Category: Pets

antigone

Till Kumo.

Dogs, Pets

I never truly understood the void, the deafening silence, caused by the absence of something.

Till Kumo.

I desperately want to write him the tribute he deserves but all I can feel right how is the unbearable sadness every time I realize he’s not here.

When I woke up this morning I gently stretched out my legs because Kumo is always either at the foot of the bed, or on the bed directly next to our bed. I blinked a few times to look at my bed, then his bed. And he wasn’t there.

And then I remembered.

I kept listening the familiar knock of the baby gate as he came into my office to sleep beside me all day on his bed in there. Most mornings I slip him a cat treat or two. I had the bag of treats ready to go. But he never came.

As I sat in the bathroom at lunch time I kept listening for the little click clack of his feet and then the long deep sniff under the door to confirm I was in there. I sat and sobbed and wished so hard just to hear his feet. But they never came.

I laid out on the back patio to listen to the sounds and feel the warmth. I instinctively reached over to give him a butt scratch but was just met with empty chair. Because he’s not here anymore.

I physically can’t force myself to clean the kitchen. He would stand for so long just outside the kitchen that he’d start to sleep standing up. So I have a bed there. When I know I’m going to be in there for awhile I get him to lay on the bed and then we talk while I cook dinner or clean. I tell him how my day was and ask about his. I ask his opinions on what we should watch on TV. We complain about the current state of the world. He sleeps through all of this, of course, but when I stop talking he wakes up and lifts his head to make sure I haven’t left. So I start talking again to let him know I’m there and he can go back to sleep.

But he won’t be there and I don’t think my heart can physically handle the empty floor where he should be.

I am so. fucking. sad.

He’s not here.

That won’t change.

Ever.

I know this will pass. I know that time will heal me. I know we had so many lucky extra days after his cancer diagnosis. I know I’m so thankful that we had the opportunity to be here with him every single day these last few years.

Please know that I am indescribably thankful for all the messages, comments, photos, and stories about our boy. It helps the tiniest bit to know that we’re not alone in this. Ben has been an absolute rock the last 24 hours. I see my pain echoed in his face and we allow each other to cry, to talk, to remind each other how lucky we were to be loved by him.

I’ll eventually be back to blowing up your timelines but for right now, I just need to be sad.

I need to feel this.

I love you all.

antigone

Pibble Playtime

Dogs, Pets

It only took 14 months but Danica has FINALLY warmed up to playing with Senna. She’s always been the most standoffish of the three and we never really assumed she would play with him at all, and that was fine because Kumo is plenty playful with him, but in the last few weeks she’s started to. Every day after work I feed them outside then just sit quietly (watching TikToks don’t judge me) and let them kind of figure this out on their own. She’s started to initiate play more and more and every day I video it and then send them to Ben.

Still so glad we got this little grey pibble. He’s a constant source of adorable chaos that keeps us all on our toes.

antigone

Introducing: Senna

Dogs, Pets

Ben has been asking for a third dog for a LONG time. Like, since the day we brought Danica home.

Ben: What’s one more?
Me: Well, we have to walk them daily and I only have two hands so… Ben: You don’t give yourself enough credit.
Me: And you give me way too much.

Honestly, this conversation happened at least a few times a month. For YEARS. Like, 10 years. I was resolute in my stance. NO. THIRD. DOG. You guys, we share a bed with a combined 130 pounds of dog. There is basically a whole other human adult sized mass of flesh in bed with us every night. And one of them, I’m not naming any names but it’s Kumo, wants to sleep either directly between us or sucked up so close to me that I often feel like I have my own personal furry space heater that also I’m allergic to. All year. All 11 years. All 11 summers even.

Then one day about a month before Christmas I was scrolling down my Reddit feed. OH REDDIT, YOU SILLY WHORE. I’m subscribed to r/OldManDog which is exactly what it sounds like, just photos of old dogs, and a lot of users post tributes to their old pups on their last days looking for support. And on this day I realized, most of the photos I was seeing of last days were for dogs that are either the age of our two, or YOUNGER.

And I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled. And I cried.

And after a few days of thinking about it I thought that now is the time. It’s time to get a third dog. Our pair are so bonded and the thought of either of them being an only dog wasn’t something my heart could handle. I read a lot, I watched videos, I searched my soul and all the signs pointed to: NOW

But, of course, I did not tell Ben any of this. Mostly because I had a thought in my head of wanting to surprise him with a puppy for Christmas (this was a bad idea, don’t do this) and partly because admitting to him that I wanted a third dog was going to come with a ridiculous amount of WHY DID IT TAKE YOU SO LONG TO COME TO YOUR SENSES conversations which I was going to avoid as long as possible.

We had many conversations over the years about wanting our next dog to be a bully breed so I spent the next week looking at websites and Instagram accounts and Facebook rescue groups for Our Dog. There are SO MANY cute puppies out there (honestly, adopt a dog, you guys, give them homes) and I had a few bookmarked but then one day on my lunch break I ran the same search I had run on Petfinder ever day for a week and this face popped up.

I’m so mad at myself for not saving the description of this little lovable, cuddle obsessed, smart boy who at the time was named Luke. What I can tell you is that the photo combined with the few paragraphs about him being very submissive and sweet sold me instantly and I shot an email to the rescue group that had him.

At dinner that night I could not contain myself and told Ben that there was a POSSIBILITY that I had emailed a rescue group about a puppy that I had seen online because I was thinking about getting him a puppy for Christmas. He did his wonky but adorable one eyebrow cocked look while waiting for me to deliver a punchline. But I wasn’t joking. And in amazing, fantastic, supportive husband mode he explained that he didn’t NEED a third dog, he just liked to mess with me and see how far he could push the joke. It was an adorable lie. “But let me just see the photo, I’m curious about what dog you chose.”

And that was that.

Ben came home from dinner and took over the adoption process. He took photos of the yard, submitted forms, and quickly became best friends with Luke’s foster mom while peppering her with questions.

Exactly 7 days later, on December 22nd, we drove up to Brentwood with Kumo and Danica to meet him.

And the rest is history.

I’m not going to lie and act like this has not been SO MUCH ACTUAL WORK. I had conned myself into believing that our dogs were never puppies. We brought them home and they knew how to sit and stay and not go out the front door or up the stairs or that you aren’t allowed to eat shoes and poop and they let us sleep in till 10:00AM on the weekends. But no. That is not how puppies work.

But Senna is a pleaser so he makes it FUN to teach him things. He loved puppy class, he is an absolute champion walker/runner, and his favorite past time is putting anything in his mouth to chew so he’s very treat motivated. Also, he gives AMAZING CUDDLE. There is absolutely no other place he’d rater be in the world than asleep with either us or one of the other dogs. So the time he ate poop and then vomited it all over the living room floor was traumatizing but he was there ready to offer a cuddle after I had to clean it all up.

I could go on and on about how amazing he is but those are stories for another day. I just wanted to get something up to always remember the story of how we adopted our first bully and how I don’t know how we went this long without this love in our lives.

Welcome home, Senna.