The only thing unusual about Dee, the Chihuahua, is (1) she's overweight like me, (2) she likes to nap, and (3) she may be the world's most "aggressive" Chihuahua. I know most folks think of "aggressive" dogs as "mean"; not Dee. She has never in her life (soon be 5 years old) been known to growl, snarl, or snap at anyone or anything. But if friend, family, or stranger of any age comes in, she'll enthusiatically welcome them; just wants to see if they'll play.
Attachment 2467
Attachment 2466
Nuthin' like a contest to bring out the cute kid or cute pet photos! There's some stiff competition here, but I'm gonna put up a few entries. Our kitty crew consists of Batman, Joker, Punkin, Bluebell, and Prissy. They were abandoned by someone and adopted us. Prissy is the momma cat and Joker is the daddy (or one of them at least). I gave Batman his name because that's the first thing that popped into my mind when he looked at me. Joker was so scraggly that he really fit the part in the beginning. Anyhow, we have tons of kitty pictures, but I'm submitting these with the titles below.
1. I'm Batman!
2. Is it time for Bat treats?
3. Gimme treats or the dinosaur gets it!
4. Good! I can see all of Gotham City from here.
5. Even Batman needs some down time.
6. You can't see me in these bushes.
7. We're being good!
8. Dinner at the boot and the TBN stone.
For some of life's experiences there are no handy descriptive words. Some emotions hit you on a gut level, an atomic level ...such as grief. In grief there are simply no words to use to express how much you hurt. The last time I felt this way was when I lost a parent. The most recent time I felt this way, early last month, was when I lost Miss Phoebe.
The first time I locked eyes with this dog, I knew I'd found the canine equivalent of a soul mate. She instinctively recognized my boundaries, what to do ... what not to do. She knew when to plant herself by my side, and when to keep her distance. She understood I wanted her to sleep at the foot of my bed, but she didn't care for the arrangement, so would wait until I was sound asleep and then quietly slip away to find a more comfortable place for herself.
I knew in my heart when I moved 50 miles away from work that she would suffer, but hoped that she would eventually understand the long hours she would spend alone waiting for my return. Despite this, I struggled to time my leaving to the last possible second, and my return to the quickest possible stroke of the clock. I stopped for nothing on my way home, had to get home to Phoebe, no stops for anything. Still, when I raced in the door I could see she was sad, wounded, wanted to know by the look in her eye, what she had done wrong to be punished so.
I hoped that she would find the rhythm of this new arrangement and would settle in and everything would be fine. To be honest, I truly expected that after a few weeks, she would learn my days off and days on, and despite the fact that the first week found her almost crazed with excitement when I got home at the end of the day, I simply didn't know what else to do.
I should have known that a dog this sensitive, sensitive enough to pick up on my every emotion, would suffer in this arrangement, but still I tried. I installed a doggie door for her convenience. I made sure her food and water bowls were full. I left the television on for her, provided toys, a plush bed, left the window shades up so she could see out. I did everything I could think to do. The only thing I did not and could not provide her with, was me, which is what she wanted the most. So on July 7th, at 9:30 a.m., she went looking for what she needed.
I won't go in to how I know what time Phoebe went missing, I just know, and the instant I knew I could think of nothing else. I was at work, miles away, and my sister Judy, bless her sweet soul, was tromping the woods and roads, searching and calling and keeping me updated. Any moment I expected her to call and say, 'everything is fine, I found her.' Three hours later there had been no such call and when I burst into tears while standing at the counter waiting on a customer, I knew that I had to leave and search for my girl.
The hour-long ride seemed to last 6 hours, and I found myself leaning forward in the seat, willing the miles to pass, alternately praying and crying. The most horrible stretch of road was 281 North between Burnet and home. I just knew I would see her lifeless form on the side of the highway, and I knew if I saw such a sight I would never be right again. Ever.
The balance of that Wednesday was spent driving, walking, calling, praying, sobbing. Where is she? Why won't she come? What if she can't come? What if someone picked her up on their way to Lampasas? Or Marble Falls? How would they know where she truly belonged? What if she'd been bitten by a snake?
At midnight I fell into bed exhausted and lay there for 6 hours, not sleeping, just waiting for sunrise so that I could begin again. Many times that night I thought I heard the swish of her dog door and I would race from my room only to find an empty house and no Phoebe. It was my mind playing tricks on me, my heart hoping against all odds. The small town of Burnet had taken on gigantic proportions and Phoebe seemed such a small creature, lost in its endless acres.
