FOUND!

After three cold, dark and scary nights out in the world alone, Jenna was found last night!  I cried when I heard the news.

I realize that she’s a dog and a stranger’s dog at that.  But I just kept thinking that if my girl was lost out in the world, I would appreciate every single person’s effort to get her home.  We love the little buggers So Much that knowing they are cold or tired or hungry or scared just rips the heart apart!

Anyway, Grace and I went out right after work to look for Jenna and spent about three hours combing the neighborhood.  Unfortunately it’s a very affluent neighborhood so you can’t really just wander in and out of people’s back yards to check under their decks for the dog.  The yards are enourmous and filled with shrubs and hedges and masses of greenery.  Perfect for a scared dog to hide.

We called it quits around 8 and about 20 minutes after we left, someone in the neighborhood found Jenna in their backyard and called our volunteer.  Unfortunately right then Jenna bolted and ran into the woods.  The two volunteers chased her into the woods for quite a ways and eventually Jenna looked back, saw them and just stopped and layed down so that they could get her.

The reunion with her mom makes me teary eyed to watch. Unfortunately the video is posted in a closed group so I can’t fetch it out to share it here. 

Jenna, just after she’d been found. Being driven home to her mom!

 

And of course, because nothing ever seems to go smoothly or happen one thing at a time, yesterday Ray called me from the side of the road in the middle of nowhere (from a pay phone…did you know they still had those?!) and told me that the motorhome died and he would have to get it towed back.  Because it’s a motorhome he had to get the semi tow truck as well as a second tow truck as he was pulling our boat with the motorhome.  $750 to tow the motorhome, another $200 to tow the boat, an impound charge for the boat and trailer while they wait for the motorhome to be repaired plus the cost of whatever the repair turns out to be.   Initially he told me that I was going to have to drive 3 hours up to get them and bring them home but very fortunately they changed their minds and decided to wait there with the vehicle while it’s being repaired.  Driving three hours in the dark and then cramming 780 pounds of man (and 80 pounds of Grace since I wasn’t about to leave her home alone) into my little Jetta and driving another three hours back was not my idea of an awesome time!

With a labour dispute looming, we really cannot afford this and so they may be coming home this morning once the motorhome is up and running again.  I’m in a holding pattern to find out…..could be that the repair takes longer or is more involved and then I will have to go and get them.  Hope Not!

Wishing that today is smoother and more stress-free than yesterday!

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Pressure Cooker!

I started writing a post last night and I was going to post pictures and then I was going to go around and read blogs and comment (because people love comments!).  So what happened?  I melted, that’s what happened!  My back deck, the one in the shade, was 34C (94F) at 7pm last night.  I rubbed my dog down with an ice pack for awhile and then fed her a beef popsicle (beef broth frozen into a disc).  I ate ice cream.  I struggled to not eat the entire container of ice cream because it was cold and sweet and HOLY CRAP I was hot!

 Grace was bugging the shit out of me last night.  Our normal routine is that she eats while I make dinner, I eat and then clean up and once the dishes are done, we go for a walk.  I really thought it would be best that we not go for a walk last night, pushed-in-face dogs suffer just that much more in the heat and she was already suffering pretty good.  But she was driving me crazy!  Crying and pawing and woofing and making sad eyes.  So……we went.  In order to make sure I didn’t walk too fast for her I wore my flip flops and we went only about 20 minutes.  She was happy and I was happy she wasn’t bugging me, life was good. 

I’m going out for a business lunch today, first time in over 5 years that I’ve been invited, so I’m looking forward to it, got all dressed up and everything!

 I really promise to try the picture posting again tonight.  In the meantime though, here’s Grace’s story about how she came to live with us and what life is like now.  Eventually she’ll be published as a success story on the rescue website….when I get around to sending them some pictures!  😉

 

My name is Grace.  Well, that’s what they call me now.  I’m around 3 years old.    Some bad people threw me out of a moving car along a California freeway and I’m really lucky that I didn’t get hurt.  I spent some time in the LA Shelter and then I went to LA Boxer Rescue.  Jennifer from Without Borders Boxer Rescue came to visit me and while she was there she found me my new family.

 That Sunday morning I got put on an airplane and a few hours later my new Mummy & Daddy picked me up.  Now I’m a Canadian girl (I haven’t seen snow yet though, ask me in the winter if I really appreciate that!).  I didn’t know them but they seemed nice and I was really glad to be out of the airplane so I hopped into the truck and we were on our way home.

