If you are a dog lover, you need to read the book Marley and me

dmaze, please do that. I just loved that book. I have my husband reading it now. Problem is; It makes me want to go get another dog. We are now dog free. Have been for 8 months. We loved our dogs but it has been so nice to not have $1,000 vet bills and to just go out to eat and not have to rush home to let the dog out. Tyco was very clumsy. I had three differnt times $1000 vet bill with him. He cut his self once, ran into the truck door, and got caught in a cactus. all after hours of course.

Ok here is one of my all time favorite authors Virginia Lanier.  She wrote a series of mysteries about bloodhounds.  Sadly there will be no more of these wonderful books because she passed away a few years ago.

A Bloodhound to Die For

A Brace of Bloodhounds

Ten Little Bloodhounds

The House on Bloodhound Lane

Susan Conant  also has a cat series.  malamutes are her dogs

The Barker Street Regulars

Black Ribbon

Bloodlines

Creature Discomforts

Evil Breeding

Gone to the Dogs

Ruffly Speaking

All Shots

Gaits of Heaven

Bride and Groom

The Dogfather

The Wicked Flea

Animal Appetite

Stud Rites

Dana Stabenow

Kate Sugak series with a wolf hybrid

• A Cold Day for Murder


• A Fatal Thaw


• Dead in the Water


• A Cold-Blooded Business


• Play With Fire


• Blood Will Tell


• Breakup


• Killing Grounds


• Hunter’s Moon


• Midnight Come Again


• The Singing of the Dead


• A Fine and Bitter Snow


• A Grave Denied


• A Taint in the Blood


• A Deeper Sleep


• Whisper to the Blood

more later

cd, I have that book!!  Haven't gotten to it yet, and it had even moved up to my room which means...'You are next!"  I am and always have been, thanks to mom, a dog lover.  I haven't spent much time in my life without one.  Irish Setters were my first dogs, mine was named 'Velvet', and my mom had another girl named 'Tara".  They were such sweet dogs.  One day I came home, and mom was sitting there red-eyed with Velvet nowhere to be seen.  Apparently, she had eaten, and had an obstruction, she blew up and was in horrid pain, unable to pass anything anywhere.  Mom did what I would have done.  I went to bed and stayed there for 3 days.  Come home from work, and my 11 hear old dog is just gone?  Very strange.  And it was back in the day of house phones or pay phones, and you didn't call people at work unless it was an emergency.  In my eyes that was, and wished she'd have called me.  She said she wanted to spare me having to watch her.  awwww moms, we are always protecting our 'little ones', aren't we?  I was 21.

We got a puppy when I moved to Taiwan but poor thing had tape worms before I could get her to a vet, we came home after dinner, and she was asleep with the angels.  Ew I even saw the worm when she tried to go poo poo it was horrible.  Poor little weak cute thing.  At the least I did not have a chance to bond with her. 

Back to the US, and a very large puppy; a Golden Retriver, with paws like a bear, therefore her name.  Bear had to endure the understanding that my son at the time, who was almost 2, was not a big ball to go put both paws on (a hug of course), but Jeff ended up on the cement in the backyard one too many times.  We gave Bear to a loving family very close to us. 

Then came my babies up till now.  After my father died in 1995, I felt a large push from him to get a dog.  My son and I went looking for Jack Russell Terriers.  They were kind of big at the time, with 'Eddie' from Fraiser, and all that.  When we got to the breeders, he was the last Jack left, and there was one cute Cocker Spaniel, and Jeff and I looked at each other and knew that last Jack Russell was the one.  He was Jeff's first dog too.  A boy and his dog.  He named him Rocko, and Rocko and Jeff and I, then the doc too, became very very attached to Rocko.  I will get a picture of those silly and darling faces for you all.  Rocko had that kind of face that drew attention wherever we went.  !/2 black, 1/2 white, split right down the middle.  How could people pass him up??  Oh well, he was ours now. 

Rocko was a climber.  And when you see the picture of him on the roof of our 2-story house, you'll understand that dog had no fear of heights.  Or of lizards, skunks or cats, being sprayed so bad one night his bath was at 4 am-- right when he just went out to pee, suddenly there was a large scuffle in the corner or the backyard, and Rocko came out, I don't know who was a loser and who the winner; but if he got majorly sprayed, I think he lost.  Nothing worse than that smell. 

