THe house is OURS! (If We want it:)

Signed papers for the HOUSE! Now to have the inspector go in and check it out for us to make sure everything is in order. Now you may not hear for me for a bit...But I'll be back (Ahhhhhhhnold eat yo heart out..YEAH!)

Sebastion...the pup may have saved our lives.

Meanwhile Joe started looking up things. Wondering if maybe Buggys seizures were related to anything.

What he found was surprising. (I wish we would have found it before out lil guy passed. It could be another thing that may have saved his life. Hindsite is everything. But it SUCKS. I am posting this becasue maybe it could help some of you, I don't know) Joe found a LOT on black mold. That black mold had been known to cause seizures in animals, breathing related problems and pneumonia in humans. We had been pretty sick off and on for 6 months or more with major breathing issues. I clean every Thursday, but hadn’t done much with the windows and there was black mold around the house. ESPECIALLY on the windows. The way the YouTube videos explained it was that since its alive, the black stuff is excrement. Talk about goin to the toilet…literally..lol. The first thing we looked up is how to get rid of it…And surprisingly, vinegar kills 82% of the stuff, bleach just kills surface, but Hydrogen peroxide kills 100% of it. So depending on what color a persons walls in their  are, if its white straight hydrogen peroxide kills it dead. You have to spray the stuff on and leave it 24 hours though. Because its ALIVE. If its alive it can get into your lungs and wreak all kinds of havock. You can always just use vinegar with a bit of  hydrogen peroxide. Then you get out a scrubber after 24  hours and a FACEMASK, just in case anything is still alive in there, and you scrub.  After we did the entire house its amazing how much better we could breathe. Another plus…Every time you walk around the house it smells like a salt and vinegar potato chip factory. HA!

I hate to say that what happened to Buggy made us look, but it did. It may have saved our lives, because we were pretty sick (It also made us realize also that we just don’t want to rent a house anymore, so we’ve looked for a house and have just a few days ago put a bid on one. Crossing my fingers here)

We may have Sebastion to thank for our lives. Loyal, sweet little pup.

Sebastion: The Memorial. Part 7

Sebastion: The Memorial

Writing about this is like ripping open a scab that has just started to heal. It HURTS. I've been sitting here this afternoon bawling through most of this last bit about Buggy. It’s painful. I’m exhausted but I don’t want to forget. And so I write.

At the time he passed we sat around moping for quite a while. We talked about how he was, things he did, how we missed him.  I was SO emotionally and physically drained that I just went back to sleep after that and slept and slept. I woke up to the sound of the lawn mower. Of Course.

Joe couldn’t handle what was happening with our lil guy and went outside to mow the lawn. On a week day. Not typical at all.

Meanwhile Jez was wandering around, she looked so lost. I don’t know if she stayed downstairs where we had Buggy after he had died while Joe was mowing the lawn or not, but when I woke up and found out Joe had dug a hole, he picked up Buggy, I picked up Jez  and as we were going out the screen door as Jez gave him a lick, as if to say…”Wake UP!” , Joe pulled him away. I think it was like a knee jerk reaction, Being protective of buggy, AND Jez. We went up to the place Joe had picked for him, one of his favorite places to be in the yard, by the big forest trees he had liked to mark (What a memory) and right away Joe put buggy in the hole.  Jez FREAKED OUT. She jumped out of my arms and ran away. I got down towards that hole and said my goodbyes, I was just bawling.

But poor Joe….He was in so much agony that he just wanted to finish burying his buddy so he could just finally fall apart and let it all out. Sebastion was his favorite dog. They really were buddies. But so was Jez and Sebastion. I almost wondered if she thought that “he was in trouble so we put him in a hole” or something. Might seem silly, but you just don’t know what is in a cats head.

We stood there arm in arm and read

“The Best Place To Bury A Dog”

There is one best place to bury a dog.

If you bury him in this spot he will come to you when you call

Come to you over the grim, dim frontier of death and down the well-remembered path

And to your side again

And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel, they shall not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he belongs there.

People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper, people who may never really have had a dog.

