At the end of a two-week cold snap, everyone is happy.
Sledding recommenced and Christmas shopping resumed to the delight of my household.The break in the weather pepped everyone up a bit and softened the snarls of cabin fever and a stuffy home.I noticed the change in attitude the most in our dog.
Kylie is a hairy, black-furred chow lab cross and she is now ancient.My husband and I chose her from the SPCA in Victoria where she was living in doggy jail.Kylie, as we discovered, was a stray that had been picked up on Gillett Street from Prince George. She was pregnant with a litter and was fostered out to have her puppies at a foster home in Quesnel.The sheer volume of dogs and cats picked up in the North by animal control and the SPCA necessitates them to send most of the adoptable pets to the Lower Mainland to find their forever home. Because Kylie was from Prince George, and she had a sweet face, we thought that she would be the perfect addition to our family.
Sans kids, Kylie was our doggy baby and was hopelessly spoiled.
She got two walks a day and had many expensive rawhide bones purchased for her which she would promptly take outside and bury.
Because we adopted her and she was a stray, the vet and SPCA had only a vague idea about her age. The consensus was that she was probably two years old (maybe one and a half) when she came home with us. Kylie has been in our lives for over ten years and we think that she is likely twelve years old now. She is still patient and loving with the kids and with us but she rarely musters up the energy these days to play.
She sleeps.And eats.
And she cleans up under the table after (or during) mealtimes.
Occasionally, she steps lively and steals a yogurt from the coffee table much to the dismay of our three-year old daughter. Kylie is a senior and for the past year, my husband and I have been saying the long goodbye because we do not think that she will be with us much longer. She is deaf, stubborn, her eyes have gone a bit cloudy, her legs give out on her occasionally and she will always nap in the worst place in the house.She is ours and we love her but she had become a bit of a pain.
The night the weather broke and the temperature rose from -28 to -5, 3 a.m. found Kylie softly whining in my face to be let outside.She only wakes up me.
After she peed on the deck and then limped down the stairs, she played and played and played in the snow, joyfully ignoring my whisper threats to come back inside.
Eventually she did and I went back to bed.
At 4 a.m. and she barked-whined in my face again, desperately needing to go outside. Frustrated and exhausted, I opened the door for her and left her outside and went back to bed where I feel soundly asleep rousing only when my husband came back to ask why the dog was outside.
At 5 a.m., she breathed her stinky dog breath in my face, whining, and I gave up on sleep altogether.Not needing to use the facilities, Kylie was transported back in time and became a puppy and it was wonderful to see, if it was a slightly inconvenient time.
From our house with our incontinent senior dog, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
