Yeah, my husband and I would count dogs to make sure we had them all around. Home safe. Not getting out or running amok.

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I think I am coming to terms with losing Lucy. I’m still very sad, and last night cried again in bed before I went to sleep. I miss her so much. I wish that I could have put her in a bed, given her meds, and kept her around like I would have kept a person around. But dogs don’t work that way… and seriously, it’d be nice if we could put people out of their misery, too. Lucy was miserable. It was her time to go. I just still miss her so much.

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Today we took a trip to the desert to let the dogs run. It was a short trip. Long drive, about 45 minutes, and it was too hot to let the dogs run for too long. But they did have fun.   Levi isn’t very strong anymore and can’t go very far. I sure hope he’s okay when we go to camp.  I will take it slow for him, give him what he needs, and sit around on the beach of Lake Tahoe all day if we need too.  Which, really, won’t make me sad at all, sitting on the beach all day!

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I am trying out a new gallery, too, so above are the thumbnails. Though I’m not quite so sure how it works, yet, and I may just add the images individually too.

Lucy, Levi and Angel 2002

Lucy’s death day is Wednesday. I made the appointment. At this moment I’m not crying, but in five minutes I might be again. I’ve been going through old pictures looking at Lucy, Levi and Angel. Angel left us in May 2010. I am so upset that time goes by so fast. The next thing I know, 10 years will have passed and Lucy will have been gone for 10 years… just like Kip has been gone for 11 years now. Oh my, not good things to think about, eh? I remember thinking, years ago, as I lay on my bed one day, that I had all three young healthy dogs… Lucy, Levi and Angel. And now Angel is gone, Lucy is going, and Levi better be around for a couple more years or I’ll have a nervous breakdown.

About the picture, our front room no longer looks like that. That was when we had carpet (see the stains, lol), and the couch upstairs. Now we have tile and the couch and TV are downstairs. Though we might move them back up again so Levi doesn’t have to do the stairs. He’s getting too old for stairs and it seems to bother him sometimes. Levi is 11.5.

I always worry about forgetting the dogs too much after they die. But yesterday I realized that, even if my memory is poor and I don’t remember all the little details, I will never forget them with my heart. And I’ll always remember how they feel inside me. As they will always be with me in a way. Even as they take a big chunk of my heart with them.

I don’t usually combine different topics in one post but I have to temper Lucy’s pending death with a good note about Jet and agility. I looked him up on the AKC website today, and his AX and AXJ show, and so do his MACH points. Yay! I love that the AKC lets us see those online for free. I’ll post the pictures here below. My first MACH points with any dog, ever.

Below is a picture of our front room after we remodeled it, but there’s nice pictures up now. I just wanted a pic of the 3 smooth blue collies, and my husband is there too. Lucy is, of course, on the table. She always stood on the table to block our view of the TV when she wanted attention. LOL

Lucy on the Table

And here is Jet’s AX and AXJ. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, as it’s kinda a side note that I hope will happen in December 2012. But as it stands now, Jet has qualified for the AKC Agility Invitationals. So as long as 5 other Danish-Swedish Farmdogs don’t start doing AKC Agility and beat us out, we should be able to go. I sure hope so. But… I do want to go and be competitive, and not just go because we are the only dog of our breed who qualified. Though if that’s how we get in, I’ll take it, and I won’t complain! LOL

Jet's AKC Titles To Date

Jet’s qualification to the AKC Agility Invitationals:

Jet AKC Invitationals

Sweet Angel

Over the years we got her healthy, maybe a bit chubby, and gave her lots of love. I remember chasing her around the house when she had a sock. She ran slowly, but the look of sheer joy on her face was priceless. I miss chasing her around the house. I miss holding her and loving her and being with her. It’s weird to think that she no longer exists in this world. Sometimes I count the dogs and I know that one is missing. Sometimes I expect to see her, feel her, know she’s around.

This is a cute, typical picture of her, up top. She could never curl up on her own, her body wasn’t built very well. But she loved to snuggle in beds, and some other terror collie (Tatum, lol) chewed a nice hole in that couch. Angel liked to take advantage of it until we took the couch to the dumb.

I miss you Angel. Someday I hope to see you again. Until then, I hope you are cruising around whatever existence you are in, enjoying yourself completely. I love you Angel.

Lovely Angel

Angel and Chase

But when I think about my rescue dogs, grateful isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. In fact, I don’t think my rescue dogs are grateful at all. First off, I think grateful is a human emotion, not a canine one. Though I guess maybe Angel could have been grateful. To me, though, she just seemed more relieved to have a safe place to live finally.