Smile at them, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing.

The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master.”

(By Ben Her Lampman From the Orgonian Sept 11, 1925)

Joe got through about a sentence of the poem, and then I had to take over and read the rest, both of us tears streaming down our face.

Jezabel was nowhere to be seen.

Usually Jez abel is a very talkative cat. After Buggy’s death for WEEKS, she wasn’t. She wandered the yard, searching for Buggy, little chin not in that little curled up smiley face I was used to seeing, Just a straight, sad little pulled in face. They had ALWAYS been together. She walked around with such a sad  sad face. When she did meow it was a pitiful, mournful sound. I don’t know if she’ll ever be the same. Its been a month, and she’s talking to me in that cute little chirping way that Maine coon cats are known to do ;more like she used to, but watching her wander the yard with her head snapping around any time a dog barks just rips my heart out. She’s lost her best friend.

I read once of a woman who passed away,(and came back) and instead of a person greeting her, it was her dog.

After a VERY joyous reunion where the dog was telling her (Telepathically, of course;)) everything, he showed her his HOUSE. Heaven to him, was her house. But not just one. He had made all his favorite places houses she had lived with him, all into one big house with all his favorite things, and everything he loved about her.  She felt so much love from her pet. Then she was gone and back in her body.

I wonder if when Jez goes, that he’ll be on the other side, waiting for her, favorite things close by. The little pom and the big kitty, sleeping side by side, never to be parted again.

There’s a quote  from “Gladiator”. You know , a short sweet quote that  everybody knows.

For me, the time that is coming may be far into the future. And yet it makes me sad that I can’t see my  little friend. But some day.

Just “Not yet my little friend. Not yet”.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtzQRq6qSFA

Sebastion: The Last Day

The Last Day

One Sunday we went  to church as usual and  came home.  When we came home Bastion was sitting there at the bottom of the stairs staring up at us like usual. I was used to seeing  him, either lying in his bed looking up the stairs at us, or he and Jez snuggled up together in the big bed. Or he’d be sitting at the gate wagging his tail, making these little motions with his head trying to get me to come downstairs to say hi to him, which I usually did. They say poms are little conversationalists, buggy was no different. If I forgot to give him his food right at noon he would let me know. I’d hear that little bark. It was like having a little alarm clock.

 We would always make pancakes after church so we did, and then went to feed Buggy. He was sitting there at the bottom of the stairs excited to be fed, running in circles as usual. So Joe went down to see him and gave him what he wanted. Many times Joe would sit down by Buggy and I would see the two of them together . The little pom and my big tall husband (Who is 6’3) The lil  pom  with his muzzle in Joe,s palm. 

When Joe started to work from home it was cute to see how excited Bastion would be having Joe down there all the time (That room ended up being  Joes office) The two boys in their man cave.:P

This time when Joe had been feeding him hehad a premonition. Something said “What if Sebastion died”? The thought scared him but he just shrugged it off.  

 Joe stayed down there a little while at his chair when he started to hear Sebastion cough. He sometimes had coughing fits, but they would end. It started a few years back. He would start coughing but it would clear up and go away in a minute or 2. The vet said there was nothing much he could do for it, though we gave him medicine every day for it. Poms have a tendency towards collapsed tracheas and many poms die from it. My next door neighbor had a pom and their pom died not long ago from it. When you hear your pom has it, it scares you because there is nothing that can be done, just trying to keep them from getting excited is part of what little can be done, along with medicine.

Well this time after we fed him it wouldn’t stop. He would cough, try to clear his lungs, and not quite be able to do it. Joe had been sitting  in his computer chair and Bastion kept going over and nuzzling his hand, looking up at him, confused at  what was happening to him.

 Joe kept thinking how scared he looked, there was so much fear in his eyes, like he was asking “What’s WRONG with me”?

He would go outside, go inside, get on his pet bed, have a coughing fit and go outside again. Not much longer after that it got worse. His breathing suddenly got jagged and fast. He was going out and sitting outside a lot.

