Apple Picking 2008 -Washout!
It has been raining for three days straight now. Don’t get me wrong - I am one of those people that actually LOVES it when it rains. The only thing better is that it could be real windy too and I would be happy as a lark. I don’t really have a “dark” personality- it just sounds like it 
!
We had our annual apple picking day today, which we always look forward to. It has been a tradition since my kids were small and now I have grandchildren (not that I am really old enough to have them- hehe).
The wonderful weather people had said that, today, the third day of rain, would subside and it would stop raining and be only partly cloudy. Well we all know how accurate they are. NOT!
The first part of our tradition is to go to the “Shiny Diner”, so named because it has lots of chrome and glass on the front of it, and we have breakfast. At this point in time, we had run into some showers but the sun was actually trying to make an appearance. We were very optimistic! At this particular apple orchard/farm, there was a goat ( ee i ee i o) I believe it maybe be a Nubian goat - I don’t know but he sure was the cutest thing and very friendly. Here is a couple of pictures of our little friend: 
After spending a little time with the goats, we loaded ourselves into the hay wagon that would bring us down to the apple orchards. We are always a little silly when the 8 of us get together- we really do have a lot of fun. It started to mist a little bit but that didn’t deter us and we were very optimistic about the weather clearing. We got down to the fields and started to walk down the road leading to the BEST apple trees when it decided to actually rain at a pretty good clip. We were getting pretty well soaked even though we put plastic bags over our heads (see pictures below). Our hair stayed dry but the rest of us was getting pretty wet. My son and daughter-in-law, with my two grandkids continued on - my daughter-in-law was going to have to work next weekend, so it was either pick apples today or not at all. And my son had a mission to start baking pies (yes I said my son Anyway, the rest of us decided to leave and save picking apples for another day. We can not complain. I think in all the years we have been picking apples, that this was the first year it rained on our little party. Next weekend we will try again! ) as soon as they got home. These kids were TOTALLY on a mission - they picked two huge bags of apples! 
Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner?
I live in a very rural area of New Jersey where bears are a common occurrence. We are not afraid of bears here but know to give them their space when they are around food or have their cubs with them. You can always tell the “city folk” that go screaming into the night when they see a bear from two blocks away. We consider a close encounter to be one where you are both walking on the same driveway at the same time. Now THAT can be a little nerve wracking but I assure you, they are probably more afraid of you than you are of them!
I received these pictures from a friend of mine, supposedly taken by someone in my area - it’s just so typical. It’s not enough that these bears tear our garbage apart when we forget to put it in the garage, but apparently now they want us to FEED it to them. Enjoy!
My Grand-doggie Deoji
Well, it’s 9:30 pm and we just got home from taking our grand-doggie to the emergency room. Normally, when our beloved Deoji visits us for the day we play Frisbee or with a tennis ball. We played Frisbee for about 20 minutes but stopped after he seemed to be panting too hard. It was a hot and humid day today and if it were up to him, he would never stop chasing the Frisbee and just keep going until his legs give out. So I make the decision when I think he’s had enough, even though I know he’s thinking “thanks a lot Gram-mom- you have to spoil everything”.
Also, his normally long, lean body has gained some weight of late, being that his doggie-day care place closed down for the last two weeks due to an outbreak of kennel cough. Fortunately, Deoji didn’t get it, but two of his girlfriends did- really bad even though they were inoculated against it.
