Anniversary

Today was rough. I made it through work without bursting in to tears, but the drive home was watery. I have some amazing co-workers. We had a potluck (unrelated, it just happened to be this day), and it kept my mind occupied. One even brought in dipped dog biscuits, knowing it would be a difficult time for me. Keeper has had three, and all of two crumbs have hit the floor (and then were promptly cleaned up.) She loves them.

I'm trying to keep focused on the good things and not how we lost Duncan, but it just hurts. I'm on prednisone for a shoulder injury, so there's some medicine fueled emotional instability and insomnia feeding the sadness and the grief. Which hopefully means as the medicine tapers off, the grief will also ebb.

Keeper's doing well, nearly caught a squirrel yesterday, played with a coworker today, and survived a brief trip to the store for supplies for the potluck in a downpour. Not happy about getting from the car to the store or the store to the car in the rain, but she did it. Did pretty well in the store, too. Still need to keep her mood up or she pokes along, but there's less worry about the cart (I ran her toes over, she wants to heel very wide.)

I've written a check and need to drop it in the mail for a deposit on a pup for later this year, because Keeper will be five in September. With a 2 year raise-up time, she'll be seven, and possibly ready to go part time or retire when the pup is ready.

So, as much as it saddens me to miss Duncan in my life, because of him I am able to keep progressing. Not always smoothly, and sometimes it makes me cry to know that I won't have him as a puppy-raiser or to help with things, but I wouldn't be here without him. I keep moving forward, and that's the greatest tribute I can give him.

This is the email I sent the shelter where I found him:
Subject: Thank you for Duncan
"Hello. I’m not sure anyone working there will remember the liver and tan muttly teenager that I found in May 2007. His name was Floyd (A098265) when I found him, but for nearly 9 years he was Duncan, and my lifeline. He was my service dog, and went to college, a couple jobs, movies, shopping, museums, everywhere as my copilot.

I tried to remember to email you on his Gotcha Day each year, to tell you that he’d made it out and was loved very much, and loved exploring the world with me. That he had a home that would last.

I didn’t email last year. I wasn’t strong enough, it hurt too much. But we’re coming up on the anniversary of when I lost him to cancer, and I wanted to tell you all once more how much this big, unwanted, brainiac of a dork meant to me.

He kept me on my feet. He helped me up when I fell. He happily fetched all the things I dropped and many things I didn’t. He kept the nightmares at bay. He loved puppies and making new friends. He traveled- and gave me the ability to travel independently- across most of the Midwest and into New England. He was always up for a new adventure. We earned his CGC, a couple Rally titles, his Companion Dog once the AKC opened up to mutts, and we were getting started in nosework.

He retired from the mobility work and public access stuff due to a CCL tear. He was so stoic, I wasn’t sure the TPLO had left him pain-free. He deserved the very best, so I left him cozy at home. But he wasn’t ready to quit his job and became a very industrious house-elf. We started a trash-for-treats system, and he turned in every twist tie, wrapper, or scrap of cardboard he could find. He helped raise up a pup I selected as his successor, and when that didn’t work out, he helped train up another dog, who is my current lifeline. I couldn’t have done it without him.

He went out for a nice walk 10 days before we discovered the cancer in his lungs, and led the pack the whole way, sniffed all over and marked any time we paused. He had a grand time, and I planned to make those sorts of walks a regular thing as the weather warmed up.

He went off his feed the following Friday, but we all had a cold, the other dogs were also sick, so we waited for everyone to get better. Sunday, the others were better, and lethargy set in for Duncan. We took him to the ER. They pulled almost a liter of fluid off his lungs. Nothing we could do helped tremendously, but he rallied enough that we could take him home for a little while, and try a couple of long shot treatments. He didn’t get better, but as always, he gave me the time I needed to come to terms with things.

I picked him up from Wayside Waifs Wednesday, May 30, 2016. A far too brief 8 years and 10 months later on Wednesday, March 30, 2016, he had one last adventure as the vet techs took him inside on a gurney. He looked at me to make sure I was following him, and gave me his usual grin to be doing something new together. He’d never “flown” before, and was clearly amused by it. He was surrounded by people who loved him, and he enjoyed getting petted by everyone at once. Then I let him go.

He was a very special dog, and I will always love him. I owe him so much.

Thank you for the hard work you do. Sometimes the life you save isn’t just the dog’s."

Memory Lane post 1

FB keeps showing me pictures of Duncan and we're coming up on the year anniversary of his death, so it hurts again. Rather than dwell on that,, I'm going to try to post a story that makes me smile. Maybe daily, maybe just when I need to chase the tears away. He brought me so much joy, and gave me back an independence I thought I'd lost.

I had made plans to see friends in Illinois, one was flying in from Vermont, I'd be driving up from Kansas. We'd all scattered far and wide from our Southern California start but we all carved out this brief time to be together. It was a whirlwind of Field Museum, Shed Aquarium, water park, dog park, hanging out, and catching up. 

That look.

There were a few things that stood out- walking behind Duncan chanting "dork, dork, dork" in time with the way his tail wagged as we walked to an ice cream shop, or how he got freaked out by the loon call on the "nature walk" in the Field Museum (he went back bravely after a minute, I'm not sure what he thought was going to come through the speakers, but he was pretty sure it would melt our bones.) I think the picture in front of RoboSue will always be one of my favorites of us. So many distractions, and he's looking at me.

The night we ran to the grocery store, I had a youngish man stop me on our way out. He was an off-duty police officer who wanted to know how old Duncan was, if I'd trained Duncan myself, and how long until his young K9 would settle down and do the work without being such a monster. Afterward, my friend asked if that happened a lot, the getting stopped and chatted to about dogs.

I think it's also the one video I have of Duncan working (you can see the dork dork tail here as well) The first look over his shoulder is because we've been following our hosts all day, and I asked him to take the lead. The second, nervous look is because of an indoor carousel hitting the air brakes. Duncan did a bit of traffic work on campus for me, he was startled to hear air brakes inside. They come on a second time, and he tips his head, but no big reaction again https://youtu.be/3IUsaqBEUeQ

But the part of the trip I remember laughing at most was when we went to a dock on a pond. I chucked Duncan's AirKong into the water, and he, having no experience with docks, only with shore entries, just stepped off the edge. For a second, I thought I was going to have to go in after him, then he bobbed to the surface, shook it off, and completed the retrieve. He got the idea and jumped a couple times, though a couple of times he just stepped off and started swimming so he didn't sink so deep again. But that first "oh, shit. He had _no_ idea..." makes me smile still.

Keeper and the fire alarm

I do really poorly with loud sounds. I went to buy a new laptop today. Selected the computer, the anti-virus, and went to checkout. The fire alarm went off, and I physically cringed away from the ceiling with each blare. Keeper kept following the salesman. Salesman sets things on a counter and leads us outside. Keeper's handling it all better than I am, I've got a headache and nausea is setting in. Fire alarm stops, we go back inside, complete the purchase and take things to the customer service counter where they'll remove the bloatware, load the antivirus, and wait for the system boot-up. We'll go back for it tomorrow or Wednesday.

I'm really, really happy with Keeper for staying on task even as I was completely not in charge. Got several comments on how pretty she was, but it was the comments about how well she's trained after that klaxon that made me happiest.