A Decade With My Dog

It's hard to believe, but October 12th marked the 10th anniversary of Abbey's adoption, making this her 10th & a Half Adopt-a-versary.* That's right, my sweet mutt has been my boon companion for more than a decade now! Ten years. TEN YEARS! I can't even begin to express how important her support has been for me during the early years of depression and anxiety, the middle years of excruciating medication withdrawal, that one really great year when we went on lots of walks and hikes, and five years of migraines. I hit the canine jackpot when my family decided that Keta, the "brown" dog sitting so patiently in her kennel at Seattle Animal Shelter, should be our new family pet. And while she loves and is much loved by the rest of my family, for ten years it's really always been about the two of us, Dog & Girl, two lost souls in need of something to love.

* I started this blogpost back in October in hopes of posting it on her adopt-a-versary, but then life happened. Better late than never, right?

From Abbey's perspective, the highlight of 2014 was the Disintegrating Christmas Reindeer. Of course, it wasn't disintegrating yet when it showed up in her Christmas stocking as her annual soft toy gift. What usually happens is that the soft toy is vigorously played with, gets a bunch of holes, and after a month or two, when it can no longer hold together, we give Abbey permission to pin and rip it to her heart's content, and the soft toy fun is over until next Christmas. Right from the start, though, it was clear that this year's reindeer was something special. My mom even went to Petco to get a backup within a week, but by then, all of the Christmas toys were gone. Fortunately, Abbey was determined to make this toy last as long as possible, the Disintegrating Christmas Reindeer is still with us! This is especially impressive because 99% of all games played in 2014 centered around catching and shaking and fetching her reindeer. Abbey makes playtime look so FUN and we all get such a kick out of watching her build extra bounces and zigzags and twirls into her reindeer antics. The reindeer loses another piece of stuffing during every game, the squeaker fell out long ago, and the body is limp and full of holes, but it has demonstrated an impressive tenacity. It made it all the way until Christmas, when it was finally retired in favor of the Christmoose, which was this season's variation on the same toy.

Chewing on my reindeer!

Reindeer game, anyone?

C'mon, chase me!

This is the best toy ever!

Proudly posing with her favorite friend.

Abbey and the Christmoose, the reindeer's successor.

"Whee! You're home!"

Of course, it isn't just when she's playing with her reindeer that Abbey is acts like a Big Silly. While most of the time Abbey is as mellow as they come, she does have that little bit of a twinkle about her, and nothing unleashes her goofiness like me coming home from dog-sitting. I didn't used to think of Abbey as much of a smiler, but taking photos to post daily on Pack (more on Pack later) has made me realize that she does have a little smile and it is perfectly ridiculous! She's not above acting undignified and I definitely like that in a dog.

This is Abbey's goofy grin. I can't help but crack up whenever I look at this picture!

Another very silly smile.

Rolling around hoping for belly rubs.

Making some joyful noise.

"Yay! Pet me!"

Of course, from Abbey's perspective, there is so much about life to enjoy. Things to celebrate are not limited to her reindeer stuffy or my comings and goings; other fun things include dinnertime, car rides, petting, squirrels, and snow. (There are, of course, great many quiet pleasures to be enjoyed, too, but these are the kinds of things that can make a girl romp and bounce and spin for joy!)

We seldom get much, but you can see how happy playing in the snow makes Abbey feel!

Also fun is getting a chance to chase her blue squeaky ball in a big field.

Better yet is going swimming with your squeaky ball!

Abbey greatly enjoys chasing squirrels, though once the rascally rodent has scrambled up a tree, Abbey will sit nicely in hopes of being rewarded for being a good girl. It appears we trained her well! Pity the squirrels don't understand that good dogs get treats for sitting...

While Abbey may be an old dog, she definitely disproves the old adage that you can't teach an old dog a new trick. This year she has learned "spin," "tip it," and "find it." With Rice Chex as a reward, Abbey has shown us that two training sessions are sufficient to master a new command. I usually associate intelligence in dogs with a propensity to get into trouble (ya gotta keep those active minds busy!), but mellow Miss Abbey has quite a few more smarts than I give her credit for. It's just that usually she's busy applying them to looking after me!