Anyway, later in the day, I decided it was time to go out and get some more exercise (good for me too!!). I don’t normally like playing with sticks with Deoji, but he kept bringing them to me and dropping them in front of me and looking at me with those huge dilated eyes saying “throw the stick, throw the stick – come on Gram-mommy, throw the stick!” So of course I did. He’d fetch and bring them back (making sure to break them in half each time) and I’d throw the smaller stick and watch him run absolutely FLAT OUT to catch the darn thing. I kept thinking the whole time, “I don’t really want to play with these stupid sticks, he’s going to get hurt one of these days”. Well, he broke all of the big sticks but found a skinny one and brought that one over for me to throw. Darn dog anyway. I KNEW I DID NOT want to throw this stick but flung it anyway. I watch in slow motion as the stick twirled end over end in the air with Deoji looking up to see where he should run to catch it. The stick came down in front of him and he grabbed it – my heart went up in my throat. He just stood there – not moving a muscle – I wanted to throw up- I knew it was bad. He started gagging with this stick just protruding from his mouth and couldn’t get it out. It seemed like it took me minutes to run the twenty feet to get to him. The stick seemed to have virtually impaled his throat. I pulled it out and it was covered in blood. Deoji was gagging and try to throw up- I was SURE there was a piece of stick stuck in his throat. Oh God – my daughter’s vet is closed and the nearest emergency vet is over 40 minutes away. I had a million things going through my mind at once.
I called the emergency vet across the County and tell them we were coming in. I was thanking God Deoji could breathe okay because I knew it was going to take FOREVER to get there! I got behind every single slow jerk that was out on the road and it wasn’t even Sunday!. It was agony and I must have hissed and cursed under my breath more than 100 times on the way there. I kept wishing I had the money to open an emergency vet office in my area. This long of a drive when you NEED to get somewhere is just unacceptable. And I know there are MANY people in my area that must have gone through the same thing I was at that very moment. I had that stomach in my throat fear that something so bad has happened and you can’t get to the doctor’s fast enough! After an hour and a half hour wait (yes that’s 1 1/2 hours), it was finally Deoji’s turn. They took him for an x-ray and thank you God, there were no pieces of stick in his throat.
They DID find that he seemed to have a small esophageal tear though, but said he should be okay and it would heal itself with some medication. I walked out of there with two medications that I now had to explain to my daughter how to give him. One was to help repair the tear, the other was for pain.
Did you ever notice what nice people you meet in the same situation you are?? There were several people in the waiting room that I felt like they had been my friends for way longer than 5 minutes. My gripe for this whole ordeal, is that the hospital charged outrageous fees for their care. Yes, I know it was an emergency and believe me, I would have paid anything to make sure that he was okay, but this is just outright taking advantage of people in need. Just one of the fees was $104 for ONE x-ray. Not a CAT scan or ultrasound or anything like that- JUST an x-ray. The fee for the “visit” was acceptable because it WAS an emergency, however they charged almost the same amount for the “exam” and then the medications on top of that.
Deoji’s life is more important to me than money but I do think it’s disgraceful how these emergency centers start rubbing their hands together the second you walk in the door. Deoji will be okay, (I am SO relieved) and my pocketbook will recover but he will NEVER play with another stick in his life. I am going to make sure he only plays with Frisbees from now on. Darn animals anyway. Gram-mommy loves you honey. I’m sorry I let you get hurt today. I’ve got lots of hug and kisses for you when you feel better.
Are You Sure You Want That Bird?
Being an animal lover I always wanted to be surrounded by lots of furry and feathery things. Besides having dogs ALL of my life and cats a good portion of my life, I decided about 18 years ago I needed MORE. Okay – DUH!! I thought it was time to add feathery things now. Yes, even with the three cats I had at the time.
I started off small – a parakeet for each of my two kids. My son got a blue Parakeet, which was named Gemini and my daughter picked a greenish/yellowish parakeet and named it Sprite – clever –hehe. All was going well for about a year, until I walked back into that pet shop one day and there was a very handsome Gray cockatiel, who proceeded to climb right up on me when I went over to talk to it. My new “Smokey” (didn’t wait until I was out of the store to name it ) didn’t seem to mind the car ride home in that little box at all. He loved his new surroundings and being home with people that really enjoyed him and fussed over him. He was only 13 weeks old and was just so incredibly beautiful – such bright yellows and orange cheeks! You could pet him and kiss him and squish him (gently, of course!). He was quite smart too! I was able to teach him to whistle part of “Some Enchanted Evening” and he became quite well known for that.
