Out of Touch

We’ve had a January of non-stop pain-in-the-ass bad luck and a couple of truly sad events.

First, our beloved dog Samson was diagnosed with bone cancer. He deteriorated rapidly and was in immense pain. We said goodbye to him over the New Year’s weekend – my husband slept on the living room floor with him to help keep him comfortable. He was a beautiful mutt. Everyone’s best guess was that he was part golden retriever, part chow, and part Afghan Hound. A member of the family for over 10 years, he was one of the world’s truly loveable creatures; a sentient who calmly offered himself up for petting whenever he sensed that you were stressed, a beautiful athlete on the hiking trail and just plain loving soul. We still miss him daily. His ashes and pawprint are on the windowsill.

A week later, another kind and gentle soul, Dan’s uncle and godfather, passed away. The youngest of my mother-in-law’s siblings, eveyone lamented his difficult life, which was rife with health problems. But what I knew of him in the past ten years was that he seemed to be a contented man who was extremely loyal and devoted to the extended family. We took a trip to the Pittsburgh area where Declan was at least able to meet several second cousins who had yet to make his acquaintence. He and I spent the service outside the chapel because he decided that the room going quiet was the perfect opportunity to talk. We went to a strange restaurant afterwards, where one waitress was assigned to the room of over fifty people by herself, and a bartender nearly bit my head off for requesting apple juice.

Other highlights of the month: Dan’s car broke down. He accidentally killed my laptop with a can of ginger ale. Last week we had a flat tire and got food poisoning. We’ve had about three colds in six weeks and a few friends are having scary health issues.

We are grateful that there are new beginnings this week with the Chinese Year of the Dog (I am a dog myself, and the Tibetan Losar.

Meanwhile, Declan can crawl! He scootches around on the floor like an inchworm or a drags himself by his front arms like a G.I. It’s an amazing but frightening development, because he can really cruise. In the tradition of the rural Ohio humor of my family, my mother has suggested that we put a cork in his butt and tie it to a brick.

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3 thoughts on “Out of Touch”

  1. Wait! Cork? Brick? Clearly I am not from Ohio (though I did attend a senior prom in Mansfield). Explain the cork/brick joke to a dumb native Philly girl, please. It’s already making me laugh, but I would love to know why.

  2. Excellent blog and thanks for the opportunity to share my thoughts here. I also love dogs and I decided to put together a website dedicated to dog training. However, I am actually trying to offer both some general tips for training your dog and some breed-specific training techniques. I believe each dog breed is slightly different and thus requires an adaptation of the standard dog training methods, to suit the breed’s behavioral patterns and genetic predispositions. This is why I believe there is quite a bit of difference between affenpinscher training and bandog training. Or between dalmatian dog training and Afghan hound training. Each breed has its own distinct personality, and an independent breed like the dal will require stricter training than the disciplined bandog.

    There are hundreds of dog breeds I wish to cover and I am only half way through, but I hope to turn my site in the best dog training resource on the Internet.

    An excellent day to everyone reading this!

    Michael R.
    Webmaster – http://www.expert-dog-training.com

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