Two quiet, old, easy-care dogs

It’s strange how losing two little shelties in a short space of time can change ones life so completely. My days have been hectic for so many years, with paid work, volunteering, fostering, and caring for special needs dogs. Now, with just two quiet, old, easy-care dogs and few responsibilities, the sun shining and the flowers blooming and a cold beer in the hand, the old song comes to mind: “Summer time....and the livin' is ea-sy....”

As I wandered along the beach near the RV park the other evening, I found myself envying a family gathered around a campfire singing songs and softly strumming guitars. I used to camp every chance I got – sometimes with a dog, sometimes without, often with friends or family but often alone. I camped with my parents when I was a child, I camped with friends in tents or out in the open beneath the stars, I camped in tiny rustic alpine lean-tos on backpacking trails high in the mountains, and I camped (though I would hardly call it that) in a fully equipped trailer on my own little piece of recreational property in the Fraser Canyon. Whether in a tent, under the stars, in a rustic lean-to or a fancy trailer, camping has always been part of my life. Lazy days fishing or reading or hiking, evenings around the campfire, any spare time I had was spent doing these things I loved.






That is, until I began volunteering at sanctuaries and shelters and taking on senior and special needs animals of my own.

Working full time for pay while also volunteering 15-40 hours a week at a multi-species sanctuary for senior and special needs animals left no time for camping. From there I moved on to fostering animals – up to 18 at a time – pigs, alpacas and palliative dogs on my own property, while also assisting with rescue transports, homechecks and the occasional day at Hearts on Noses potbellied pig sanctuary. Post-retirement I moved on (both figuratively and literally) with my four adopted senior/ special needs dogs, and with various volunteer obligations as well life was pretty full.

Then the volunteer project I was most heavily involved with reached completion, and my two most needy dogs died the very next week, and suddenly the life of chaos amid structure, of uncertainty amid predictability, of going flat out for as many hours a day as I could while still caring for my deaf, visually impaired and cognitively confused shelties, was over.

As I wandered down by the RV park, and reminisced about my days of hiking and fishing and my nights singing and play guitar around the fire, it occurred to me.... I could actually do those things again. With only two quiet, old, easy-care dogs and few responsibilities, I could take off on a whim and go camping. Tenting doesn’t much appeal to me anymore, but my van is big enough for two dogs and me to sleep in, and I still have my campstove and axe and other basic necessities of camp life.

Or I could load up the dogs and visit my sister in Penticton or my friend of over fifty years in Vernon. I’m sure both would welcome me, with just two quiet, old, easy-care dogs.




Even without leaving home, the livin’ is easy with only two old dogs.

I now get up late for the first time in over forty years – and even then, it is my needs, not my dogs’, which drive me from the bed. Sadie and Charley have bladder control far greater than mine – they can go from nine at night until nine the next morning and still have to be coaxed outside to go pee.

I make very few plans for the day. If the errands and chores get done, great; if not, there is always tomorrow. I putter around the house or yard, take the dogs for a stroll on the beach or a short hike on some shady trail in the municipal forest. I snooze, or write, or chat with a friend, or confer with a neighbour about the blackberry brambles that are climbing over my fence.

I still volunteer at a couple of places, but schedules are flexible and the big fundraising events are over for the summer. I can go out whenever I want – the dogs don’t mind. As long as they have had their walk, they are quite content to sleep on the couch or the bed while I take off for who-knows-where. And when I am home, they continue to sleep – large black furry couch potatoes who demand nothing more of me than some food, fresh water, a few pats, and a soft bed.

Who you callin' a Couch Potato? I'm a Rug Spud!

An' this aint no comfy couch beneath me!

Well, okay, I'm a Sofabed Potato.

Or maybe just a bedbug...er..bed-dog.

[Aside from Allie: "Don't you DARE post dat picture! Don't you DARE!!! I'll be kicked outta the 'Cats Rule, Dogs Drool' Club if anyone seez me sleepin' wiv the enemy!!!]

It is a slow and easy life. And for now, at least, I think I like it that way. It offers.....possibilities. Many possibilities. I shall have to think about that when I next look at Chester, the eleven year old pitbull cross on the Bully Buddies website, or Casey, the ten year old yellow lab whose owners told the Maple Ridge SPCA they didn’t want him anymore, or Conroy, a ten year old boxer whose family dropped him off at a boarding facility and never returned, or any of the other dozens of senior dogs being temporarily cared for by rescue organizations and shelters in British Columbia. They all need a home. And I could provide one. But for now, it’s summertime, and the livin’ is easy.....with two quiet, old, easy-care dogs.

Sadie

Charley

You'd think.....

You’d think now that I’m retired I’d have MORE time to write and photograph and blog. Ha!

Maybe it’s just that I’m still unpacking, still hanging pictures and rearranging furniture and shopping for those little things one always seems to need when one moves to a new place.

Maybe it’s just that I’m exploring new trails and making new friends and greeting old friends and getting into a new routine (or, rather, a new lack-of-routine).

Maybe it’s just that I’m busy finding new health care professionals (canine and human), getting involved in a local movement to end the use of the gas box in this area for the euthanization of cats (more on that in another post), and checking out B&Bs for an overflow of visitors this summer.

Maybe it’s just that I’m still closely watching the critters as they adjust to a new environment – especially Oliver, little lost soul, who is finally settling in as long as I don’t rearrange or change anything, and Charley, who got very very sick after (I think) injesting something she shouldn’t while the other dogs were swimming and playing at Swallowfield.