One year after we got Rocko, we got another Jack Russell, a gal this time.  They bonded immediately, and with Roxy being such a puppy, I had to watch them.  It was love at first smell.  Next thing I know, I walk down the stairs when she was about one, and there they are, turned around, stuck, and I hadn't gotten Roxy fixed yet.  We did decide that we wanted a litter of these little dolls anyway.  Less than a year later, she had 4 pups, 3 boys and a gal.  I helped her deliver them.  Never done that before!!

She was a great mama, and we had chosen one pup to keep.  The other 3 sold so fast I barely remember what they looked like.  At times I wish I'd have kept a the girl, so I wouldn't find the 2 boys going at it almost to the death when the puppy got older, about 3.  (Although I've heard then mom and daughter would fight.)  One night, they were fighting, me spraying water wasn't doing anything, and they were drawing blood; so I did what every person with major back surgery coming up, and in much pain would do.  Throw my body in between them.  It was summer, I had a tank top on, and my older dog latched into my skin and started shaking me.  He thought I was a dog I got in there so fast.  Now that was a scary feeling.  He just hooked in there and stayed.  I was alone and freaking out, afraid they were going to kill each other, and there I was in the middle now.  Later I saw blood and the wound in the mirror.  I was ok, and still bear the scar from that night.  They were ok too, but I knew something had to change. 

I even sent them to K-9 training school.  Just the boys.  I was actually going through the big surgery when they went to stay at school.  When I got home, and they did a few days later, we had to do certain repetative motions and excercises with them to continue what they had learned there.  Did they stop fighting?  no.  It was getting to the point that one of them would tear the other up to death.  And I was scared to death.  What was the answer?  Especially when I was not allowed to carry more than a gallon, no laundry, and no bending or lifting arms above my shoulders for one month after surgery.  The answer was to now look at myself and my life in a very realistic way, and it was to give the younger pup away. 

I contacted the Jack Russell Placement Society that match dogs with those that want to adopt them.  This family plays soccer everyday, and have 4 kids, no other dogs, and something tells me that although he moved to Las Vegas, he is having the life he needed to have.  I couldn't give him what he wanted, and three dogs was just not on the list for me at that time in my life.  

Rocko sustained a neck injury sometime during his 12 years, an 'old one' the doc called it.  We had no idea how it had happened.  A very odd thing is that his injury included a bone piece sticking into his cord.  Sound familiar?  One of my most painful of pathologies.  His last week was just heartwrenching.  He would just stand with his neck straight in line with his back, always loking down.  He could not raise his head to look at me anymore.  So, just as in nursing, I got on his level and talked.  He was shaking and not eating, that week that I saw my dog that climbed big, tall bushes to the top, and the day on the roof; become totally dependant on me when it came to one of my least favorites also; the stairs.  The day I started to walk down and although he had been taking them very slow, I looked back and he was just standing there, his head down as usual, but with his eyes lifted up, looking straight into mine.  He needed a carry down.  Just to know that my baby could no longer walk up or down the stairs was a day my heart broke forever, as I knew nothing would be getting any better.   He would just stand there, next to me in my office.  Just stand.  I can't write about this much longer. 

I was alone the day I was to take Rocko to the vet for the last time.  When I asked him if he wanted to go to the doctor, he LIFTED HIS HEAD, LOOKED AT ME, and when I opened the door of my car ready to lift him up into the carrier I had in the back seat, HE JUMPED INTO THE CAR AND WENT STRAIGHT INTO THE CARRIER.  How did he know that 'doctor' from my mouth meant relief of his pain?  He knew.  As I drove him there I called my son who was living up north at the time.  Crying, both of us crying after I told him what I was going to do and how much I did not want to be alone through this.  This was something I had never had to do in my life with any of my dogs.  My son cried so hard, he said that so much of his sorrow was that I had to go through it alone.  Yes, he's a sweet guy, and I sure could have used him there with me that day. 

I don't need to write any more about Rocko.  He is in my heart and his lady here will probably always wonder where he is.....she will see him again I beleive, and so will I. 

Shauna

P.S. I had no idea this would turn out to be a small novel!!! 

Oh, and I do have the book "Marley and Me" but I haven't been able to bring myself to read it yet.

Make up girl: I loved your small novel. I have always loved the Irish Setters. I almost had one when I was younger, could not afford the rent and the pet deposit so had to give the idea up. Now I am a greyhound lover.

 Have not heard about a movie. I did see another book recently. Racing in the Rain or something like that. The book's narrated by a dog.