Dogmental

Day 5 - Write a "wire" poem.  So here it is!  Check out the challenge here at Writer's Digest.

Dogmental

Your frantic eyes search out my face then turn away just as quickly.

You run circles around the table and get intertwined in the computer’s cables.

As soon as we disentangle you from your own trap you are back to circling. 

Bark at the other dogs, wag your tail, come push my hand to pet you, incessant whining.

I scratch your head and feel you burning up.

Your wires are crossed, again.

We talk to you softly until you calm down and your head cools.

The electricians re-routing your energy so you can run correctly again.

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The Start of Goodbye

            It’s happening.  We’ve been waiting for it and knew the time was coming.  Our old girl, Sky, is feeling her age.  This morning we woke up to pitiful cries coming from the living room.  D usually gets up with the dogs, and it’s been getting earlier and earlier.  I told him this morning (at 4:30am) to put in his ear plugs and wait until five.  They need to learn one just does not get up at the crack of dawn when one goes to bed AFTER dark.  So he gets up at five (4:55) and goes downstairs to find our girl in a mess of pain.

Sometimes I feel like such an ogre. 

So he gives her an aspirin, lets them out, feeds them and then later comes upstairs to tell me that she is really sore.  We know that this has been coming.  She’s been very stiff in her hind legs for a while now and when she walks up steps her hind end actually hops.  Luckily she doesn’t have to use steps all the time.

She’s been incontinent off and on, and we know it’s not behavioral.  Last night she lost control and pooped a little in the house.  I told him when I went upstairs to bed.  We know this isn’t good and this is finally what prompted me to have my old dog, Jack, put down.  Not because I didn’t want to clean up messes – I would have forever, if he was happy, if his quality of life was good.  But he wasn’t happy and he was hanging around for me.  It was the hardest decision I ever made. 

Now the decision belongs to D.  Sky is his dog.  All I can do is let him know of my experiences.  I’ve had dogs and cats all my life.  Sky is his first dog and from the way she looks at him I believe she absolutely adores him. 

When I came downstairs to get ready to leave for work she got up and walked out to the kitchen to see me.  Her legs were so much stiffer than I’ve ever seen them and I was afraid she was going to fall over.  D wondered if maybe there were pills the vet could give her to make her comfortable, but I think a cortisone shot will make a difference.  He wonders if it’s his fault she has lost her muscle tone and is so frail.  I told him that some old dogs get fat, some lose weight, but they all get old and this is normal.  I told him it wasn’t his fault.  She cannot stay a puppy forever, no matter how little gray she sports. 

We’ve been lucky to have her as long as we have.  We know she is between 12 and 14 years old.  She was hit by a car when she was a puppy and within the last several years her back legs hurt when she exercises too much.  She loves to swim but she won’t stop once she’s in the water.  She’ll cry as she paddles but she won’t get out.  And she’ll bite at the bubbles until her tummy fills with water.  It breaks our hearts to keep her out of the water, but she’s so obsessive compulsive we can’t let her in for fear we won’t get her out.

If only they all went peacefully in their sleep.  I held a cat once while he was dying.  His lungs were filling up with fluid and there was nothing I could do but hold him and talk to him and pray it went quickly for him.  His family had abandoned him and he adopted me.  I never want to lose another animal like that.  I never want her to feel helpless and in pain and not in control of herself. 

 

This will be a hard summer of saying goodbye.  I hope we do her justice and make her as comfortable as she can be and I hope when the time comes he will know it was the only decision he could make for her.  And that it was the right decision.

 

 

Morningmare

This morning I had the strangest dream.  D and I were visiting this house in the country.  I’ve seen this house before, either on TV or in a magazine.  The visit was uneventful and we then moved on to some sort of school building, but inside of it was a swamp.  D got in a boat and started rowing while I swam in the clear blue water around it.  Sky, our dog, was there exploring, apart from us.  We saw gigantic sleeping frogs but it was soon time to leave.  I held on to the boat while D steered and got out of the water at the door.  I then called Sky who took a while to get to me.  As I turned to scold her for taking so long I realized her back legs were missing.  I looked over where she had been and there were alligators on a sand bar.  No one had told us the area was dangerous!  I gathered her into my arms and held her in my lap, while I called for D.  I could feel her slipping away even as she gently licked my face.