 It was a beautiful warm day, with big puffy clouds and a blue sky. I went outside to where Buggy was sitting. He looked exhausted. I got this feeling that this might be the last time I would see him outside like this. I just stood there with him, petting him and trying not to cry because I could see he was having a horrific time breathing. He kept looking up at me like “HELP” and I couldn’t do ANYTHING. It was breaking my heart.

 This whole time I had been what my husband calls his“Captain” of sorts. Helping him through everything, Giving him a bath every week (Ug) training him, helping him when he had problems, but this time, I couldn’t do ANYTHING. I couldn’t help him through this. It was tearing me apart. My heart was breaking.

I went inside and said “I don’t know that Buggy is going to be ok”. I kept praying about it, but I kept getting the same feeling.

Later that night we watched a movie( “City Of Joy”, a favorite of mine ) as we had put Bug to bed and he was sleeping. We didn’t want to excite him in any way if possible.

Around 10 pm Joe went down to say goodnight and stayed by him a while praying over him asking that if he was going to go, please take him quick, but if not to help him get better.

I went down to go to say goodnight to him, and then went back upstairs to go to sleep.

Around 3 am I heard this awful  sound.

It sounded like the kind bark that Sebastion had been doing when he had those seizures. I RAN downstairs to see him  and what I saw just ripped me apart. 

He was still having trouble breathing, but now it was low, shallow breathing. All I could do was sit there and pray. I kept begging, Please GOD! My little friend is suffering.Please ,take him quickly if you take him. I don’t want him to be in pain anymore. He seemed to breathe a little easier, so I went upstairs, feeling exhausted. Joe was asleep, but I was just gut wrenchingly sad so I got on facebook and posted “Please God, ease my little friends pain. I don’t want him to suffer anymore”. Then I went down to check on him again.

I looked over our stairs to his room, and I saw he’d been looking up the stairs the whole time, waiting for me to come back.

I went back down to be with him. I had a feeling I didn’t have much longer to be with him.

As soon as I got there, he turned him head and went back to looking straight ahead. I kept petting him. I knew he had been waiting for me to come back. I wasn’t’ going anywhere. Even though I couldn’t do anything, I wanted him to know that he was loved and that I was THERE.

His breathing got worse and more erratic and I was terrified for him…how much pain he was in, I didn’t know. But I hoped it would be over soon.

All of a sudden he opened his mouth, like he was yelping but nothing came out. I knew even though Joe was asleep, I had to wake him up, NOW. I went running up the steps SCREAMING and crying… “Joe! I think Buggys dying”!!! Joe and I ran downstairs and I saw that he was sprawled out.;His chest barely rising and falling. We both fell on our knees and were petting him just telling him we loved him, and then Joe said “Its ok, you can go”

It was like that was all our little guy needed to hear. His front little legs suddenly went back, like he was trying to touch his tail, one last breath, and he was GONE.

He died about a  half hour after I posted  on Facebook. Thank you God.

 I could hear myself say…Ohhhh Buggy” and I just kept sobbing. Joe and I just sat on the couch sobbing. It was SO hard to believe such a lively little spirit was GONE.

The little guy who had always been there, that little bark that I had heard…What I called his “Smokers bark” that raspy bark all poms have was something I would never hear again…the cute little monkey face that was eagerly waiting at the end of the stairs whenever we got home would never be again. And I was devastated.

A week later I was sitting in that café when I looked up and saw “Love Bug” in those big letters on that blackboard above the table in the bar. In the end, I think that message “Love Bug” was for me.  Sitting there at the table, it felt like a goodbye.

Goodbye Buggy…LOVE, Bug. Yeah, I love ya too.

Sebastion and The Bad Bad Wet Food (Part 5)

Sebastion and The Bad Bad Wet Food

We hadn’t fed him much wet food, but we started. Then he REALLY started to go downhill. We noticed he was REALLY lethargic, seemed to have even MORE trouble getting up and out the door. He seemed to get worse and worse. We were afraid he wouldn’t be around for Christmas.

