Dog Show

Rose with the sun today to show Alfie and Joan's pug, Lumpi. Both did us proud. I will share more about the experience tomorrow.

Dramatic Sky

I visited Joan's house near Sugarbush Ski Area on Thursday. After days of rain, the sun was shining. I looked up and caught this beautiful dramatic sky. I actually like the juxtaposition of the telephone poles and wires with the natural world. A story is being told here, a drama unfolds.

Words

I have a student who is an excellent writer, a true memoirist. She has a book in her if anyone does. In fact, she’s already written it. She’s worked on a manuscript for years and finally had one ready to go to an agent. Her life had not been easy and her memoir reflects this, but recently things took a turn. She experienced some pleasant surprises. She made some happy changes. And, suddenly she isn’t writing anymore. She is living, and she doesn’t seem at all inclined to revisit the painful experiences of the past. Her writing in many ways was cathartic for her, a healing process. But now, she doesn’t need to heal. She doesn’t need to analyze, reflect, put things in perspective, or even share. She is busy living. I encourage her – so much of her life was on hold for so very long – it is not a time to sit isolated at a desk, behind a computer. It is a time to laugh with a lover, to build a strong foundation, not a story structure.

There is a belief that writers have to write. They cannot help themselves. Writing for me has always been my way of sharing my perspective on the universe. From the time I was a little girl, I remember wanting to write. I have not, however, always felt compelled to do so. Some days I can take it or leave it. Does that make me less a writer? Maybe, but perhaps it makes me a better person. I put my pen and pad of paper down and tote a carload of seventeen-year-old boys to an action film. I drive my 92 year-old grandmother to the doctor. I witness my seventeen-month-old niece see her first dinosaur exhibit. Sometimes I pick the pen back up and share what I’ve learned from these experiences. Sometimes there isn’t time before the sun sets and rises and the day begins again.

There is another belief that to be a writer you need to be selfish – to guard and honor the work above all else. Good writing is honest writing, but in the end, I think, people are more important. And, so I tell my student not to worry, the book will happen or it won’t. Go live and embrace all that you find! Writing is a creative act. It gives birth to worlds and reinvents them, but it plays second fiddle to love. The Bible says, “In the beginning was the word…” but it also notes that in the end it is love that remains. Love may be revealed on the page, but it is discovered in relationships. Words have a life of their own, but they are not my life.  I write to share what I think and feel and learn.  I live so the words aren’t empty.

Pet First Aid

 

The rain and flooding throughout the region today did little to deter the crowd of clients who gathered at Country Animal Hospital in Bethel, Vt. for a first aid class tonight. The vets divided a group of approximately 50 of us up into four groups and rotated us through various stations covering what to include in a first aid kit; dealing with lacerations, the Heimlich maneuver, and CPR; household toxins and poisons and fleas, ticks and other pests. Fun and informative, we learned that prescription meds are the leading cause of household poisonings, how to remove a tick with a nifty little item called a Tick Twister and that a pug and other broad chested little dogs should be placed on their backs to deliver CPR. The office’s mascot kitty, Nitro, was on hand to offer a feline influence and Sunny, a yellow lab, patiently allowed Dr. Keady to bandage and re-bandage her. She was a sport and seemed resigned, but the look in her eyes suggested a sad sort of tolerance. It made those of us in the crowd smile and laugh. We were mostly women and you have to wonder what that says about gender and our relationship with animals. The large turnout in general was also a commentary of sorts – people seem eager for such offerings. It was one of the first of many classes that Dr. Jessica Jones has planned for the practice that she took over last year. I am actually writing a short article on her assuming ownership for an upcoming issue of Upper Valley Life, but tonight I was there as a pet owner, walking away feeling a bit more informed should there ever be an at-home emergency with my pugs.

Scene from Yesterday

I was going to post tonight about spending the day with my grandmother on her 92nd birthday, but tonight when I was uploading photos to the computer I came across this picture I took yesterday that I hardly remembered snapping. I was trying to capture the crow in the tree. I decided to play with it a little in Photoshop and this is the result.

Resurrection

Saying goodbye to a beloved pet is never easy, but in the case of my friend Joan’s pug, Egg, it may be next to impossible. Egg is 13 years old. He has lost the use of his legs and each day seems to grow weaker. We have been preparing for his death, beginning some of the rituals that make it easier for us to deal with his passing. This weekend we wrapped him in the afghan Joan’s dog sitter, Norma, made for him and took him out to sit among the daisies. We photographed him there. Before she returned home, Norma held and rocked him and as I left for the evening, she whispered to me, “This one’s going to be a hard one for Joan. Be there for her.”

