Life Goes On

I want to start this post by thanking you guys for your kind words about my last post. It means a lot to me.

Over the past few weeks I've been adjusting to life without my dog. It's a pretty big change. There is an absence of dog fur. Max was a big shedder. We tried all kinds of remedies to try and reduce the shedding, but to no avail. His fur was everywhere and would get all over our clothes and furniture. When we would go out, I would wait until we were about to leave to put my clothes on so that I wouldn't get fur all over them. I had to vacuum ALL THE TIME. I'm no longer worried about him all the time. When we would go out, I'd feel bad for leaving him alone. He hated being alone. Because of this I would try not leave him alone all day. If we were out all day, I'd want to be home at night. Or if I knew we would be out at night, I would try to stay home with him as much as possible during the day. Like this weekend, The Boy and I were out all day long on both Friday and Saturday. I never would've done that if Max were still here. And the biggest challenge for me is Max's company. It's a lot quieter without him. I miss his companionship and just having him there to pet and hug.

Everybody has been telling us to get another dog. It's always "get another dog already" or "when are you getting another one." Ugh, I'm so not ready for another dog yet. Someday, yes. Just not now.

And here is number three :(

I'm so sad to share with you all number three. I lost my sweet sweet dog, Max last week. He was 8 years and 2 months old. We came home from dinner and found him laying on the floor. We thought he was just sleeping, but he didn't get up. Normally he gets up right away to greet us. That night he didn't move. The Boy went over to try to wake him and Max obviously didn't move. That's when it hit us. From there everything was such a blur. The Boy was so upset, as was I. I won't go into any further detail as it's pretty hard to think about and it's probably not such a fun read.

I miss Max so so much. He was such a good and loving dog. (Although he wasn't so good when he was a puppy. Have you read Marley and Me? Marley and him could so be brothers. They even look like twins!) He totally thought he was human and not a dog. We couldn't get him to play with other dogs. At dog parks he would ignore the other dogs and run up to other people to play with instead. If we left him outside to play with our friend's dog, he would just sit outside the door and cry and wait for us to let him back in. He loved attention and always wanted to be pet or hugged or to sit in my lap (he's a big heavy dog so that wasn't always so comfortable.) He would lay down on me or sit on my chest in the morning (I think he was trying to wake me up). He loved loved loved to eat. Sometimes he would grab a can of his food and bring it to us and ask us to feed him. A few times I even found him laying down on the floor with a can of food in between his legs. I miss him so much my heart hurts. It's still so new and fresh that sometimes I forget he's not here anymore. For example, I'll be talking to The Boy on the phone and I'll start to ask him what Max is doing and I'll stop mid-sentence. When I wake up in the morning I look for him. I've been slowly getting a little better. I was pretty depressed the first few days. I pretty much just slepst all day long. Good thing it happened on a Friday and I had the weekend to get over it. I miss my Max. :(

Happy birthday, Max!

Max turned 7 today, although he is a puppy at heart. He's the world's biggest baby and I just love him to death. Today The Boy and I are going to take Max to the park to let him play and by play I mean with other people. Max doesn't like to play with other dogs. He prefers people. I bought him some new toys and some special doggie treats for him to enjoy later.

The Boy says I spoil Max too much. It's true, I do. It's hard not to. I can't help myself. My poor guy has been through a lot the past few years. What can be so hard on a dog, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. A little over 2 years ago Max suffered from Fibrocartilaginous Embolism or FCE. Basically, it's like a stroke to the spine. He lost use of his back right leg for a week or so. It was horrible to watch him deal with it. Normally Max is a happy go lucky kinda dog, always wanting to play and run around and eat. When this happened, all he did was lay down for days. He didn't want to play fetch. He didn't want to eat. He just laid there. He was depressed. Not even food got him excited. His leg would drag behind him when he walked and so that started to get scratched up and bleed. We had to keep it taped up until he was able to raise it off the ground when he walked. It was a sad sight to see him walking around with his leg dragging on the floor after him. I just wanted to follow him around and hold his little leg up for him. Slowly but surely, he began to regain use of his leg. It's still a little bit weak. He falls down a lot and sometimes his leg shakes when he's standing, but my little guy is a trooper! Within a week of his injury he was back to wanting to play again. It broke my heart, because we weren't supposed to let him walk a lot, let alone play, for a month or so.

Flash forward to June of last year. We had taken Max to the dog park to play fetch. Keep in mind that this is one of the first times I'd taken Max to the dog park since the whole FCE thing. I'd been wary of bringing him to such a big open space to run around in. I didn't want him to over exert himself and hurt his leg. I finally thought his leg was getting to be strong enough to go to the park. We had been there, playing fetch all of 5 minutes, when Max jumped up for the ball. He starts to walk back to The Boy and I when I notice he isn't using his back right leg. Yes, the same leg that was injured due to the FCE - the same leg! He wouldn't put it on the ground. He just kept it raised and was limping around on his other 3 legs. I was so scared. I didn't know what to think. Was it the FCE again? The Boy picked him up (which is not easy as Max weighs about 100 pounds) and we took him to the vet right away. The vet examined him and knew right away that Max had torn his little doggie ACL and would need surgery. He had the surgery 3 days later.

As my little guy gets older, I worry about him more and more (Yes, I'm a big worry wort). His leg is weak sometimes and all of the injuries he has had makes him more susceptible to arthritis. He walks with a limp too. He moves like an old man sometimes. The Boy says I worry too much, but Max is my baby. I'm his mom. I'm supposed to worry.