Then Joe looked up “What is in dog and cat food” and this is what came up. This is actual video of a slaughterhouse and what they use. We were SHOCKED as to what goes into dog food. And this isn’t just the cheap food. They mention some of the top names in the industry in the video. The industry is virtually unregulated. Please, I BEG you. if you love your animal, pay attention to what you feed them. EDUCATE yourself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAZrpWzAzww

Sorry…I know it is a side note, but I feel its important for me to give you the chance to know.,if one person is saved from their critters dying early, I will gladly have posted this.

If I had ANY idea what went into dog food, I would have NEVER fed my dog the stuff.

The only way you can regulate what your dog eats is by making it yourself. The industry is far too unsafe. They don’t care about your pet. They care about money. Doesn’t matter what kind of meat, or how diseased it is, or what the animal is, it is cold hard CASH they care about. Sorry….I am just furious.

Part of the reason my dog may be gone is something we had no idea would hurt him. His FOOD,  of all things.

We decided to start making our own dog food and freezing it into little baggies. (Its actually REALLY easy) Little did we know, it would change EVERYTHING.

As we started to feed him our home made food, we noticed slowly his eyes got brighter, with in a couple weeks he wasn’t lethargic anymore, and he was actually doing a miniature version of his run run run in circles for his food when we fed him.

(I even took video of him running in those crazy circles for his food that we have in our memorial video we made of him. (It’s on a post in a blog a few back when I wrote that my dog died if you want to see it)

(Looking back, I WISH I would have taken more video. That video is all we have, other than small videos of Christmas’s and tiny little videos of which he was a small part. If I could change anything, I would change that. And videos of him , of how he would sit at the edge of the kitchen when we ate Sunday breakfast, waiting for scraps. I still remember th at, but I have no video. The walks and jogging I used to do with him, I don’t have any of that. THAT I would change. If you have a lil critter…take videos, or pictures. Anything so when they are gone, you will have plenty to remember them by. We have lots of pictures, but we still could have had more.)

One day my friend Pauline came over with her little dog Boop. It was about time to feed Buggy and he was excited. All of a sudden all I could hear was this HORRIBLE high pitched bark (It sounded like he was begging for help) and it scared me. I had never heard him do that before so I ran downstairs…He was lying on his side. He couldn’t move. He just looked up at me and all I could see was terror in his eyes. And a look that said “I know you can make it better”  That was the worst part, I couldn’t. I just had to sit there until the seizure  was over. We looked everywhere online and it looked like what happened to him was a seizure. It’s an unnerving thing to watch because while its happening, there’s nothing you can do. This little guy trusted me with everything; After all, I had trained him. My husband thinks he looked at me as his “captain” but I felt so helpless sitting there trying to comfort him. A few minutes later he was able to walk again. I was relieved.

A few months later, the same thing happened again. Joe went downstairs to give him the food, he got excited, and he fell over and couldn’t move. I just hoped he would be ok.

Minutes later he got up and was fine again. I hoped that the seizures would stop, but I didn't know what to think. He was getting older and I didn't know what these seizures did to him.

Sebastion: The lil Old Man And The Man Cave (Part 4)

The “Little Old Man” Phase.

 As Sebastion got older, I started calling him “The Little ol man”. 

Everything got harder for him. Making it down the stairs to go outside, jumping on the bed, or the couch became impossible.  

He would look longingly up at us on the bed Until we (Mostly Joe) picked him up, or when we were on the couch Joe would pick him up on the couch and he would be content, to sit at our feet. He would sleep under the bench in front of our bed on Joes clothes that he sometimes left there.(I suppose that was comforting to him, He LOVED Joe)

We realized soon enough that the stairs to the downstairs were just too much for him, to go down or up. For years he would conquer the stairs by doing this kind of hop HOP with the top half being the first hop up or down, (Depending on which way he was going) and the second HOP being his back legs. It was all bounce and no play. Getting up or down the stairs was serious business. Until it just became too much for him. His legs just weren’t what they used to be.

So I decided to make it easy on him. Or so I thought.