Abbey demonstrates her mastery of the command "spin"!

Besides new commands, there were other things for Abbey to discover this year...

"By Jove! I do believe there's a dog on the other side of this fence!" Abbey's known about Licorice, the Dog Next Door, for years, but there are, in fact, TWO other Dogs Next Door that she's never really noticed. This summer, she and Georgie chased the same squirrel on opposite sides of the fence and now she's always hoping for a repeat. Don't tell her about Leo, okay?

"What IS this thing?" Abbey carefully investigates a caterpillar crossing the deck.

"And what's this?" I spent the early days of summer making sure Abbey didn't chase baby birds, especially the baby juncos before they fledged, but it was some other force that felled a little kinglet that she found dead in the yard. She sniffed it very carefully, but made no effort disturb the tiny body.

Abbey now has two food puzzles: a Wobbler and this delightful Tornado! She loves the challenge of tipping the Wobbler just so and twirling the towers of the Tornado to get at the concealed treats. More than just fun, food puzzles are a great way to engage a dog's brain.

One of the most surprising things that happened  in the past year is that Abbey reversed her policy on guests, WANTING to meet them instead of warily viewing them as intruders and possible threats. It has been our position for years that Abbey doesn't spend much time with company when we have people over because she can be doing okay and then something a male guest does--gesturing, blocking an exit route, reaching down--will spook her and if you spook Abbey...well, there's a risk of getting bitten. We don't like guests to get bitten, so we limit the circumstances when she can circulate with company and she always wears a muzzle. While she still is wearing the muzzle (much to her disgust), Abbey has decided in the past year to become social. She now is eager to come down when guests arrive and is, in fact, quite put out about being shut in my study with me. (The thing is, I'm not usually up for spending a full evening with company, so I typically don't come down until the meal is served and Abbey waits with me.) Nowadays, instead of surreptitiously sniffing guests around the perimeter of the table, Abbey is sticking her head in laps and nudging hands to request petting! Her biggest test was when my aunt and uncle came to visit. In the past, big gestures and excitability during conversation were triggers for her, and my uncle is a tall, wonderful, enthusiastic man much given to big gestures, big laughs, and excitable story-telling. When Abbey first encountered him, she lay some distance away with her back turned for half an hour. Then, she made an excuse to sniff under his chair. Soon he was petting her. I knew that all was going to be well when my uncle was petting her with one hand and gesticulating widely with the other while telling me a story and she cared not a whit. Abbey remained rather fascinated by my uncle for the whole visit (she immediately included my aunt as part of the family and in fact interacted with her very little, aside from the occasional nose-bump acknowledgement) and often sought him out. There was only one time when I called her away from him: my parents, my aunt, and I were having an animated conversation involving much laughter in the kitchen while my uncle dozed in a chair in the adjacent family room. I looked over and saw that Abbey was going over to wake him up so he could join us. Since he is not in the habit of being woken from a nap by a wet nose, I thought it was possible he might act startled or jump, which would scare Abbey, and all the great work of the visit would be undone. That possible crisis was avoided and by the time my aunt and uncle departed, my uncle could stand in Abbey's path and reach down directly toward her to fondle her ears and she was loving it. I was so proud of my girl for taking the risk of being social and learning that the reward was lots of extra affection.

Abbey puts her head in my uncle's lap to ask for petting and is well rewarded.

While she's much more amenable now to new people than she's ever been before in her life, because I don't socialize much, Abbey doesn't socialize much, either. What she doesn't realize is that she has an online following! Abbey is a bit of a rock star on Pack, the dog photo social media site. I post photos of Abbey there almost every day; I don't want to test the patience of my Facebook friends by posting endless Abbey images, but I am taking pictures of her all the time, so having a site just for dog photos is a great outlet. She has some great fans (one made Abbey her very own doggy quilt!) who always comment on her photos and I've enjoyed getting to know their dogs in return. Abbey is also trying hard to make #doghaiku a thing--a recent health issue was documented almost entirely in daily haikus. I was extremely flattered to be asked to do the inaugural "Meet My Mutt" interview for the Marvelous Mystery Mutt Pack and I highly encourage you to check it out, as I put a lot of thought into my response. Abbey also shows up a couple of times on Pack's "Best Dog Photos of 2014" honor roll. Outside of Pack, Abbey has also made an appearance as one of BADRAP's "Game Changer Dogs" where I share how Abbey changed my life for the better, and in a book (made by a dog I follow on the internet) called "Paw Wisdom" about lessons that old dogs have taught us. Her lesson for me? That the greatest joy can be found in the simplest things.