By Wednesday afternoon I had resigned myself to the fact that I would never see her again and began the torturous path of grieving, and blaming myself, and hating mankind. Someone had her, or she would have come home by now. Someone had taken her.
Thursday morning hope reigned anew, and the hunt for Phoebe began again. A scant half hour was spent making fliers, complete with two color photos, that Judy and I would place in every possible location. It dawned on me that I needed to give mankind another chance. Maybe she hadn't been picked up and taken to Lampasas, or Marble Falls, or wasn't being held against her will, maybe she had been found but due to the fact that she wasn't wearing her collar, the finder simply didn't know what to do with her. I had already contacted animal control, the police, had put an ad on Facebook, and in the classified section of the newspaper. This was the last straw.
With trembling hand and tear-soaked face I entered retail establishment after retail establishment, flier in one hand, tape in the other and I learned, in my opinion, which establishments were truly part of the community and which were simply making money off the community, by those who recognized my heartbreak and said sure, hang it up right there, where everybody can see it. Maybe it's wrong to be judgmental, but I can tell you now that those who wanted to help will get the brunt of my business until the day I die.
Many a business owner was approached by me, a woman who had almost given up hope, a woman who couldn't speak, but could only wave this flier in their face while tears ran down my cheeks. In many cases no words were necessary as fear, hope and desperation was coming off me in waves that a deaf and blind man would recognize.
Despite the fact that I now felt I had done everything I could do, I still spent the balance of the day driving in circles, calling, jangling her leash, standing on the front and back porch calling. This kind of misery knows no kinship, to be in this place is to be truly alone, for no matter how others commiserate, there is no way they can sink to the level that such an event puts us in.
By Thursday evening I was beaten, I could do no more. I had to eat, rest ... to do this I had to convince myself that there was nothing else I could do and I had to face the fact that I may never see Phoebe again. I had to let go.
I was sitting at the counter, picking at my dinner when my cell phone rang. I expected it to be Judy, checking on me, but the caller ID displayed a number I didn't recognize. I answered, hoping against hope ...
"I saw your poster, and think I have your ..." a male voice said.
"Where is she?" I said, my voice trembling.
"She's at my ..."
"Where! I'm going right now! Can I come right now?" I was in first grade again, I had turned instantly into a blubbering child.
There was a sigh from his end, and I knew what it meant. He had fallen in love with her, too. It's a gift she has, this way of making you fall in love, fall into those two brown pools of her soul that welcome, soothe and embrace.
I barely gave him time to give me the address before I raced out the door. My tires bounced down the dirt road, kicking up dust, and I berated myself for not bringing my phone with me. What if I couldn't find the house? But there was no way I was turning back, for anything.
The next five minutes--he was that close--were a blur until I saw her and she saw me and we both broke the speed barrier rushing toward each other, and I put my hands on her, grabbing her coat in both hands, never to let go again, and this time my tears were happy ones and as I cried she whined, and her little tail made circles and despite the fact that there were other people and other dogs, there was really no other living soul in the universe save for me and her, and in that moment the world truly did revolve around us, and for the first time in 36 hours I let go the breath I'd been holding.
Phoebe went to work with me the next morning. It was either that, or take another day off as there was no way she was getting out of my sight. I know my boss, he is a kind man, and he will understand when I install Phoebe's crate next to my desk on a permanent basis. For some of life's traumas there are no easy solutions. The first time I locked eyes with this dog, I knew I'd found the canine equivalent of a soul mate, and you don't leave your soul mate alone for hours on end and hope she understands. I learned this the hard way early last month, when I lost Miss Phoebe. I like to think I learn from my mistakes.
OK Cindi, you've got me here with tears running from my eyes. I'm glad it had a happy ending.
Now, where's the photo?
I don't know where it went, it was there yesterday. Well, here's some more:
Phoebe is one of those unique dogs that look scary as heck, but are sweet as all get out. I have no real desire to win this contest, but as most people who know me know, I write about those things that touch me and I look for any opportunity to sing Phoebe's praises.
My sister Dianne has a rescue Boxer named Curry that has only 3 legs due to her previous owners neglect. Curry was the catalyst that drove me to adopt Phoebe. She is the most loving creature I have ever met and she loves people and if any dog has a reason not to love people, it's Curry. But she does love people, it's in her eyes and in her face and in her sweet, loving disposition. Dianne snuggles with her at night, and the two of them take comfort in each other.
