Chip Photo Gallery

SUMMARY: Copied off Facebook

Backfill: Photos from FB post of June 17th.

I just copied the photos that I uploaded to Facebook for Chip's obituary on June 17. And put those Facebook photo copies onto my SmugMug photo site where they're easier to find, in Chip Photos for His Obituary.

Sadly, coming from FB, the photos retain zero info about when or where they were taken or what they were about. And not necessarily the same resolution.

And this is all because I couldn't be bothered (had a lot more on my mind), while I was finding them and posting them to facebook, to track where the original files are in my photo annals. 

You likely don't care about that.

I might or might not add captions sometime.

(Also adding this photo link to Goodbye Mr. Chip June 17th.)

Chip is Coming Home

SUMMARY: Heartache and a history of love.

Posted on Facebook, today, 11:07 AM.

This will be a weird day. Chip is coming home. May be in an hour or so. I am glad, and I’m not sure how I’ll hold it together.

It will be another tiny wooden kennel like the others. On my memories shelf. I need two shelves.

Added 12:04 PM on FB: Dr. Kuty dropped him off for me. We kept over 6' distance and she wore a mask (I would have, but I just stepped out of the door to open the cardboard box while she watched).

About the memorial shelf--

• [only here, not on FB:]
• Sam, my family's dog when I was a kid: the teal and brown tile on lower left shelf, I made that of her in Junior High art class.  Not too accurate: She was a longish-haired pale yellow collie/shepherd (guess) mix.
• My first dog, Amber, constant companion: Mom was German Shepherd, dad was Golden Retriever (known facts). Next to Sam's tile--that was a gift to remind me of her.
• Second dog, Sheba, a gray/white Siberian Husky. So easy to find things commercially of such a dog, although not always with blue eyes like hers. Still--there are 3 here in various places; two were gifts.
• Then Remington, my first tricks and tracking and obedience and agility dog. The box on the right of the main shelf, with a tiny photo of him on top.
• My friend Stephanie's dog Sparky, whom I spent a lot of time around and who died of cancer at about the same time that Rem did, is in a little round photo frame next to Rem's box.
• Jake, my super-champion agility boy, in the box with the purple collar around it.  All the boxes have their dogs' collars around or near them.
• Tika's and Boost's boxes are on the left; their photos are on top of Jake's box.
• And Chip--  I might spend this weekend dusting and rearranging and trying to reduce my quantity of books again.
• Also there are some sympathy cards and books, some of the very few "trophies" I ever won, paw prints of several of the dogs...

Erasing

SUMMARY: Chip is complete--

Text mostly from Facebook posted July 2, 2020

Erasing.

You might work for years on a piece of art or a piece of writing, scribbling in the margins, sketching in the shape with pencil, trying little colors or different words. And then suddenly--sometimes without warning--you realize it’s done. So you erase all the extra pencil marks, print a fresh copy of the manuscript with no markup in the margins. Erasing.

So many pencil lines never completed, blank areas never filled
(No idea when I drew this. Intending to fill it in completely--and then suddenly stopped.)

That Monday morning that I took Chip in for his blood test and still didn’t know what was about to land on us, I got home to discover that his leash had dragged behind my car on the freeway at 65 mph for about 15 miles. I don’t recall that ever happening before. The handle became quite filthy. I don’t believe in omens, but clearly this was an omen. I didn't know it then. The next day I learned. I learned.


Two days later--the day after Chip left us--when I took Zorro out for a walk, looking at the leash, a knife of memory said, this leash belonged to Boost, who died early of cancer. And now it belongs to Chip, who died early of cancer. I love it, because I love blue and I love Paisley, but with that realization, it hurts every time I look at it. It is retiring. I will wash it and put it in a box with the other extra leashes for extra dogs. Maybe to use again someday. Or maybe I’ll never be able to resurrect that one.

I bought Zorro a brand new leash today that matches his coat. And that reflects light like joy.

Chip is a completed work of art now. I’ll erase all the bits I don’t want to see. That aren’t needed any more. That break my heart.

