Happy 14th Birthday Mama Pajama and Fat Charlie

Happy birthday to two wonderful whippets. Three wonderful whippets, as we celebrate Mama Pajama, Fat Charlie, and Sammy's mom Jessie who lives in Maryland.

Here are Fat Charlie and Mama Pajama on today's walk.

Mama Pajama in a Best in Field run dusting a ridgeback ;-)

Mama Pajama was the most amazing lure courser. Ah she loved it. She was the #1 AKC whippet in BOB wins, Best in Field wins, and number of dogs defeated. No campaign. We just went lure coursing when we didn't go showing or racing.

Mama Pajama was usually half the size of the competition, but at least to my eyes she had twice the heart

Fat Charlie (left) winning a feature race in CWA

Fat Charlie was also a brilliant lure courser, but his first love was racing. He would quietly hunker down in the starting box and then explode up the track running on sheer glee.

Puppy Fat Charlie

Puppy Mama Pajama

Steve Surfman photo of Mama P at the AKC Regionals. I love her grass-stained chin from grabbing the 'bunny' at the finish. And her ears, her darling wonderful ears.

Happy muddy Mama

Fat Charlie goes a'racing

Now

Then - 3 months old

Thank you dear friend Laurie Erickson for this treasured photo

hug your hounds

Useless

I am just about useless today.

Why? Because I am already anticipating the energy I will need to work the weekend.

HOW RIDICULOUS IS THAT!!!!

What a waste. In a couple of weeks I'll be fifty-seven. I've never been that old before. (Har har) I've never felt this old before. I got to work at 6:45 Monday morning and I left at 8:45 that night. I was toast. It had been non stop. Although I did manage 25 minutes for lunch. I had called Bill and told him not to bother to wait to eat for me; I'd be way to late. But he did.

He had made some oh so delicious pasta. I come home every time I work to something unbelievable that he has made. How lucky is that? I don't know how he waits until eight, eight-thirty, even nine o'clock, but he does. (He allows as how sipping on wine helps.)

I will work the weekend and it will be fine. I love the nurses on my unit. I will have the rare privilege of caring for people. Do you know how awesome it is to be able to make someone's day better? There's not much cooler than to be giving report at the end of your shift and have your patients and their families ask hopefully if you will be back tomorrow.

Except maybe the relief of saying, "No, no I'm off tomorrow."

I'm getting some new shoes. My dear beloved Charge Nurse recommends them highly. And it is supposed to stop storming tomorrow. Poor Fat Charlie has been in a constant state of terror for what, five days? He's still quite weak and fragile from his bout with Vestibular Disease. (Here is a link about him on Whippet World.) His eyes are normal now, but he has the tiniest head tilt still. His hind legs were getting a little wobbly before all of that and now they are not so trustworthy.

We've been carrying him up and down the stairs, but yesterday he managed with only a steadying hand on his collar. But he's been shaking and trembling and panting and pacing with all of these relentless storms. It has to exhaust him beyond his nearly fourteen year old limits. My brave dog who never ever showed fear, until a hideously unfortunate Fourth of July last year. He was my Steady Eddy. My Fat Charlie.

Well the storms are supposed to stop tomorrow.

Maybe I can walk the waggle between the rain drops after lunch. Then maybe I'll go to our locally owned garden store (NOT LOWES) and buy some plants. Even if it's raining I can fill the pots on the porches.

Oh I just remembered I have a puppy! Here are his parents when they were puppies:

Hmmmmm. Well maybe we can protect the plants until the quilters leave at least. We're on a home tour Friday and Saturday.

Time for lunch.

Hug your hounds

Fat Charlie's Home Safe

So, maybe once or twice you've heard me mention that I love my vets?
I LOVE MY VETS!!!

First thing this morning I loaded up the whole waggle (minus Delia and Looch who went a'walkin' with Bill) and headed to Ol' Poke n Stick's before breakfast. (Hey, if Fat Charlie couldn't have breakfast, none of us could. That's only fair.) Wait, let me back up a minute.

Last night was awful. Pure personal hell. The fourth of freaking July.

I hate fireworks. Long before I had boom-phobic dogs, I hated fireworks. If you sneak up behind me and say "boo" you better duck and run and protect your private parts. I respond to being startled by hitting. Hard. While I scream. And I kick. Hard. Then I yell at you for being so STUPID. It is completely reflexive and I've been that way all my life. So I hate things that supposedly are going to look all pretty and then out of nowhere go boom.

