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.

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.