One thing I am learning (well trying to learn) is that sometimes there are things you will just never be ready for. There isn’t the perfect time or setting and then when they happen – you have to make it the perfect time.

I still miss Brody. I can’t even talk about it (or type about it) without crying.
I don’t think I will actually stop missing Brody.
I still sleep with his blanket and I still talk about him in present tense.

I like having two dogs. My husband likes having two dogs.
Chili likes having two dogs. He is a worker and needs someone to boss around.

So when I decided to start looking around for a breeder who had the type of dog I wanted, I still wasn’t ready. I thought it would take a long time to find the right breeder. I had a list of criteria that were really important to be met. Once I found a breeder I liked, I thought I would hear that I would wait a year or two. I was ok with that.

The day before I contacted the breeder, her dog had a litter of 8 pups. Unknown to me, there was one puppy not already spoken for. When I spoke to her and she said the puppies wouldn’t be ready to go home until May 22nd (my birthday), I got goosebumps. Maybe then wasn’t the time but it sure seemed like I was supposed to get this pup… So we ARE getting this pup and the decision was not made lightly.

We have now known for weeks that we were going to go ahead with getting this puppy. I just wasn’t ready to talk about it, except to a few close friends. I have spent time with all of the puppies twice now.

Now has become the right time. It is actually pretty amazing how things have fallen into place. It is also crazy how ready I am for a little puppy power in my life. I can’t wait to bring home that cute, wrinkly, wiggly, shoe eating, floor peeing bundle of brownish/reddish fur.

It may not have been the right time but we are making it the right time. We are excited. I know Adam and I are good dog owners. I know we are responsible people. I know we think things through very thoroughly. I know this will be one of the luckiest dogs in the world.

What I don’t know yet is perhaps how many other things have I not let into my life because I didn’t feel it was the right time. I am thinking about it though. I am not going to start going around making huge impulsive decisions. I am going to try to be a little more open minded about waiting for the ‘right time’ for everything. Life just has to happen sometimes… right?!?

“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received.
He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything.
He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

“Fuck them is what I say. I hate those e-books. They cannot be the future.
They may well be. I will be dead. I won’t give a shit.”

“Live your Life. Live your Life. Live your Life.”

Maurice Sendak

There are plenty more quotes from Maurice Sendak on this post from Buzzfeed.

I like signs. The most mundane thing can inspire you, give you an idea or in this case – give me pause to reflect and conquer my lingering case of the blues. The other day a large sack of lemons was on sale at my local grocery store. SIGN! Know what life?!? I am going to take these lemons you are tossing me and I am going to make lemonade!

So I bought the large sack of lemons and squeezed each and every one by hand. The squeezing of the lemons was pretty therapeutic so I was pretty sure I was on to something. I was disappointed with the amount of juice I got from a large bag of lemons but my mouth was already starting to water thinking about my good old fashioned lemonade!

I looked up a recipe for old fashioned lemonade.
Equal parts lemon juice, water and sugar – Holy shit!
That is a lot of sugar!

The plan was derailed. I don’t want to drink anything that is 1/3 sugar, no matter how many lemons life sends me!

‘A ha’ moment was reached though. No matter how bad things seem to be or how many curve balls you are thrown – you woke up, you have another chance, you have another opportunity and you don’t need 1/3 part sugar!

Lemon flavored water is much better for you. One small slice of lemon can flavor a very large glass of water. Problems come and go but in the scheme of things, your problems are usually just a slice of lemon in a large glass of water. So tomorrow I will wake up (at least I hope I do) and I AM going to learn from these experiences and hopefully good things will come from them.

Photo credit: Pinterest

I have had two of these awful experiences in my life as a adult pet owner and I can attest – pets don’t generally get sprayed during pet store business hours. I have heard great things about Nature’s Miracle Skunk Odor Remover. We now have some in stock for ‘next time’ as much as I wish their wasn’t a ‘next time’.

On a calm Thursday evening, Chili met a skunk in our backyard. We used the trusty baking soda, peroxide and dish soap mixture and it did a decent job. You can read more about our experience and the homemade odor removing mixture on PROXI’s blog.

Homemade works but you should stock up on odor remover just in case!

