When it was time to have my own home and no leasing rules against having them, I got my cat Chaquita, now 18. Next when I bought my first house, I got one puppy, Calla, and then another, Gracie. They have such different personalities and quirks don't they? Calla hated popping sounds and thunder but she would try to bite and attack the vacuum and be the nanny police to the other pets and sometimes my visitors. She also had favorite humans and preferred brunettes.
I grieved for a long time and still do but what was really sad for me was how Gracie, 13 this year, also seemed a little lost without her. I wasn't thinking about getting another dog but after a month or so it didn't seem like Gracie was doing so well and mealtime was a lot coaxing and our short walks, which she needs to do for her arthritis, were getting tougher and tougher to convince her to go on. Oh, the looking back and hesitation seemed so sad to me.
We decided to get another dog but I was being really picky, wanting an older smaller dog that wouldn't be a bully and could settle in for a nice quiet retirement at our home. We met 10 year old Charlie at a shelter and he seemed great, with nice manners and such an easy going little fellow. He'd had some recent surgery and was recently neutered, but he seemed healthy and ready to go so we made the leap and brought him home. Fairly quickly we realized it was going to be long adjustment for Charlie as he was marking in the house and had a penchant for wanting to just keep walking down the road, plodding on and on until he was exhausted.
We managed and got a pretty good routine going and best of all, Gracie had perked up and was eating meals and excited to go walking though she always tired out first. After 2 1/2 weeks we thought we had things smoothing out until one day while walking Charlie had a collapsing episode and we first thought we'd let him walk to long that day but the next days he started having seizures. The vet thought it was hypoglycemia and did tests for an insulin tumor but while waiting for the results we lost Charlie to the repeated seizures. We think the poor guy had cancer and that the surgery he had at the shelter was a tumor that was more than just a fatty tumor and it had aggressively changed. We had him for such a short time that I didn't fall in love with him but he and Superdude had become buddies so it was a sad time once again.
Here we are again, Gracie is looking back on walks and eating is a hit or miss but she is doing okay. She's a stoic sheep dog mix so it is sometimes hard to tell but we've been walking every day and she's getting around pretty good. Next, sometime soon maybe we will get another dog but this one may be a puppy that will tear everything up while he grows but we can train him and learn all his quirks and figure it out together.
After my heartbreak with Calla, I know it is going to be so tough to lose Miss Gracie and cranky Chaquita but it is truly, totally worth it, that crazy pet love!