I decided months later that he needed a friend. He was friendly with the parakeets, but let’s face it – they were DIFFERENT from him. He was the happiest little birdie when I came home one day with Dusty. A very beautiful FEMALE pearl cockatiel. They became inseparable from the get-go. Love at first site, there was no stopping them. It became clear that I needed to get a nesting box, as his version of Some Enchanted Evening became more fervent every day. Little did I know that song would actually MEAN something to him hehe.
I got the “penthouse” of nesting boxes and they wasted no time in setting up their little boudoir once I attached it to their cage. Long story short, they raised six clutches over the next several years. I LOVED hand-raising cockatiels. Those little babies are just so prehistoric looking, you can not help but fall in love with them. I let Smokey and Dusty take care of the babies for the first two weeks and then I took them away to finish up hand-feeding for then next 6 weeks and acclimating them to people. The 2 am and 4am feedings were the best – NOT! Most of the babies were given to my friends. A few babies I sold back to the pet shop only because I knew the owner was VERY fussy about who he sold ANY pets to. I knew they would have good homes.
During this time of raising cockatiel babies, my daughter fell in love with a Peach Front Conure (a/k/a 
Peaches) and I found a gorgeous Lesser Sulphur Crested Cockatoo (Zachary) from the same darn pet store. A BIG bird!! I read up on cockatoos and KNEW I could give him a great home and teach him all kinds of words and tricks. Zachary is now 13 years old and not sociable at all, says maybe only 8 words and the only tricks he knows consists of a decibel that is truly deafening. He literally freaks when my daughter comes to visit (yes, that’s correct - she doesn’t live here any more but her bird, Peaches, does). I have to move him and his cage to a completely different room when she comes over. I can not have him out of his cage when she comes in because he will actually fly after her and try to attack her. He is extremely jealous of her. 
Over the next few years, while Smokey and Dusty were raising their families, there were a couple babies I absolutely could not part with. Okay, there were EIGHT babies I could not part with. My living room and dining room became my own little aviary. I do believe I was the only one who actually enjoyed listening to 12 birds all chattering at once. Smokey still loved me too and he used to fly over to me and sit on me for hours. But you could just tell that Smokey and Dusty we true “life mates” if ever you saw that type of thing in birds. They were SO happy together.
As time went on, it was not without some heartache along the way. I lost three birds to cancer. One of them was Dusty, the Mommy of all the babies. She had a tumor the size of big fat nickel removed from her chest cavity the first time. The vet had never seen anything like it and actually paid for lab fees to have it analyzed. Turned out it was a rare type of cancer that almost never shows up in the Avian world. Dusty survived and was fine after a couple of weeks of recovery. There was no more breeding after this though and I tried to make sure she ate healthy and was happy. Unfortunately, only a year later the cancer returned and took her one day while she was sleeping in the nest box I left on for them to sleep in. She was only 12. My Smokey was so upset. His wife of a little more than 11 years was gone – the love of his life. After that he hardly even wanted to come out of the cage any more. I would leave the door open and he would just stay in anyway. I took the nest box off because he wouldn’t even go in there to sleep any more. My heart broke for him. I never saw a depressed bird before and it is not something I really want to see again.
In the 14 years I had the cockatiels, three merely fell off their perches and were instantly dead. I never understood that and did not have the money for a necropsy, so I am just assuming they had a heart attack or stroke. I don’t know, but it was very distressing. Two others died at different times when I was away on vacation and another died of natural causes. I found my Smokey when I came home from this past New Year’s Eve party. He was on the floor of the cage when I came in. I was sick when I found him. It was a terrible thing to start the New Year off with and I felt to badly I wasn’t home when it happened. He was 17 and I know he was happy but he was really never the same after Dusty died 5 years ago. He was really the best. I wish I had not forgotten to say good night to him that last night before I left for the party.
