[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="120.0"]
1618709-1591964-thumbnail.jpg[/caption]
seamusalmost 3 years ago our business completely outgrew our old house and, not wanting to try to shuttle 11 (at the time) dogs to work every day, we knew we didn’t want to move the business out of our house. we found our current house pretty quickly and without really spending any time thinking about it we moved from our home of 10 years. i was in love with that house, still am in fact, it was as much a part of our family as any of us. dave & i pretty much worked on every part of it and it was full of our life, laughter and tears. when we moved seamus (our fabulous wolfhound mix) was in the end stages of bone cancer and we lost him very shortly after moving. i had a really hard time adjusting to the new house and seamus dying there was really a crushing blow. obviously his loss was expected and would have happened wherever we lived but i just felt like there was a terrible pall over the new house. the deep-seated sadness was seated even deeper once we got back from a weekend in new orleans to work with an animal rescue group after hurricane katrina. within a few months we had added fletcher, watson, reilley and owney to our family. with the new energy i was finally feeling like we could be happy in our new house.
it took a while but we adjusted to life here and now it seems like this is the way it’s always been…and i’m definitely not leaving unless it’s in a body bag, although i don’t see much point in taking me away as i’ve instructed dave to bury me here.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="120.0"]
1618709-1591935-thumbnail.jpg[/caption]
dietrichthis past year has hit our family pretty hard. we lost dietrich in july, garcia in january and then owney in april. dietrich and garcia were both older and ill so their deaths were not a surprise, but as everyone who loves dogs knows they do not live long enough, and their loss left enormous holes in our life. owney was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back and his loss has been hard for us to deal with. once again i started feeling like we’re living under a black cloud.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="120.0"]
1618709-1591938-thumbnail.jpg[/caption]
garciaflanagan and now speck have helped tremendously in lifting us up. it’s time we move on and these two seem like they’re up to the challenge of helping us get through. sunshine and warm weather also helps. i’m also left feeling like if we had to lose dietrich, garcia and owney, the best way to celebrate their lives is to give two more homeless dogs a home and love the crud out of them.