Saturday, November 22, 2014

Our Beautiful Black Dog

I do not know when Sadie was born.  I met her on December 23, 1999.  I had gone to Erin's to drop off her Christmas gift.  I was locking up the truck box and I saw a little dog trying to get into the front door of the house on the corner where the tweakers were squatting.  A man came out and kicked the little dog down the driveway and threw her a piece of bread.  Flabbergasted, I walked up to Erin's place and told her what happened.  We decided to steal the dog.  The rest is history.

When she was young, she was a total and complete terror.  I was actually asked not to bring her to certain homes.  She would steal shoes, tear stuff up, knock over children and lick them until they cried with that massive tongue of hers.  She would dig and throw the dirt behind her and then spin around and try and catch the dirt.  She would chase the reflections from the CD's that I'd hung from the trees to keep her "occupied."  Man, that was a mistake if there ever was one.  It became her life-long obsession to chase reflections...lights, laser pointers, flashlights, anything!  She'd bite at the ground trying to "catch" the light, even literally running me over trying to catch the laser pointer light.    She has always obsessively licked - everything!  Rob has always joked that my personal ad with descriptions of my dog with the foot-long tongue seemed generally suspect from the get-go (but he messaged me anyways, thankfully).  She loves swimming to a fault - the last couple of years found her standing in the lake at Sage Hen, shivering from exhaustion but refusing to leave the splashing kids.  She would dog paddle and try to bite the splashes she created.  She's always been jealous of almost everything - food, our time, other people's/dog's food, etc.  She's always, always had one ear flopped over and one ear straight, unless she was on alert...then they both stuck straight out of the top of her head - I called them "radar ears" a time or two.

Her life changed first when she got hit and had her leg amputated.  That saga is a whole story in itself, I won't detail it here.  She slowed down only a little.  She still obsessively chased her Kong on a rope - many people never even noticed that she was three-legged until she stopped running. She'd bring back the Kong, the ball, the stick - whatever - over and over and over.  Whatever it was would be covered in slobber;  it would eventually have to be hidden so she'd stop harassing the humans.  It was this amputation experience that first showed me her stoicism.  From her accident to her amputation - when she walked out of the kennel just after the surgery that removed one of her rear legs - she never made a sound.  Didn't ever cry out - ever.  Her tolerance for pain was incredible.

The second change for her was when she met her Papa.  I took her with me to Moxie Java to meet Rob for the first time.  He brought her a toy, thus cementing their relationship forever and a day.  She loved him and he loved her.  She would let him sit on her, lay on her, tease her - stuff she would not even let me do.  I will admit that I have felt jealous over the years about their special  bond.  I've said it before, I am the one who saved her ass, but Rob has forever and always will be HER person.

It started snowing on Thursday, November 13th.  Over the last months, Sadie had gotten slower and more obstinate about going outside.  She would plant her front feet and we would have to lift up her butt-end and push her forward.  That week she had started sitting down when we took her out and she would sit there and just pee on herself.  We had thought for months and months that she was probably on her way out - but we had always said it kind of off-handedly.  We commented all the time in our own private conversations and also to others that she was still so with us mentally - so she was fine.  I think we both knew in our hearts though that she was getting worse physically - we, of course could not bring ourselves to admit it.  The snow and ice was the last straw, so to speak.  She could no longer hold herself up outside.  She would come in and take a few steps and lose her footing, even with the yoga mats that lined every traffic area in our home.  On Friday the 14th, we decided to make the appointment for euthanasia.

I have decided not to detail my experience with her death here.  It was not what I wanted...but I suppose we cannot dictate how these difficult times actually happen.  Sadie took her last breaths around 5:00pm on Saturday, November 15, 2014.  She was almost 16 years old.  She died at home, on our bed, with her nose tucked under my chest.  It was an awful experience - I don't think my eyes have yet recovered from the cloudiness from all of the crying.  We have, of course, questioned every single thought that we had over the last couple of weeks...but I think that we both know that the decision was the right one.  She was struggling, and it was not fair for us to fight to keep her here.

Sadie was obstinate as hell.  She made me crazier than I would like to admit an animal could make me.  She loved her Papa like no soul could have loved another - literally.  She's taken up the bulk of our lives for the last several years.  She's peed and shit in the house, often.   She's  barfed, barked, and obsessed so singularly that she's honestly lucky we did not murder her in her sleep.  But, we loved her.  She was our Old Lady Sadie.  Big Sade.  The Sade.  Sadie McGrady.  The Black Dog.  Big Girl.  Monkey Sade.  She loved licking out peanut butter jars. She loved riding in the car.  She loved camping.  She loved kids.  The was the best dog goalie ever.  She was funny, noisy, hilarious, annoying, demanding, messy, expensive...and we loved her.  And will miss her today and always.



  






Saturday, November 15, 2014

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Owlie Baby Shower

Baby boy shower breakfast for a co-worker.  Her nursery theme is owls.  The words on the owls are Spanish terms of endearment boy a baby boy (she's from Puerto Rico).  The diaper cake was made by JNC.



Sunday, November 2, 2014

Walking

Yesterday it poured all day.  All damn day.  The sky looked dusky even at noon and the constant dripping noise thrummed in my ears from the time I woke up until I went to bed.  Drip drip drip drip...Drip drip...Drip.  Terrible day.

Today started very early thanks to daylight savings.  Thankfully, the gorgeous Sun was shining.  My and I went for a walk.


A soggy couch on stilts in an alley.  There are puddles everywhere and all around us are soaked wooden fences steaming in the morning Sun.



Now it's time for some Church of the NFL.