So now, after 17 years of birds, I am left with Peaches, who would just as soon bite you as look at you, and Zachary. Oh Zachary. The incorrigible Zachary. I don’t know what I am to do. As much as I read about owning a cockatoo, there really just is not enough to read. You truly can not possibly understand what it is like to own a parrot. They need so much of your time and A LOT of patience. They are usually only one person birds and frankly, I do not think they should be in a home that has small children. I have been bitten three times with that big beak and it is extremely painful, never mind bloody. If he wanted to bite me hard enough, I know he could either sever part of my finger or at least break it. I don’t think I would want that around a young child for sure.
Zachary has about 50 years left in his life. I have 20, if I’m lucky. Sooooooooo, that means I will have to leave him in my Will to a family member – my kids said they would be happy to SPLIT him. Yeah, right. I am smart enough to know what they mean by “split”!! Very funny kids. So that is another thing to consider before buying one of the beautiful, large birds -your time frame. They will, more than likely, outlive you, so make sure you have arrangements in your Will after your demise. You want to make sure he will be taken care of by someone who is not afraid of big birds or big beaks. They need to understand their body language and what their eyes are saying. You NEED to put careful thought into that.
I feel lucky that I had all those years with my beautiful birds (and more to come with the two I have). But I miss the “noise” and I miss having a flock of birds flying around my house when something spooks them all at once. (well, okay, I don’t really miss that part). So now, I am down to two birds, one of which will definitely have the last laugh. The point of this whole thing, is you really need to talk to people that own a parrot and you need to read every article you can find about them. They change your life almost as much as having kids. All I can say, is after you do all of your research and have made a decision to actually own one, you are either going to have a genius on your hands or one that will make every day a challenge. Either way, you have they can be a joy to watch, to pet, to teach, and most of all to love with all your heart.
Nadia - My Little Princess
7/22/1993 – 2/8/2008
My dear sweet Nadia – The Little Princess - Where do I begin? Just look at one of the sweetest little puppy faces EVER! She almost looked like a stuffed animal except for the fact you couldn’t keep her still for one second. We basically “rescued” her from a hovel where she was living with 7 other siblings outside on a deck playing, eating and sleeping in their waste. She was only 5 1/2 weeks old but we felt had to get her out of those living conditions.
Knowing the end was near for our big, beautiful gentle giant male Samoyed, Koty, we decided to get another dog to – what to ease OUR pain when he goes? Annoy the heck out of Koty until he leaves his wonderful life? Oh, wait – I KNOW!!! - it was because we wanted our house to be completely “renovated” by a Tasmanian Devil puppy!!! Yeah that’s it!! That sweet little puppy face you see managed to chew through any heavy duty plastic gate you could put up and climb over TWO of those baby gates stacked one on top of the other. OH NO!! What do we do now?? Well we KNOW that dogs LOVE their crates. Everyone tells us that and all the training books tell us that. So we decided to get Nadia a crate so she could LOVE it. NOT!!
We bought a crate – a nice big one because we knew she would be a fairly big dog. Maybe that was our first (maybe “second” hehe) mistake. We did the introduction thing of putting her food and water in there for a couple of weeks before actually locking her up in it when we went off to work. Personally, I don’t believe dogs should be put in crates –but many will argue that point with me. Anyway, even though we had the door to the crate open during her introduction period, she was not crazy about going in there for food, water, dog cookies, toys or anything else. During this introduction time of not locking her in the crate, we were putting up two tiers of baby gates in both kitchen entrances so she couldn’t get out. We were very silly. Of course she got out because she either chewed through the bottom gate or climbed up over both gates – all at the ages of 6 to 8 weeks! This went on until all the stores around us had their baby gate supplies depleted. It was TIME. Time for the LOCKED crate.
