1 2 3 4 5

It's been 3 weeks since we said goodbye to Charlee and I am not going to get all sappy,  at least not at this moment in time, check me in about 20 minutes. I  have been keeping busy with my daughters who were  in a play. That has taken a good chunk of my time and has been responsible for lots of warm fuzzies and pride but I was very happy it wrapped this past weekend.  Aside from lots of driving I helped wrangle 24 kids for 4 of the 8 performances. Bascially that means I did a lot of shussing, and  helped kids backstage make  their cues. Have  to say, wrangling dogs is much easier.  

I love my dogs, but I did not grow them in my belly.

Charlee was my  best friend, but  not my child, which I think is a healthy way to live, but not so much when you are down a best friend.  Our new dog Beck has been working really hard at the landing the BFF  job, but he is no Charlee, and being a BFF takes longer than a few weeks. Beck is a perfect snuggler and source of much comfort and many smiles around here, but he has a long way to go. Each time I get a dog, it becomes more doggie to me. Try to follow my logic here. Loosing my childhood Golden Ginger was a tragedy. She was family long before the rest of the world caught on that dogs were family. She succumbed much to young to a horrible oozing leg cancer.  My traumatized parents never got another dog.  Dina, my first dog as an adult took another  piece of my heart and soul with her when she went.    When Charlee came she was the dog.  Charlee was very much the dog and it took years for her to slowly move up my emotional ladder.  Finney is definitely the dog, but Beck is vieying for a bit more. Heart dogs rarely come along more than once in a lifetime and I have had 2 already. I fear I have reached my quota, but I love how hard he is trying.   Last night in group class I used Beck for a  little demo on stay, which he is still fuzzy on. Beck  pulled a Charlee and lay down and play dead with his paws straight up in the air with his tail going-just for a laugh. . Some would say that Charlee was in that room for those few seconds, but I think she knew another comic when she met one and his fun nature is why she picked him. I love a dog with a sense of humor.

Everyone wants to know if  Finney misses Charlee. I should think not. He may have loved  the way they played and ran together and played herding dog games, but I doubt he misses her bossy bitchy ways. Sweet Finney is very sensitive and he was upset because we were upset, but Finn is just fine. The kids have taken to leash walking him on their own accord and giving him extra one on one time, and Finney is appreciating it all over the town.

People do all sorts of crazy things from grief and we currently have not 1, not 2, not 3 but Four foster dogs.

Actually, that is not exactly true, because I just placed Lana, now Kaya. She lives in my neighborhood and hope to see her soon in group class. She is sister to Layla.

Layla is just about 4 months old and weighs  33 pounds She is a  big sweet pup who will be big sweet dog. Layla adores me, and I hope she finds her people soon because she makes me feel bad that I don't have more time for her. She would much prefer to be in my lap or sleeping on my feet than spending so much time in a crate. Layla sticks so close to me in fact that I have perfected the foster dog shuffle walk.   I have taken to taking small close together steps so she doesn't' send me flying.

Meet Valli. Isn't she gorgeous? I saw pictures of her one day when I was trolling CARA's carami.org, web site, where most of our Canine Commitment dogs come from, and I could not get her out of my head. I am totally this dog's fairy DOG mother. She NEVER would have gotten adopted down there,. as she is suffering from some sort of skin allergy. She saw the Vet in MI a few times and all the usual skin nasties were ruled out.  We think it is a combo of poor quality food, shelter stress, and the kennel's  harsh cleaning chemicals. You can add skin allergy to something that I now have first hand knowledge of and can relate better to when my clients face the same thing. She seemed to do better right away, and she recently started scratching again. We are on an elimination diet and we started with Evo meat and medicated baths.

 Next up we will try s Venison and sweet potato. Anyone wanting to donate towards her bag of food and medical care is encouraged to so. We (me and the rescue) agreed to take her on even though her skin issue was not under control down South. Valli has a few interested parties who saw her pics on Twitter, so stay tuned and think good healing thoughts for her. By the way, she is a BLAST and really fun to hang around with.



I love to take pictures on the way home
to show how much the dogs blossom.




Last but not least is Cayenne. She is 5 months old and most likely Aussie x Spaniel. When my daughter's and I we went to Tender Touch to pick up Valli, 9 days ago, there was Cayenne all shut down and shy and smelling like urine, looking at us with her deep soulful eyes. My girls fell for her sweet ways right away, but I was  crazy  reluctant to take her. She made # 4! and in the kennel setting it was hard to tell her level of fear and shyness. Let's hear it for gut feelings because Cayenne is totally fine. She has a soft personality, but is not shy at all with people or dogs. Whereever I take Cayenne, people stop me to ohh and ahh over her intense cuteness. She is one dog who does not photograph nearly as cute as she actually is. Her big soulful almond eyes are killers. I can't show you Cayenne's bio, because she is still not listed. "Someone" (cough cough--no it's not me) in the rescue may adopt her and she may never get to the web site. That is a real plus of doing rescue. The gems are hand picked. My middle daughter wants to trade Beck in for. Sorry honey!

Cayenne left and Layla right. Both super dooper sweet pups.
Looks like the same make up artist did both their eyes.

We also had another foster dog that I chose not to write about. Not all dogs coming into any rescue at any given time are going to be "ok". We referred to her as  "basement dog", because she spent a good portion of her two week stay with us  down stairs. She did not come from CARA by the way, and the people who sent her were very surprised that the sweet dog they knew did not adjust to life in Maine. Her crime was not only being quite barrier aggressive, but she guarded from the other dogs and attacked a puppy. The puppy was not hurt, but I had a bad gut feeling about her and she never got a second chance. Now, it is common knowledge that dogs will do things when stressed that they will no do other times, BUT, there is a good chance that any dog will be stressed again. The clincher was that Finney wanted nothing to do with her and Beck and Charlee hated her. I have come to rely heavily on Finney's assessments in regards to other dogs. He has never been wrong.

Best wishes "Basement dog" I hope things work out for you.
 
_______________
 
The Maine Dog community,  and Golden lovers everywhere,  and anyone who has ever met my friend Suzan   in person or  on line mourn the loss of Logan who died yesterday after a very short battle with Mouth Melanoma.

 

 

Loosing a young service dog is tragic.  My heart breaks for her.