Abbey has a new guilty pleasure: snatching mouthfuls of ornamental grass.

Abbey loves marshmallows!

Noms aloft! Abbey enjoys catching airborne morsels.

And don't forget about peanut butter!

Basking in the sun has long been one of Abbey's favorite pursuits.

And of course you must stretch after a nap in a sunbeam!

There's nothing better than sleeping away the day on my bed.

Abbey is at least twelve by now. That's old for a dog. I was mighty pleased when she had her yearly checkup this past summer and the vet said that if he hadn't known how old she was, he never would have guessed. She's got her "old dog warts" and her dozen lipomas, white on her muzzle and a blue haze in her pupils, but she is otherwise in good health. The most significant sign of her age that has manifested in the past year is that she is getting somewhat hard of hearing. If she's asleep, she'll no longer hear her name being called from another part of the house. It has progressed to the point where she will not always hear me enter a room she's in and during a recent thunderstorm, she didn't hear most of the thunder. She battled a paw fungus in February (prednisone turned her into a hot, panting, restless, hungry, thirsty little stinker!), but otherwise her health has been very good and the vet thinks there are likely many years left in her yet. I sure hope so.

My dear old mutt.

Dog kisses are slimy and tickle!

Ten and a half years... They've flown by so quickly. I know I'm unlikely to get another ten and a half with my precious pup. Even if I do, that still won't be enough time. But I've been so lucky to have known her love. The two of us: it's likely one of the greatest bonds I'll ever know. It's going to be heartbreaking to lose her. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. Right now she's lined up beside me, asking "Where to next, my friend?" with her ears and her eyes and wagging tail, ready to go where I go, do what I do, for as long as she can follow.

To see my photographs of things other than dogs, check out my photography Facebook page.

Courting the Barn Cat

The pretty wild kitty.

O.C. and Syd in the stable.

I've gone back to grooming Drifter once a week as I rebuild the strength needed to get back in the saddle, but truth be told, I think I've spent nearly as much time grooming the barn cat as I've spent on Drifter! I'm trying to win her over, you see, and that takes time.

O.C. is one very attractive kitty, with a long, soft coat and an amazing pair of luminous green eyes. She's not what you think of when you think "barn cat." But she was born to a feral mother and has been virtually wild since she was a kitten, so she's happiest in and around the stable, keeping vermin at bay. She's extremely skittish, wary of the slightest noise, alert to the littlest movement, and does not trust people. That isn't to say she doesn't like people; it's just that if you startle her (and she startles easily), she's going to object with her teeth and her claws before making a run for it!

Snoozing on horse blankets.

Naturally, this interest in people and petting coupled with her extreme skittishness intrigues me and makes me want to win her over. I haven't had any cats in my life since the Ancient Kitty passed away last year, so I was feeling ready to make a new cat friend. I may prefer dogs over cats, but that doesn't mean I'll pass up an opportunity to pet one. And O.C. has heavenly, soft-as-a-cloud fur.

O.C. looks very silly with her leg stuck up in the air.

It was her fur, in fact, that brought us together in recent weeks. It just so happens that I not only like to pet animals, I also like to groom them, especially when it comes to working matted and shed fur out of an animal's coat. I find it deeply satisfying and animals tend to like it, too. So when I noticed that O.C. had several large mats in the long fur behind her head, I had to have a go at them! She will jump up on a lap readily enough, but I was concerned that the inevitable pulling on her fur that would occur when I started working the mats out would provoke a painful response. I therefore went to work rather gingerly, but she made it quite clear that she loved what I was doing! I think the mats had gotten to the point that they were causing her some discomfort and she seemed to understand what I was about. She purred and purred as I worked the matted fur free, pushing her head into my hands, begging for more.

O.C. is now sporting a shorn spot on the back of her head.

