Bad evening
Jan. 17th, 2011 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
whogeekFound out that my dog, who we thought was going to make it through surgery/treatment for cancer ok, got really, really, really bad this weekend. They're putting her down tonight. I'm going to go take a shower, and possibly cry myself to sleep.
This is my baby. She fell asleep outside my room one evening, and I snapped this picture of her when she rolled onto her back.
This is my baby. She fell asleep outside my room one evening, and I snapped this picture of her when she rolled onto her back.
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Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 04:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 04:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 04:41 am (UTC)How old was she? What breed? What was her favorite squeaky toy? Did she have any personality quirks? Did she like to wake you up with her slobber-flinger in your ear?
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Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 04:52 am (UTC)She was... would have been 11 in February. She was a brittany, but kind of a quirk of the breed, too much feathering in all the wrong places. Her favorite toy was this little dinosaur squeaky toy we called Dino. She liked to chase squirrels around the yard, and she would jump up, 10 feet sometimes, to try and go after them. And yeah, she would lick my face to get me up in the mornings. She was so much to me.
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Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 05:03 am (UTC)'My' dog Rocky lives with my mom and stepdad down in Arkansas. We got him when I was in the seventh grade, and I lived with him up until they moved away not long after senior year. Mom joked that he was 'defective' because he had a 'broken' ear (an ear that had a fold so it stayed half-flopped even when pricked). He's a Feist, long-legged and surprisingly barrel-chested for a squirrel dog, and can be mistaken for a very large Chihuahua for those who don't know any better. But he's got these neat little swirls in his fur on his neck, chest, and especially his butt, and when he's got his 'trapdoor' closed you can see the Cingular Wireless logo. Mom had wanted to get the sleepy puppy, but noooooo, we got the hyperactive spaz who chewed up all four legs of my mom's wooden piano bench, a few slippers, books, cassette tapes, he ate hole on both sides of the couch so you could see all the way through it, and one time he ate an entire box of Valentine chocolates and didn't so much as hiccup, but was given a single Cheeto the next day and proceeded to have the runs for the next 24 hours.
He was such a spaz, in fact, that sometimes when I was watching him, he'd get so worked up that I'd actually get up on the couch so he couldn't reach me, and stayed up there until he got bored and tired again. Little demon puppy. But he was never evil, just hyper. Nowadays he's a little old man who naps and snacks every time my stepdad does, has cataracts and is losing his hearing, cannot eat unless his little dingle ball is sitting in his food dish (and is positioned just so), and absolutely loses his shit if there are deer in the yard. He still thinks he's spry enough to run down the lane and pinch kibble from the neighbor's pit bull, so nowadays he's not allowed outside except for short periods of time or unless he's on a tie-out.
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Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 05:29 am (UTC)We got her in 2000, because I wanted a puppy I could play with, rather than Nutmeg, who was a bit older, and not always interested in playing. When we went and got her, we knew we wanted a girl, and there were three the breeder still had, so we got to play a bit to choose. Tess kept having to be pulled out of the fire ant hill, because she was curious about it, and kept going over to it. She made noise all night when we got her home. She's supposed to be a bird dog, and therefore quiet, but she would bark up a storm anytime anyone came near the yard. But, if they came towards her, her first reaction was to back up, still barking like mad. And if one of us came out to see what she was barking at, she would hide behind our legs. We called her "Swirly-butt" for a while, because she had these two curls of fur on either side of her tail, that turned into these long corkscrews as her fur grew. Sometimes, she would get really worked up, and race back and forth between the fireplace in the living room and the garage door in the kitchen with her back all hunched up, stop for a moment, look at you with these crazed eyes, bark, and start again. For a long time, we had carpet in every room, except the bathrooms and the kitchen, and one day, I tossed a toy into the kitchen and it landed under the toe-kick, and she raced in, and didn't stop in time to avoid running into the cabinets. When Nutmeg started going deaf, and we would send them out at night before locking up, sometimes Nutmeg wouldn't come when we called, so we would say "Tess, go get Nutmeg!" and she would trot out, and come back a minute or so later with Nutmeg just behind her. She had these two, what I always thought of as "thumb-prints" that overlapped on the top of her head. She loved going to lakes and splashing around in the water, but she hated the hose and getting baths. Even when she got bigger, (40 lbs or so) I could still pick her up and tuck her under my arm. And when I was taking the bus home in middle school, she and Nutmeg, on nice days, would be waiting at the corner for me, our two "Decorator dogs" as they were called. And sometimes when she got out past the invisible fence, she would run around the neighborhood for a while, get tired/hungry/thirsty, and come sit at the edge of our property and yip for us to come and get her.
