The Story of Blake

This is the story of Blake.  Blake came to us when KC was 2 1/2 and Elisabeth was still an infant.  Rob was a middle schooler and our family was young, chaotic and full of exuberant energy.  We were not supposed to get a dog that year.  Our beloved Irish Setter Feargus had passed suddenly about 6 or 8 months earlier.  We had decided our family needed a dog.  Rob in particular needed a dog to help him process his feelings and to turn to when he could not find the words to share his thoughts.  I was not really ready for another dog.  Feargus was special--yes I know all dogs are special--but I had loved him fiercely and his death was so sudden and so unexpected.  I also wasn't keen on housebreaking a puppy with 2 kids in diapers.  We decided we were interested in Brittanys.  They had the playful nature we loved about Irish but were smaller, a bit more eager to please and loved to do outdoor activities with their family.  I decided I could do a waiting list.  The kids would get older, at least one of them would get out of diapers, and we settled in to wait.  We filled out the papers and in the mean time, we brought home a kitten as we also had an elderly cat pass on and our house despite all the kids, felt oddly empty.

While we waited, the breeder suggested we bring the kids up to meet a litter of puppies.  They were all promised all ready--we were waiting for another litter, remember--but it would be good for them to see the dogs and get an idea of who would someday join our home.  There was a sweet brown and white guy that we all loved.  He was a  "show" puppy the breeder informed us.  We would get a "pet" grade puppy.  We didn't care. We were enthusiastic about their friendly gentle demeanor and we were all in love.

Months passed. Unexpectedly in the fall we received a phone call.  The breeder had a family return a pup to her.  Due to a marital breakup they were unable to keep the puppy.  We could have him if we wanted.  He was a "show" puppy but at 6 months old she would sell him at her "pet" rate.  If you guessed that it was the brown and white guy we met months earlier, you were right.  We said yes and went up the very next day to meet him and bring him home.  At 6 months, we had missed most of the housebreaking stuff and he was such a sweet and eager to please guy.  The fact that we had a puppy and a kitten 2 kids under 3 and a middle schooler along with Chet and Fi on the weekends--life was fun, crazy and sometimes we wondered what we were thinking!  But it worked.  Blake loved snow.

He would play outside with Rob and help Chet shovel.  He had boundless energy and that playful nature we read about was certainly evident.  Over the years, he went on hikes with us. He went on camping trips.  He played in the back yard. He met skunks several times. He became a champion chipmunk hunter (weird but true, he would stomp them to death) He liked to catch bees and I always worried because once every summer he would manage to get stung in his mouth.  He was a cuddler and was patient with both kids and other animals. He was also a food thief extraordinaire.  We used to joke that he had a telescoping neck because how a comparatively short dog could get a bag of hamburger buns off the far back of the kitchen counter was always a mystery.  He ate more chocolate than I could ever imagine.  Apparently he did not know chocolate is bad for dogs.  He stole Easter baskets and Halloween treats that were not put up somewhere over 5 feet.  He did not take food people were actively eating, but leave it out unattended and he would find a way to feast.

You don't realize how fast the years spin by.  KC is going to be 17 this spring and Elisabeth just turned 14 in December. Rob is 24 and working full time.  But every night when he gets home from work he always stops to greet the dogs.  As the years went by, Blake began to slow down some. There was an issue with a knee that required a vet visit.  He developed a skin allergy and got meds for that.  He began to have seizures which were determined not to be epilepsy but were related to his age.  He began to go blind and lost most of his hearing.  

We knew the time was coming when we would have to say goodbye.  We hoped for one more Christmas and we got that.  We had a good Christmas and so did Blake.  He lay on the couch next to Rob all morning while we opened presents, hoping someone would forget and leave a cinnamon bun where he could reach it.

But post Christmas there were more signs that he was dealing with significant pain.  He never whined or complained.  Maybe it is not the nature of dogs, maybe it was just not Blake's nature.  We got some meds to make him comfortable and continued on.  But we wanted to help him on the next step of his journey before he was totally in pain, when his goodbye could be as good as such a thing can be.  It is the one gift, the hardest gift, that any pet lover can give to their loyal and beloved fur child.  This past week we could tell that he needed us to make the decision.  He began licking himself where his arthritis was hurting him.  He could not settle easily and had trouble having the strength to do his chores outside.  We made the call.  Our vet is amazing. She spent 30 minutes talking on the phone to my wife. She agreed that we were not rushing things (always a worry in the back of our minds when making such a decision) and made an appointment for tonight to be his last ride.

When we arrived at the hospital, they were running late.  These appointments are always their last one of the night so they asked if we could come back in 30 minutes.  Blake liked rides so we drove around in the dark,petting him, looking at the lights that are still up on some houses.  Blake rested down by Elisabeth's feet until suddenly he felt compelled to climb into the front seat and into my lap.  45 pounds of lap dog.  It was an instant flash back to the young pup who had sat in my lap on the way home from the breeders.  I stroked his head and supported his arthritic legs while he alternately looked up at me and snuffled at the window.  I'm an ugly crier and there was a lot of crying periodically tonight.  But Blake was not fazed.  He was ready.

