Tuesday, July 25, 2006

A prayer for my dalmatian

It's cold here today. I got home from a weekend out with my boyfriend only to find that the cats had left little presents for me. Ick. So I opened all the windows last night, after cleaning up the mess (and they had fresh cat litter too, but it seems, chose not to use it this time. Grr). Hence the reason it's cold here today, I guess.

Currently my beloved dalmatian is having a prolonged stay with Dad. She's not at all well, and I guess the cold weather hasn't been helping her much, given she's an older dog to start with. But I do know that I miss her terribly, and hope like crazy that she comes home to me soon.

I have to admit, it's very odd here without her. She'll have been gone a week tomorrow, and I still cannot get used to seeing her empty dog bowl, empty dog bed, and lonely-looking water bucket. It's very strange indeed, not to see her sweet and extremely loveable face staring at me through the back security door, and to hear her whining at me at 3pm every afternoon.

Now that she isn't here, I feel bad about all the times I told her to shut up and stop whining, and made her wait until 3.30pm or even 4pm before I fed her, and all the promises I made to take her walking every single day, twice a day, when in reality I'd take her walking a couple of times a week, though more in winter.

I miss sitting on the back stairs with her, and beginning my day with a cup of coffee and a whole lot of doggie kisses. I miss seeing her stare up at me with her patient, beautiful, sweet, brown doggie eyes, so brimming with love and devotion.

I hate it when she's not here, and yet, I've not even had her two years. Suddenly, I cannot remember what it was like when it was just me, two cats, and a guinea pig or two. The velcro kittens came along with the dalmatian, from the same household, and I know they miss her too. I find them sitting at the back door, miaowing sadly, hoping she'll appear and say hi. My dog loves those two little kittens, though she loves to bark madly at the two older cats :-)

It's strange how one (or a bunch, as in my case) animal can change your life so drastically. I grew up with dogs, for sure, but I never really saw myself as being a dog owner when I became an adult. I didn't really plan on having pets as such, anyway, but the cats, at least, all seemed to adopt me, and so here I am. But when my dog came into my life, and yes, she was another rescue/adoptee, my life changed for the better.

All of a sudden I was out walking all the time, seeing more of my suburb than I had ever done before, meeting people, having complete strangers come up to me and ask if they could pat her because they'd never been that close to a dalmatian before. She's such a happy dog, friendly to the whole world, and I miss her so much. My house feels so empty without her. Granted, it still has four cats and a dalmatian guinea pig in it, but it still feels empty without my old girl.

Quiet. That's it. No happy doggie noises. No thrumming up and down the back stairs. No rushing off to bark at things only she can see. I miss those noises. I miss the fact that its almost impossible to go down the back stairs without having to first ask her to move her backside out of the way. I miss being unable to go around the back yard without her tagging along to "help". I miss her "helping" me hang out the washing too.

I hope she comes home soon. I love her too much to ever want to lose her. Get well soon, my sweet loveable dalmatian.

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