Erasing: The Tag

SUMMARY: Someone needs to get some  use from this.

Backfill: Posted July 2. Parts from Facebook originally, June 29.

I splurged on this beautiful, solid, steel ID tag for Chip’s red collar a month or so ago. To replace the cheap one that was wearing out. I didn’t get around to adding it. 

I can't bear to keep seeing it sitting there on the table, where I almost got around to adding it to Chip's collar that previous weekend while the collar was off so I could comb him a bit. He was blowing his coat like crazy. But he liked the feel of combing/petting/caressing. An easy dog to groom.

It does not have the dog’s name on it, so I’ve added it to Zorro’s collar. Even though it doesn’t match.

It is harder than I thought it would be to admit that Chip won’t be needing it.

Ears

SUMMARY: Random Chip. Because. So many things to remember.

Backfill: Originally posted on FB 6/28. Posted here July 2.

Zorro the Mighty Hunter

SUMMARY: No! Dead! Rodents! In! House! Please!

Backfill: From June 26  and 27 on Facebook. Posted here July 2.

June 26, 7:14 PM:

Day 3 of the Vermin Killer: Mongo gopher got taken down today. Zorro nearly killed himself in the process--fortunately I was home and went looking for him. When I finally yelled sternly, Zorro, Come!, I heard a sound near the hot wooden shed in the side yard. Or... IN the shed. He pushed through the crappy doors into the shed apparently to finalize the transaction, but they don't push out. Still clutching the monster in his jaws. Seemed happy to see me.

Dork. Must find a solution for those doors.

P.S. I don't know which are gophers and which are ground squirrels--I don't actually look that closely usually. "big furry dead thing that's not a cat." ;-) My soil is also highly clay and bakes like rock in the summer, however, I do water during the summer usually, and that probably helps them, no matter which they are.

June 27 12:07 PM:

Yesterday the mighty hunter was so desperately hot on a hot day--after spending quite a long time digging a mongo hole** under my waterfall-that-has-never-worked and then chasing the very large squirrel or gopher into the shed--that when I freed him from the shed, he brought the corpus delicti inside and dropped it on my front-hall rug. After I chased him outside with it, he came back in and dropped it on the rug in the downstairs bathroom. I chased him out again and when he brought it back in and dropped it on the kitchen rug, I started tossing cookies into the hallway while I extirpated the unwelcome "visitor". ("In a bag in the trash" = "destroyed completely")

Revisiting the scenes of the crime. Now you know, when you come to visit, which carpets to not rub your face on.

** Begging the question of who is really doing more damage to my backyard…

My beautiful hall carpet. Probably the one that I like the best in my house at this time. Not that it has a lot of competition, but I love the colors. (which, incidentally, are a rich deep red, and a wonderful navy blue, and kind of an ivory yellow.)And he dropped a giant corpse on it!

The bathroom carpet where Zorro's catch briefly resided.
(When the guy came to strip the wallpaper, fix the water damage, and paint the walls and ceiling, I said, don't bother painting the vanity; I want to do it!
In April 2019. The paint is waiting for me...)

The “kitchen” carpet. It’s really just something to wipe feet on, and for the dogs to land on when they come through the dog door with their muddy feet. But, still...

Side note I commented in Facebook:  The gophers are active enough this spring that I have been able to collect the dirt that they shove out their back door and use it to fill all the previous pits of peril created mostly by Chip but sometimes Zorro and rarely by gophers. I also am very good at finding all of those by stepping on what I think is solid grass and twisting my ankle. I have actually run out of places to put those mounds of dirt and am stacking it on my patio for future needs! Sheesh.

A truly lovely evening.

SUMMARY: Good thing it was a good *#&;%^@# evening otherwise--

Backfill: From Facebook June 25. Trying to ease my mind of Chip's absence. Posted here July 2.

It was a really lovely evening. Zorro and I drove up to Milpitas to walk with my sister and her dog Abby, and they mostly ignored each other which was wayyyyy better than my concerns.