Only 2 of us could be with him so Elisabeth and I waited in the car and KC and my wife went in with Blake when it was time.  The room for this is private and at the back of the hospital with a separate entrance. A thick cushion and comfy blankets are on the floor.  They gave him a pile of dog cookies and while he scarfed them down and KC and K petted him they gave him a shot.  Blake never minded the vets office and loved this vet in particular very much. K said that one minute he was eating and the next he was sleeping and then he was just gone.  

There is a huge Brittany sized hole in my heart tonight.  We are all grieving in our own ways.  But we all are also glad that he is pain free.  Be happy my Blake.  You are loved and you are missed.

Executive Director Response

I finally heard back from the executive director of the program that runs Fiona's group home.  He basically said sorry, no bunny and gee I am sorry that other staff misinformed you.  But hey on the positive side, don't worry because you should feel really good about the fact that we are putting steps into place so something like this won't happen again.

Oh yeah, color me ecstatic!  Not!!  I wrote back that I would like details on exactly what those wonderful step are going to be because I have absolutely no confidence in the program and no faith that when I get an answer from someone that I will be able to be confident it is a real answer and not just what they thought Fiona or I wanted to hear at the moment. I await additional response from him and also from the other agencies I have contacted about the way the program handled this.

What they don't seem to realize is that this is far and away about more than a bunny.  It is about the spiral they put my daughter into by breaking faith with her. She didn't just break her TV that she spent 3 months saving for, she also tried to self harm.  This is something that she only does when profoundly disturbed and it has not happened in over 2 years.  The fact that this level of despair was caused by and agency that is supposed to have her well being in the forefront of their decision making very much angers me.

I have no expectation that I can change the decision. However I can be a person who holds them accountable for the mishandling and that is what I intend to do.

Hopping Along!

I happened to look back at my blog the other day and realized I have been yakking on this site since 2008!!!  I can't quite wrap my mind around that.  My wife is always saying I am talkative and I guess she is right.

This Saturday I am taking Fiona and the younger kids to see Star Wars. The youngers have seen it all ready but Fiona wants to see it with them and they are more than game to see it twice.  Chet has been sick all week so I don't really want to bring Fi home to the Land of Germs (it seems that for more than 2 weeks someone or other has been unwell here) so a movie outing is a great option.

Amazing Jane bought a sleigh ride at a nearby farm on Groupon..  So we are just waiting for some snow and then will work out a day that Jane, Fiona and 2 of the kids can go on a sleigh ride together.  They will love it.  I know that Lissa will be one of the people to go with Fi and Jane on this--hopefully Rob's schedule will allow him to be the other.  I am planning on letting the group home know that Fi will be coming home for a visit to take a sleigh ride.  I am leaving out that Jane will be with us.  I am not sure it would be a big deal to the recent admins but the prior ones gave us a lot of grief over any contact with Jane.  Their failure to see that losing touch with folks who were important in her life is a huge part of Fiona's trauma and pain definately was hard to work with.

However of late (oh I am so knocking wood here) the new admins seem receptive to a number of things. They apparently are going to allow Fiona to have a pet.  The animal has to be a caged animal and she has her heart set on a rabbit.  I have a friend who is  a vet tech and who has been fostering a bunny for 3 months. The rabbit is well socialized and easy going.  If all goes well, in 2 weeks, he will live with Fiona.

Fiona does not know any of this yet.  She will hopefully be so very happy.

The magic of tuna!

Yesterday morning my wife had to leave for work at 6:00 a.m.  I decided not to arise with her as I have been the past few days and cuddled under my blankets and snoozed.  The kids and i got up at 7:15 (which is wildly late for me and the tribe!) and went downstairs to start breakfast.  I saw there was a note on the table but was busy hauling eggs and such from the fridge.  KC read it:  "Valkyrie got out at 6:05" the note read.  Val is our young black cat.  While I had been snoozing, she was outdoors.  The kids were horrified.  I looked outside.  No Val.  Rob looked outside and eventually spied her but she would not come to us. Val was a stray that he gentled and brought in over a year ago.  She likes all of us, but loves Rob.

We had to get ready to leave for church and it was a very angst filled morning as we drove away leaving her still on the loose.  We placed her crate with a warm blanket and some food where she could get in, hoping she might curl up there while we were gone.  I stressed inwardly over the fact that we live on a very busy street and wondered what we would find when we drove home.

Which was exactly nothing.  When my wife got home at 5:30 she was still missing.  KC was so upset he had asked to go to bed at 5. He and Lissa had made prayer beads at church that spelled Val's name and he held those and stared at the little tree by his bed.

Enter the fabulous world of Internet friends!  I posted our sad status on Facebook and someone wrote that if we had really smelly tuna they thought that she would come. No cat, it was alleged, could resist such a treat. We had no tuna.  I am vegetarian and in an odd twist of fate, both K and myself have mothers who are allergic to fish. So we did not grow up eating fish or having it around.  And I have no sense of smell; I did not even know it was smelly!  :-)  Our cats eat the dried cat food, I have never done wet food except for a brief time when we weaned Val's kittens.