 I’ve been in my forever home now for a little over a month and I can’t imagine being anywhere else.  I don’t remember much of my old life but I do remember my manners and how to be a very good girl.   I’m starting to learn what toys are and that they are lots of fun when mummy or daddy chases me around the house and we play tuggy with them.  I love my snuggles and trying to sneak daddy some kisses on the lips.  I am a very good walker and mum and dad take me out for lots of long park walks.  I am a bit nervous around other dogs but once we sniff and say hi, as long as everyone stays polite, I’m good to go.  I am quick to try and defend myself if another dog tries to intimidate me.  I’m learning that I don’t have to be in charge though; mummy and daddy do that pretty well.

 I love food, I’ll do just about anything for a treat…except swimming; I didn’t really appreciate that.  I love blueberries, cherries and nectarines as treats; mummy tells me I’m weird that way.  I also have an uncanny ability to hear an ice cream scoop cutting through delicious vanilla ice cream from several rooms away and I can hardly stand waiting for a taste.

I went camping this summer for the first time and I had a really good time.  I found sunny dirt holes to lie in and bugs to chase.  I was a little apprehensive about the campfire the first night but I got used to that pretty quickly.  I really wanted to try a marshmallow but daddy put the kibosh to that.  The best part of camping was that we got to go fishing every day in The Big Boat.  Mummy & daddy weren’t sure how I would do but I just laid down and took a nap.  I got braver with walking around on the boat and eventually I parked myself on the bow and helped with the navigation.

Mummy & daddy also have noisy motorcycles, I did NOT like those at the beginning, and I would bark and try to chase after them.  Daddy’s buddy has some pretty noisy ones too and I don’t really like it when he brings them over.  I’m definitely getting used to them though, every time they get off those noisy things I get lots of rubs and kisses so maybe it’s not so bad.

I’m a relaxed, mellow girl, I love napping on my mum’s pillow and going for long walks every day.  I can’t remember my old life…but I don’t care, this one is everything I could have asked for.

Love Haze

I’m experiencing Love Haze.  I didn’t know that there was such a thing but about 20 minutes after Grace moved into our house, family, hearts this haze descended upon us.  Dog things that bugged me before (shedding, bits of dog food all over the floor, eye boogers, snoring etc….OK, it’s any wonder that I agreed to get a dog!) don’t.  She’s my baby and while I know that having a dog is nothing like having children, this is still amazing to me.  I’ve lived with a dog for almost the entire time Ray and I have been together, but she was never mine.  Brandy was never so excited to see me when I got home.  She never, ever snuggled with me on the sofa, never followed me around.  When we were home alone she’d go and sleep in the front room while I was in the family room.  She was Ray’s dog through and through and we never really bonded to each other.

Bliss-face with the car window open, sniffing away!

I had to apologize to Ray last night because I did not, for one second, understand the love he had for Brandy.  When Grace saw me come up the stairs when I got home from work and her little face lit up and her entire body started to wiggle with excitement I completely understood.  When she presses her little forehead so hard into my chest while I’m petting her, it absolutely melts me.  My rule had always been “greet humans first” because he would always greet Brandy before he would acknowledge me.  Now I understand how impossible it is to resist that wiggling body and excited happy face.

Snuggle time in the morning after I’ve gotten ready. Makes it darned hard to get off the sofa and go to work!

Anyway, dog- love aside….well….there isn’t really an “aside”, there’s not much else going on right now.  I can’t go to the gym for this week or next, Ray is on graveyards and doesn’t get home until 6:30am, it’s not like I can get up at 4:30am and leave Grace alone for a couple hours with no walk first thing in the morning.  So I’ve been getting up at 5am and walking the little sausage for about 4-5 kilometers before Ray gets home from work.  It helps to tire her out so that she’ll sleep while he’s trying to sleep during the day.  Worked yesterday, hopefully today as well.  I’m not toooo worried about the lack of gym but I would really like Ray to get all of our free weights and plates back from the person we lent them to so that I can at least do something while I’m on doggy duty for the next two weeks!  Of course after dinner we walk for another 4-5km so hopefully that’s enough to get me by for now.  Grace has already dropped a bit of weight, she has a waist again and starting to get a bit of loose belly fur so that’s great, hopefully Ray and I can do a little of the same!

How can you not love that face!

The sunshine is out for the next week or so which feels amazing and makes the 5am walk feel so nice and refreshing!  I imagine we’ll be adjusting for the next few days so there may be little for me to post.  If you want to, follow me on Twitter, that’s always fun and a great way to interact!

Amazing Grace

Not the song, Amazing Grace, the dog, amazing Grace!  Well….her name is technically Gracie but we prefer Grace and she doesn’t really care!

Saturday afternoon we got a call and a few pictures and a very small write up about Grace and we were told if we wanted her that we just had to say so and she would be arriving by airplane to Vancouver International Airport on Sunday at 2pm.  We said “Yes” and now she’s here!  We are absolutely thrilled with her, she’s calm and so sweet.  She’s three years old, walks amazingly on a leash (full heel with no prompting) and absolutely loves us.  Us.  Both of us.  Me included.  That was (perhaps irrationally) a fear of mine because our previous dog had been with Ray for 8 years before I came into the picture and she and I never really bonded.  This one though?  Loves me too!

