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.