The first day of “the locked crate” I came home from work and she happily greeted me at the downstairs door. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the lock on the crate would actually keep her IN the crate. I was afraid to go upstairs and afraid of what I was going to find. How the heck could she have gotten out of that crate??? When I got upstairs, Koty gave me this look like he wanted to bite my leg off and chew it in front of me. He had, at this point, given us 12 good years and he was wondering why on earth were we punishing him? Well the crate was still locked but somehow Nadia managed to get the bottom metal tray OUT of the of the crate – there was an open space of about and 1 ½ inches, which apparently was enough for her to get out. What was she anyway??? Boneless?????? One of her FAVORITE mischievous things to do when she became “free” was to start re-arranging our wall to wall carpeting. And I can’t even imagine the torment she put on Koty, probably wanting him to play lots of puppy games all day.
Okay, so it wasn’t NEW carpeting- it WAS thirteen years old, so what was one little tear over by her crate? Not much- we could kind of fix that so it wouldn’t look so bad, right? It was multi-brown colored carpeting, so you could really hide a lot. That’s okay Nadia – you are just a puppy and puppies do things like this. Such a sweet little face and happy wagging tail – you just don’t know any better.– we must have put the crate together incorrectly for you to be able to get out like that.
Well put the bottom tray back in, correctly, which seemed to be the exact same way it was before but, oh well. The same thing happened the following day - she met me downstairs. We ended up (days later) using 4 heavy electrical ties to hold the bottom of the crate in and THREE locks on the crate door, and she was still getting out and happily greeting me a the downstairs door. We now KNEW she was boneless and could get through the little squares in the sides of the crate. Our little, sweet Houdini managed to escape from everything we could think of to keep her in the crate and, over a period of a few weeks, she completely tore up our living room, dining room and hallway carpeting. Our house had become a shambles! But you have to remember to go back and look at that face- that is NOT a face you can get rid of. We couldn’t part with her- we loved her from the second she licked us in gratitude for saving her from the hell she was living in.
компютри втора употребаWe eventually found out that she was actually BENDING the crate door at the bottom just enough so she could squeeze through. I could actually go on about the following weeks of the “crate” story, but I will cut this short except to say that I set up a “puppy cam” to see exactly what she was doing while we were gone. Poor thing was going CRAZY in the crate. Almost broke my heart to see what she was going through. I sent the video up to a doctor of psychology for dogs at Cornell University and paid $100 for a phone interview on her thoughts. (Okay so now I’m the crazy one). I was told to get a full-time babysitter for Nadia. Uhhhhh, I don’t think so.
Longer story short, we obviously ended up keeping her as she finally got to a point where we could leave her in “free roam” mode and not have her destroy the house any more. Well, what was left of it. She became the most loving little Sammy and she was a God-send when we lost our beloved Koty. She was two years old by then and gave us real comfort, even though we know she suffered from his loss as well.
Nadia was especially loving to my husband. You know – the one that walked her in the morning and once at night and then that was about it. Never took her to the vet, maybe fed her 25 times in the 14.5 years we had her and would get annoyed if she didn’t hurry up and do her business outside if it was raining. She would bring HIM the toys she wanted to play with and would have this bright eyed, excited look just waiting for him to throw it for her – very cute but nevertheless, it used to kill me that she seemed to loved him more than me, her primary caregiver. hehe. But make no mistake about it- he loved Nadia as much as any of us and may have been the one sobbing the loudest, as five adults took her for her last visit to the vet. Our Vet gave her a heavy sedative first and waited until Nadia was in a very, very deep sleep before administering the final shot. We felt Nadia leave us peacefully and the five of us just started crying our eyes out. It took us at least a half hour before we could compose ourselves enough to leave the room we were in and not totally upset everyone that was in the waiting room. I know we looked pathetic leaving but we really didn’t care. She was a member of our family and it just hurt so bad - it still does.
Unfortunately, she did prove to have a somewhat unstable personality. More than likely because she was taken from her mother so young. - she loved her family to pieces but would just as soon snap anyone else. EVERY single time we had people over (or even nearby) our mantra was “don’t touch her, don’t look at her, and don’t talk to her”. Yup – it was that bad. Forget kids. We always had to watch her around kids. What a shame – ALL the kids wanted to pet her because she was so fluffy and beautiful. I would have to hold her head while they pet her but I would prefer that they not come near her at all. Luckily, we never had an “incident” the entire time she spent with us.