K went out to get said tuna and it worked! She came right over to her and ate some off her finger.  Eventually after some patient feedings, she was able to grab her and put her in the crate and bring her back in the house.  KC was still awake, despite having asked to go to bed so crazy early.  I will never forget the absolute glow on his face as Val ran into the bedroom he shares with Rob. What a blessing!

Socializing and Mice

Yesterday was a busy day.  Usual errands in the a.m. followed by a visit from my SIL from 11 to 2:30.  Then a bit after 3 we had to head out to a BBQ.  KC and Lissa used to go to this really neat music program and their teacher Mike was throwing the BBQ  Mike presently lives in China with his new wife and baby A.  They come back once a year and spend a month or so with Mike's folks and the BBQ was their last chance to gather with family and friends before they head back to China in two days.  Mike invited us because KC emails him every other moth or so with questions about what life is like in China.  (have you seen pandas?  do you do tai chi? do you have noodles for breakfast?)  Mike loves the questions and said he would invite us to the BBQ  In one of those odd 6 degrees of separation things, Mike's dad is someone I know very well from work.  Mike also was the person who recommended Rob's piano teacher to me, so I told Rob that Joe would likely be there as well.  However, we went to this knowing that we would likely only know those 2 or 3 people.

Truthfully that would never bother me. I can and do talk with anyone.  What impressed me is that the kids did great.  There was a bounce house and a lot of other kids and the littles played very happily with everyone for more than 2 hours.  Rob stayed close by me but did talk with people.  I used to get the "s" word thrown at me a lot when we began homeschooling.  Like somehow this was going to make my kids freaky fearful little folk that would not have a friend in the big wide world or a clue as to how to make one. 

I think in a lot of ways it has worked just the opposite.  I am not sure that KC would have a lot of friends in public school. Although he is a loving and gregarious little boy, he loves things that are atypical in our society.  Sparkly dress up stuff for imaginative play.  Ballet.  Yes he also loves to break dance and play baseball but I know that he would have issues if he shared the less traditional interests on the playground.

 Rob also shows more assurance and has a great abiility to start and maintain peer relationships.  Last Thursday he was late coming home from the park.  After 15 minutes I had gotten in the van to go check on him.  (mostly because I know he does try out bike tricks and I didn't want to wonder if he was lying there with a broken ankle!)  I saw him walking home with a friend. He was pushing his bike so that they could walk together and they were engaged in an obviously happy and animated discussion. I just turned a corner and headed home on a different street so as not to embarrass him.  Rob apologized for the late return when he came in and said he and  his friend had gotten involved in talking about trading cards.

So I don't worry too much about socialization anymore!  LOL

Later in the evening the kids were having popsicles in the backyard and KC came flying in the house to tell me that Blake had caught a mouse.  Blake is the DOG!  A Brittany Spaniel.  A BIRD dog!  From a champion bloodline if we want to get down to it.  But Blake?  He wants to be a cat!  And he had indeed caught a mouse.  I guess the whole dang family marches to their own drummer don't they?

Make that Bee-Boy!

B-boy usually refers to a dance genre.  In this case it means the aforepictured Brittany Spaniel is waiting outside the hosta flowers for those oh so delicious bees to appear.  Is he really the reason behind the honeybee colony collapse?

So a few weeks ago, this cat showed up in our yard.  DO NOT FEED THE CAT, I announced sternly to all the children. DO NOT PET THE KITTY I admonished futilely.  Because, you see, Rob is not just an animal lover.  Animals love him.  Scratch that, they adore him.  Haven't met a critter that didn't take to that boy quicker than you'd imagine.  Sigh.

So a few weeks went by and the cat was still hanging around.  And then it got really rainy.  And suddenly it was sitting literally in front of our back door yelling to be let in.  Rob quietly asked about having another cat.  To which I treated the boy to a litany worthy of my father when I was a kid.  (yes, I too brought home more than my fair share of animals. In fact the only reason I got to keep the last cat I brought home was because I was moving out in a couple of months!) 

I explained that the cat was likely to have fleas and ticks.  Rob checked it and reported it clean.  I snorted and pointed out that this was hard to tell with a coal black kitten.  I pointed out that Maui is not a friendly cat. He beats up our dog.  What might he do to a tiny kitten.  Rob said the kitten could stay in his room.  I said that it had sores on its ears.  Rob said that they didn't look serious.  I said that taking in a kitten was expensive and we were saving for a big family vacation.  Rob said he would pay all the vet costs if I could pay for the added food and litter expenses. And he would help with cat pans. 

It was water wearing a rock into a pebble.  Oh and of course he had all ready named the kitten. He informed me it was a girl and her name was Valkyrie. Valkyrie is Skulduggery's sidekick in the series he likes so much. LOL

So I said yes, but that she could not come in until we got a clean bill of health from the vets.  Worms and fleas were not welcome.  Also I wanted to be sure she was feline leukemia negative.  So today she went to the vets.  She had no fleas.  She has ear mites. She is feline leukemia negative. She is about 7 months old.  And due to deliver a litter of kittens in about 3 1/2 weeks.  ACK!

The vets said a shelter will take the kittens when they are 8 wks old.  They better! LOL