Lola 7/4/2008 - 10/11/2022

10/11/22 - Around noon today the vet will be coming so that we can say goodbye to Lola. It's hard to believe that it has been 14 years. It seems like she's always been with us. But in the last few weeks she has really gone downhill fast, so I know that it's time. She is not comfortable or happy and I don't want to drag it out for her. She has been a great dog for 14 years and now I need to step up and be a great owner. 

Lola, and her brother Axl, came to us as fosters. We had just lost Nala and Rocco was not doing well. We thought that maybe getting a foster would help since he'd never been alone. We only wanted one dog, but these two came a pair. 

This is Lola on the first day we got her. And this is Axl on the first day. They were both a mess. Axl was so skinny you could see his hip bones and it hurt to look at. Lola had wrinkles galore and an eye issue where her lower lid turned inward. They were a couple of hot messes. But, in spite of all that, I fell in love with Lola. She was just the cutest little thing. We decided to keep them since they came as a set. Not long after Rocco passed away so it was just us and them two. And it stayed that way for a long time.

Lola was a little spitfire and a Mama dog to Axl. She was the one with all the confidence and courage, he was a scared mess. Those two would play and it was crazy to watch. Lola would bite Axl's collar and drag him around the yard by it. I don't know how many collars we went through for him because she kept biting and chewing them off. She was also an escape artist. We called her Houdini in her younger years. She could climb fences. She would use her brother as a pummel horse to jump on and get over fences. I don't know how many times we chased her up that insanely steep driveway in Hawaii. She loved to go for walks and hikes and loved to visit new places. She was a real explorer. She was also a bit of a loner. She was extremely independent and didn't need to be cuddled or loved on all the time. Though she did like her belly rubs and would roll over if you started petting her. 

When Bella came along her mama instincts really kicked in. Both her and Axl were fiercely protective of Bella. They would get in between us if we yelled at Bella. They always treated her like theirs. Until they were both really old, Lola always cleaned Bella's ears after dinner. 

She was the happiest little dog ever. She was always content to sit and watch the world go by or go out on a great adventure. I hope her and Axl and Bella are running free, playing with no pain. 

2/24/24 - I never finished this post. The vet came and I was just never able to come back to this post. Lola left us that day. It was so sad but a much needed release for her. After she was gone, the vet could feel a very large mass in her kidney. Yikes. She was probably in more pain than we even considered. 

In the almost 2 years since she's been gone its just been Maverick. We miss both Bella and Lola so much, but we have Maverick to keep us entertained. 

So many moments that we stop and smile because of memories of Lola. Every time we get the back bushes trimmed we laugh at how Lola loved to walk through them and peek out through the holes. Whenever we try to give Maverick a piece of broccoli, we laugh and remember Lola - the vegetarian dog. So many little moments that those who have gone before come up in our memories. I often wonder if Axl would have like Arizona. Or Nala. Or Rocco, or Mana. So many dogs. So much love. So many memories. 

The end is near for Bella

On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 we have a vet coming to the house to put Bella to sleep. This is hard. Really, really hard. I'm not sure I can go through with it. All the other dogs we've put to sleep has been on their last legs. It had usually become something incredibly serious and they needed to be euthanized today. With Bella it's different. I can see her deteriorating and I know that she would hold on for weeks longer if I let her, but is that fair to her? She is so loving and so loyal that she would hang on for months if I asked her to. I can't ask her to do that. She is in a great amount of pain. She can hardly walk and frequently collapses when standing. Her toes fold under while she walks - that's called knuckling - on both her front and back legs. She has little quality of life. She gets up, drinks water, pees/poops, and lays back down to sleep. She sleeps probably 20 hours a day. As I said, I know she would stay around as long as I asked her to, but I can't ask anymore. She has been the most loving, loyal, dog that I've ever had. I have to show her the same love and devotion that she has shown to me over the years. So tomorrow morning I will take her on her last car ride. We are going to go to Starbucks and get a puppachino, then head over to a park to sit and enjoy it. We may take a ride to Laveen so Jinxy can say goodbye to Bella. Maybe stop at the dog park where we all used to go. Then it's home to be loved on all day until the vet gets here. I've never planned so far in advance for a euthanasia and it's weird to have days and days to think about her leaving us. This house is going to be so empty without her. My heart is going to be so empty without her. She is the dog I always wanted. The dog I literally waited years to get. The only pure bred dog I've ever owned. Losing her is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done. But I have to do it for her. I have to be strong for her. I can't have her living in pain just because I can't say goodbye. So tomorrow is the day. This will be a sad place for a while. 

