Posts Tagged ‘Dalmatians’
Our Valentine Girl
Our eldest dog, Breeze, will turn fourteen on February 16th this year. She’s always been our “Valentine,” from the day we picked her up at her breeder’s in North Carolina, and then returned home again to California with her in a carrier underneath under our seat on the plane. Gulliver, our older Dal and the…
Read MoreAll You Need is Love
A Beatles song tells us “love is all you need.” Sometimes I’m not so certain about this bold statement: I crave my work, among other things. But still, isn’t love the greatest necessity of all? As I think back over the course of my life, I see it in all its guises as it enters…
Read MoreBright Eyes
Whenever Breeze and Brad and I take a walk, strangers who pass us on the sidewalk ask how old our “puppy” is. As the years go by, we smile, happy to be able to answer that on February 14th, she will turn ten or eleven or twelve: we are thrilled to hear their exclamations of…
Read MoreA Christmas Mac Attack
It was the day after Christmas, and in the kitchen I was savoring my supper of left-over beef tenderloin, absorbed in a book. A bit at a time, a noise intruded on my peace and quiet: paper being shredded. I knew what it meant straight off. Mac, my Dalmatian, has recently become obsessed with eating…
Read MoreMetal Plates & Aging Gracefully
Two years ago, my youngest Dalmatian, Mac, broke his leg in three places while colliding with his older brother as they jumped high to compete for a ball. He had a twelve inch metal plate and twenty screws implanted to save it from amputation. You can still see the bumps under his skin and it…
Read MoreA Call for Cody
I call out Cody’s name but he does not respond. He does not wag his tail, or even look to me for reassurance. His body is stiff, his mouth foaming, his legs paddle in the air, his eyes have rolled back and have no visible iris. He is in the middle of a grand mal…
Read MoreCOMING FULL CIRCLE TO LIFE
How did I get through the loss of Gulliver, the dog of my heart, to whom I dedicated Bespotted? How did I put away my grief and return to living and enjoying myself once again? The answer is a simple one: I bred a litter of puppies. Two years after Gulliver’s death, we sent our girl,…
Read MorePUBLICATION PSYCHOSIS AND A PUPPY FIX
Writers keep bizarre schedules: some compose late at night, some early in the morning, some whenever the urge overwhelms them. I am a disciplined early riser–or should I say that my three Dalmatians are early risers who tromp all over me and my blankets until I get up and feed them at 6:45 a.m., just…
Read MoreTails Are Wagging in the Daffodils
Spring arrived yesterday with the vernal equinox. Two daffodils and a yellow and a purple crocus have popped up in the small, curved garden alongside my driveway. Every year, I have the same surge of hope for the new season, with all its blooms and possibilities. But today, it is rainy and raw, and those…
Read MoreA Joyful Bark
This morning, Breeze got up from her padded armchair–which we have allowed to become her dog bed–and walked across our room to greet me. I was slipping out of bed, ready to take her downstairs to potty and eat breakfast, when I noticed she was holding one paw up off the ground in an exaggerated…
Read More