sad, crazy dog lady

We have dogs.  Three dogs right now, all Australian Sheherds.  We have been raising or had Aussies for the last 15 years or so. Maybe you could call us crazy dog people, but they bring us such joy.
The hardest thing about owning a pet, almost any pet is the fact that you know they will not live your whole life, and odds are you will be tasked with ending their lives, for what ever reason.
Our first Aussie was just stunning but had immune system issues since her puppy hood. We took her to vets, changed foods, used steroids, and anything else that we could think of to try to help her, and at five years old, on the same day my nephew was killed in the war in Iraq, we had to put our beloved dog down. She told us it was time.  Little did we know that an hour after the decision and appointment was made we got a phone call that our nephew was killed by an RPG, he was 24.  When we took our dog to the vet we were a wreck. The family was scrambling to make all the arrangements that needed made for our nephew, life had suddenly put us in the news as it were. We went in with our dear dog, and held her and told her we loved her, and to go find our nephew who would be waiting with a frisbee for him. My Handsome WEPT over that dog, not just for the dog, but for the little boy who he used to chase around, the little boy who played with our sons, he wept for the future he would never have, and he wept over the best dog he had ever owned,
If you do not know Australian Shepherds, well, once you get one, you will never get another type of dog again.  They are so incredibly SMART, and they are biddable, meaning if they feel you want something of them, they will do whatever it takes to make you happy with them.  All my aussies were completely house broke in one week, if that.  I have had one aussie become a therapy dog, and I have had two canine good citizens. People also say that like potato chips you cant have just one lol, and that has proven true, with us.
About a month after loosing our nephew and best friend, we decided that we have been sad for a month, nothing was making us smile.  Soooo, we started the hunt for another Aussie.  We found our beautiful Bella at a dairy farm about an hour away, she was a true stock dog, and came from some wonderful lines.  We brought her home and found our smiles again.  Anybody who ever had a puppy knows that you cannot help but laugh and smile at their antics.
In the meantime I had met a woman with Aussies in my area, and she was familiar with my lines.  After much consideration, and testing, we decided to breed our black tri girl to her red merle male. We knew we wanted one dog out of the litter, and the stud owner wanted a male blue merle for her breeding program in the future.  Alas, our girl had NINE puppies and not one of them would work for the stud owner. That was probably the most fun 8 weeks our family ever had!  Nine roly poly little pups of all colors~then our poor girl got mastitis.  She recovered from it, but go pretty sick so we decided even though we wanted one more litter from her, that we would spay her because she really gave to the cause. Well because of that we could not help ourselves, it was our excuse to keep TWO pups lol. So we kept a beautiful red tri, and a lovely blue merle bitch, and we thought down the road, we would breed the girl or use our boy as a stud dog.  Well fate stepped in and our female we kept, developed epilepsy. As a result we spayed her, and our boy being a stud was taken off the table.
Well after 8 years of a valiant fight we put her down.  We spared no expense in helping her to live a good and as long a life as possible. We wept.
For a bit we kept ourselves at two dogs, but we noticed that our mama dog was slowing down significantly and our male was desperately missing his sibling, they played every single day.  Well I got an email some months later that there was an aussie litter in rescue and they were looking for experienced homes.  So what do I do? I call handsome, send him a picture, and he sends me on my way to go get our pup!  We know we will never have just one dog, dogs are pack animals and do much better in a pack, (its true really!) We had said we would wait until our mama dog was gone to get another one, but we noticed that our male was sad, like really sad.  He had nobody to run the yard with and chase birds lol.  Soooo we brought home a puppy. Our male was ticked off! We told him hey this little guy is for you!
So we are now a three dog family.
But our mama bear is not doing well.  She is twelve, and has terrible arthritis in her hips and back.  I am doing everything in my power to help her, she is on many medications to treat inflammation and pain, and they really seemed to help her be more comfortable.  But she has lost almost all muscle in her back legs.  She also has cataracts, and I think is getting slightly deaf. I wanted to let her live until she just died from old age, she has been such a blessing to us, she brought our smiles back, and gave us our beautiful puppies.
I left for work today, and she could not make it up the steps from outside.  She is still a happy dog, please dont think I am leaving her in pain, I would never do that.  I have had to put down many dogs, and I always wait for them to tell me. I dont think mama will tell me, I think she is still a happy dog, who just cant get around like she used to. I cried on my way to work.  I think the end will be soon, and much sooner than I wanted or expect. I wanted to let her just grow old and die, but I dont think that is going to happen, I think I will eventually have to take matters into our hands and that breaks my heart.
I am spoiling her rotten now, if she wants a bite of pizza, by gosh she gets it.  You want to ride in the car, come on!
Belly rubs, let me help you.
I want to make her remaining time as pleasant and fun as possible.
She gave us so very much in her life, the least I can do is spoil her rotten till the end of hers.





Peace and Blessings
LTW ( and mama bear)