So many years she was so loyal and so loving. It is so hard to watch them grow old – you give them medications to help them live more comfortably in their last years. But sometimes you can keep giving them medications that really serve no other purpose than to put off making that fateful decision. Then the day came and I KNEW I had to take her. To actually make an “appointment” was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. But it would have been unfair to make her spend one more day here when she is losing her dignity and the will to try to get up to get a drink or a bite to eat. Well, she could not get up any more. She had to be lifted to a standing position and half carried up and down the stairs. Although she did not eat much anymore, she still weighed 50 pounds and it was so difficult for us to carry her upstairs and try to prevent her from falling down the stairs while taking her out.
She didn’t give me any “real” signs that it was time, like our Koty did. We had to make the decision for her. I do know she is in a better place now – but I feel the emptiness of not having her here EVERY day, even after more than three months. Sometimes, I STILL expect to see her lying in the bedroom, which had become her den, of sorts, the last 4 months of her life.
My little girl – so sweet and so beautiful and so saucy! What a love. Thanks to my daughter I have this last picture of her that was in September, 2007 on her last vacation with us at the Outer Banks, NC. She was such a beauty. I miss you more than you can imagine, Nadia. Hope you, Koty and Bailey are having a blast!
Love you and miss you so much, Little Princess
Love Mommy
Jessie and Spots
One day, as I sat contented with myself and my new surroundings, I wondered if life was as good for others, as it seemed to be for me. A new life, because of my new surroundings, seemed to be just the thing that the doctor had ordered.
Leaving the “hustle and bustle” of the big city held the promise of new and exciting adventures in a place very alien to me. Along with my Wife and our 2 dogs Jessie and Spots, we made our way to the Outer Banks of
You see, I had yet to land a job, and the task of watching the dogs seemed to be something that I was sure that I could accomplish with little direction. There I sat, on the couch. The doors open, front and back. A gentle breeze tickled through off of the canal. I could hear the breaking waves in the distance, the smell of the salt air…. the barking dog on the deck. ” JESSIE” I yelled from my place of command,. “STOP IT”!
As I looked away from
As I stood up and stretched my muscles, ( don’t forget that “The Price is Right” is an hour show) I could see that Jessie was “paws up” on the deck rail, second floor with a 15 ft. drop to the garden. “JESSIE” I yelled with a little more authority , but still trying to catch a look at one of those ” Barkers Beauties”, GET DOWN! Well with that, she proceeded to jump up with all 4 paws on the top rail of the deck. It was something to see in retrospect. I didn’t think that a dog could do that on all 4 paws, on 4″ of rail ,15 FEET UP!!!!!! What echoed through my head? “JUST WATCH THE DOGS”!!!!! As I opened the screened slider…… SHE JUMPED!!!! The only “job” I had at the time, was to “WATCH THE DOGS”!!!!
FLASH, wife comes home….. one dog missing….. big pile of sand with a cross on it…..I get fired from the only job I had!!!!. As God MUST own a dog Himself, Jessie landed in a pile of sand and was still able to chase the deer into the canal AND limp back at my wavering whistle. Whew!!!! Both Jessie and I escaped without major injury. Every time I hear of
Peter and Lisa
Outer Banks, NC
Marley and Putney
Marley and Putney
I just wanted to share a picture of my favorite kids.
The one on the left is Marley – the Jack Russell and the one on the right is Putney - mixed breed of unknown origins.
Hannah Abrams, Realtor
Brookline, MA
Harley… A Wonder Dog
This is about Harley…
I cannot begin to tell you all the stories about this amazing little dog, it would take too long. To simplify, he captured my heart from the first day I saw him in Yukon, Oklahoma. This love affair still continues almost thirteen years later. He is every bit Jack Russell, big dog in a small body syndrome. However, he has always amazed me with his personality and antics. He has mellowed over the years but continues to act like a pup in certain situations. We have a routine that we share daily which consists of him waking me up at 7 am by standing next to my side of the bed and tapping me with his paws. He used to share the bed but because of a slipped disc from jumping down and a major spinal operation, he must sleep in his own bed next to mine.