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Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 05:52 am (UTC)Ah, the spaz attack. I know it well. The indoor four-legged NASCAR of the dog world. "GOTTARUNGOTTARUNGOTTARUNGOTTARUN!!!" Always thought it was hilarious the way they stretch their faces out when they do it. Wonder if it's a hint for us bipeds to take them on truck rides with the windows down more often. Rocky hates cars, though, because he's claustrophobic. He also hates kennels, anything covering his eyes, and won't stick his head into any container laying on its side even if the Sacred Dingle Ball is inside it (I confess, the bell in the ball disappeared years ago, but it's still the Sacred Dingle Ball, and it's not like he can hear the dingle anymore anyway).
It isn't just a play on words that we sometimes call him Rocks-For-Brains, because as long as it's within the scope of his instinct, he's pretty smart. That is a very, very limited scope, however. We liked to throw his ball across the kitchen and have it bounce off the old kitchen door before he'd catch it, and sometimes we'd have a bit of mean-spirited fun and move the doormat out of the way first, so he'd skid over the linoleum and into the door. After a while he started to get better at turning so his shoulder hit the door instead of his face, but he still ran full-tilt after the ball every damn time. Like I said: Rocks-For-Brains. This lack of learning ability also applies to the pit bull he now lives down the road from. He's fourteen now, but damn if he doesn't have one of those "you kids get off my lawn!" Napoleon complexes. We never really socialized him with other dogs much, so he tends to think he's a person, and when a neighborhood puppy starts bouncing around him he just looks at us like "please make this thing go away."
Of course he would go nuts every time we said "outside." So we started to say "walk" and it started to get the same Pavlovian response, even if it was used in casual conversation. So we started to say it different ways, and thus he would also start to go nuts if we: 1) jerked our heads in his direction and added "the dog" afterward, 2) said "W-A-L-K," or 3) started saying "Ambulate the canine."
You talking about Dino reminds me of our first dog, Oscar the black-and-tan Dachshund (yes, original, I know). Since the cheap dog toys were obliterated so easily, we gave him a rather old squeaky yellow bat that I think was originally supposed to be for babies. That thing was loud, and he loved the hell out of it. Full-sized weenie dog with a six-inch bright yellow bat, running around the house going "ka-SQUEAK-a SQUEAK-a SQUEAK-a SQUEAK-a, SQUEEEEEEEAK-aaaaa." We always had to take it away from him and put it on top of the refrigerator if we wanted peace and quiet. At which point he'd sit down (on his hip instead of his ass) next to the fridge and just stare at it.
What else? What else? (or do you want me to shut up and let you cry for a little while?)
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Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 06:13 am (UTC)Yeah, the crazy-face with the wide eyes and the open mouth and the ears all pulled back. Tess always wants to sit with/on her people when she goes on car rides.
With Tess, she learned that the linoleum was very slippery, and not good for traction. And the times she's been introduced to puppies she gave us the "why are you letting this thing in our space?" wounded look.
Tess learned "out" and "OK" when she could get her food, and "Last Call" when we would let her out before locking up, so we would let her out anytime we said out, because we had the invisible fence, and she loved being outside, and saying "LC" or "Final Reckoning" for "last call" instead, and she never did figure those out.
Tess did the fanatical toy squeaking with Hedgie, which was an utterly garish green-and-purple hedgehog toy as big as her head, that, first time we introduced her to it, she was terrified of it. But she also ended up with a "toy box" that all or most of her toys ended up in, and she would occasionally go and grab one of those to play with, but usually if she couldn't find Dino or if Hedgie was closed up in the family room and dining room, but Dino and Hedgie usually stayed out of the box.
I think... I think I can get to sleep now.
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Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 06:19 am (UTC)That's good. Glad to hear it. Sleep good.
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Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 04:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 05:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 05:08 am (UTC)*offers up hugs and hot chocolate*
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Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 05:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 18th, 2011 01:37 pm (UTC)