Damon

 Damon joined our family two weeks ago today. He has become such a part of us that we can't imagine life without him. We picked Damon up from a Humane Society a few hours away (2.75 hrs), and we had to bring all human and canine family members to meet him before we could adopt. We borrowed my parents' van, removing all but one back seat, so the three dogs would have plenty of room for the long trip.  We had seen a picture of Damon, sitting in a large, empty room, and they had identified him as a chocolate lab, so when we arrived and they brought him out to meet us, we were shocked to find a lot more dog than we expected. He's huge!  He is probably mixed with Great Dane.  He was also hot and excited and had copious amounts of slobber hanging off his jowls, stuck all over his face, and he quickly slobbered us and the room up. I immediately thought "OH NO" and "I love this goofy guy".

He is happy, friendly, mellow, silly, quirky, and huge! I'm so glad we found him.  The trip home went well (more buckets of slobber), and the three dogs got along just fine. I was very concerned with the cats, because though he was temperment tested there and passed with flying colors, that's no guarantee that things would go perfectly in our home environment with uncaged cats.  I spent the first night having panic attacks ("He's huge, and I can't carry him if I need to."; "He could kill the dogs or cats if he got angry."; "I couldn't 'take him' if he got aggressive"; "The slobber", etc.), thinking "What have I done?"  The cats were not happy about him at all. Though they're exposed to many dogs, they've never met a horse-dog before. They spent the first two days on high shelves, looking like Halloween cats, watching him with antipathy and distrust.

As we got to know him and spend more time with him, my fears dissipated, because he's just awesome.  The cats are no longer concerned with him and treat him like they treat the other two dogs (some ignore him, some like him).  He has a variety of health conditions--he's ten years old, so we've been working on getting those resolved and/or stabilized. He has a troubling lump/growth of some sort on his spleen, so we are anxiously waiting to hear back on exactly what that is.

He's decided he's my baby, and follows me, always staying as close as he can to me. He loves the whole family but has decided I'm mom. He lived with his last mom from the age of 5 months until recently when he was left at the Humane Society due to his mom's poor health. How confusing and terrifying that must have been for my giant baby!

He's an extremely picky eater and has some very unique likes/dislikes.  He only likes to drink water that is fresh from the tap, so whenever he needs a drink, he will come get me and ask. It doesn't matter if the bowl is full of clean water, even if it's relatively fresh. He will not drink it. I theorize that it's a temperature preference for him--he likes it colder, and when it sits for even a half hour in the bowl, it's not cold enough. I'm not sure on this--just trying to figure out some of his strange preferences.

He needs to take medicated baths once or twice a week, so I was relieved to find that he's a really good boy about bathing. He steps right into the tub when I invite him, which is awesome, because I don't think we could get him in if he didn't choose to go.  He's very good about letting me medicate his ears, clean his eyes, etc.

He's quite playful and energetic for an old guy, but his arthritic body can't quite keep up with his energy level (I know very well how frustrating that is!). 

I'm not at all crazy about the name, but he knows it well, and I would never take away the only thing he came with.  We're working on his walking manners, because he currently pulls and bounces around like a drunkard with no spacial awareness at all. This makes it quite challenging when walking all three dogs.  I don't know if he was ever consistently walked in his past life, but he hasn't been for quite some time, due to his person's health issues. He's smart and wants to make people happy, so I'm sure he'll get better with his walks as time goes on. 

He's so sweet and funny, that I can't help but smile every single time I look at him!

He loves to go outside to a particular spot in the middle of the yard, flop over, and roll around in the grass. He is so joyful while he's doing it, that I usually stand and watch the whole adorable process.

Goodbye, sweet Basil.

We lost our precious Basil boy much too soon. He was only five and had always been incredibly healthy. He became unwell, and we spent three days working with the vet, trying to bring him back, but he lost the battle to cardio myopathy. When it became clear that he was getting worse, despite every possible effort, we let him go. Initially, he responded to the treatment and seemed to be improving for about an hour, then he took a turn. He was struggling so hard to breathe, even on oxygen, and the fluid in his lungs/heart were increasing rapidly, and he was so miserable. It was an absolutely brutal experience for all of us.

We took his twin brother and soul mate, Charlie, in to spend time with him at the hospital in his last few hours. I hoped it might encourage Basil to fight harder and pull through, but he just wasn't able. He did respond quite happily to his brother, and Charlie was very happy to see him. I'm not sure what he understood about the situation, but I hope that he found some kind of understanding/closure after seeing him.

Basil and I were very close, and I miss him tremendously. He was my talker and was very smart. We had long, meaningful conversations, and I could always count on him to hang out with me while I did my kitchen work. I can't begin to describe how much I miss him.  Charlie misses him so much more.  He's been a lost little boy, since Basil's death, and I've been trying to baby him and give him lots of attention, but it's clear that he's depressed and in pain.  They have always been together, and Charlie doesn't seem to like life very much without his brother. I hope time will help him recover.