Her story is kind of sad, she and her brother, a chihauhau-weiner cross, were abandoned on the side of a freeway in San Francisco.  The authorities found them and turned them in to the shelter.  The little brother dog was adopted but they were having a hard time adopting her out so they contacted LA Boxer Rescue figuring a more specific rescue organization would help.  While she was at the shelter in San Fran, a pitbull escaped his run and bit her in the side so she came to us with her left side a bit bald and having just had her stitches out.  Even after her dog attack she still has no aggression to other dogs and just wants to play with them.   She knows sit, stay, lie down, shake a paw.  She is also…..fat.  She’s a little sausage with legs, around 7-10 pounds overweight for her size.  They figure she was probably even fatter before she got into the shelter system because they certainly don’t feed them enough to maintain her mass!  The girl who brought her to us said that normally when they come out of the shelter system they are little bone-racks…..we’re not even positive this one has bones!  LOL!

She loves to walk, gets very excited when her leash comes out but she is also very obedient and will sit down to get her leash on and stay seated while you open the door until you invite her out.  Very well behaved.

I won’t be a crazy loon of a new dog owner and talk about her exclusively or bore you with nothing but pictures of her, I know that she’s absolutely adorable and sweet to us and that gets boring for other people.  However, today is her 3rd birthday, the day she became a Canadian and her first day in her forever home and that means she gets a few pictures on the blog!

Enjoy!

Fat Ass?

Already sweaty and I had barely made it onto the trail!

Anyone who has ever struggled with their weight or fitness knows this feeling so try to cast your mind/self to the place where I was last night.  I got home and true to my word changed into proper exercise clothes and then dragged my fat ass (*) up the miniscule incline of my street towards the park, sweating and cursing under my breath and telling myself over and over and over and over, “Tomorrow won’t be different, tomorrow won’t be easier, tomorrow never comes.”.  This was interspersed with telling myself that the epic amount of chocolate that I have eaten over the last month caused this, my lack of self control caused this and any discomfort I felt with myself or my efforts was completely deserved and probably should have been amplified ten-fold just for being a big idiot.

I probably didn’t really do myself any favours when I got dressed for this either, I wore shorts that have never been comfortable and possibly the most unflattering exercise top I have.  My underwear was crawling up my ass the entire time, my Shuffle had died so I had to carry my iPhone in my hand the entire way and it was very humid and close in the park.  All that negativity aside though, I did the best I could and finished strong.  It was only 4 kilometers and I didn’t time myself (that wasn’t the point) and I had to walk a lot of it.  But when I got home after my “end of the run, down my own street sprint” I was very impressed with how quickly my heart rate and breathing came back to normal.  My back and legs were pretty sore last night but this morning I feel fine.  Today after work I’m doing a 5.5km walk/jog with the focus on walking, rain or shine.

(*) Note, my referral to my fat ass is subjective, of course.  Fat is a state of mind as much as a state of body as far as I’m concerned.  I am in my acceptable weight range, at the low end of it, even, and yet I feel/felt as uncomfortable within myself as I ever did when I was 100 pounds heavier. The toxicity and lack of self respect doesn’t discriminate over size or body fat percentage, it is as real for me now as it was back then and even though I don’t need to shed weight to build a healthier body anymore, the work and effort is as real and urgent to my mental health as it ever was to the physical. 

When I got home from my park mission yesterday I checked the mail and was very excited to find a little box stuffed in my mailbox.  It was “Leaf” that I ordered from Noelle Munoz Jewelry and it is beautiful!!  The craftsmanship is incredible, her attention to detail and excellence just blew my mind, even the wrapping that it came in is top end.  Really a nice experience from start to finish. 

 

My insane cravings for chocolate and sugar and sweets yesterday (and the pissy mood and snarky tongue that came with it) led me to believe that detoxing is exactly what I needed to start.  When I had to run to the grocery store before dinner for some veggies for lunches I was by myself in the house and a little concerned that I would cave and buy a chocolate bar or something equally as sugary.  I held strong though because tomorrow isn’t any easier than today.  If it’s difficult today, just do it and push through, it does not get easier tomorrow.  So, veggies and a couple apples and I was on my way out the door, successful and strong.  Win!

See?? No chocolate!

 Happy weekend, hopefully we hear something this weekend about Olive, we still don’t have her and now my emails to the rescue agency aren’t being returned so I’m leaning toward wondering if the current owner has changed their mind about giving her up.  Fingers crossed that we hear something so that we can either get her or move forward!