In the country, you loaded up and went to the church or the fairgrounds and watched the fireworks. My mother learned early on, when she couldn't get me out from under our car, where I lay in a fetal position with my hands over my ears, screaming "Stop it stop it stop it," that it was better if she and I stayed home and popped popcorn and watched TV. They tried to condition me to liking them by buying sparklers and making a big deal of how fun it all was. Bull Shit. You couldn't fool me even at age six. But, in the country, at least home was safe. You could hear the bangs in the distance, but home was safe.

Then as an adult I worked in the Operating Room. Oh yeah, those blown off hands, feet, eyes: whewie, there's some fun. Idiots.

When my first whippet, Gracious, was around eight, my teenage son thought it was a good idea to shoot a squirrel out his bedroom window while she was sleeping on his bed. Thus began her intense terror at sudden loud noises. Caruso (Lindy Loo's great grandfather) and Giacomino (Very Old Dog) both developed old age thunder phobia. They would lie in some corner and tremble violently, panting with the curled-up panic tongue, eyes popping and nothing nothing nothing could I do for them. We all suffered through the week of the freaking fourth.

This year would be the first year since we moved here to the city that I didn't have a boom phobic dog. What a relief. It's just so different in this southern city. Cherry bombs, bottle rockets, things that make that ZZZZZzingBAMBOOOOM going off all over. The city sponsors a fireworks show over the river - only eight blocks away and bad enough though it lasts only an hour and a half and is done by people who supposedly know what they are doing. But everyone goes to Missouri and buys their own fireworks and sets them off all over. I hate it. But at least this year I wouldn't have an old dog trying to die of a heart attack.

Or so I thought. My neighbors had apparently bought out the entire state of Missouri. (Sorry Missouri, I guess you guys did without, lucky dogs.) Early on, way before the city's show started, HUGE explosions started going off in the empty lot right across from our house. And then over our house. All the dogs started looking alarmed. Then one firework went haywire (imagine that) and did the falling bomb sizzle noise as it shot horizontally past our TV room window and then exploded. I hit the floor and the dogs went ballistic.

We were clearly being attacked.

This went on and on and on. The city's display started; we could barely hear it over the amateur crap right outside our door. And over our roof. And in our yard.

I was already worried about Fat Charlie's surgery today. Anytime you anesthetize a thirteen year old dog, well... I said, "Let's just go to bed." I tried to let the dogs out to potty, but they were WAY too freaked out. Our world was exploding. We went up to our room. I couldn't find Mama Pajama and Fat Charlie. Found Mama Pajama in Bill's study, eyes huge and worried. I got everyone in our bedroom and handed out treats. No Fat Charlie. The calm dog, the unflappable. The one who was going to protect me - tooth and nail - with all he had when an old drunk guy thought my house was where he needed to be one night when Bill was out of town. My bravest fastest Whippet who had to have surgery in the morning. My oldest dog. Thirteen.

I found him in a dark crate downstairs in the dog room. Panting. Trembling violently. Eyes wide with terror. He didn't know how to protect us from this. I got angry.

My other sweet neighbor called. Her thunderphobic dog, Cooper - a lab/border collie cross - was wild with fear. "I'm afraid he can't keep this up much longer," she said. Should we call the police? It's our neighbors, our friends. But this is ridiculous. Those can't be legal.

This is just what my old dog's heart needed nine hours before anesthesia. It was getting louder over my house and he was getting more frantic. I asked Bill to read in our bedroom to keep the other dogs company and I took Fat Charlie and Sam I Am (for company) down to the van. We were getting out of there. As we ran from our breezeway to the van one exploded right over our heads and the burning things landed all around us. I screamed, "Stop it stop it stop it," just like my six year old self. It didn't stop. As soon as we left my immediate neighborhood Fat Charlie settled down and went to sleep. I called my sweet neighbor with Cooper to tell her what a good idea the van was. She answered her cell by saying, "We had to get Cooper out of there, so we're in our car out by the Mall." They had left before I did.

I tried coming home twice, but the neighbors were still at it. As long as I kept driving and Charlie couldn't hear the idiocy, he slept. We came home around eleven; the show across the street was over. But it had moved to the back yard. Fat Charlie didn't mind the firecrackers too much and he was worn out. He finally went to sleep. I did too. Around 1:30.

