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...

Old Books, Good Memories

SUMMARY: Lad, A Dog; Bob, My Dad.

Starting somewhere in my middle childhood I became crazy about dogs.  A crazy dog lady in development.

My parents encouraged me via books. My mom was the one who had collies as a kid and who likely got me started on Albert Peyson Terhune, and I think that it was my dad, in particular, who browsed used bookstores for all the Terhune books that money could buy--back in the day when used bookstores were many, and those who remembered the best-selling Terhune books still roamed the aisles of used bookstores. (Lad, A Dog: "Published in 1919, the novel was a best seller in both the adult and young adult markets and has been reprinted over 80 times.") And he loved books, and he loved bestowing gifts on loved ones.

My father died last week, just a month short of his 85th birthday, after a steep but short decline from cancer, still fighting, still treasuring his books and his family.

So many memories from my childhood reside in these books, so very many of which came wrapped as birthday or Christmas gifts over a period of a decade or more. And so many of which I still occasionally pull out and plunge into, for good times with good dogs.

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You can always read about how Gray Dawn influenced my preferences for dogs, in Boost's History.

Tika Comes Back Home

SUMMARY: To stay with me forever.

Tika Memorial

SUMMARY: A few words and photos

Tika memorial page in PDF (might take a minute to download)

Carmel

SUMMARY: Memorial, beach, friends.

(Reposted with a bit more stuff than earlier. 8:45pm PDT)

My random notes about today.

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A good day. Memorial for Lisa Pomerance on the Carmel beach with dogs and friends. She was so involved with so many animal communities. Much purple was worn. My dogs ran on the beach before and after, and walked around Carmel with friends afterwards. And I took no photos. Not one. It was a wonderful day.

Me, in my purple (after getting home), windblown, with purple beads from the memorial

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In Carmel today, one random person asked what kind of animal Chip was. My friend answered, "dog". He seemed disbelieving. Another said that Tika was clearly not all dog. I said that she was an Aussie mix, probably with Husky. He said, "Oh," and looked at her critically. Not sure he was convinced, either.

"What kind of animal?" I'm still floored by that one.

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The memorial was nice. Quite a few people wore purple and quite a few brought their dogs. People just got up and talked about how they'd met her, the fun times they had, the things she was involved in, and so on.

I took all 3 dogs and they got quite a bit of off-leash beach time. I wasn't sure what would happen with Chip with no recall, and he did tend to go farther away then either of the other dogs would, but he'd eventually come running back, so I guess he's attached enough to us now.

I got there with 2 cameras and realized that (a) I wasn't in the mood for taking photos and (b) it would be too hard trying to keep track of 3 dogs with a wide range of interests as well as concentrate on photos. So I took not a single shot. Fortunately I went with 2 friends with cameras so I'm hoping for lots of beach shots, maybe even with me in some for a change.

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The memorial--people brought their own chairs--was on the beach in the indentation where, in this Google Maps shot, there's a volleyball net (above-left of the letter B). The wind was fierce and became fiercer; it whipped away many of the words that people spoke; by late afternoon, the wind had blown away all but a few hardy souls from the normally crowded beach despite the sunshine.

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Fitbit says I walked:

Doesn't this mean that the dogs walked/ran about twice that while off leash?

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Shouldn't they all be sacked out after that? *I'm* sure tired.

BUT when I tried to take Boost's sacked-out photo, she jumped up, figuring that if I'm not at my computer, it's time to play. Now she and Chip are chewing on bones, playing with toys, and generally not being exhausted. That's the problem with having a  90-minute drive home afterwards: They can sleep all the way, but I can't sleep more than occasionally while actually driving.