I am a very busy person, many would say too busy due to my inability to say ‘no’. I can handle being busy. I am meticulous about keeping my calendar and sticking to it. So the morning I realized the whole calendar had just erased into thin air, was a bad morning.

I read all the forums, I asked for help online, I went to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store, I tried restoring it from a previous update but it was gone.

Most people that I asked for help said the magic words ‘well didn’t you back it up?!?’. If it was backed up, I assure you I would not have been as panicked. Those words were not very helpful.

So if you are like me and too busy to back up your devices, I am telling you to back them up because the time and information lost on the other end is really not worth it. I now have an event in my calendar every month to remind me to back everything up.

How to protect your information on your iPhone

• Sync your calendar to Outlook or your Google Calendar.
• Store your information on iCloud.
• My photos mean so much for me. I don’t know what I would do if I lost them. Put a copy of your photos in another location, like your computer.

If you find yourself here because you too have lost your information and did not back it up… the only solace I found was from my old friend Carrie Bradshaw.

“No one talks about backing up. You’ve never used that expression before, but apparently everybody’s secretly running home at night and backing up their work!”

Photo credit: flattop341

I just passed a month without my best friend and it doesn’t seem to get much easier. As Adam wrote, when I am going through a hard time it can always be fixed with a cuddle date with Brody. Now I am sadder than I can remember and my magic elixir is missing.

I know many people think they are just dogs but they are so much more than that. Brody has been my best friend since I was 20. He was my protector, the ultimate listener and my version of Prozac. There was not a single day that went by that he didn’t make me laugh.

Brody was larger than life and we lived his life to the fullest. It was not easy keeping that dog alive, even before the cancer. Brody had some special needs and an internal compass that was permanently askew. I could tell you Brody stories every day and you would find it hard to believe they were all about the same dog. His judgement wasn’t always the best like the time he jumped down a waterfall, ate a bottle of rug cleaner or approached a large skunk the way you would another dog (he went to go sniff the skunks rear – it ended badly).

Losing this part of your life is more than losing a pet. Your life, your schedule, your buying habits, exercising habits and how you just live your day to day life are around around this animal. You need to relearn how you do everything. With a special needs pup like Brody, my life very much revolved around him.

What I have

I do not have Brody but I know I do have a lot. I have a wonderful husband who has let me grieve in the way I need to. I have wonderful friends and family who have come to see me and let me know that they are thinking about me. I have an understanding boss and coworkers who have given me the space and time that I need to figure this out.

What I also have is the confidence that I did everything I could for my hairy friend. I never knew if when it was time, I would be able to make the decisions I needed to make. I know, I knew and I can sleep knowing I did everything that I could. The day I had to put Brody down, he had been in a lot of pain and a CT scan showed that he had dozens of lesions in his spine and in his ribs. The cancer was back, it was big and there was nothing I could do to fix it.

I have comfort in all the decisions I made along the way. The day Brody shattered his leg in April and we found out about the bone cancer, I made some decisions about what we would do. I took all my clues from Brody on what he wanted and what he was up for. With the amputation and the chemo, we got an extra 10 months and every day it was like he knew it was a gift. There was an actual smile on that dog’s face that didn’t go away until right near the end.

I loved that dog, let’s be honest, I was obsessed with that dog and taking the best care I could of him. He deserved it. Now I have to figure out how to carry on. I will. It will take time. I don’t know how much but I bet it is a lot. I think there will always be places and things I won’t be able to do without thinking of him and those will be little gifts.

Thanks everyone for your patience, your love and your kind words. They are truly appreciated. I will get back into blogging regularly about all the other pieces of life I come across. This is a part of my life and I appreciate that I had you and this blog to share it with.

Instead of making February 29th, just another day, let’s think of it as something special.

Here are a few ideas I have for MY extra day:

• Make goals for the next four years. Write them down and then revisit and see how I did.
• Try something I never thought I would do.
• Make something healthy for dinner I have never cooked before.

How about you? How are you going to use your extra day?