Okay, now I'm back to loving my vets. They let Fat Charlie wait in his own crate - his safe place - in my van while the pre-op shot went to work. They let me stay with him, with my quiet calm voice until the Propafol was injected and he no longer knew or cared what was going on. I took the rest of the waggle out to the kennel club to burn off their energy. My vets called me: Fat Charlie's surgery was over and I could pick him up in an hour.

He was FINE.

Now we're all lying in the kitchen/dining room. Fat Charlie's rear legs aren't working too well yet, but they will. He stopped panting when we got home. It's normal quiet here. Mama Pajama is sleeping a couple of feet away from her brother on Bill's armchair. Sammy is curled up by my head and Swede William is lying on my right leg. My foot's asleep.

As awful as last night was for me and for Fat Charlie, I kept thinking of a nurse I know. Her husband served in Iraq. He suffered from injuries from a roadside bomb. And now from PTSD. What the hell was last night like for him? When explosions brought back memories of friends' being blown to bits and his own stunning injuries. I kept thinking of him.

I HATE fireworks. I HATE fireworks. I HATE FIREWORKS. Hooray for the FIFTH of July. I hope all of you and your dogs are okay.

hug your hounds

Fat Charlie the Archangel

Around two or three years ago, I noticed a half-pea sized growth that showed up over night on Fat Charlie's hiney hole. I freaked. Ran him in to Ol' Poke n Stick, certain it was some hideous rectal cancer. Doc looked at me like, "Get out of here, you're not really an RN, are you???" but said, kindly, "Why that's just nothin' but a little polyp." I tried to save face by explaining that I didn't think humans got polyps on the outside of their hiney holes, and if they did I for sure had never seen one, but anyway I was so mightily relieved that nothing else mattered.

We named Fat Charlie's polyp his 'butt bump' and it has slowly grown to the size of a large marble (for those of you who are old enough to know how big a large marble is - about an inch in diameter for the sake of the younger readers). It sticks out from under his tail and shocks visitors for a moment until we explain, but it hasn't caused any harm.

Now, last week I noticed a spot on Fat Charlie's leg. It looked like a Bad Spot and I didn't like it. I decided on Wednesday that I would call the vet on Thursday (from work) for an appointment Friday. I left for work Thursday morning. Charlie's butt bump was pink as usual and the Bad Spot looked not as bad, but I fully intended to make an appointment for Friday during my lunch break.

I forgot. Work was crazy busy.

When I got home to the insanity of eight whippets who have wondered all day if I had gotten lost or eaten, I remembered that I forgot. Then I saw Fat Charlie's butt bump: it wasn't pink. It was purple/black.

Rats. My wonderful vets worked Fat Charlie in this morning.

They would have removed them both today, only Charlie had already eaten his breakfast. Cheerios, Total, and a sprinkling of Grapenuts with Organic Fat Free Milk and Organic Lowfat Yogurt. He'll have to go back in first thing Monday morning, with an empty tummy. He's a great good sport and doesn't pant or shake at the vet's. He looks at me and looks at the door: "Let's go now, why don't we?" But he kisses the sweet tech and even Ol' Poke n Stick and Baby Doc too.

Then something remarkable happened. I was back out front, paying for the meds, and the radio that is always on in their office played an old song. You know, the theme song for Gray's Anatomy (I think, I never watched it), "Chasing Cars"?

It was the song I used for Very Old Dog's tribute. I was writing the check, blab, blab, blabbing as usual and then boom I was soaking wet sobbing. Well, what do you do when you hear these lyrics piping right into your heart?

"I need your grace to remind me to find my own. If you lay here, if you just lay here, I can lie with you and just forget the world."

Oh I sobbed Fat Charlie out to the van, where the rest of the waggle waited and we beat feet out to the Kennel Club property. They ran and soaked up the gorgeous morning, I mowed and fixed the fence, and appreciated each of them.

And then I lay there. I just lay there with them and just forgot the world

hug your hounds

Oh Happy Happy

It is Mama Pajama's and Fat Charlie's thirteenth birthday. Along with Sammy's mom Jessie, who lives in Maryland.

I'm going to go sit on the porch with them.