I was able to get most of the mats out with my fingers, but there was a particularly large and stubborn one that could only be removed with scissors. I hated to evict O.C. from my lap, knowing that there was a good chance this would constitute a criminal attack in her eyes and she wouldn't let me come near her again, but off she went, much to her displeasure. It did take some time to persuade her to come back for further ministrations and for some reason when she DID get back up on my lap, she decided that my left hand was not to be trusted. It is rather difficult to snip mats out of the fur of a cat using only one hand, but every time I moved my left hand, she'd try to bite it. It was protected by the sleeve of my winter coat, so no harm was done, and she only managed to sink her teeth into me once. The stable owner told me that they'd given up on trying to cut her mats out because she so frequently drew blood, so I was quite pleased to learn that I'd been able to provide this service to O.C. with minimal acrimony and bloodshed! I don't mind when she tries to bite or scratch me because I know she's just scared and doesn't know what else to do.

O.C. on the alert!

So each time that I've come to groom Drifter since, O.C. has been around and I've immediately sat down and invited her up for a little bit of petting. I work out any mats that are starting to form, massage her ears and her skull, tickle her under her chin, and give all manner of physical affection around the head. She's made it clear to me that I am not to run my hand along the length of her body (that's how I got bitten), touch her anywhere other than the head, or make any sudden moves, but if I abide by those rules, she wants nothing more than to snuggle.

The contented kitty.

When I came by the stable yesterday to groom Drifter, we followed our usual pattern. She meowed when she saw me and jumped up on my lap as soon as I sat down on the bench. I separated some hairs on the back of her neck that were starting to get matted and then gave her lots and lots of petting. She was purring so fiercely that she began to drool, which made me laugh. Benny, the Ancient Kitty, would do the same thing when he was happy. It made me glad to know that O.C. was enjoying my caresses to such an extent! At length, I decided that since I was here to look after a horse, I ought to get to it, and dislodged O.C. from my lap. She stayed nearby, however, curling up to snooze in my coat when I took it off, but what really made me happy was that when I was bending down to clean Drifter's hooves, with my hands near the ground, O.C. came over and tried to persuade me to pet her some more. She actually trilled! I suspect that O.C. has not trilled for many human beings, so I felt very honored. When I was finished with Drifter, I sat back down on the bench and O.C. immediately got back in my lap, butting her head against me, purring and drooling, snuggling her little face into the crook of my elbow, licking my jeans, and even, at one point, playing with the strings of my hooded sweatshirt.

O.C. watches a flurry of falling snow through the open barn door.

And so I sat on the bench in the chilly stable, listening to the sound of steady rain falling on the metal roof, the vibration of O.C.'s purr traveling up through my hands, marveling at her warm but virtually weightless presence on my lap. I could see Bear's steaming breath wreathing his head as he stood at his stall door, pondering the rain that fell beyond, and hear the quiet but solid noises of the horses shifting their bulk from hoof to hoof as they dozed away the afternoon. The air was full of the sweet perfume of the hay stored in the room behind my bench and my skin and clothing were imbued with the scent of horse. As O.C. writhed in my lap, seeming to ache with an urgency to get as much pleasure from my touch as she possibly could, my soul broke free and my being opened to a sense of peace.

Evil kitty ears.

After half an hour of this quiet meditation through interspecies physical connection, I decided, rather reluctantly, that I ought to go before my blood sugar dropped or I got too tired to drive. I began the delicate process of trying to persuade O.C. to leave my lap. She did not wish to do so, and when I incautiously moved my hand to give her the classic feline eviction nudge, she perceived it as an attack and responded in kind, drawing blood on the back of my hand with her claws. I was sorry that our wonderful session had to end with blood and misunderstanding, but was glad when O.C. immediately began to clamor for my attention. I do not know cat vocalizations and body language as well as I know the language of dogs, but I am pretty sure she was pleading for a return to my lap and more petting and was quite sorry to see me go!

O.C. has the most beautiful green eyes with glittering gold undertones.

