I am a dog lover.  Perhaps even a dog aficionado!!  I can’t train one, but I can love one!! We run a retirement community for elderly dogs.  They are fed twice a day, receive all of their necessary, life preserving immunizations and medications, each has their own memory foam bed, clean water, and they live in a heated and air conditioned garage.  Their life is good!  They are loved, played with and told on a daily basis how wonderful they are.  The old man, Rusty is the alpha even at his ripe age of 15!  He saved a broken family and will forever be the best thing to happen to us.  We got him from an elderly gentleman who couldn’t handle his wild Golden Retriever energy!  He was exactly what we needed when we uprooted our family to move to the middle of Kansas. In the midst of mourning our losses of home, church, town, friends and former life, here he came!   He is a kind, loving, sincere soul who came with the name of Rusty.  Addie was five when we got him and she preferred to call him Peter.  So now, he is known by……are you ready??…..Rusty Peter.

Most people are happy with one dog, we have five.  Each one is special in his or her own way, just like our children!! Lucy is a mini Aussie who is a rescue from horse sale, infested with fleas, used as a breeding dog, and abused.  I promised her that she would never be hurt again, and to this day, she is the most appreciative girl in the world.  I am pretty sure she is at least 15, she can’t hear and has cataracts but is happy to be loved!! The other two outside pups we got strictly by default.  When Ian was working on the road he wanted a companion,  he rescued this beautiful Newfoundland mix dog he named Cinch.  Cinch turned out to be a horrible travel buddy.   If you mention the word “car”  he vomits.  Motion sickness and anxiety prevent him from traveling!!  He is the skunkinest dog on the place and makes sure that we are protected from the skunk at all costs, even if he takes one for the team!!  Maggie is on loan….she is a red heeler that Ian found one winter tucked down as a little pup in a pivot track.  She is his dog.  Until they find a place where she can run, she is visiting!!  On any given day I have three granddogs that come to visit too!  It’s a mad house of Aussie energy!!

Vivian is the only house dog and she knows it!  After my dad passed away and we were at another low, I decided I needed a dog to go to work with us.  What a gift she has been!  A toy Aussie that Mike didn’t want and now he takes her everywhere.  She checks cows, goes to work, travels with him and sleeps on his pillow.  She is the definition of comfort.  I have always said that she is way more effective than Prozac and much happier than a cat!!

Dogs give you peace; and Dopamine!  They bring blood pressure down, they know when you need comfort, they are loyal to a fault and they bring laughter!  I don’t know that I truly trust anti dog folks!  I suppose if you were attacked by a violent dog, or had something traumatic I can understand that;  but other than that I can’t wrap my head around it!  Our dogs meet me every morning before I leave and every evening when I get home.  They smile and prance around looking for the ear scratch and the affection we all crave.  Can you imagine if you smiled at people the way your dog smiles at you?? Can you imagine if you were able to look at people with love the way your dog looks at you?  They will trust you until you hurt them, just like me!  If we could maybe scratch each other’s ears more rather than filling each others ears with gossip, hate speech, and anger, this world would reflect that love.  What if we were to just greet each other with a warm nose rather than a cold shoulder?  I think this world could stand to rescue more, judge less, scratch more, hit less, love more, worry less…..it’s a dog’s life.  Love your dog.  Love each other.  Thank you for not sniffing my butt when you say “hello”.

Stay safe during these storms.

peace, love, itch

e