Grandbaby Number Two

What an amazing day today has been. My daughter went and had her second baby. I didn't get to be there and I've really wanted to either experience for myself or see someone elses water birth. James Blake Hatch crept in through the back door and left the womb just as sneakily. I really expected him to be a very big baby because his daddy was such a big baby and he comes from his mother's father's stock............GYNORMOUS menfolk. But there again, he surprised us as he has been doing since his conception and weighed in at 7lbs something. I didn't get the details until way after his birth. In fact, it seemed there was a hovering something always standing just outside of earshot for me to know exactly what, when, and how he got here.

No worries, I will be able to hold him and squeeze him, and love him in just a few short days that will most likely feel like months away.

Welcome to the world James, we're so glad you're here. We all send our love. Mee Mee T

To Vic's Passing and All the other Dogs I Love

(Earl and Vic last year)

I woke up around 1:30 a.m. this morning worrying about Vic. Nathan and I moved him on a blanket into the garage and placed him on the futon that has been designated the dog bed. We moved him around 10:00 p.m. last night and when I got up this morning at 1:30 a.m., Vic had passed. Cisco, the female Rottweiler layed with her back to him and didn't acknowledge my presence when I leaned down to pet Vic.

(Judy and Toby)




I don't think he lingered much later into the night. I was sad, especially because Earl wasn't here to be with Vic and see him off. Plus, I haven't gotten over the loss of Soda.


(The Fullmer's "Daddy Maxer")


Blogging about the loss of a dog has left me feeling kind of odd. Unless you own a dog, or have had a companion like I had in Soda, you can't understand the loss. So I went online to see if there was anything on the loss of a dog and I found this poignant article that describes what I have felt in the loss of my dogs.


(Online pic looks like it could be Cisco)

I will just cut and paste it here so that my feelings may be said through someone elses words.


(My sweet See-so poopers)

Mourning the Death of a Loved One

Is the Same for Both Humans and Other Animals
How Do Animals Perceive Death?


by Ellen B Katcher


Our love for companion animals is more evident today than ever before. We spend much money on their health care. When they pass on we mourn them, and many of us bury or cremate them.


(Soda and Nathan cuddling)

One grieving pet owner told me that the love she shared with her departed companion was greater than any she had shared with a human in her life. I suspect it actually was of a different quality. Dogs do not indulge in deceit, selfishness, or any of the other frailties that we humans must fight to suppress. The love of an animal is a pure love, with little ambiguity, and thus is a thing of beauty akin to truth. It is no surprise, then, that when one mentions a departed pet ten years after the event, the owner may shed some tears. Like all truths, the love remembered is a thing of beauty, and great beauty makes us cry. Ask this tearful owner if he or she feels sad, and they may say, Well, not really sad. It just brings tears to my eyes to think of him.


(Me, Cisco and Soda)

The human-animal bond is a strong one. Our dogs are the exquisite ephemera of our lives. They stay for a very brief time and, it often seems, leave us just when the bond is strongest. It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Losing my darling companion was the most difficult experience of my life. However, all the joy and love we shared was worth it, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.




How do animals perceive their own imminent deaths? Do they joyously look forward to the "'Rainbow Bridge"? Are they privy to information about a "Hereafter" that we are not? Does a "sixth sense" let them perceive things on another plane? My observations tell me, "No".




A friend recently lost her 15-year-old dog. She showed the body to her other dog, his mother. Within a few weeks the second, older dog died. It seemed as if she was grieving, and that this precipitated her own death. There was no sense that she knew that she would see her son again, or that she knew that he was in "a better place".




My experience with my own angel was that she was sad, and then frightened at the end. At the end she was just plain scared. Just as you or I would be.




Does this mean that I believe that there is no afterlife? Hardly. It is my hope that the world's major religions are correct, and that there is an afterlife. However, since no one has ever come back to describe it, I believe it is a faith one can hold, and not something one has knowledge of. I think this is true for animals as well. We know animals put their faith in us. This is an awesome responsibility. Beyond this, their spiritual mind sets are unknown to us.




I think animals perceive death much as we do -- as a fearsome, unknown change, a loss of control, that one undergoes alone. This implies that their consciousness is, in this instance, very much like ours. Generalize this, and you see that animals feel much the same as we do about most things. They do not want to die "to get to a better place". They fear the unknown, just as we do. They want the comfort of those they love around them as they do the hard work of dying.




I know from experience that living up to this is no easy task. Watching my dog's decline sent me on many lone, tearful walks and needless trips to the market to escape. If I had it to do over again, I would have stayed with her for every last second, no matter how badly it hurt.
She absolutely would have done as much for me.
My only excuse for this regrettable lapse is that I, alas, am only human. I was not able to live up to the standard that she set.

Strong Like Bull

I'm so glad I took these pictures of Vic with Earl. This was taken March 2007. Vic was "strong like bull". At least as strong as a 15 year old Rottweiler can be. He was pretty feisty at this point and really only trusted Earl.


In the last few months, Vic hasn't even so much as growled if you get too close to his face. He's even let me hug him, which is totally out of character for this dog. In the last few days, he has gotten stuck in the ditches and crevices around the land and he's let Nate pick him up.... totally out of character for Vic. Nate lost a chunk of his cheek to Vic once when he bent down to love him. Vic has only ever trusted Earl, until the last few months. Vic was severely beaten as a pup by some very mean and brutal kids and he hasn't much cared for anyone to get too close to him since.


I feel I have earned his trust through all the care we've had to give him on several occasions of him being sick and Earl being in Utah taking care of Roy and Wahneta (brother and sister-in-law).

Today and the last two to three days Vic's been too weak to eat, drink or move. I hate this stage of life. Not many people like it, but they don't see it as often as I do.


So, because I don't want to remember this monster dog as weak and vulnerable, this is an ode to Vic, The Vic Meister, Mr Vickerman (he's not my dog, but all of our dogs have had multiple nicknames and he hasn't escaped a few from us too).


Vic was Earls only companion in cold Colorado and all the time Earl was building this house. Earl lived in a tent trailer at that time and later moved the tent trailer right into the house. Earl was 65 years old when he build this house himself.

Earl is still very strong for being nearly 80 years old. It's hard to see him age. He has a shake to his hands and his hearing is diminishing, but he is still as feisty as ever. Vic and Earl have a lot in common.


There weren't very many houses out here when Earl was building this house and Earl recounts the sounds of coyotes calling to each other at night. I think I'd have been scared of those sounds if I didn't have a big, mean dog to protect me. Vic was there for Earl.

(See him under my arm in this pic. He's sneaky)


There have been bears, deer and other wild life that don't come round as much now. I have seen some really beautiful deer, but no mountain lions or bears, though Veloy recounts seeing a bear outside her window when she was using her stationary bike.


My son and husband have both lost a piece of their face to this dog and if it had been me, I might not like the dog too much. But, I have understood why he's been the way he has due to his past. So I love and forgive him his foibles and hope he doesn't have to stay here on earth much longer.


I hope it won't be too long before he will be able to once again experience all the wonderful things he did as a young dog, running and sniffing about in a great open wooded area like he has known most of his life. I'd much rather think of him running and playing and being in nature than suffering as he is now.


I only wish his master were here to wish him on.


We will miss you greeting us with your head between our legs. We will miss your loud smacks when you're eating and drinking. We will just miss you.


We send you safe travels on your merry way and say hi to Soda for us, only..................... don't eat him.