Temperature was great for strolling and looking at the hills. Saw a little smoke but didn't seem to be up in the hills, so that was good.

Found a beautiful piece of fractured glass.

Sister and her husband barbecued dinner and brought it down to my place and we had a lovely picnic on my patio, with a gorgeous sunset to top it off. (We have all been almost exclusively at home, very cautious when shopping, and have no symptoms...)

Oh, and then I remembered that I found a package on my front porch when I got home, so I took it out to the picnic and opened it and discovered that we could have a huge box of See's chocolates for dessert, thanks to another sister thinking of me and Chip. All together delightful.

Mostly. Just that one little thing...

Nice walk in Milpitas.

A little smoke in the hills but didn't see where it was coming from. Hope it was minor.

*#%&@&$@ 🤬

A beautiful piece of distressed glass!

Picnic in my back yard! Thanks to Chef Paul and my seester!

A surprise on my front porch in a big package marked
 "Perishable". Thanks, sister Ann!
Oh, my, I'll have to do a lot more walks now!

I didn't know who had sent it when I opened the box.
Didn't find out until a bit later.
Heartfelt message and I will certainly enjoy.

Picnic on my patio, with Zorro keeping us honest, and a lovely pink sunset.
(Well, it was pink in real life... I'll have to play with the editing sometime. Maybe.)

Showers

SUMMARY: Things one doesn't expect to hurt so bad.

Backfill: From Facebook originally June 25. Posted here July 2.

I dread getting out of the shower now. Every shower for 6 years, and now--nothing.

Zorro Has A Lot Going On

SUMMARY: He is keeping Human Mom busy.

Backfill: From Facebook June 25; posted here July 2

We’ve been working on weave poles – – first time in a very long time that I’ve felt like actually doing agility training in my yard. We haven’t been working on the dogwalk, but that’s OK, because Zorro takes it all by himself.

The hunting business is hopping.  Yesterday he caught a ground squirrel, last night or this morning, two small rats. (And the next day there'll be a gopher or squirrel, and the next day another squirrel.)

We’ve been going for a walk once or twice every day, which is the first time in a long time that I’ve felt like making that effort.

There’s always the shower to lick out after Human Mom squeegees it.

This morning, Human Mom did her best to play the game he and Chip would play: bitey face and then tuck tail and chase each other frantically back-and-forth in the upstairs hall and bedroom;
Zorro got fully into it, and mom used her hand as the bitey face, rolled around on the bed with him doing it, and then back-and-forth excitedly up and down the hallway.


And lots and lots of massaging of the neck and back and legs, and just snuggling.

When Chip First Came Home--

SUMMARY: Remembering Chip. Rejects the World Sleeping Order.

Backfill: From Facebook June 23; posted here July 2

When Chip first came home, age 3, Tika and Boost were already sleeping on my bed. I wanted to (a) let the dogs become accustomed to each other's presence, (b) let Chip know that he didn't always get to sleep on the bed, and (c) confine him at night until I knew how well house-trained he was.
He scratched and bit at the softcrate, so I set up the x-pen next to my bed.

He'd have none of it. Repeatedly levitated from there onto my bed (no running needed, no floor required in between). I decided that (1) he definitely had the chops for agility and (2) I give up, he wins, I just wanted to sleep.

(Also mentioned March 31, 2014.)

Martial Cottle Park mini-hike During COVID

SUMMARY: Zorro doesn't mind.

Backfill: From Facebook June 22; posted here July 2. Trying to catch up on my life here instead of lost on Facebook.

I’ve been avoiding walking in the park behind my house: Too many people mostly without masks these days. So we headed out about 6:20; cold air; strong chilling breeze that kept my hair blown over my eyes; overcast. I figured, all the wimps will be at home.

Hmmm—In the days of SIP **, apparently nobody is a wimp.

** Shelter In Place -- it has been just over 3 months now

And my mask broke.

But Zorro got to explore many, many, many gopher holes.

And we got about a mile in, fourth day in a row.