The week after I got Phoebe I went out and bought a full-sized bed so that she could sleep with me. I wanted a Curry-like relationship with Phoebe, but I guess you can't take a dog that is used to living outside in the dirt and make them feel comfortable in a bed with a human even if it's plenty big enough. In the first place, she could not or would not willingly jump up onto the bed. I compromised by lifting her up there, but would wake up in the middle of the night and find her on her pallet on the floor by the bed.
One night I helped her up there and waited before falling asleep to see what she would do. After she thought I was asleep, she crept to the end of the bed and slid down the side. If I hadn't heard her grunt when she hit the floor I would have never known that was what she was doing, as she was stealthy and secretive, and I can only assume that she was doing her best not to hurt my feelings by abandoning me.
I found out not too much later, though, that I could have the same connection with Phoebe that Dianne has with Curry, I just had to do it on her terms, and mere weeks after I got her we began having clandestine, albeit satisfying on many levels, reunions several times a day in a most unusual location.
I woke one Saturday morning and reached, as had become my habit, to my left to find Phoebe's large square head under my fingers, waiting for my attention. I could feel her excitement, as even though she sleeps all night unless there is some strange noise in the darkness that requires her to make her rounds, she has evenly matched her schedule to mine and gets up when I do.
I made my way down the hall to the bathroom, and was sitting there yawning, when I saw Phoebe's shadow fall across the doorway. I spoke to her. I had been speaking to her almost non-stop since she came, reassuring her, welcoming her, trying to establish a bond with her. She ventured forward, now her head and shoulders were inside the bathroom, and I gazed at her silhouette ... her head was up and her ears were perked and she was standing still as a stopped clock.
"What are you doin', honey?" I said to her, and she took a sideways step and then went motionless again, pausing at the threshold as though she were on the precipice of a bottomless pit. "It's okay," I said, "you can come in."
Apparently that was all she needed, as here she came, click, click, click, until her nose was practically touching mine. We were almost eye to eye, and we looked at each other for a moment and then my hands, which weren't doing anything at the moment anyway, went one either side of her sweet face and she leaned in and gave me just the lightest, sweetest little lick on the end of my nose, which is her way .
"Well, you're just the sweetest thing, aren't you?" I asked her and she snuffled, which is the only term I can come up with for the way she speaks ... a combination whine/rumble/moan/whimper that gets me right in the bread basket every time she does it.
I took advantage of the opportunity and petted and patted and hugged and talked to her some more. There we sat in the semi-darkness, in a deathly quiet house, in the early morning hours ... me talking to her, her snuffling to me.
This went on, I regret to say, until my legs were fully asleep and tingling and I wondered if when I went to stand I would be able to walk, or would simply fall in a tingling lump in the floor. My purpose for being there had long since been satisfied, mission accomplished, paper work done, and yet I regretted moving, as this was quality time, one on one, no distractions. There was a major connection going on and I hesitated to end it, but then it dawned on me that even on the best of days my trips to this particular location came regularly and I knew that within a few hours I would be back here and we could go through this bonding ritual all over again.
Sure enough over the course of the day we met three or four more times in the same manner, in the same place, with the same results and each meeting was better than the last until it became almost a game. I would stand up and she would amble toward the hall and the bathroom ... you going in there again, are you? her eyes would say.
Over time, she began to find her place and I began to accept that she loved me as much as I loved her and she was happy and comfortable and content, and nowadays we have limited our bathroom meetings to only early in the mornings when the house is dark and quiet and still and it has been hours since we last saw each other, and I wonder what people would think if they knew that I spent the first 5 minutes out of every day sitting on the toilet petting and talking to my dog and it occurrs to me that I really don't care what people would think. I don't know how many years Phoebe and I have together, and what's important to me right now is what she thinks of me, and what I think of her, and it's a simple as that.
This is Jeremiah, our little miniature jack donkey. He is a real lover and follows us around the pasture insisting that he get all the pettings and scratches. The kids love to hug on him and spoil him. He also protects our small herd of pygmy goats from stray dogs and coyotes.
MrsMcClain
This is Bruno. He was my best friend, but we had to put him down a couple of months ago. I sure do miss him.
Boots.....my buddyAttachment 2488
It's so hard to pick one animal! This is our newest dog 'Chico' but I like to call him "mini". He looks so funny beside our big dogs.
Here are some shots of Chico the adorable!
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote