This group is wonderful and is just what I have been looking for. I am a new member and would like to introduce myself. I have had dogs during most of my childhood and throughout my adult life. Dave Barry says you're old when you're on your fourth dog--boy do I have him beat!
My husband and I are celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary next month. We currently live in Richrdson, Texas. We never had children, so our dogs are our babies. We got our first Yorkie in 1996, a sweet girl named Misty. Before this, we'd had a German Shepard, Boxers, Bulldogs, Miniature Poodles, but never a creature this delicate and tiny. I was smitten! We had just lost our apricot poodle Rosie to cancer, and our neighbors offered to sell us their Yorkie because she was home alone so much due to their frequent travel. Her coat was so silky that she seemed slippery to me, and in the beginning I was frightened to pick her up, because I was afraid of hurting her, and it felt like she might slip out of my hands!
We lost Misty suddenly on 9/8/01 to heart failure just after we moved to a new house. Then came 9/11. I was grieving for my tiny girl, missing her so much, blaming myself for everything, and then catastrophe of a magnitude never seen in the US before, and I watched it all unfold on TV. Since we were originally from a small town a 1 1/2-hour drive north of NYC, we were very familiar with the Twin Towers and had been there on more than one occasion. I remember those hours and days vividly, and remember being so shaken and frightened and now grieving not only for my dog but also for my city. I love NYC--we used to go there often to see Broadway shows, to wander the museums, to find funky restaurants. All those people just--gone. All the grief and sadness and fear in everyone's eyes. I wondered if there would be more attacks -- no one knew what to expect. Before the month was up, we had another Yorkie, because I realized life could be over in the blink of an eye, and I didn't want to deny myself the joy of another Yorkie for however long we had.
Hailey was a retired breeder from a byb. She'd had the health bred right out of her. She was sickly, with pancreatitis, luxating patella, seborrheic dermatitis, parasites, rotten teeth, and she was dirty. She was not used to living in anything but a cage 24/7 and popping out puppies for those greedy people. She never had a puppyhood, didn't know how to play with toys. She was high-strung and nervous, jumped at every noise in the house, and peed from one end of the house to the other. It was hard work, but she finally got the concept of "outside" for her business. She loved discovering grass and having her own yard. What a vision she was, running, head up, tail up, woo wooing to the world, feisty, sassy, coat shining and fluttering in the breeze. She adored us, would learn anything to please us, and was very protective of me. I know she would have fought to the death to defend me from repair men in our home, which is funny but sad too. However, I would have fought to the death to save her too if necessary. She had very bad separation anxiety, and our vet said that she finally had someone to love her, and she was afraid of losing that. As if.
In the five short years we had her, we had an uneasy truce with her health, and we worked hard and left a lot of money with vets to manage all her conditions, which eventually included microvascular dysplasia, congestive heart failure, collapsing trachea and epilepsy. She lost the good fight on December 23, 2006, and we are still not over it. All my dogs are in my heart, but my Hailey is the one right in the center of my heart
. I will miss her forever, and I still cry because I feel she got gypped out of many good years.
This time, we did not rush out to get another Yorkie. We just weren't ready. Then I heard that a friend of mine in AZ had a stroke, and she could not care for her little Yorkie boy, Yogi, and she wanted us to take him. Two years ago, her husband died of emphysema, and her little guy missed his Daddy so much. Now he has lost his Mommy and his home.
A dear woman in Tuscon is fostering him, but he must be out of her home by Aug. 15. He fights with one of her females, and she does not want to burden the teenager who will care for her dogs while she is away. My husband is flying to Tuscon on Aug. 11 to get him, but I just learned that two reservations agents, on two separate occasions, gave me the identical
incorrect information regarding the size requirements of his carrier. Yogi is a big Yorkie, and he weighs around 12 pounds. He measures 14 inches tall from floor to head when standing, and 10 inches from floor to the top of his back, but the vet is giving is a mild sedative, so he will be lying down. My soft-sided Celltei bag is 11 3/4 inches high, but the airline says the bag can be no more than
nine inches high (which is not what I was told the first two times--I am furious
), and while my bag can be made to fit the nine inch high space, the dog must be able to stand straight and turn around. That just ain't gonna happen. He will be comfortable lying down and will have enough headroom, and the bag has a lot of ventilation, but there is no way a 14-inch tall dog will be able to stand up straight and turn around in nine inches of space, not that he will want to if the sedation does its job, and the flight is only two hours. A friend who flys a lot because she shows her dogs said we will probably be fine. A stewardess on a local message board echoed her sentiment. I cannot go for health reasons before I have surgery in September, so my poor hubby is in this alone. I pray all goes well and he comes back with our boy and doesn't get stopped at the ticket counter or at security or at the boarding gate. If he does, he will have to return him to the foster Mom and come home dogless. She will have to place him elsewhere, and I know that is going to affect my friend because she is so worried about him it is hindering her rehab and recovery. Driving from Tucson AZ to Richardson TX is out of the question, because it is 14 hours each direction, and my hubby is between jobs and cannot take that much time away from the job hunt. He is getting a lot of interviews, and at his age, you can't afford to disappear for three days. It is very hard to find work after age 50. I know age discrimination is playing a part in his difficulty finding work in his field. Employers think you suddenly get stupid after you turn 50, but we're too young to retire, and we can't afford it anyway!
So that's my story. I'm sure I've bored you all silly. I think I hear snoring...WAKE UP EVERONE! LOL! I wanted to post photos of Misty and Hailey and Yogi, but I haven't figured out how yet. One of these days. Maybe over the weekend I can figure out how to get photos on the photo site, but I have no idea how to get them to show on my posts.
Anyway, it is nice meeting you all. Wish me luck in getting Yogi here. I will be heartbroken if this does not work out. Take care, everyone! Hugs to all the furkids!!!