Whatever the reason, I touch base with my computer about twice a day now – in the morning when I have four furry faces watching me, waiting for their walks, and in the evening when I’m too pooped to ponder and again have four furry faces watching me, waiting for their walks.

In between, it is go, go, go. The dozens of photos from a hike with friends and dogs (including Ellen and the whippet boyz) at Crofton Lake, and of flowers and dogs at Swallowfield, and of sunsets and sunrises and funny cats and silly dogs.....well, they are waiting on my computer to be woven together into a more interesting and entertaining post than this one. Stay tuned.

Retirement – when you finally get to do all the things you’ve always wanted to do, and discover there still just aren’t enough hours in the day!

Past, Present, Future: The universe unfolds

The Seawalk

Today is one year since my beloved Caleb went to the Rainbow Bridge. Adopted from the Cowichan Valley SPCA in May 2007, he was diagnosed with lymphosarcoma in December of that same year, and died at home in my arms on Feb 20th, 2008. He was an awesome dog, who could make the grumpiest person laugh and the darkest day bright. I miss him still.

Silly Caleb

And so, it seems fitting that on this day I also announce that I have purchased a retirement home in the very area where Caleb and I first met. We will be living just a block from the oceanfront cottage where Caleb, Charley and I stayed for a few days while we got to know each other. The dogs and I will be walking that same seawalk, going to the same off leash park and beach, hiking those same trails with many of the same people and dogs that we met on that first meet-and-greet visit and the second come-to-take-Caleb-home visit.

Hiking and swimming at Swallowfield, near Crofton.

(I think that's my friend Else's dog Archie in centre front)

Charley at Swallowfield

Charley at Osborne Bay off-leash park/beach

And it seems fitting, too, that one of my first commitments to my new community will be to sign on as a volunteer at the very shelter that housed and cared for my sweet boy for seven months before my friend Else talked me into coming to meet him.

Caleb, and Else's dog Hugo

And so, the big news to which Sadie recently alluded: my retirement is now definite, and I have found my retirement home!

A few weeks ago, I handed in notice to my employer and started the process of applying for my pension. Though I am not yet sixty, teaching is not what it used to be and my heart has not been in it for several years now. Financially, I will need to be frugal, but 18 years as a single parent taught me a lot about frugality. My father died in his 60th year, never getting to enjoy retirement. I have far too much living to do to want to work a day longer than necessary. And so this semester will be my last.

Then, just before getting hit by “the bug”, I made another flying trip over to Vancouver Island to have a second look at a house I had seen a couple of weeks earlier. And on second look, I liked it even more. I made a very low offer just to test the waters and even before I arrived back home, my realtor called with the news that my offer had been accepted with only the teeniest adjustment.

The last couple of weeks have entailed a flurry of activity as I made arrangements for home inspections, financing, title searches and insurance, mostly by email in my voiceless state. Subjects were removed, papers were signed, and I take possession on February 28th – in just one week’s time.

The home is a three bedroom rancher on a big-enough yard with a lovely old apple tree out back. I can see ocean and mountains from my yard, and can even fish from the dock just a block or so away. My home is located in the community of Crofton – population 2500, a few streets east and west, a few streets north and south, convenient enough to larger centres for shopping yet remote enough to meet my need for peace and solitude and small town life. Situated on the very picturesque Osborne Bay on the east coast of Vancouver Island, Crofton is only now just beginning to show signs of future expansion, making real estate there both affordable and a sound investment.

From my front yard to the ocean

A good omen?

And what of Martin and the piggies, you may ask? The physical and financial realities of my life had already led me to rule out purchasing acreage for my retirement years, and that is one of the reasons why I have never adopted the pigs that I foster despite loving them to bits. The piggies will go to the sanctuary as soon as Janice can prepare a place for them – unless one of my readers is interested in fostering a family of twelve adorable piggies????? You know you wanna…….

Martin, the alpaca who was abandoned on this property when just a cria, was sometimes fed by tenants and sometimes not, never provided with shelter, and seldom had any other needs taken care of. Because of my concern for his future welfare, I persuaded the landlord to sign him over to me (which he was only too happy to do) so I could ensure that Martin would never go through winters without food or shelter again. Before taking this step, I had carefully put backup plans in place for the time when, inevitably, I would leave this property. But time has a way of changing plans and relationships, and today that plan is no longer a viable option. Other potential homes also seem to have evaporated, but I am confident we will find exactly the right forever home for Martin. If you know of a place for a rather shy but rather nice alpaca to spend the rest of his days (he is about 9-10 years old now, and typically alpacas live to be about 20), please email me using the contact info at the side of this blog.

And so, in May, the dogs and cat and I shall begin the move to our new home. My neighbours here are not happy. My landlord will not be happy. The pigs and alpaca, while stressed initially, will adjust and will be happy because their needs will be carefully considered. And Charley, Sadie, Belle, Oliver, Allie and I shall be very happy.

I have always believed that things come together at the right time and in the right place, and not a moment before. Dissatisfaction with work, an excellent buyer’s market, great interest rates, and a desperate seller of a suitable home near the ocean in a community I have always liked, have come together to provide me with the makings of a new chapter to my life.

And now I know where I will be spreading Caleb’s ashes, which have stood in their urn in my office for so long. Some will stay here in the pasture where he spent each morning and evening with me, and some will go under the big old apple tree in the back yard of our new home to symbolize that he is with us still. He began his life of freedom and unconditional love in a little town called Crofton, and there his spirit shall rest.

Past affects future, and future reflects past. The universe is unfolding as it should.

The long road home

(Caleb, Charley, and - I think - Hugo)