Old(er) Dogs

The dogs are behaving badly.  I’m not sure why, except that maybe as the weather has been getting colder and they have been in the house more, they are probably stir-crazy.  It’s a bad time for our dogs.  They are getting older and crankier.  It’s hard to reason with them. 

Toby has decided that he can do just about anything he wants (which he can – he’s my boy).  He jumps up on the couch with every opportunity.  He hasn’t yet learned that it’s only couch time with me once in a while and only after Daddy’s gone to bed, so we don’t get in trouble.  He’s the only one I let up, because he’s the only one that I trust not to have an accident.

Sky has gotten crotchety.  She hurts.  Her legs hurt, and her back hurts and we think she gets headaches.  We probably should have put her down over the summer but neither of us can bear it and we hope she goes in her sleep.  She growls at the other two dogs and plays too rough with the cat, and she emits a sense of panic if she gets too excited.  She’s almost like a kid that’s had too much sugar and we have to calm her down.  But she’s a good old girl, and she loves us (mainly him) so much.

Bella, our baby now 10, is still very active.  She’s getting more vocal as Sky’s health declines.  The German shepherd in her is making its appearance and it’s loud and annoying.  I tell her to change her barks up a bit, but no; she chooses the same monotone bark over and over and over…  But she’s still a baby.  She’s the one that needs to be cuddled during thunderstorms or after the fire alarm erupts from the ceiling.

Yes, they are all turning into the epitome of the “classic senior citizen”, and that’s okay.  Where else would we feel unconditional love?  With people there are always conditions, but with dogs it seems there are none.  Sure you have to feed them, but even if you didn’t they would probably find something on their own.  It might not smell great and they would probably roll in it first, but they would persevere. 

I’ve come home to books ripped up on the floor and yelled and swatted their furry butts and sent them outside until I cooled off and the minute I let them in they still loved me.  There was no cold shoulder.  No hateful sideways glances, just pure joy that I was there.  Oh, if we could all be like that, what a world it would be!

So I guess I will cuddle my senior dogs and love them up and get covered with hair and slobbery dog kisses.  No matter how badly they’re behaving, I know I’ve done worse, and they always pardon me.  It makes their “bad” attitude totally forgivable.  

It's A Cat's Life

     My cat is living the life.  He has his own personal doormen, a personal waiter, and someone who will groom him when he allows.  
     He has been so elusive the first eight years of his life that we indulge him now.  
     Cal was hand fed his fifth and sixth week of life as he was given to my daughter on the street and of course I didn't know who to return him to.  He was weaned way too early and he refused a bottle.  I fed him by dipping my finger in formula and letting him lick it off.  This led to a lot of hand biting later on.  It took me a while to connect it to his early feeding.  I thought because of this feeding method that we had to use, that he and I would bond and he'd be my shadow but it didn't turn out that way.  
     He would NEVER let me hold him for more than a minute or two when he was younger.  He wasn't feral, he just didn't want to be touched.  Looking back now we think it could have been allergies.  His skin seemed to bother him a lot.  We've switched cat food now and he's much better.
     Because we had another cat with us before he came in to the picture, he took back seat to her.  She was the queen and she let him know it.  She ruled the bedroom and she was exclusively mine and I was hers.  I tried to get them to get along but it wasn't meant to be.  
     Almost immediately after she died he started getting on the bed with us.  At night he generally cuddles with my boyfriend, but after I fall asleep he lays down on my pillow by my head.  The changes that he has gone through in the last year have been amazing and I've been putting two and two together and I think that we have finally truly bonded.  I think my cat really does love me.  I know I love him, even though he can be a real jerk sometimes.
     It was amazing tonight, after he came in the house, that he let me grab him, flip him over and hold him like a baby.  This lasted about ten minutes and I'm sure to him seemed like an hour.  He's so much more patient with me know and I am so happy to see his character and sweetness instead of feeling attacked and disliked by him.  I miss my other cat terribly, but I'm also grateful for this time with Cal.  His life is a mystery still unfolding before my eyes.

Cal, more relaxed than I have ever seen him!

Pondering Cal

This morning after I was ready for work, I straightened the covers on the bed and looked at the cat.  He was sleeping on my boyfriend’s side of the bed.  Almost a year ago I looked at my girl cat, probably in the same position as he was in at that moment.  I remember this because less than a week later she had died.  That morning I may or may not have walked over and scratched her under her chin, which she loved, and I do not feel guilty if I didn’t.  I loved that cat so well, and she loved me back just as much, so if I left her alone it was because I knew it was ok. 
 

But this morning I went over and scratched his head.  He woke up and did his little “Why are you touching me?” meow, and I scratched a little more.  He’s come a long way in a year, and I’m glad he has, but I still miss her every day and want that closeness back. 
 

Cal has always been weird, for lack of a better word.  My daughter brought him home from somewhere in town.  She said a woman was giving kittens away in the park.  He was too young to leave his mother and we had no one to give him back to, so I ended up feeding him by hand, literally.  He licked formula off my finger because I couldn’t get him to use a bottle, and he wouldn’t use a dish for another week.  I thought that this would be great because it would form a bond between us, but he never warmed up to me.  When my boyfriend moved in with us he would sit with him, never with me.  I was kind of jealous but I also know animals and they have their own people.
 