Steve Surfman photo

Laurie Erickson photo

Laurie Erickson photo

please hug your sweet old hounds

How Is This Comfortable?

Fat Charlie??

Hug your double jointed hounds

Fat Charlie Went a-Walking!

(treasured photo by Laurie Erickson)

One of my favorite stories is Fat Charlie Went a-Running! , (thanks to Whippet World for the online hosting). The story tells of Fat Charlie's return to run in a race after a long injury lay off.

The top photo is of my dear, late friend Carolyn giving Fat Charlie a cool sponge bath and a kiss after that very race.

May I tell you just a bit about this dog? He is twelve now. His is a mush, my softest whippet. When he was born he was a big fat white marshmallow. If another dog in the house has done something Against The Rules, sweet Fat Charlie looks mortified.

But.

Leave a thawing London broil or an entire loaf of ciabatta bread on the counter? Fat Charlie appreciates that I left such a fabulous treat just for him. He rewards me mightily for this good behavior, with dancing kisses and happy wags.






He rarely asks for anything, and when he does, he does by staring handsomely at me. About three times each morning he hops down from his spot on the couch. I look up from my typing or sewing and see a Fat Charlie with the exact expression you see in the red-bordered photo. It is up to me to determine what he needs. Usually he only wants a scratch, a kiss, and a return to the couch with his blankets re-arranged. Sometimes a drink. Occasionally a trip outside for a sunbath in the papasan chair.

Fat Charlie is a very good dog.

He was getting slower and slower on our morning walks. And then he stopped going altogether.

At walk time he would get in his crate, looking at me. "I don't want to go," he said.

This dog who would stay in our big yard at the farm for hours, lying in the sun, scanning for squirrels and fun, loving life. I would call him inside and he would look at me and wag just the very end of his tail. "Must I?" he'd ask. "May I stay out here a little longer?"

This dog who would turn inside out when he heard the word 'walk'. Who could spell w.a.l.k. and o.u.t.

Now he didn't even want to go.

I blamed the city. Sidewalks are hard on arthritic feet. Stupid City Squirrels: all evil temptation and no fun. Horrid cats everywhere. And it has been so hot.

Again, this morning at walk time, he put himself in his crate and got his biscuit. When I got to the kitchen door with Mama Pajama and Easy, I did what I've done every day since he stopped going - I tried once more.

"Fat Charlie, want to go for a walk?"

Well, he changed his mind. He came flying out of the dog room (I never shut the door on his crate) with a big grin. And we went for a walk. Lots of time dawdling, lots of sniffing, lots of soaking up the sun in this glorious unusually cool morning weather.

I think I started calling Giacomino Very Old Dog when he was twelve.

I can't imagine calling Fat Charlie Very Old Dog. He's just my big, fat, marshmallow puppy.




(how lucky am I: Laurie Erickson photo)

hug your hounds

Happy 12th Birthday, Mama Pajama and Fat Charlie!

Mama Pajama and Fat Charlie, photo by Laurie Erickson in May '09

Two of the most wonderful dogs in the world were twelve years old yesterday.

My long time readers will know that these birthdays are more special to me than one would expect. (How could any dog's twelfth birthday be any more special, you could rightly ask, but hang on ...)

Fat Charlie had a freak accident at a field trial in April of 2000. His Achilles tendon was severed. That he has all four legs is a testament to the veterinary care (including two surgeries) he received. He even got to race one more time. Watching him chase toys as he wears an I-dare-you-to-catch-me smile on his twelfth birthday face, is oh so good for my heart.

Most readers know that Mama Pajama was scheduled to be euthanized on May 12, 2003. She had a horrid autoimmune disease, neutriphilic vasculitis. She lost most of her ears, a lot of her kidney function, and one of her lungs to the illness. After six years of managing the disease with steroids, she has at long last been able to go without prednisone for the past three months.

She is silly again. She now does whippet spins (just picture a top - if you're old enough, or a speeding bicycle tire gone horizontal if you're not) out in the yard, purely for the fun of it. She takes the time to chew her food, no longer feeling starvation brought on by the corticosteroids.

And, after six years, she's continent again.

The little whippet who was once the #1 AKC Lure Coursing whippet in America, who can tell a story with the best of them, and who is the inspiration for the main character in my novel is twelve and she feels great!