And so I am happy. Altruistic joy has a particular keen-edged sweetness. I felt it very strongly during the Ancient Kitty's final years, when he was old and greasy and bony and my pleasure in touching him had to come from knowing that my doing so made him happy. I'm feeling that again with O.C. I don't need to own her or coo over her or tame her of all her wild ways. I just want her to know that I wish her no harm, that I will happily untangle her fur, and that I only seek to give her pleasure with my touch. It is immensely gratifying to me to that her trill, her head butts, and her drooling purr all would indicate that O.C. has come to understand my intentions and is, in my hands, knowing joy.

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Gotcha!: Celebrating Eight Years of Abbey

Last Wednesday, I sat down to begin work on a blogpost that I intended to make public on the 12th. I was only able to get the following amount of work done before I had to stop because I was finally experiencing the backlash of my exertions of my Florida trip:

***

The little whippersnapper back in 2004, two months after we brought her home.

Today is Abbey's "Gotcha! Day," her "adoptiversary." It's hard to believe it, but eight years ago on a sunny Tuesday, my mother and I showed up at the Seattle Animal Shelter before it opened to make sure we'd be first in line in order to adopt a sweet brindle stray we'd looked at over the weekend. Her shelter name was Keta; we'd already settled on calling her Abbey. We didn't bring her home until the 13th because she had to be spayed, but today's the day when she became ours. Or, more specifically, she became mine and I became hers.

She has brought us so much joy over these last eight years.

In these last few months, the first gray hairs have appeared in Abbey's eyebrows.

Since she was brought into the shelter as a stray, no one knew anything about her, including her age. The best guess that anyone could give was that she was 1.5-2 years old. That means she's somewhere in the vicinity of ten years old now and her age is beginning to show. Her eyes have acquired the bluish cast caused by lenticular sclerosis as her aging lenses densify. She's developed a couple of fatty tumors and I've found several sebaceous adenomas--benign fleshy tumors of oil glands in the skin often referred to as "old dog warts"--around her face. During her last physical, the vet noticed that she's displaying symptoms of sciatica in one of her back paws; just like her owner, she's not getting full information from her nerves in one of her feet! And that darling little Border Collie muzzle of hers has suddenly gotten quite gray. I've even spotted a few gray hairs in her eyebrows, evidence that a full "sugar face" (my favorite term for an elderly dog displaying a lot of gray/white facial hair) is on its way. She lost a tooth earlier this year and she no longer wants as long of a game. I've also had to reduce her food to not quite half of what it was in her prime because her metabolism has slowed down so much. As hard as it is to believe, my girl is getting old.

Her muzzle in 2008...

...and her muzzle in 2012.

***

My Abbey-just-planted-a-kiss face

So after writing those paragraphs, I decided to lie down and read for a while and Abbey, of course, was delighted that I was in bed because that meant we could have a nice cuddle together. Jumping up on the bed at my invitation, she came over to lick my face. That's when I smelled ammonia on her breath.

I'd noticed the day before that her breath had been unusually rank and had made a mental note that I really needed to recommit to brushing her teeth, but the ammonia odor took the concept of halitosis to a whole new level of ghastly. It also just didn't seem RIGHT. So I got out of bed again and did a Google search on "dog breath ammonia" and learned that it could be the sign of kidney trouble.

I have to say, I was rattled. I'd noticed, over the last couple of weeks, that sometimes the inside of her mouth and her tongue seemed a bit pale. Pale mucus membranes in a dog are never a very good thing, so when combined with the observation that she'd been drinking just a bit more water (I was refilling her bowl more often during the day), that her poop had looked slightly different recently, and then that awful breath, I was worried that she might be showing the first signs of some kind of serious health problem involving her organs. I wasn't able to get her into see the vet until the 12th, so Abbey spent her "Gotcha Day" being a good girl, first in the waiting room for half an hour, and then for another twenty minutes or so while the vet did a thorough exam that turned up nothing (and of course her gums were as pink as pink can be), and then while getting her blood drawn. Both of us were pretty tired by the time we got home. And then we had to wait all weekend for the lab results.

Pensive girl.

The vet called me Monday with the very good news that all of her blood work came back looking great. Her organs, her thyroid, her blood count, and everything else looked perfect. Why her gums are still occasionally pale remains a mystery, but I was very relieved to hear that her organs are all okay! The vet and I agreed to simply watch and wait. If she exhibits any other changes in health or behavior, we'll reevaluate, but as long as she is acting like her normal self, life can go back to normal.