Tunnel Running and Games

SUMMARY: Remembering Chip. Missing this happiness so much.

Backfill: From Facebook June 21; posted here July 2

Chip learned to do tunnels from Boost. And he loves doing them. Just not when I tell him too. And he taunts you to chase him. And he loves being wet from playing in the hose, and whenever he rolls around in pleasure inside or out, he makes happy little noises.

I Don't Want to Lose You

SUMMARY: Goodbye, Chip: Sometimes love just ain't enough.

Backfill: From Facebook June 20; posted here July 2

Now, I don't want to lose you,
but I don't want to use you just to have somebody by my side.
There's a danger in loving somebody too much,
Baby, sometimes love just ain't enough.

Are there things that I wanted to say?
And do I feel you beside me in my bed,
there beside me where you used to be?
There’s a danger in loving somebody too much,
and it's bad when you know it's your heart you can't trust.
Baby, sometimes love just ain't enough.

[modified lyrics from recording by Patty Smyth]

Goodbye Chip

SUMMARY: My little playing in the hose dog.

Backfill: From Facebook June 19, posted here July 2.

The Really Bad News

SUMMARY: The technical cancer details. But wonderful vets.

Backfill: Most from Facebook June 17; posted here July 3

My regular vet, a wonderful human, took my phone inside to take photos of Chip's x-rays for me. (All appointments are outside for the humans; dogs go in.) And then he sat with me in the parking lot to explain them, AND he brought out a book with sample x-rays from a German Shepherd (appropriate, given his DNA test earlier this year) to compare and let me photograph them, too.

Four x-rays: What his looked like yesterday and what it should look like. Cancer nodules in lungs and other places (?), chest filled with fluid.

Chip's x-ray--fogginess around center is
fluid in his lungs/chest.
Also when zoomed in, you can see
lots of small dots, circles, whatever.
Lots of them. 

What it should look like. Clear. 

Again, fogging is fluid in his chest cavity.
And fuzzy dots/ovals/circles also visible in many places.

What it should look like.

The next vet, Dr. Maria Kuty, who helped me with Boost at the end 5 years ago, came this morning with less than 24 hours notice to ease Chip carefully and comfortably into a deep sleep and then out of his misery completely. One couldn't ask for a better mobile vet for this crushing event.**  She talked and listened and loved Chip. She delivers him to the crematorium and will bring his box back when it's ready.

http://www.drkutyhousecallvet.com/dr-kuty/

** Note: In my mind and heart, it is the cancer that is killing Chip. If I weren't able to give the gift of relief, I'd have had to watch him slowly die over the next day or two, or worse, even a few days longer.  It has been painful to see him the past 4 days get worse and worse and worse. It is Chip dying that hurts so much, not the actions that I requested from the vet.

Goodbye Mr. Chip

SUMMARY: My sweet boy is gone.

Note: Also posted on Facebok, more photos currently.
ALSO NOTE: The original link for this was mucked up, so I reposted. If you bookmarked this before & it appears to be gone--that's why. But here it is, still same date and time.

I can't believe, can't bear it--third dog to die of cancer between 9 and 10. I am grieving for them all now and railing against the Universe.
------

Goodbye Mr. Chip

Chip (Finchester’s Butterscotch Morsel)
May 25, 2011-June 17, 2020

Monday morning, when Chip went to the vet, I suspected pancreatitis. Twenty-six hours later—Tuesday—I learned that cancer and fluid filled him. He is dying. Twenty-one hours later—Wednesday —the vet arrived and, just like that, my long-legged, skinny, perky, happy, bright-eyed boy is gone.

The one who loves people. The one who sometimes worries about something new until he has carefully figured it out. The one who is terrified of fireworks and thunder. The one who, no matter how many times I say “Stretch!”, doesn’t—until we’ve done other tricks and I’ve put the treats away. The one who takes everything cautiously, except exchanging expletives through the fence with the dog next door, except playing in a spraying hose, except for his Indy car tunnel performances. The one so soft, so smooth, who loved hands on him.