I put a child gate up in the room where the doggie door is and gave him a nice bed downstairs. So I was thinking that would make his  life SO MUCH easier. But poor Sebastion didn’t see it that way. He would go out the dog door, come back inside and look at the gate. Then go outside, and do it again. To make matters worse, the day I put up the gate it was raining VERY hard. I stayed downstairs for a while with him. When I saw what he was doing I went and got a towel. He would go outside, come back in soaking wet, look at the gate, look at me, I would dry him off, and the cycle would start all over again. Then he would go out, then in, look at the gate, me, I would  dry him off, then he'd be off to do the same thing, over and OVER again. 

It was heartbreaking.

My husband said it was as if he was hoping one of those times that the gate would disappear so he could try, however hard it was…to go back upstairs where he wanted to be.

I was afraid he would make himself deathly ill going out in the rain this way. I went outside to find him  one of the times he was out in the rain. I took a few steps and went FLYING down our very high upper deck stairs. CRAP! I forgot to put down anything in case it got slick! 

Guess I was getting older too. It took me FOREVER to get back up. That left a mark. A BIG one.

I decided to block the dog door for that night , at least for a bit so at least he could stay dry.

I went upstairs and decided to lay down for a while, only to wake up the next morning.

CRAP!!! I left the door blocked!

I ran downstairs and saw the mess. I felt so badly, the poor lil ol man walked up to me, head down like it was an apology. 

I told him that “I knew it wasn’t his fault”.

Little by little he got used to the gate, though I am sure he HATED the thing. He would be looking up at us all the time when we were upstairs.. Joe  was down there sometimes for work from 9 to 5, he went down there a lot…I would go too, but I know there’s no place he would have rather been than upstairs with us.

-Jealousy, thy name is Jez!-

While that downstairs room became the “Boys Room” (Joe worked from home, so Sebastion and he spent a lot of time down there.) I went down there a lot too. (I actually LIKE Joe working from home.) Jezabel, our cat would jump on top of the gate, then  go over it to go outside, but she started to steal Sebastion's bed when she went down there. At first it felt was like she was saying “”How DARE you give him a room and not me”!  Joe would kick her out, and Jez would just sneak back in and do it again, Kicking the dog out of his favorite bed in the process (I had set up two beds, but Jez liked HIS. )I was puzzled. They had ALWAYS slept around each other, on the couch, all over, and were like siblings, CLOSE siblings. Buddies even.

But something was going on here. I told Joe to just let it be. Sebastion would go to sleep in another bed I had put down there for him (Not his favorite) but little by little, as Jez realized she was allowed in there, she would get close to Sebastions bed, get right up to Sebastion, and then lay down right by him in his little bed. It was a tight fit, but she was content. Ahhhhhh…THAT’S what she wanted.

Before this I think she may have thought at least if she wasn’t ALLOWED to SLEEP in the same bed with him, she could at least be near his scent, and that was enough. Endearing, I thought. The two had been buddies after all for SO many years.

I got a BIG pet bed for them after that and she was content. I would walk past them in the hallway and see those two snuggled up together, The cat and the dog , like the little lamb (Sebastion) and the lion (Jezabel) lying down together. I took pictures of it. It is one of my dearest  memories.

House

(No not the doctor:p Let me rephrase this whole thing. THOUGHT this house was in the bag. Now I found out someoneelse  is offering too on the house, so dunno if were getting ready to move now but never the less, we are moving at some point. Sigh. Hope we get this house...BUt in the meantime maybe I can write the last part about my dog, and then get back into the rest of my moms journal. Talk about getting off track:p I promise, I WILL get back to it.

Will be back...am moving and want to let you guys know, I'll be blogging the last story of my dog and working on my life story, just have to move a HOUSE!

To ANOTHER house:) Are buying one! BUT I will be back as soon as all of my things are unpacked to talk to you:) Maybe even before I TOTALLY unpack. Thanks for your patience:)

Sebastion: Mr Majestic: Part 3

Sometimes you can’t sum up a life in one blog- Kinda like the last Harry Potter book can’t be summed up in one movie. lol

Our dog was like that. Not that he was like an epic movie…but I’m sure if he could have told you, he would say he lived an epic life. (I think any dog would think that;) Everything is EXCITEMENT. FOOD!!! YES YES YES! WALK!!! YES YES YES. Your FINALLY HOME!!! YES! Rub me THERE! YES YES YES!!!