To celebrate, I took Mama Pajama and Fat Charlie, and Easy and Spice (both of whom will also be twelve in October) out to the Kennel Club property to run. No young'uns! Just the four old friends. The weather gods were respectful of the importance of the day; they lowered the temperature by eight degrees and the humidity by 40%, and even threw in a cooling breeze to show their magnanimity.

Nice.


There were games of keep away. (Easy, left, Fat Charlie with toy)


Easy: "My toy!"


Fat Charlie: "I got this one!"


Spice: Zooooooooom!!! Too fast for you!!!

Summer time, and the livin' is Easy

Easy and Spice stop for a drink

When Mama Pajama was very ill, she wrote this:

My human Patience is a terrible worrier. She worries that she’s not doing enough to make me comfortable. They tried another new medicine, but it started to mess up my kidneys like the one that almost killed me, so they stopped it right away. I have Patience lift me into her lap – I can’t jump even into her lap anymore – and I try so hard to make her listen. I tell her it’s not the length of a life that’s important; it’s the living of it. I tell her how much I have loved every moment of my life, even now. I tell her that those of us souls who are highly evolved enough to have been dogs, know that worry is a sinful waste of energy and life.
And I tell her, as best I can, the Good Universe gave her to me and that I love her, and that I know she loves me, and that is enough. The rest we must simply accept as it comes, with courage and dignity, as all the worrying in the world won’t change a thing.

And then I lick her leaky face.

Mama Pajama: Was there not some mention of steak and ice cream?


Hug your hounds

Fat Charlie, an award, gross commercialism

First of all, thank you for your kind thoughts and suggestions for Fat Charlie. I did the accupressure/energy medicine points to calm down the flight/fight meridian last night, (the ones my dear friend Jean taught me to help Giacomino with his thunder phobia) and he ate his breakfast this morning and stayed downstairs. He was happy on his walk, but did try to convince us to go anywhere but home when we were two blocks out. He's lying comfortably next to my chair now.

We got an award! From dear Ben the Rotti. Thank you so much, Ben!

We would like to pass this on to Jake and Just Harry, and to sweet, talented Xsara way far away in Slovenia, and Jenn in the City, who is such a good writer, and the 4 B's cause we love their blog.

I forgot to post a link to this week's iPet of the week on the fantabulous iListPaducah.com! Meet Benji, a stray, who not only found a wonderful family, he inspired them to start the Benji Fund, to help the local no-kill shelters with money for spaying and neutering their adoptees.

Oh and for our local dear readers, don't miss the Second Annual Critter K walk, out at Stuart Nelson Park tomorrow morning! It is going to be AWESOME! We will have photos here to share.

I got some new things in the store to share. I did not order one of these for me, but I can't STAND not having a shirt that says this, and I am going to take one. I have to have it.

And I LOVE these doormats:

And though I was chastised for putting a political post on my blog, I don't think these will offend anyone. The Lame Duck Squeak Toy! Two Squeaks!!!

If you are local, these are at the Market @ 315 on Broadway. If you are far away, just email me if you have to have any of these delights.

hug your hounds!

Fat Charlie the Archangel

Fat Charlie the Archangel slipped into the room

He said I have no opinion about this

And I have no opinion about that

Sad as a lonely little wrinkled balloon

He said well I don't claim to be happy about this, boys

And I don't seem to be happy about that

Paul Simon, Crazy Love, Vol 2

from the Graceland album

Maybe it's his name. He's certainly not fat. But my sweet Fat Charlie is sad. This is the third time since we've moved to Paducah, that Fat Charlie has been terrorized in the autumn. I do not know what is up.

I am usually pretty darned in tune with my dogs. I'm able to see subtle nuances in their behavior, detect minor problems before they become major ones, know what makes the tick, what makes them happy.

But my dear Fat Charlie has me flummoxed.

He is the world's sweetest dog. He is Mama Pajama's best friend and litter brother. He is soft as a secret whispered between roommates, but brave as they come. I've mentioned before that I've never said the words "NO!" and "Fat Charlie" in the same sentence. He had a golden puppyhood, back on our farm, and a brilliant youth. He was my fastest ever whippet, and loved lure coursing and racing and hunting squirrels in our yard with a joy that verged on religious fervor.



