A Journal

November 2006

We lost Oak this month and things have changed a great deal. Patches and Fred went back to their own home and Hans and Gretchen have new homes. It's very hard to lose everyone within a few weeks of each other. We're down to just Sassy, J and Will. The food bill has dropped and I have a lot more time for other things but I miss them - especially Oak who was diagnosed with Ostesarcoma in August.

May 2007

We have new folks and dogs in the house. My son, his wife, her mother, and my two granddaughters have come to stay with us. Between the five of them, they have seven dogs.

November 2007

Will loves Rosita (Rosie Posie the pit bull) and she is quite fond of him. He plays and has a great time with Boomer (Boom Boom the Patterdale) and Squishy (whose real name might be offensive to some). He also plays with Strawberry (Shortcake) who stays outside except for cold nights (she won't go into her dog house at all.)

Strawberry, Tinkerbell, Cantoo and Squishy LOVE Jourie and Sassy and exert a lot of effort towards tormenting - I mean showing their affection. Being an overprotective mom, I try to keep Will away from Tink and Cantoo. They're quite boisterous adolescents and Tink has the startle factor added in. Willie doesn't have the patience with them that he had when they were babies and I don't want his discipline efforts to become his downfall. I should say that Mac the boxer loves all the pit bulls.

Our extra family and pack members will be leaving us this month. They have found a new home. It will be much quieter without them, although the dogs are generally quiet. Something (someone) has been prowling the back of the property and my neighbors' dog was shot with an arrow a few days ago. (We do live next to a hunting camp.) Annabel is okay but she was very lucky that the arrow didn't hit anything vital. It really scared me so we've been more watchful and moved the little dogs to the front yard. We're trying to get a fence put up but they are on cables at the moment. I hate that but I'd rather have them alive on cables than dead in the back yard. We should have the fence finished in another day or two.

Watching alertly
I got a good picture of Will yesterday. He usually has his nose in the dirt but he was watching the girls run. I wish I had been sitting down but it's still a nice shot of him. and you can see the dirt on his head from his tripod action.

Mar 2009

Something bad happened to Willie. He was out with the other dogs and I heard him scream and then he came running into the house. I don't know if he was bitten, knocked off the porch, or stepped on. A few days later, he fell off the bed and now he can't walk. He's dragging himself around with his front legs and the back ones don't work.

I took Will to a surgeon in Texarkana and he fixed us right up. Will has an ugly scar and a hump in his back but he seems to be doing well. Unfortunately, it's possible that this could happen again and it won't be repairable. So we have an ottoman at the foot of the bed and box by the couch so Will doesn't have to jump so far.

Jan 2010

Life has changed a lot for me and keeping up the websites has been impossible. I became a grandmother again last year but my daughter had a stroke a while back and cannot take care of a baby and two dogs so Mary Jane and Sorcha have come to live with us. Mary Jane is a dachshund 'wanna be' with longer legs and Sorcha looks like a 15 pound blond husky but is supposed to be a fox terrier.

The windows in our living room are about six inches off the floor. The porch outside is about a foot below the door. The ground at the end of the porch is almost four feet below that. We bought a cat-sized pet door and installed in a window. We built dog-porches on both sides of the window with a ramp to the porch outside. We cut a narrow slot from the porch rail and added some very steep steps down to the ground into the dog yard that we built for the pit bulls. Now the little dogs have access to the front yard and we don't worry so much about conflicts. A baby gate in a strategic location gives J and Sassy access to my computer room and they can lie in the hallway and keep an eye on us when we are in the TV/breakfast room. The little dogs sit in the recliner and watch TV with Jack.

July 2013

A cat greeted me when I walked outside today. I have never seen a live animal with that many bones showing. I was in a hurry to get to an appointment so I gave her some dog food and left. I guess I have a cat now. She's a beautiful dilute tortoiseshell and seems very friendly but a little wary. There's no telling what has happened to her in the time that it took for her to get so thin.

October 2013

My heart is broken again. Our little Willie has gone to the bridge. A few months ago, he started acting strangely and then one day I say him trying to poop and I walked over to find out what was wrong. He was tring to pass a chicken leg-bone. I don't know where he got it. Maybe someone was trying to prove to me that dogs can have bones, maybe he got into the trash - I just don't know. Unfortunately, he had swallowed the bone whole. As it traveled through his gut, it went through the lining and got stuck. I rushed him to the hospital and the doc did what he could but two weeks ago, on a visit to family, he started bleeding. I had to take him to the emergency clinic and make the decision to end his life. If I find out that someone gave that bone to my little boy, I will never forgive them.

For my Itty Bitty, my Billy Bop, my Willow Stump. I'm so sorry, Willie, I love you.