An Empty Space

It's been about a week and I haven't shared this yet, but . . . one of our dogs died last week. Baker had a dog (Summer) when we got married and she is now 12 years old and in perfect health. Hunter was 7 years old and he was our dog. We got him on July 4th about 5 months after we got married. He was the perfect dog. He was a collie, australian shephard mix and had one blue eye and one brown eye. He was mellow, gentle, loved to run, enjoyed his sleep (he snored like crazy), and he was my puppy. Why we called him puppy, probably because babies and puppies are totally separate. I know some folks call their dogs their babies but I couldn't do it. He was a dog not a person. But if we called him puppy then he was still my "baby puppy." Sounds silly, but we always called him puppy and referred to the dogs as the puppies. Anyhow, we left for the beach on Friday before Mother's Day weekend and on Thursday he was running around and playing with Baker & Luke. I asked my brother to watch our dogs for us and we left for the beach. Sunday afternoon we got some text messages and calls telling us Hunter didn't look good and could hardly walk. We shrugged it off as him missing us. But when we got home he could barely walk, his ears were back and he could hardly move. Something was definately wrong. He went to the vet on Monday afternoon and was given an antibiotic shot and two different types of meds to treat a bacterial infection. By Wednesday he was worse and not walking. Baker had to pick him up to take him outside. He went to the vet again on Thursday afternoon and when he got there he started vomiting and pooping blood. He got sent to emergency where they couldn't diagnose what was going on but decided he needed a blood transfusion because he was bleeding internally. Even with the blood transfusion the vet wasn't sure he would make it. So . . . he was put down. In one week he went from running and playing to not moving or eating. We weren't ready for this to happen. So this last weekend the house was bigger. The yard and garage more spacious. Summer found his harness sitting on top of the kennel and pulled it down, sniffed it and layed next to it. Luke asked, "where is he?" "Puppy, cum on!" As for Baker and I . . . we cried.

Gotcha!

Well, little Stuart's relative was apprehended on Monday morning sometime between 6:30-9am. I wonder why little mice are active then? Hmmm. We caught him in the same drawer as poor Stu. Last night Baker's dad and brother showed up to find out where these creatures were coming in and found that one of our outside house vents was wide open. The screen mesh had been completely pushed aside. So, with the hole fixed hopefully this will be the last of my mouse adventures. Seriously hope so. As a precaution we are watching the same drawer for a couple days before we put new liner in the drawer & return the dis-infected silverware to it's rightful place. On a more serious note, one of our dogs got sick while we were at the beach this weekend. We came home to a very subdued dog with his ears back and barely moving. Turns out he has a possible bacterial infection and has been put on two types of medication. If it does not end up being an infection, the other possibilities are kidney or liver failure. Poor dog is only 7 years old. We are praying for a speedy recovery.