Cal has always been in pain.  Whether it’s been his back or his skin, we have always had to be careful with him.  Cuddling has never been an option.  However, there were minutes where he let me hold him, not long but usually long enough to get a photo.  Shortly after AJ passed I noticed Cal sleeping on my pillow.  He used to do it sporadically, but now it’s almost an everyday occurrence once I am in the shower.  He’s moving into her territory.  They used to argue.  She only had the upstairs of the house because one of the dogs wanted to eat her.  When Cal entered she would sometimes hiss or yell at him and they would swat each other.  She probably intimidated the hell out of him, all four or five pounds of her to his whopping thirteen.  Now that she’s gone, Cal’s skin has cleared up.  I’m able to hold him for probably four, five minutes tops.  That’s good enough for me.
 

He doesn’t bite as much as he used to.  He talks to us more, like she did.  He comes when he’s called and seems to enjoy our company.  He’s learning to hunt.  He’s coming out of his shell.  Sometimes I think she is guiding him, but most of the time I think he is just learning to love us.
 

Do I miss her?  With all my heart and soul.  Do I wish she were home with me, safe and sound?  Absolutely.  But I am so glad that Cal is still developing and moving forward every day.  He’s ten years old.  He’s got a lifetime ahead of him and as long as he keeps progressing, I’ll keep trying.  Every once in a while I think about getting a new kitten, one that would be like her, but I have a huge fear as to what it would do to him.  We’ve come too far to back track now.  I think we need to be a one cat house for a bit longer. 
 

I know Cal would agree with me on this.




Cal in his younger, thinner days

 

A Look At My Life (just a little)

   I don’t want to let this blog go!  So I was trying to think of what I might write about.  Whoever is checking my page you might think I’m a negative nelly, but I’m not.  Quite the opposite.  I really do try to look for the good in all people and all situations.  It sometimes drives my boyfriend crazy because he calls a spade a spade and he’s rarely wrong.  However, I will argue and say that maybe this person went through this situation or that and that eventually they will come around and be productive, have a life, be a good parent, etc., etc.  He’s rubbed off a little on me though. 

   I had to turn Dr. Phil off yesterday afternoon.  I turned it on so I could run on the treadmill and possibly be entertained while I was doing so, but the first thing I heard was this woman talking about how her fiancé mistreats her and beats her and how she does it back to him and then starts talking about her newborn child.  I, of course, started talking to the television right away and the first thing that comes out of my mouth is “So he beats you and you decide to have a kid with him?”  That’s when I changed the channel.

   Dr. Phil, is there anyone out there that is inspiring?  Why do you televise stupid people?  People who do know better and continue to do the wrong thing?  I have to believe that your show is allowing more stupid people to feel good about themselves and justified about making stupid decisions. 

   I used to think I should write to Dr. Phil and ask him to fix my daughter, because she makes one stupid decision after another.  Then I thought, no, he’ll put me up there and tell me that I enabled her to be this way, and then he’d tell me I had to make some tough decisions to stop her behavior.  He does have some good common sense advice and I’ve read a couple of his books.  I also realized there was no way I could stop my daughter from acting the way she does but I could stop how I reacted.  (More advice from my boyfriend) So far, and it’s only been about three weeks, it seems to be working for me.  Not so much for her and my mother, who keeps helping her. <sigh>

   I still help her a little but no money, and I don’t go running out there every time she calls for me.  My time is my own and I’m trying to recapture it.  I feel cheated.  She didn’t graduate from high school, she had a job that she loved for a short time but then she met people who showed her she could get her needs met without having to work. 

   I worked and went to college and earned two degrees.  I still had time to volunteer in her classrooms and know her teachers and take her to do the fun things that were very special to us.  I love my daughter, I just don’t like the lifestyle that she is embracing.  In fact, I hate it.  This girl used to get up, shower, put on her make-up, straighten her hair.  She would look beautiful.  Now she’s not allowed to do that.  She has to wear sweatpants, no make-up; her hair is ever-rarely done.  She’s not allowed to work, and she’s married to a guy who is 15 years older than her.  My only hope is that he drops dead of a heart attack and that she pulls her life together.  We’ve tried to help her when she’s left him before, but we realized that it was a ruse to make him beg for her to come home, and for her to steal from us.

   And her father dropped dead when she was nineteen.  During that time when they weren’t getting along, so she has that to deal with that on top of everything else.  His wife refused to give her any of her father’s belongings so she has nothing physical to hold on to and the vile that had some of her father’s ashes in it broke.  She’s been in trouble with the law since she was fifteen and at 23 is still not learning.

   I read the advice columns, I watch Dr. Phil when it feels right, I look back in my life to see what I could’ve done differently.  I come up with a whole slew of options – I should’ve never read the Dr. Spock book, I should’ve spanked her more, I should’ve used birth control, I should have broke up with her dad and never told him about her, I should’ve had an abortion, I should’ve dated more so she could see a healthy relationship, I should’ve been a stay at home mom, I should’ve home schooled her.  The list goes on and on.  The only thing I could’ve done right was love her and I did, and I do.

   When she was four we went to a restaurant.  I’m not sure where we were but it was the two of us and she got something she didn’t want and when the waitress came over she told her and got it taken care of.  Four.  At three she was using multi-syllable words and knew what she was talking about.  She was smarter at four than she is at 23.  She’s picked up her husband’s way of speaking, such as “I done that” or “This is my cousint”  (spell check doesn’t like that word!)

   My boyfriend says genetics plays a role in how she turned out.  Even though she lived with me she is more like her father’s people than I ever would have imagined.  I wish and I pray that someday she will come into her own and become who she is supposed to be, not the person molded by the men in her life.  I hope the lessons I taught her are still with her and I hope she wants more for herself than just existing.