Wet dog! Happy spotted tongue!

The big dog with the small, black-spotted tongue who loved tiny toys. Who loved sleeping in his crate.

He interviewed for, then joined, Taj MuttHall in May, 2014 as a rehome from a family who loved him. He was going to be my next agility dog. After the first several classes, though, it became clear that it stressed his slow, studied way of figuring things out (he’d run and hide in a tunnel) and so he became simply a proud and excellent companion dog.

Things he loved the most:

- Going wild with the hose spray (watering flower pots became a challenge). When the spigot came on, he’d fly in from wherever he had been.

- Being touched: Lying quietly on his side being stroked and massaged, or standing for gentle brushing, or pushing his head between my knees to be wiped down after another hose spray experience. For as long as I wanted. And if it weren’t as long as *he* wanted, he’d wriggle and verbally demand more until I started again.

- Blasting through the yard’s agility tunnels full speed, back and forth and around, and then hitting a high-tension play bow just inside the end of one, eyes sparkling, waiting for me to say readyyyyy GO! and then blast to the other end of the same tunnel and wait again. And then explode out to the next tunnel. If I were inside, he’d do tunnels all on his own, the b-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-um sound of a dog breaking the tunnel speed barrier echoing into the house.

- Digging.

- Marking. Everything and often.

- Rubbing his head and back on my wet hair fresh out of the shower.

My sweet volunteer assistance dog—he’d come and get me if I accidentally closed Zorro in the garage, or if Zorro found an open gate and went outside to explore, or if my alarm went off (any alarm, any time of day), or if anything occurred inside or outside that he wasn’t sure what it was or felt that it was out of place in his carefully ordered world.

He is deeply intelligent, in a quiet genius way: He’d consider each piece of each thing I wanted to teach him, maybe for a while, and try a couple of things cautiously, and then more confidently, and then he’d have it. No wildly offering random behaviors for him.

In that way, he replayed my beloved thoughtful-learning Remington (1993-2003), whom he resembled , which is how he ended up coming home with me. Like Remington, he wanted to smell my breath once daily (only 2 dogs to do that). Like Remington, he loved to run, but agility wasn’t high on his priority list. Like Remington, he has cancer in his 9th year.

My heart is sundered.

And yet I am replete with gratitude for those who brought him into my life so that every day I could laugh and smile repeatedly with him and could receive as much snuggling as I wanted. What more could I really ask?

March 20, 2014 - New dog!

That look...!

August 14, 2004 - First time through dog door on his own
(Full set of photos: Dog Door Success!)

June 17, 2020 - Le Chien Soleil 
Really, Human Mom? More photos?

Daily - Full-speed flying through tunnels

----

NOTE: the same text with a bunch more photos should be viewable on Facebook at the moment: https://www.facebook.com/ellen.finch/posts/10221178115937779

ALSO, just copied them (and maybe more) to my Smugmug photo site under Chip Photos for His Obituary.

I'm posting this now, butI have many more photos to add. Trying to cull from 6,000 with so little notice--

Fucking cancer

SUMMARY: Fucking cancer

Backfill: From Facebook June 16; posted here July 3.

Fucking cancer!

Everyone Drives to the Vet

SUMMARY: Chip is with the vet. What is up with him?

Backfill: From Facebook June 14; posted here July 2

Well, here we are in the vet’s new waiting room, Chip inside the building getting checked out, Zorro and me hanging out in the back seat of the van, watching the world go by.

Oops... Apparently human mom is sitting in the back seat and Zorro is taking over the driver seat.

(They'll check him over and draw some blood and call me back tomorrow. )

(Vet says to watch and see whether he's having trouble breathing when he's not stressed at the vet. I find that he really is at times--take a video for the vet. It is not hot, and he has not been active recently. Here I can also see how much weight he has lost so quickly. He still looked good 2 weeks ago but that was another symptom--)

(Tonight I'll make a list of his symptoms over the last couple of days to give to the vet tomorrow as needed:)

Chip doesn't feel great

SUMMARY: Chip is not feeling well. Off to the vets we go. It’s one of those weeks.