When I woke myself up my heart was beating a mile a minute.  When I went downstairs and called her to me she put her head to my chest and just kept pushing into me.  I swear she knew what I dreamed and how sorry I was that she was dying in my sleep.

 

 

And That's The (Horse) Poop!

It’s funny.  I live in a rural area with lots of Amish around.  They pay school taxes and land taxes and keep to themselves.  They farm and bake and sell their produce and baked goods on the side of the road wherever they can.  Some build sheds, or craft chairs and other furniture or toys.  They keep to themselves and their ways.  But there is one thing people can’t stand about the Amish.  THEIR HORSE AND CARTS!

            If it’s night time you can’t see them.  There are some that will use just a lantern or two and you don’t see them until you’re almost on top of them.  Then there are some that cover the back of the cart with reflective tape and you can see them a mile away.  Most of the time it’s in-between.  There’s just enough reflective tape to let one know that there is a buggy ahead.  It has been a huge divide for the “English” up here. 

On one hand you’ve got the “live and let live” folks.  These are the people that admire the Amish.  They think it’s great that they’ve kept the old ways and haven’t bent to society.  On the other hand you have the morons that think the Amish are dirty and stupid and have no right to be on our roads.  These are the people who continually complain about the dark buggies and the horse poop.

When my parents moved up here from the city they were trying for a simpler kind of life.  Dad wanted a hobby farm.  Get a couple cows, a couple pigs, a dog, some cats and a horse.  Grow a garden and feed the family.  Fresh air to breathe, green grass to sprawl on in the summertime.  No asphalt jungle.  A very “Green Acres” type of existence.  They actually pulled it off and I had a great childhood. 

While I was growing up I didn’t realize the animosity some people felt towards the Amish.  They were always welcome in our house.  They would come by to visit with my parents and I could hear their different dialect and I thought we were pretty special because we had Amish friends. 

In the on-line newspaper today, opinions to a poll were published.  The poll asked whether the Amish should pick up after their horses when they pooped in the road.  (I told you we were rural)  The fact that this was a poll should have given me a clue as to the answers.  I was really surprised that so many people would want the Amish to stop and scoop.  A lot of respondents also said it was a stupid idea given that they are slow already and it would add to the danger they are already in, in a buggy on fast roadways. 

I was completely taken off guard by the number of people who complained that if they had to pick up after their dogs then the Amish should pick up after their horses.  Again, rural area here – I almost never see anyone pick up after their dog, including me.  Yes, I admit it.  When I take my dog out I always forget a bag.  In the more urban areas I do bring bags and pick up but we don’t go there together very often.  So when my dog drops a load, that’s where it stays.  And I’m guessing a lot of the people who said they scoop really don’t.

What I don’t understand is this – I’ve seen horse poop on the road.  I’m a walker and a part-time runner.  I’ve run around it and through it.  My dogs have rolled in it.  Comments about how gross it is make me wonder if these North Country “natives” have ever seen real horse poop, because horse poop is probably the nicest poop around.  It’s grass.  It falls apart when it’s dry and turns to dust.  It smells just like a horse.  I’d rather have my dog roll in horse poop than a dead frog or worse – a dead bird.  If I walk through horse poop I don’t get all grossed out.  It’s not slippery like cow poop.  It doesn’t stink to high heaven like dog poop.  You’ll never find it in your flower garden when you are planting, like cat poop.  It doesn’t stick to your sneakers.

Oh yeah, one other thing, its biodegradable, unlike the chemicals that we, the “English”, spew from our cars into the Amish faces as well as their horses. 

We like to think we are so advanced, but what would we do if the government shut down all computer systems?  No phone, no electric, no computers.  It’s not that far-fetched of an idea.  I think we’d probably need to go to our Amish neighbors and ask them for help.  Maybe even a ride.  And you know what they would probably do?  They would probably help us, even though we treat them like second class citizens, even though we complain about their old ways and the buggies they drive and the poop that their horses leave on the road.

Imagine that.