Tuesday, May 31st:  Today is the day and I am sad. Really. Really. Sad. But I feel like I'm coming to terms with it. I keep thinking this is the last......  and I don't cry. I want to make a tribute post to her, but that may have to wait until tomorrow. I am feeling a tiny bit guilty because in some ways her passing will be a bit of a relief. She takes a lot of care. She can't get up by herself most of the time so we have to help her. She pees in the house occasionally - not often but enough that I feel like everything smells of pee. She pees right outside the back door and that area out there does smell like pee.  She gets up 3 or 4 times a night and that means I get up too. She takes a plethora of pills every day. Those pills cost me about $400 every month. Plus I pay for vet care that we no longer use. Her last few vet visits have cost me $500. Not that I begrudge paying it, I would pay twice as much if it helped her, but it will be a bit of a relief financially. I am going to miss her like crazy, but I know that she will no longer be in pain and suffering. 

A death in the family

 

Last night Cluse passed away. He'd been having trouble for a while now. He would have episodes where his feet wouldn't work. We put it off to arthritis as is was an old bird, but now I'm rethinking that. I'm wondering now if he was having mini-strokes like humans do. Anyway, we found him on the floor last night with his wing in his mouth like he had been preening and blood on the side of his head. He was gone already. Hubby is devastated. Cluse was his drinking partner and general hang out buddy. I'm sad too even though Cluse hated me and always tried to bite me. 

We got Cluse in November of 2010. We had just moved into the Hawaii house and had a bird room going. We started him in the bird room but he quickly bonded to Hubby so that didn't last long. Hubby set up a cage and a space for him outside in his carport and that was that for 6 years. He flew with us when we moved to Arizona and went on all of our ill fated adventures in RVs. He weathered 6 Arizona summers and 7 Arizona winters. Although a bit of a jerk, he was a lover to Hubby and they were really bonded. It will be strange not having him around. According to what I wrote when we got him, he was believed to be about 18 years old then. We've had him 11 years, that would make him 29 years old. But I thought that he was around 24 when we got him and that would make him 35 years old. Since they live to 30-35 that would make more sense to me. But I could be mistaken. All I know is that he was mature when we got him and that we have had him for 11 years. Rest in peace Cluse. 

In strange news, Mavy was acting weird last night during dinner. He was whining like he wanted something. When he has a ball or a bone under the couch or under the table by the TV he will whine and bark until we get it for him. He was whining like that last night, but there was no barking or digging under the item where the ball hid. We could not figure out what was going on with him. He did this all through dinner. It was right after dinner that Hubby found Cluse on the floor. I can't help but wonder if Mavy was trying to tell us something was wrong with Cluse. I guess we'll never really know. 

It's been one week.....

 since I posted here. Not a whole lot is happening on the doggie front. Mavy had his second class and he knocked it out of the park - as usually. He is smarter than we give him credit for. 

Bella is doing great though she has had more accidents in the house recently. Not sure what is happening with that, maybe I should take her to back for a check-up. 

Lola is slowly fading right before our eyes. She is eating less. It's harder and harder for her to move around. She seems to like get lost in the backyard. It's sad  to watch but I also know that it is inevitable. I just want to make sure that we don't keep her around too long. I don't want that girl to suffer unnecessarily. 

And that's about it really. We are in the middle of a 5 day weekend. And they love having us around all day. Mavy and I have been taking nice leisurely walks in the afternoon, it has been so nice here. 

I did take Mavy to bathe him last Sunday. He was spitting out clumps of hair so much I finally decided that he needed a good bathing to try and get rid of some of them. That was crazy. He had so much hair come off him, I don't understand why he isn't bald. Seriously. From his butt area, right under his tail, these huge clumps of fur came out that were kind of matted and thick. It was so crazy. They have about a 3" drain in the sink there and the entire thing was filled with hair. It was insane. The good news is that I think it helped some. He doesn't seem to have as many clumps that can just be picked off him. I do have to groom him more. Today, I will take him out back and groom him today. 

That's really it. Not a whole lot more to say about the kids, so I guess I'll wrap it up here. 