Backfill: Posted partial on Facebook June 15; added here July 3

Appetite dropped way off suddenly on Friday. Now it's Monday and worse. Even though Human Mom has been trying to feed him an attractive but bland diet.

Da heck, Human Mom, whut dis nasty whites you is hide da chicken yums in?

Side note-- my comment on FB about what could be going on: Maybe too many plums. That is my working theory. And I’m thinking that it’s not an issue with the plums themselves, but with the salicylates that they contain, because that can trigger pancreatitis in a dog who’s already had an episode. I learned that this morning online (It almost seemed like the pancreatitis acting up, but he has been on a low-fat diet, and I haven’t been giving him anything other than that, so I looked up what could trigger pancreatitis, and it listed the 10 most common things, one of which was salicylates, and I said, a-ha!), but we will check with the vet to see what’s up.

Zorro to Emergency Again -- Probably Nothing

SUMMARY: Poor Zorro's tummy--

I opted to take Zorro to the emergency vet late last night (WHY is it always nights or weekends? Usually nights?!).

Yesterday evening I wrote:

Poor Mr. Zorro. Lying around, drooping around, like he’s miserable. He might be. I realized after I gave the dogs dinner that he was still eating his very, very, very slowly long after Chip was done. He’s usually done in a flash.

He had no trouble whatsoever about 8:30, when he heard a squirrel, racing at several miles per hour over the speed limit out of the house and all the way across the yard. But then right back into the house drooping and lying miserably and walking slowly, head kind of down.

I did notice him earlier out in the yard eating plums. I’m hoping that he is merely overfull of plums and then just forced dinner in on top of it because it's a law among dogs to eat the food if it's in front of you because otherwise the other dogs might get it.

I hate when my pups aren’t feeling well. Things could go wrong, even though all eight of my dogs have always eaten plums every summer, pits included. And I’ve never had trouble. It’s just sometimes figuring out: how long do you wait and watch before you drive your wallet over to the emergency room?

 (I wasn’t really aware that plums were coming rip until late this afternoon when I was out in the yard and saw both dogs munching on them. I need to go out and pick up fallen ones a couple of times a day now. To reduce this sort of happening.)

Poor little guy. Just drooping around the house.

This morning, post-Emergency room visit:

(P.S. the branch of the emergency room that has been just around the corner from me for the last 19 years has closed permanently, apparently. So now I have a 20-minute drive to Campbell, which the one that's there used to be around the corner more or less from where I lived before this. Very sad.)

I think that mostly he overate, plums coming ripe, then took forever to eat dinner, and then lethargic and looking unhappy, wanting to drink and not doing so. Chewing a treat I gave him! That never happens. Took twice as long as Chip to eat his dinner. After 4 hours and no change, I worried, and when he chewed a treat lethargically again at a late bedtime (because I was staying up late, periodically walking him around the yard, hoping I'd see him poop then gave up) I called them.

They said I could be right but they could take a look just in case. They saw nothing obvious but gave him some fluids and antinausea meds and he seemed perkier at that point (midnight-12:30,) of course. I opted not to do an x-ray to see whether plum pits were blocking him, because they felt no sign of it. So my bill was quite reasonable. Whew! So sleepy I had no trouble almost literally falling into bed and asleep. Did sleep maybe 6 hours but still feel groggy.

He’s fine this morning, pooped fine, ate normally, doing his usual activities. The only thing that I found interesting was that, usually, after a dog has been given subcutaneous fluids, they want to pee maybe sooner than usual and also a lot. Zorro had no particular urgency to go outside this morning after being in bed for over over 7 hours. Didn’t wake me up to go, didn't rush downstairs, etc. When I finally let them out, he peed a fairly small amount. So maybe a little dehydrated, although vet said no signs of it so it’s all based on behavior.

But as I said, seems fine this morning, eating and drinking normally. It’s always something.

[And this was stream of consciousness so long & repetitive. Too tired to fix now! Sorry.)