Fat Charlie (top) and Mama Pajama - tired little three month old puppies

I wrote this about taking Fat Charlie down the 200 yard track to the starting box for a race. (Whippets race for fun, and championships, not for betting like their big cousins the greyhounds. They. Love. It.)

Taking Fat Charlie to the box is like having visible, tangible glee, right at the end of your lead. Pure, simple happiness. He leaps and bounds and wags. He rubs against me, he pokes me along, and he gooses me. He smiles, he grins, he even giggles a little. He hardly says a word. He doesn't have to, his entire being radiates pleasure.

He waits for his turn behind the box, with only a little "yip" ("0h!") escaping if he's one of the last ones to be loaded. Smooth as silk, in one quick fluid motion he's in the box, perched at the very front, not moving a muscle. His huge black eyes are bigger than ever. I run up the side of the track as fast as I can. I look back at him. He does me the courtesy of glancing at me, and then goes back to full attention on the Bunny. The door opens and he's out, as if fired from David's own slingshot. Now I'm the one
making noise!

"Go, Charlie, Go!" I scream, over and over again. He flies by me with the rest of the dogs in the feature race. I only see him. "Go, Charlie, Go!" "Go, Charlie, Go!" "Go, Charlie, Go!" I meet him at the end, more winded than he is. He stays on the Bunny with the pack, grabbing it with his front legs, scrambling and scraping, tail wagging furiously. I get his lead on, or the friend who's catching him for me does. He glances back at the Bunny a couple of times, just in case it takes off again.

Then he tells me "Thank you" in the softest of whispers, which makes me shiver. His joy is mine, and I thank him for that.

His competitive running career ended way too soon with a freak injury at our 2000 Whippet National Specialty, which required two surgical repairs. He did get to run again at the CWA Nationals as a six year old; a story you, my long time dear readers, may remember.



Fat Charlie and Mama Pajama now


Something is scaring Fat Charlie. The first year this happened, also in the early autumn, he refused to come into our bedroom to sleep. And he was petrified. I let him sleep loose in the house, and he would come into his crate in our bedroom at around two in the morning. It just went away and life returned to normal, but my heart broke for him.

Then the next time it happened, I moved his crate next to my bed. It now doubles as my bedside table. Again it was early autumn, and again he spontaneously got over it after about six weeks. And again, my heart just tore. He would look so panicky at bedtime, and hide down in his crate in the dog room. I would leave out bedroom door and his crate door open, and give him his bedtime biscuit wherever he wanted it, and sit on the floor and hug him.

He's usually a cuddle pack boy, so going off by himself is odd.



Fat Charlie looking at the camera in a whippet pinwheel with (clockwise) his uncle, Giacomino, nephew, Sam I Am, and half brother, Luciano.

This year his autumn panic is in the morning. He's perfectly happy going to bed. But he won't come into the dog room (off the kitchen - the dog room is everydog's favorite place, where dog meals happen and biscuits and bones live). He won't come for breakfast, and he won't eat. Never in his eleven years do I recall Fat Charlie missing a meal; even the nights of his surgeries, he said, "what's for dinner?" He's happy to go for his walk, but about two blocks from home, he mulishly lowers his head and plants his feet. "Not going back there." He's a good soul, and when we plead he comes. But the whites of his eyes show. And he pants.


By about eleven in the morning, he's back to himself. Pretty much. Instead of lying on his spot on the couch in the TV room, (right through the doorway to where I sit at the sewing machines or the computer), he is now lying on the floor next to my chair. (Unlike the photograph, I have since put a cushy dog bed there for him.) He doesn't want to eat dinner in the dog room, either, so I'm going to try feeding him in the kitchen tonight.

I am beyond baffled by this. I have wondered about a long list of possible causes, including but not limited to:

• our house is haunted
• neighbors use some sort of antidog ultrasound device (nope)
• raccoons in the chimneys (gone)
• I beat the bed with the pillows to freshen it and Charlie thought it was a bad bed (I don't do that any more)
• he was worried when Mama Pajama was sick (I pray she's doing great - seems to be)
• tornadoes/weather pattern (panic is independent of weather)

So I'm sticking with the haunted house theory, and the ghosts must only visit in the early autumn.

If you have a few seconds, could you send this kind, sweet, generous soul some, "You're ok" thoughts? I'm not asking for comments, just thoughts in your heads.

Thank you.

Hug your hounds