We have breakfast together every morning. He will only eat his dried food if I put yogurt on it and he “must” have the crust of my bagel. My husband puts truffle oil on it when I am not home. I come home from work everyday at lunch time to let him out and do lunch. He always must have a little taste of what I am having at lunch as well as dinner.
Harley is a part of my life and I can not imagine what it will be like without him. Since his major surgery two years ago at the age of eleven, I realized how much a value him and I must admit spoil him even more. He has made a miraculous recovery and I cherish every moment. The pictures show just a few of the “moments” we have shared.
Mal Duane, Realtor
Framingham, MA
Barnie & Brodie-Best Buds!
Here are some more cute pictures of my babies.
Brodie is 5 and Barnie is 1. They love to play in the grass every chance they get since I have none. The one picture was at our neighbors’ house.
They are best buddies and Barnie (the baby) loves to play with balls. He is usually carrying one and dribbling another at the same time. When I throw the ball for them, Brodie like the thrill of the catch and usually gets there first, but then just drops it and his brother takes over. Brodie likes to shake his stuffed animals as though he is breaking their necks when he gets in a crazy mood. Westies are fun breed. They make terrific pets and are easy to care for.
Julie Pierce
Photos of Barnie and Brodie
Bear and Smokey
This is Bear (Shepard and Collie mix) and Smokey (Schipperke) the loves of our lives. I’ll never forget the day I found them.
So precious and innocent and just waiting to be loved.
The moment I stepped into North Shore Animal League in
I did not go in there with any specific intentions except to find the dog that I had a connection with and one that I thought needed us the most.
When I approached her, she slowly came toward me, stuck her nose through the cage and gave me a kiss! That was it!!!!!! How could I leave this helpless puppy now??? It was love at first sight.
I didn’t even ask many questions about her, I just had to have her.
Within seconds I asked to see her out of the cage. She could barely walk. Little did I know, she had been spayed 2 days before and was still recovering.
The adoption process is another story. All I wanted to know was where do I sign! It wasn’t that easy. After you fill out the forms, which includes naming references, they make you wait about 2-3 hours before they tell you if you’re able to adopt. I’m very happy they screen people for adoption to make sure the animals get a good home. Too many shelters just hand them over to anyone.
Anyway, when they called my name, it was one of the most exciting and nerve racking moments of my life!! They said “congratulations”!!!!!!!
Next thing I knew, we were in the car and headed back to New Jersey.
We are so thankful I found her and I think she is too.
We just celebrated Bear’s birthday April 6th. She is now 5 years old. Healthy, happy and so full of love.
Smokey is a different story J. I searched high and low in so many shelters for the perfect match for Bear. My husband and I both work and leaving Bear alone everyday just broke our hearts.
Not able to find the perfect mate, I ended up at a local pet store and there he was!!!! Sitting in the window by himself. He looked like he could have been Bear’s baby! The most adorable little face I ever saw.
I knew the moment I saw him it would be eternal.
I had never seen a schipperke before, knew nothing about them but I didn’t care. He had fire in his eyes! I held him for a minute (he was so full of energy I couldn’t hold on to him). His personality was just bursting!!! When I put him down he took off running around the pet store like a little kid in a toy store. Within 5 minutes, I was out the door with him. He fell asleep in my arms on the way home. So sweet!!!!!
Smokey was only 8 weeks at the time. We will be celebrating his birthday June 3rd when he will be 5 years old.
Although their personalities are so different, I don’t think Bear and Smokey could ever be without each other. Every morning they kiss each other. Bear sometimes acts like Smokey’s mother. She is very protective over him and Smokey is very protective over Bear as well. Where you see one, you will always see the other. They are a match made in heaven and we couldn’t imagine our lives without them.
Here is a picture of our family together!!
Smokey, Theresa, Bill & Bear
