Dogs and family

While on FB recently, I read a post by one of my FB friends who talked about their dog being in the vet hospital clinic. My thoughts immediately came to surface.

After our first dog had died we had adopted a dog in Wichita very quickly. We brought her home and gave her a new name. After a while we grew tired of the dog and she was placed in adoption again. She just wasn't like family.

Then we adopted another dog from Petsmart. She was a lovely dog (or so we thought). We took her to the vet to have her fixed but to only find out that she was pregnant with many puppies. So we had to pay for vet fees to fix her and not bring that many puppies in the world. After her operation she began to snap at us and our relatives. My MIL feared that our son who was quite young at the time, would be bitten by the dog. So once again we gave that dog up for adoption.

I started looking on the Internet for the exact dog that we wanted. I found one in Newton. So we remarked how much this one looked exactly like our first dog. We loved this dog but she had a problem, she was a barker! The neighbors didn't take kindly to her at all!! One day we had noticed that, Sugar seemed off-color. She wasn't eating and had thrown up several times. I guess back then I wasn't smart enough to know that this dog was seriously ill. I kept thinking the dog would get better. She did not. I kept thinking if only I would have taken her to the vet earlier what would have happened? A day later after all this sickness, I called her only to find her lifeless body in the dog house. It broke my heart. All I could think about is that someone killed her. To this day, I have no idea what exactly happened. My vet couldn't explain it either.

Then we got a puppy from the vet. We thought this dog would turn out to be great. He was not! He was a cute little puppy and the kids all liked him but as he grew older he got more dangerous. After a year we had had it with this dog and gave him back to the vet. Meanwhile, the vet had this very big dog! The kids fell in love with her. She was fixed and she was in need of a home. She was a collie. I wasn't sure how L would take have a big dog but he was going to have to get used to it. The fate of the puppy that we returned was short lived. He tried to bite a worker at the clinic and "devil dog," was put to sleep.

So we had the collie for eight short years. In a life of a collie that was a long time for her, in our eyes it was very short. But then we look back at how old J was when we got her until her death. It was a long time even in people years. She was such a loving dog. I always remember her with tears as she used to lay her head on my chest and I would look into her brown eyes. She was in love and I with her. To this day, I think of her and still cry. In her old age, she stopped eating and taking in water. We would go out to her pen, petting her. Finally one day, I just couldn't take it anymore and decided she should be put out of her misery (mostly our misery).

At the time the dog had died, I was taking care of my friends lively little indoor dog. I considered adopting her as her family was gone most of the time, but I just couldn't see us with a small dog. We went a few months without a dog, but it just wasn't the same.

We went back out to Wichita and found several dogs that were up for adoption. I had my eye on a black lab while J had his eyes on a white blonde lab who was about a 1 1/2 years old. The age was right for me and we got to know him before we took him home. We had to teach him not to jump on us and worked with him to understand the word "sit." We changed his name from a college name to a KU player name. Finally a year and a half has passed and M is finally become one of the family. He no longer jumps on us and sort of knows the word sit...only if I say it about 20 times and have a biscuit in my hand. No longer does he have a blank stare at us. He is excited when we see him and I'm excited to see him. He is one of the family. I hope to have him longer than 8 years.

This time 8 years will seem like a long time when comparing it in people years. Children will become young adults. Amazing how time flies in only 8 years.