EVERYTHING is EPIC!

Poms are CONSTANTLY stimulated by their environment. I saw an episode of a Pomeranian being trained by a dog trainer and this lil guy (On the show) would get SO excited when anyone came in the door that he would spray pee EVERYWHERE. THAT is the Pom mentality. EVERYTHING is exciting.

When we would go for a walk, He would run in circles, sometimes tangling us up (Or tripping us up in the leash) in his excitement. 

There would be times that Sebastion would get SO excited that he would instantly go into run around in circles mode. We would say “RUN RUN RUN BUGGY!!!!!” and he would tear around the house in one long extended circle. If we were outside he would just tear off, devil may care face into the wind, tongue lolling out carving out a racetrack round the lawn. RUN RUN RUNNNNNN!!! YAHHHHH!

I was still trying to find a way to train him when I was coincidently at a friend’s house one day, and she was watching “Cesar Milan, The Dog Whisperer”(I’m sure he’s on YouTube or Animal Planet if you don’t know who he is, if you have a problem dog I HIGHLY recommend his methods)

It was AMAZING. It changed the way I looked at how dogs are. I got his book. I watched his show, got the dvd’s.  It turned my ferocious little pom into the sweet little guy he was meant to be.

It did not, however, happen overnight.

This was HARD work. And it took MONTHS.

My little pom would hear his name and would tear off in the OTHER direction. (Maybe he was directionally challenged. You know…like the football player who runs the wrong way?:p) Yeah... that had to stop. And there was a way.

The first advice that I remember Cesar giving to one woman on his DVD  was choose a movie or TV diva and be her. (At least in my case.) Men beware…this doesn’t work for you.(HA!) He was just trying to teach us to be the “Alpha” or lead “dog” in the relationship. Well, If I was going to be a kick butt dog trainer I would be  XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS!  Anyway, Little by little, I found the things that worked, I was CONSISTANT with him. No more being yappy or running the other direction when we called, no more running at the door, no more growling or biting Whit. He was a changed dog.

I even got him to the point before he was older where he would go jogging with me.  I had the leash with me, but not on him He would heel running by me the whole way without skipping a beat. Never ran after squirrels, or birds, or other dogs, once I trained him. Again, it’s all about consistency.  I won’t bore you with details…If you have a problem dog and your curious you can look up his techniques online.J

Dogs need consistency, kids need consistency, people need consistency, I need it too. No wonder it works.

As Sebastion  got older he just couldn’t go jogging with me anymore…He could barely make it to the end of the block. Going up the stairs became difficult. He would look at the stairs, even  the one little step that went to his favorite place (By the dining room table where he would get table scraps)with this wistful look in his eyes.  

(Darth BUGGY!)

His face, which had grown whiter with age, turned completely white, making his little face even more endearing. He seemed to get even cuter with age.(Kinda like Shawn Connery:p) His face looked like a little monkeys face with a widows peak at the top, framed with his still red and black tipped hair and white tail.

His tail made me laugh. It reminded me of a deer tail…Dark on top and white underneath. But it was like he got cheated out of his tail…Most poms have big poofy tails, but his was a little tiny tufted thing. When it was dark out and his tail was up it almost glowed in the dark. I could spot him a mile away with that little tail of his. But it was SO small. Funnier still was him trying to dominate the big TALL forest trees. The TEENY tiny little Pomeranian marking the forest trees in our back yard.

It might as as have been like  David trying to conquer Goliath.

Sebastion: Mr majestic- Part 2

I was at  a Café the other day. I was in a hurry and just wanted to order chocolate, so they stuck me on the corner near the bar. 

I was still feeling kind of depressed about my little guy (My Pomeranian Sebastion)  dying. As I ordered  I looked up and saw a blackboard with the drink of the day on it.  My eyes started to tear up. In big bold letters it said “Love Bug”. Our nickname for Sebastion was Buggy.