This photo gives you a sense of Abbey's imperfect mutt proportions: long for her height and with very small head! She looks particularly silly in this picture because she's gotten distracted and forgotten to put her hind paw--the one that's exhibiting signs of sciatica--down.

This was my first major scare with Abbey. I hadn't been worried at all about the mast cell tumor that was removed from her flank last year, to the point that I was taken by surprise when it turned out to be cancerous. I've been sure to regularly remind myself over these last eight years that Abbey is mortal, that she will die, and that it's going to hurt when it happens, but it will also be okay. It's such a different thing to THINK something than to FEEL it, though, and the idea that something might be terribly wrong inside my dog was a horrible feeling. She's not my "fur baby," I don't equate her with a child or think of myself as her "mom," but I do take care of her, look after her welfare, spend most of my time with her, and love her deeply, so it was a new (and difficult) feeling to look at this vulnerable creature that I love so much and to know she might be sick. It made me realize, too, that one of the things that scares me about her death is not that it WILL happen, but I don't know HOW it will happen. I hope I'll be given enough time given enough time, when the end draws near, to see it approaching.

But the end is not yet here.

(Abbey is barking in her sleep as I write this. The sound of a dog barking in its sleep is one of the cutest sounds known to man, in my opinion!)

My mellow pup in her typical one-paw-up lounging pose.

And thus we can resume our routine of mutual pleasure. Abbey has slept in my room since my concussion last summer and for a while, due to her concern for my welfare and an unwillingness to be separated from me, managed to undo seven and a half years of perfect crate-training. I'm pleased to report with intensive training and the use of the Holy Grail of treats, peanut butter, she is back to submitting without argument to being crated while we are gone, snoozing in her downstairs crate when she's looking for a cozy retreat while I'm reading on the couch, and voluntarily sleeping in her crate at night, preferring it, in fact, to sleeping on my bed. We'd never given her many treats in the past, since she has a sensitive stomach, but she's demonstrated that she's highly food-motivated, and perhaps because she hasn't had many treats, she views individual pieces of cereal, like Cheerios, to be a powerful incentive! I've harnessed that willingness to work for paltry snacks into teaching her a new command, "Look," as well as upping the stakes on previously learned commands, like asking her to remain in a down-stay while I leave the room and walk around the house. She's a pretty smart cookie, that Abbey! The treat motivation has also worked really well in neutralizing that bad habit she'd developed of barking ferociously at people and dogs outside the car. I mention in this blogpost from a few weeks ago the intensive training session I did while we were waiting for a ferry and I'm pleased to report that it's practically cured her already! So don't listen to that old saying, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks!"

"I can has peanut butter?"

But most of our days are oriented toward leisure over labor. I invite her up on my bed in the morning for a couple of hours of snuggling and snoozing, then, when I repair to my study, she either joins me, and sleeps on her pillow, or remains on my bed and sleeps there. She takes an interest in my various comings and goings, though sometimes only by opening her eyes and wagging the tip of her tail, but always offers some kind of response when I talk to her (and I talk to her a great deal). She comes alive in the evenings when my parents come home, yodeling with joy as they arrive and thumping the kitchen cabinets with her wagging tail. After dinner she likes to play a jolly game and then it's back upstairs to snooze on the pillow in my study until it's time to go to bed.

She takes an active interest in everything I do. In this photo, she's watching me photograph crocuses by our front door. 

There's nothing more special than being greeted with a yodel! Abbey is singing out her delight in my return with a happy "woo-woo-woo!"

It's a very simple life, interrupted by occasional variations in routine such as car rides and, when I'm well enough, short walks, but the wonderful thing about living with a dog is that you learn to recognize that simple pleasures are enough. From her perspective, she gets a selection of wonderful cozy places to sleep, she gets to spend nearly all of her days with the most precious object in the world (me) and have frequent affectionate exchanges with me throughout the day, she has a larger pack that she loves that reunites each evening, she gets dinner (hurrah!), and a game, and then she can fall asleep each night in the vicinity of her beloved. Why on earth would anyone or anything want more than that?