She’s right. Joan has a house full of pugs and loves them all, but Egg has been her car dog, her traveling companion, her special pet, the one that made his way through the pack to stand at the head of the crowd. In his youth, he was an athlete, jumping fences, chasing the girl dogs until Joan was forced to neuter him, but over the last few years, age got the better of him and his legs began to give way. He weakened quickly, too quickly for Joan to buy a doggie cart, and she had little success trying my pug, Vader’s. As his legs ceased to hold him up and his head began to tilt at a peculiar angle, we saw the beginning of the end.

The phone call came tonight while I was out running errands. Joan’s message was Egg had died. Fortunately, for me, I missed the message and when I called Joan tonight and questioned as usual, “How are you,” she answered, “You heard didn’t you?”

“Heard what?” I asked.

“About Egg,” she said. I knew instantly that he had passed. I began to offer my condolences, “I’m sorry, Joan,” I mustered, but was quickly interrupted. “But, Kim, wait,” she said. “He isn’t dead. I thought he was. He’d shut his eyes, wasn’t moving, made three big gasps. I’d heard that sound before, but it wasn’t the death rattle,” she murmured. “I started making preparations, getting a plastic bag to put him in, I turned around and his eyes were upon me – wide open. He’s sitting in my arms eating chicken now.”

I thought about Joan’s necessary ritual of wrapping the corpses of her deceased pets and placing them in the freezer until they could be delivered to the vet and I was happy she hadn’t gotten this far. To me there has always been something spiritual about Joan’s home and the dogs that live there, but Egg’s resurrection has taken things to a brand new level. For now, at least he has risen and as every human knows, each moment we spend with our pets is a miracle.

Good Hands

One of my personal photography projects for the last couple of years has been taking photographs of people with their pets. Their is an intimacy to the relationship that the lens frequently captures. Although this puppy does not belong to my friend Norma, I love the photo. Until recent years when her health and other circumstances caused her to move from her house into an apartment that doesn't allow pets, Norma has always owned a house full of dogs and a cat or two. She has been Joan's longtime housesitter, a sort of Mary Poppins the pugs. She bathes them, heats tea bags to soothe their eyes, sews cloth donuts to soften their pressure sores and a myriad of other things. This little puppy, like so many others she has cradled, is certainly in good hands.

Trouble

There are few things cuter in the world while simultaneously more trouble than a seven-week-old pug puppy. I got to see three of them yesterday. This is little Rosey, who occupied her time while we were chatting with her humans chewing on my friends shoelace.

Pretty Girls

Their names are Ivy, Lily and Rosey, but it could easily have been Truffles, Griffles and Waffles, the puppies look so much like their Momma and aunts, right down to the silvery brown ruff on the runt of the litter, Rosey. Waffles, too, has the same silvery cast as does her father Puddleglum. The three have pretty faces like their Momma, too.

Whoops, someone's expecting!

A couple of nights ago during my daily phone call to my friend Joan, my pug Waffles' breeder, she announced to me that her pug Releve's rapid weight gain might be due to something other than food. "I think Releve is pregnant," she said.

Joan wasn't planning for puppies, especially not this week when she has two of her children visiting -- one of whom is already convinced she has too many dogs. But, this is of little importance to Releve, who has swelled to mammoth proportion and looks like she might burst. Tonight, she had already claimed a corner under one of Joan's cabinets to have her puppies and was shredding newspaper in there and warding off the other dogs. She will not have them there. Joan has a nice clean whelping box ready for her away from the commotion of the rest of the pugs, but so far Releve keeps escaping her fashionable new digs in favor of her do-it-yourself condo. It will be interesting to see who wins out.

Releve, who happens to be mom to my pug Waffles, has another daughter Griffles who gave birth last July. Tonight we visited our friends the Damitzes, who are up visiting from Massachusetts, to see the offspring of Griffles' son Goofy and the Damitzes' other pug Truffles. They are now seven weeks old and beautiful. They have homes ready for two of the three. Joan already has a friend in mind for one of Releve's new litter and we are placing bets on how many she will have. Looking at her tonight, it is easy to guess high, but Releve was becoming pleasantly plump even before this. I've guessed four, but said I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was five. Seeing puppies born and grew has been among my favorite things at Pugdom, Joan's home.