Sad day: we lost Goldie, she was old-old-old, maybe 16 or 17? Was going to see about bringing her to the vet in the next week or two for a look over & to see what she thought, but sometime this morning, Goldie just died in her sleep... she had arthritis, couldn't see or hear too well, was grey around the muzzle.. still was eating okay as of a couple of days ago...
We love her & will miss her.
I found out when I went to the boys' room to close the door & saw she was just laying there. Somehow I knew she was gone. I asked Micah & he confirmed it. A little while later, Evan & I went to work on getting the hole dug for her.. I talked to Gary & he said to bury her by the rock shed. I would have loved to bury her near Opus, but we aren't sure exactly where he is & I didn't want to find any old bones, so buried her on the other side of the rock shed from where the others were. The grass was green there & it was fairly easy to dig in (thanks to all the rain we've been having) and I got the hole started & Evan came out & finished it up... brought her out & I brushed her one last time.
Pixel had gotten out & she was in a playful mood but she stopped when she saw Goldie & pawed me a couple of times. Not sure what to think of this since Pixel hasn't always been very nice to her; she has food aggression issues & has attacked her a few times over the years.
We're down to 4 dogs now & fortunately all of the dogs are closer to Pixel's size & Daisy (our 3-1/2 to 4 month old lab puppy, who was found by Harrison on Halloween) WILL be larger than Pixel in a few months. Emma will be our smallest & she's at least 40 pounds... they'll all be able to hold their own against Pixel.
Anyway we'll miss our little princess Goldie with the purple tongue, long golden fur & her little dance and hard nose when you stopped petting her before she was ready! She also had a habit of climbing onto a chair, across 2 computer desks to get to the kitchen counters for something interesting to eat that might've been left behind... (this was at the last place we lived)... lately she would come out with us for doggie potty walks & we would carry her back up the steps. (She walked down easily but wasn't good at going up... we still have cinder blocks for our stairs... that's high on the list of priorities for fixing up around here... fence first, though!)
She's frolicking around at Rainbow Bridge now...
Christmas isn't our holiday so it hasn't "ruined" Christmas in any way. I'm sort of relieved for her because she was showing signs of "this is it" and my youngest said last night that he thought we needed to take her in to the vet to be put to sleep...
I kind of prefer that an animal die in her sleep than to have the vet do it... although if that needs to be done, I'm fine with it...
Would I take in an older dog again? Hell, YES, if it needed a home! Sure we miss the cute puppy stage, and we don't have them as long, but they're no less special... we had Goldie from May 18, 2006 until today, so that's 5 years, 7 months & 7 days...
When Evan & I first found her in the parking lot of the swimming pool/rodeo grounds/2nd Monday grounds in Bowie, TX, Evan said "we're about to get adopted" and I said "no we are not".. famous last words. We were going to check to see if there were any signs saying when the swimming pool would open & it was already hot & we were ready to go swimming... we got out & checked & Goldie came up to us.. couldn't just leave her there. We kept an eye out for any signs of a missing pooch, called the animal shelter, got her scanned at the vet... Jennifer, one of the shelter volunteers told me on the phone that she would love it if we would keep her. We were ready to, just wanted to make sure no one was missing her. Never saw any signs or anything... one of the sheriffs was ready to come over to have a look & I said "oh don't worry about it, I was just wondering if someone called with her description". Nope. For several months I got the feeling that she was missing someone... she eventually got over it. I suspect that she was either with a family who moved & couldn't take her (or couldn't find her when it was time to go, she had a tendency to try to sneak away occasionally) or with an older person who either had to go to a nursing home or similar... just got a feeling that she was missing SOMEONE.
Naming her was a challenge: originally we were referring to her as Her-She and that just didn't feel like the right name. Eventually we settled on Goldie...
Rambling here... I'll miss her... guess I'll go knit or warp the rigid heddle loom or something...
A friend posted something on Facebook that brought me back to thinking about my first dog, Hlao Roo.. she was an awesome dog. I had her from 1978 until 1994, she would have been 17 if she kept going, but she was old & had had it...
I was pregnant with my first 2 at the time & her health was failing...one morning she couldn't get up & we called the vet & we knew it was probably time. It was. She's buried near our rock shed.
And have had several more dogs since (10 puppies & their momma, Theresa in 2008... we lost 3 to parvo in December of 2008, gave 3 away to rescue & gradually lost the other 4, one disappeared with his momma when we moved to the place we stayed for 2 years, one had an accident & the other 2 disappeared in 2010)..
We have 5 dogs now, 4 are rescues...2 we had before the fire: we found Goldie at the Bowie swimming pool parking lot in May of 2006, we got Pixel a month after we lost Opus in the summer of 2008, one is a lab (mix?), we found Indy on the road on July 4th 2010 (story about him in the July 2010 entries of this blog)... Emma started following our boys around town a few months ago & now she is ours and on Halloween, a puppy (Daisy) showed up at the boys' friend's house. Daisy is mostly a good girl with puppy teethies. She wants to please & she wants to play, as the others do.
I decided to write this post instead of totally hijacking my friend's Facebook thread, so here I am! :)
When Gary & I first got together, I had Roo, he had Kat & his sister gave us Daphne. Daphne was another awesome dog. She got run over.. broke our hearts! She was trained by Man's Best Friend & we took her to a training class, but she was headstrong...
I was going to talk about dog training, but I can't remember the name of the trainer I like so much. I need to ask someone else.
Might as well mention the cats as well! Our newest cat is Crookshanks, who just walked into the house one day & when he saw we would feed him, he kept coming back. He hasn't made himself at home yet. He won't come into the main part of the house but will come & eat & talk to us & go. He's long haired & we think he is still a kitten. At first I thought he was a she, but all that fur...
Boomerang is doing well, but we keep him in our bedroom as we don't feel comfortable letting him go outside because he no longer has a tail. The others are.. the others! :) Our oldest cat, Slug/Loveslug was born into the family a few months after a friend gave us Nikki (we didn't see her after the fire)....
Other Stuff
I won't talk about art or knitting right now. Suffice it to say that I pick up the needles every so often to knit & had a great time at drawing group on Monday & hope to be able to go next Monday as well...
I found my camera a few days ago, but am hoping to be able to get another, smaller camera with more megapixels... I'm thinking the Sony when I can afford it...the camera in my phone is so-so... I need to get a mini-SD card for it...but would prefer a stronger camera for most stuff!