So Abbey's a great example of living in the moment and finding tremendous pleasure in simple things, but she also makes my family laugh. We love her exuberance while playing games, the way she snuggles with her rope bones but will not not chew them, her eagerness to perform tricks in return for a measly Cheerio, her spins of delight on hearing that a car ride is in the offing, and her funny habit of hanging her tail--or her whole rear end--outside of her bed while chewing on her weekly rawhide stick.

She may not need as long of a game as she gets older, but this playful gal still loves her toys!

Abbey's "Booda Bank," her collection of rope bones that she considers too precious to chew on. "Did you grow up during the Depression, Abbey?" we tease her. "Was there a shortage of Boodas?"

Look at that silly mutt hanging her rump outside her bed while working on a stick!

And why be dignified when you can get belly rubs?

We love her expressiveness, too, the attentive way she listens, moving her eyes and ears and wagging her tail every time you speak or even look at her. It's so gratifying that we are in the habit of jokingly including her in conversations, pausing in discussions on topics such as current events, say, to ask, "So, Ab, are you running for office?" We like how she can use those eyes and ears and that tail to communicate with us, how she can clearly say, "Follow me!" by looking over her shoulder or request a tricks-for-treats session by looking meaningfully at my mother (Abbey regards my mother as the distributor of treats even though I do much of the training), perhaps poking her with her nose, and pricking her ears in a certain way. I love the way that she'll sometimes check in with me by gently bumping my leg with her nose, the way she'll lick my toes with delight when I get up in the morning, and how she'll quietly line herself up beside me as I prepare to transition to a different place, waiting for me to make my move. Our whole family loves to look at her and admire her brindle stripes ("Hey, Abbey, are you a tiger?") and her beautiful brown eyes. We like the way she lines herself up parallel to the carpet in the family room ("So, Ab, are you a mathematician? Do you study geometry?") or how she'll lie down with all her legs and her tail tucked completely out of sight beneath her. ("Hey, Ab, are you a seal?") And of course, we love to pet her, to stroke her wonderfully soft, thick, odorless fur and fondle her exquisitely velvety little ears. Without a doubt, Abbey makes our lives better.

Abbey patiently waits at my side in her "where to next?" position.

Her warm brown eyes are both beautiful and expressive.

Our beloved brindle animal on the move in our backyard jungle!

No words can properly describe the extraordinary softness of her darling ears!

It's hard to believe, in many ways, that eight years have passed (that's enough time for a child to be born and enter the third grade!) since Abbey came to live with us. They've been incredibly tough years for me as I struggled to gain control of my bipolar disorder, went through years of terrible withdrawal thanks to a problematic medication, and then was laid low by the disabling migraines. But every step of the way, Abbey has proved to be exactly the dog I've needed. She made me feel urgently essential to her existance when I was at my sickest, which helped me conquer my fears of being overcome by suicidal thoughts and allowed me to start getting better. Becoming a better pack leader for her so she wouldn't have to be so stressed out about trying to take care of me was instrumental in helping me uncover a confident and assertive side I never knew I had. She offered quiet comfort and companionship when I felt wretchedly nauseated or in pain during the withdrawal years and was my eager sidekick on walks when I finally was able to start regaining my strength. And her presence has proved invaluable once again as I've had to retreat from the world due to the demands of my migraines. I never feel lonely because she makes an amiable companion, happy to communicate with me and partake in my pleasures while making nary a sound. She likes nothing better than cuddling up against me if I'm too sick to get out of bed and that becomes a source of happiness for me on days when otherwise it would be easy to feel down. When Abbey is around, I never feel lonely. The way her eyes light up and her tail wags when I look at her is enough to brighten my days. Her love--pure, unswerving, instinctual, and total--has carried me through eight years of hard times. I will have many dogs in my life, but I have been so fortunate to have stumbled upon, in Abbey--who was chosen largely because of the patient way she was waiting in her kennel at the shelter--exactly the dog I've needed.

I am hers and she is mine.

I love the photograph below because Abbey is gazing at me a soft look of love in her eyes. She is waiting for me to follow her up the stairs and is holding still because I've pointed my camera at her. It sums up so much of what is wonderful about the two of us together.

It's been a joy to have you at my side these past eight years, sweetie. I hope we have many, many more.

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