From the moment we got him as a puppy, he would bug us nonstop for attention,(He would nuzzle our hand until his little snout  fit perfectly into it)  Bark (A dogs version of saying (HEY! HEY!!!!) for  a chunk of hot dog or beef or chicken or anything,(Even sometimes for stuff my huz or daughter didn’t even like, he would eat) if it was food, it was fair game.

I found out not long ago that Whit would give him whatever food she didn’t like under the table. He was like a canine doggy disposal.  When we were eating, we knew two little eyes were fixed squarely, on US.  

When he was young, If he wanted to play, he would let us know in no uncertain terms, that it was TIME. SO, he was called, buggy, probably more times than Sebastion.  Sebastion turned into a kind of abbreviation, “Bastion”

But Buggy came out of our mouths more than not.

My cat Jezabel came along about a year after. 

She was meowing by the back door of our house  for 2 days before I finally got a bit of cream and put it out for her and grabbed her to see if she and Sebastion would  be friends. They warmed right up to each other. The big kitty went up and rubbed up against him right away, and they were instant friends. 

She would try to give him a bath every once in a while. He would tolerate it and she loved it. But it was funny to me, that long  hair would stick to her tongue and the “lick lick liiiiiiiiiiick” would be followed sometimes by sneezing and shaking her head.

A Before and AFTER story…

Most Poms will do almost anything for affection,(Including acting out to get their masters attention if they’re desperate for it-) and they are sweet little dogs. From what I’ve seen what it comes down to is what the master, buddy, and ceremonial pom owner teaches  them  makes their tendency towards being sassy, spirited, inquisitive sharp eyed busybodies  either work for them, or against them.

They have a real sweetness but a  tendency towards yappyness- and my lil Buggy was no exception. It almost feels a bit like story of the Golden retrever  “Marley” but with a before and  after.

Poms are SMART, sweet, speak their mind kind of dogs, and if they are trained the right way, they are intelligent, sweet dogs. If not, they can be, yappy, snapping at everyone, and can be VERY loud, annoying little dogs.

Pom puppys are busy little guys. From what I heard before I decided on a boy or girl, Pom boys are mamas girls and Pom girls are little princesses. So I had decided on a boy.

The Toddler Phase 

Sebastion was a busy lil fella. The pictures I have of him as a pup are all of him busily going somewhere, holding a stick in his teeth, holding his own leash, or grabbing a hold of my daughters tee shirt and playing tug a war with it, to the delight of my daughter. Sebastion and Whitney seemed more like they were siblings than anything else. At the time he came to us Whitney was around 5. There were times that Whitney would pull his tail to uncurl it . From what she told me, she would tease him when I wasn’t looking, (Sometimes when I WAS looking) and one time, in return for her  teasing him, he actually went and peed on her pillow. (TAKE THAT you HUMAN!)

He would chew on all kinds of stuff, including Joes toenails. He would chew them down to the nub….Joe would actually encourage it. SO weird:p Sebastion would sleep on your clothes if you left them on the floor (Not a problem for me but Whit’s clothes probably  smelled like dog more than anything else)

As he got older we realized there were problems.

Whitney would be sleeping in her bed, Sebastion would jump up on her bed to sleep by her, or on her, but every time she moved, he would growl, sometimes even snapping at her. There’s only so many times you can walk into your daughters room with a dog perched on top of her like he’s” king of the mountain”. :p I knew something needed to  be done. There were times that people came to visit, and the minute the doorbell rang this little Tasmanian devil would run at the door like it was a thing possessed. Heaven help the person behind the door! I was worried,

So… I started to look into dog behavior. I had wondered about that in the past because I had some experiences with dogs. Some good, some NOT good, but I wondered WHY dogs acted the way they did. I just knew this couldn’t continue. That and I had to follow him from room to room because we hadn’t had him fixed,(He’s a registered Pom ) and being a boy,(lol) he had to mark things. Hmmmmm…”This is mine, and THIS is mine…and cool! This is MINE TOO!” Not only did he mark carpet and furniture, I have guitars, basses, amps…and I found out that he MARKED THEM TOO! Ew.:p (Imagine if he was a big dog. Good thing he was a lil guy!) SO, I realized, ok…this is his…

Teen  Phase.

