago), and Hattie who never ever pees in our house, decided to pee right there in front of Joe. We knew then it was time to curtail the rest of the work for awhile. That happened five years ago when Chaco was the one to pee in the house and we, again, knew then we had to finish up and move on. They'd had enough and reality was so had we.

The Happiness of Routine

I think I was gone from home about half of the time (or more) between Labor Day and Columbus Day. I am grateful for all the opportunities I had but I am glad to be home. I now have about five weeks ahead of me before I leave Albuquerque again– the longest stretch since February of this year! What I missed most in my routine is what I actually dread most when I drag myself out of bed in the dark and coolness of the morning– running and walking the dogs. While I hate peeling myself out of my warm bed and know that I have about an hour and twenty minutes of constant movement ahead of me, I miss it more than anything when I'm away. Many times we forget to appreciate our routines because in some ways they can become monotonous and even drudgery when we do them everyday for months on end (or years!). But when they are taken away from us, we miss them. The key is to enjoy each moment we are in them which we should be doing anyway– life is about the present even though we must plan for the future. I love being out in the quiet of the morning, especially now that it's darker so fewer people out (I think a record number of people walked/ran around the park by my house this past summer) and the dogs and I can enjoy "taking our steps" as the run rising, something the Navajos believe is important to greet each day.

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.

The Ginger's Gift web site gets groomed

Check out the redesigned Ginger's Gift web site!

Ginger and Daisy move– and get a fenced-in yard!

Ginger and Daisy are happy clams. Although they weren't so happy in the beginning when Mom wasn't at the new house and they were (Mom was back at the old house supervising the furniture move and packing up the rest of her stuff), they love their new fenced-in yard. Ginger kept looking for Mom at the door to the garage like she always does when Mom isn't there but by the time I flew home on Monday, they were enjoying being able to go outside and lay on the patio or sniff the yard as long as they like. Because the house is a split level, we had to put a runner on the stairs to the lower level (they are hardwood) so that Daisy could get up and down without slipping. We couldn't coax her down there until Karen and I were leaving to go somewhere and Karen's dog Trevor and Ginger went running behind us as we left. Daisy followed along and has been up and down as if it's old hat since.

Gidget turns a year old

Gidget turned a year old yesterday. It's hard to believe that the twenty-some pound puppy we brought home at the end of December is now full-grown dog sitting between Joe and I on the couch tonight. I haven't weighed her recently and she still looks very young- thin and svelte– but she's definitely somewhere over 60 pounds. Her tail is barely off the ground but most of the time it's thumping a wall anyway. It's interesting to watch her behavior develop as she does. Seems like we make one step forward and two back. But it's also hard to believe that a year ago this time we were sadly watching Daisy fight her cancer. Her diagnosis came at the end of August and I remember Labor Day weekend because Joe was in Houston and Daisy had just had her biopsy and it was freaking me out that it wouldn't stop bleeding. We had no idea that that was minor compared to what was ahead. I can look behind me and the painting of Daisy is looking over all of us from the stairwell. I know that in some way she's with us and that she made sure Gidget came to us, but I admit I miss her. Each one of the dogs brings something unique to our household and to our relationships with them. And sometimes we don't realize it until it's too late. With Gidget, as much as she drives me up a wall running around and barking at things that aren't there, I remember to savor my time with her as I didn't understand to do with Daisy until it was too late. I better go do a little bonding with my dog. Daisy is looking over me and making sure that I do!

Hattie's 5th birthday and the debate over size of dog

Hattie is five years old today. It's hard to believe that five years ago this time we were finishing the remodel on the house and she was getting ready to survive Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi. A lot has happened in those five years as Ginger came to live with us for a short time (before flying to Chicago to be with Mom) just a few months later and then my dad died. I finished my doctorate and the list goes on. I'm not sure where Hattie is at the moment. I thought she was under the table where I'm working but I looked down and Gidget is to my left and Nestle is behind me. She's probably snoozing somewhere on a bed. She'll get one of her favorite dentastiks later and everyone else will get a rollhide bone. I was thinking about what might be interesting to blog about on Hattie's birthday and it occurred to me that there is one piece of information that was gleaned from my dissertation that relates to Hattie's size. She is our smallest dog– even at 36 pounds! She came to us at 6 pounds and just a few weeks old. Nestle is probably still the largest, hovering somewhere around 80 pounds although Gidget is almost a year old so we're not quite sure how big she'll get. For some reason, I've always thought bigger dogs worked for me although Joe told me that he wasn't sure if he would like having "such a small dog" as Hattie but he really began to appreciate her size since she can actually be a lap dog. The others would like to be lap dogs (I just typed "laptops"– the words that fall out of our fingers when we type...) but it's dangerous when Nestle lays on you and after a while you realize you can't breathe. When we were writing my dissertation survey, which reflected on if, how, and why people use dogs to help cope with human loss (by death), my chair, Dr. Virginia Shipman, suggested we ask a question about size to see if people prefer one size of dog over another. I had read in another study where they suggested studying fur length to see if one length was more helpful to people than another. When the 100-plus surveys had been analyzed, it showed that fur length didn't matter. Nor did the size of the dog. The reality is that we are unique people and we all like something different. I actually had asked Joe to bring me back a Golden Retriever from Mississipp but he found Hattie in a county shelter and picked her because she looked like a miniature Chaco. And here we are five years later.