Now, to the present

 So here we are all up to date. Maverick started training again. I'm not sure I mentioned this but he had been in agility for almost 2 years. His heart really wasn't in it though and so I decided to pull him out to work on our relationship. Shortly after that Covid hit and the training place shut down. So that was the end of that forever. During Covid there was no training happening even though we could have done it outside. And when things started up again it was kind of slow going. Finding places and getting spots, it was difficult. Originally I thought Maverick was done with any kind of training. He's 5 years old and all we do is walk. But he is also really bright and he gets bored. So I thought we'd do just some basic obedience, maybe do some Rally, something for fun, not like agility which is so serious and takes a lot of work. So he's in an intermediate class which focuses on the connections between the dog and handler. That is exactly the kind of stuff I want. Now, I have been a bad dog mom this week because I haven't practiced with him. We have homework and I haven't done any at all. Part of the excuses I use is that with 2 other dogs in the house it's hard to train. That is literally BS. There are many ways I could train with 2 other dogs in the house. I just use that because I haven't fit it into my schedule or worked out the best way to do it. So that changes today. I'm going to figure out when and where and how to get a few minutes of training in whenever. I'm going to put treats all over the house, hmmmm, need containers for that 🤔. And I'm going to set my alarm for times when I'm home and I'm going to stop and do it. I need to do things like that until it becomes habit. Of course, all that we are covering right now he pretty much knows already, it's just a matter of cleaning up the cues and the responses. 

Okay, that will do for now. I'm off to do some cleaning and enjoy my Sunday. 

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world

 So yesterday I caught you up on the dogs. I should have mentioned Clouseau also. He is still around and kicking. Getting old, I estimate he is probably around 40ish years old by now. But still hanging in there. 

Now, to the humans. Last time I wrote was 2019. Shortly after that we sold the house we were in and moved to our last house in Tempe. It has a big yard and a pool and a spa and is completely awesome. The dogs love it because there is room to roam in the yard, not that concrete patch that we had at the other house. So that's all good. Still some work to do on the house, but we are not in a rush as we are going to be here a while. 

Then, in early 2020, we had only been in our house for 7 months, Covid hit and the world shut down. Literally a world wide pandemic that affected millions and millions of people. Lots of people died from it and it was brutal. I had it in November of 2020 and was really sick for 2 weeks and then it took me another 3 weeks to really recover from it. Then the husband had it in January of 2021 and was in the hospital for 7 days and out of work for 8 weeks. It was bad. We are still, 2 years later, dealing with it. New strains have come up and they travel the world in waves. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen. And it really showed the lack of common sense and the sense of entitlement some people have. But I'm not getting into that. This pandemic has really brought out the worst in some humans. 

We were home for basically a  year and the animals loved it. Mavy and I walked a lot. I taught from home and it was kind of awesome. It made me consider getting a remote teaching job, but I also discovered that we all get really lazy when we are home all the time. So we are both back to work at the school and the dogs have adjusted to that again. 

So there you have it, almost 3 years in 2 short blog posts. I am going to alternate blogs every morning, so I will be posting here a couple of times a week. I want to track Mavericks training and all the health issues of the dogs. 

That's it for today. 

Time to get back to it

 So it's been about 3ish years since I've written in here. The last post was about whether to keep this domain or not. Well, I did keep it - obviously - and now I've decided to use it again. So before we go any further, time to catch up with the animals. 

Lola - still kicking. She is now almost 14 years old and showing it. She is full of arthritis and walks funny. She has lumps all over her little body from fat deposits. She is almost completely deaf and seems to be suffering from a little doggy dementia.  But she is still hanging in there and getting goofy now and then. 

Bella - is now 11 1/2 years old and still around. She developed Cushing's Disease and was diagnosed about a year ago. She now takes medication for that and seems to be doing okay. She has a lot of arthritis and her rear end is getting weak making it hard for her to get up and down, but again she is hanging in there and doing pretty well. In December we finally had the tumor removed from her lower jaw. The had to take off a couple of mm of jaw so now she has a little overbite that is so cute. She adjusted fairly quickly and is going great. She is still happy and joyful, just like she's always been. She gets excited when we come home and is still her bouncy self. 

Maverick - doing well. He is going to be 6 this year and is a chubby little dog. We had been doing agility for almost a year but his heart was not really in it and it was expensive, so we stopped. Last night, after a 2 year hiatus, we returned to training. This time it's just some obedience stuff. Something to keep his mind and body active. He gets neurotic if he doesn't have something to do. Otherwise he is doing well. He does have a limp in his back leg on and off. I wrote about it in 2018 and it still comes and goes. He has also gained some weight and that could be part of the problem. Hopefully by being back in training he will drop a couple of pounds. 

Okay, that's really all I have time for today. Tomorrow I will catch up on the human lives and what's been happening with us.