(Don’t teens have that problem? :p) The EVERYTHING is mine problem…You find things missing, broken, worn, or mysteriously found in a strange place? He would run the other direction when we called him, (Also sometimes like teenagers:p  growl or bite at us when we tried to pick him up. (GRUMPY! ALSO like teenagers) So I decided, better put everything up and away,(too bad you CAN’T do that with teenagers lol)  and started looking little by little, bit by bit looking things up on what to do. The only thing I could never stop him from doing after all was peeing on things. I just couldn’t CATCH him doing it.

So…heaven forbid, I was resolved to wearing a GOOD pair of shoes, following him with a good can of Lysol and hoping I wouldn’t slide into something in the middle of the night. But I hoped there was some way to train him, I just wasn’t sure how to do it.

Sebastion: Mr. Majestic (part 1- Sometimes you just can't write up a life in one blog)

These  last few weeks have been a  whirlwind of sickness, (Joe and I) dealing with my  mom’s journals where she talks about how horrible I am and doesn't say a word about  my fathers beatings,(I've been talking about that over MORE than  a month:) I’d rather take more than a month, though maybe I'll have to take a LIFETIME To understand it (I don’t have to explain that to anyone, though I guess I am) and so much emotional baggage. Baggage can be something you learn from, as long as you learn HOW to unload it. :p

Just as I’m unloading the unthinkable happens.

Our little Pomeranian Sebastian died...

When you lose a pet, it’s like a piece of you goes with the little critter. It leaves a hole that just cannot be filled. And your left moping about wishing you could turn back time to see them again and find some filler for that void. But there just isn’t one. Every pet has their own personality and no matter how you try to fill it, that one thing is irrevocably and miserably, GONE.

The hardest thing of all about a pet is that you know from day ONE when you get an animal that the day will come that you have to let them go.  

Its inevitable. And yet when it happens, your world seems that much smaller and your heart that much more broken. The world seems a little emptier and you’ll never be the same again. You’ve been touched by something uncomprehensible. The love of an animal. Whether it’s a dog, cat, bird, reptile… sometimes there is a bond there that nothing else compares to.

Somebody I know online said that animals are cooler than people. I agree. I trust their judgments more than most people I know. Animals are Gods little messengers.  They are pure, unadulterated LOVE. Anyone who has the love of a pet understands this.

Well, years ago, I decided I wanted a Pomeranian. My mom told me years ago a spitz (Related to Pomeranians- they are also sweet  lil fellas and great, tough sled dogs) had saved her sister while young from crossing a road. 

I just liked that they look like little foxes.

Sebastion came to us as a little fur ball…Joe had promised me a Pomeranian at some point and I had seen Poms at the pet store the day before. SO I got up bright n early, went to  the pet shop, and saw this sweet inquisitive face looking up at me, and I couldn’t resist. It’s like he picked me looking at me like that. It was as if he was saying, HEY! I’ve been waiting here a long time. Pick me! Pick ME! Bout time you came!

I called my husband, who was conveniently half asleep and reminded him of his promise. Lucky for me it was Mother’s day weekend. :p So instead of flowers THAT year, I got a little Pom.

I remember for 3 days he hung around me, (Probably cause I stuck him on a leash and he had no choice:p) me weeding the side of the house. I just could NOT think of a name for him. Then on the third day he looked up at me and “Sebastion” just popped into my head. The funny thing was, I looked it up and under Sebastion it said “Majestic”

I sent in his paperwork to the registry…I named him Sebastion Bark.(Like Sebastion Bach…you can roll your eyes now…I did:p) I don’t know why but it made me giggle. I’m kind of a strange breed myself:p

Yeah, that fits a Pomeranian to a T. They strut around like nobody’s business. Even if they aren’t show dogs, in their own mind, they’ve already won a ribbon.:p

Little did I know what was coming. (More to come)