Tatum… she isn’t grateful at all. LOL. She’s our princess, and it seems to me that she thinks she deserves every second of her pampered life. In fact, I would interpret her behavior as being entitled. She has a lot of confidence at home, and thinks she deserves the best treats, the best sleeping spots, and when other dogs get close to her when she is resting, they get an earful of growl. It’s like she’s saying “he’s touching me, stop touching me!” I need to get some pictures of her with her teeth showing, or some art prints of her, she is such a goof.

Chase and Muffit are just happy to do whatever. They love to run and expend their energy. But they don’t coddle or fuss over us either. They don’t seem to exhibit any behavior that I would label as gratefulness. But they are both Border Collies, so maybe that has a lot to do with it too. *shrug*

So anyway, do your rescue dogs seem to be grateful? Mine don’t. But I’d rather have it that way. I want my dogs to be as confident as possible. Strong either with me around, or on their own. Secure in themselves. That’s the kind of life I try to give them.

Sweet Angel

Okay, and so my last post I talked a little about Angel, and so I went looking for more pictures of her. All I have left of her is pictures now… and yes, I’m crying as I type this. Not a lot… just a few tears, but I still miss her so much. She died on May 13th of this year and she’ll always be a part of my heart and soul. And I still will look around the house for her. Maybe try to feed her. Wonder where she is when I get home. And when the neighbors take out the garbage, I expect her to bark at the noise of the garbage can all the way down the driveway.

I have to remember her when she was young and healthy. I want to remember her barking, her letting me chase her around the house with a sock or anything else she could find. The silly way she would tuck up her but when I’d scritch her and chase her around. She never ran fast, so I always had to just walk behind her and say “I’m gonna get you!” and just pretend like I was chasing her. She loved it. I think it was her favorite game.

She also loved Pig Ears. They were her favorite yummy treat. She didn’t much like rawhide or bully sticks though. So we gave her the Pig Ears when we could.

She’ll always be my sweet baby girl.

And so I try to think about other things too, like it’s fall, and there’s football, and maybe a football gift would cheer me up. But then I don’t really care about much other than the dogs. They are my best friends and I love every single one of them.

Oh yeah and this picture is of Angel on a camping trip. Probably coming home from one, with her head resting on the seats of the Outback. 

Four Pups

I’ve been looking at old pictures lately… I have my Macbook set up to use my photo folders as my screen saver. It’s a dangerous thing… because I can just sit and watch it for hours. Well maybe not hours, but for a good long time that’s for sure.

Makes me think about term life insurance and getting old and stuff. Especially since many of the pictures have Angel in them. And yeah I still cry quite often because she’s gone and I’ll never see her in this life again. It still makes me sad. Though I know she’s not in pain anymore. And I have to remember her when she was alive and happy and full of life.

Anyway, so this picture is of me and my husband and the four we had at the time… Lucy, Levi, Angel and Chase. Boy did Chase look out of place with the three smooth blue collies. LOL. Now we have more different breeds so he fits in a bit better.

Angel

I just want to say, it’s my blog and I can cry if I want to. Yes, I am still mourning Angel, and I still miss her a lot. I just loaded up these last pictures of her that were on my camera.

This was when her eye was still working.  Three days before she died.  My heart is still heavy and sore with her loss.  Though my husband and I have talked about her, remembering all the good things. Like when she would warm up like a motor boat down the hallway when the neighbor would drag their garbage can down the driveway, and she would get outside and bark at them. Or at the garage door.  She would always bark at those two things. Silly girl.

She loved pig ears and she loved walks and camping. She was so scared when we first got her, but she grew and became more and more confident all the time. I still miss her every day.

Jet's Play Moves

Well, I’m getting better, though it’s slow going. I was kinda manic yesterday, different than my depression I’ve had for the last week since we put Angel down. Jet makes me laugh, he is such a goof. This is him making play moves towards his new German Shepherd friend Lenka, who is not in the photo, but really should be. She came from Slovakia in her Mom’s belly, and was born in Texas. Both of them are from far, far away!

I did agility last weekend with Chase, too. Haven’t had the gumption to post any videos yet. I also entered Tatum in prenovice again, she did really well! I have video of her too I need to get up. She is doing well, though she was a bit nervous.

So life goes on, even though Angel has died. So sad. I will miss her for the rest of my life and I hope she is flying free somewhere having a great old time. I do believe something happens after death, I just don’t know what it is. Someday I will find out… we all find out eventually.

So I better get back to looking for some cheap insurance companies so we will have car insurance for our trip to Denmark in June! Ack, it’s coming up so fast!