Photo credit: Robo Android

This is a guest post from my husband

“I have a dog!” I didn’t appreciate that I had rolled my eyes upon hearing this answer, as I immediately pictured the vast array of purses she must possess as carriage for her ‘mini-dog’, because she followed right up with: “no really, a real dog… he’s BIG, his name’s Brody”… and so the conversation with the beautiful blonde at the concert continued.

As Amanda and I continued dating, this fact was not lost on me and I can still vividly recall the first time I laid eyes on that magnificent mass of muscle. Not to sound cliché, but anyone who met Brody would agree he was seemingly chiseled out of a stone block without a piece of flab to be found or an inch of his frame misused.

As I stood there pondering the various ethical and moral implications of someone mating a Doberman with a Rottweiler, he wasted no time reminding me of whose house I was in, and whose girl I was there with and that she was not meant for sharing. I had decided to make quick work of our introduction and become best friends on the spot, but Brody had other plans and it became quite apparent his trust and respect was to be earned. Luckily there was footage of the encounter:

Brody and I eventually bonded over rough-housing and chasing each other around the house (not allowed), playing in parks off-lease (not allowed) eating food originally intended for humans (not allowed) and playing tug of war (also not allowed).

We excelled at getting caught and he would unknowingly toss me under the proverbial ‘bus’ as I often as I tattled on him. As many times as I shared tales of an XL size paw print on the counter, or an empty tissue box that I knew to be full the day before, he would just as swiftly snitch on me as he unwittingly exposed our secrets of food we would share against Amanda’s well-intended wishes. Whether already tucked in for the night or on the opposite end of the house he would bolt up and all 95 pounds would bound through the house en-route (often missing the turn while sliding sideways on hardwood floors) to the kitchen at the slightest hint of cheese slices being opened, a hardboiled egg being cracked or an ice cube tray coming out of the freezer, plowing over anything in his path. Our biggest bust may have been his over-exuberance when the whip cream can came out of the fridge… that would be our last day attempting that feat.

While I may have witnessed it for many years, even I cannot fully appreciate the bond those two had together, and what they each truly meant to each other. From the first day after adoption to their last days here at home Brody remained a source of joy, security, pride and a tremendous source of strength to Amanda, and for this he will never be forgotten. I cannot thank him enough for loyally standing watch over Amanda as she transitioned from a 20 year-old college kid (…with a puppy), to the intelligent and beautiful woman and loving wife we know and love today. Chili and I truly have some big paws to fill.

Brody was everything to Amanda: most loyal companion, good listener, protector, dance partner (4-legged version), co-pilot, singing buddy (little known fun-fact: the word “Brody” is actually incorporated into the lyrics of every song written… ever), cuddle-buddy, trail-guide, shoulder to cry on, a soft pillow after a long day and a daily welcome-home party.

Often the longest part of Brody’s day was the time (what seemed like hours) it took Amanda to reach the top of the stairs after her car came to a rest in the garage signaling her arrival home. I was almost always third in line to get my welcome-home kiss, which was fine as I was usually crowded out of the dog’s waiting spot at the top of the stairs… their tails/nubs wagging wildly.

Having been a dog owner for close to 20 years, I naively thought I could appropriately anticipate life with Brody; after all he is just a dog. Wrong. Brody was anything but your typical dog and the easiest way I can explain living with Brody, was that ‘Brody’ was a lifestyle. His hulk and bulk were hard to ignore but it was the little things we loved about the guy. He would often grunt and growl and play games with himself that we still aren’t sure if he knew he was playing alone? He would spin wildly in place and plop his front paws down like the puppy he was, always with a smile and a wiggle of the nub. Brody’s character permeated everything he did, and it was this goofball character that made his transition to a tripawd so easy for both himself and his mother.

In the coming weeks we will be tasked with deciding Brody’s final resting place. One would assume we would choose his favorite spot, but he has so many to choose from as he truly loved everything and everywhere. Running in the waves along the sands of Ferry Beach (favorite), chasing turkeys and squirrels at my parents’ house (favorite), swimming for tennis balls while swimming upright like a seahorse at Little Sebago (favorite), or bounding over bridges and tree roots while giving chase to Chili through the Fore River Sanctuary (also favorite).

If we asked him, I think Brody may have settled on the same answer his mother would: Peaks Island. With as big of a smile a dog could muster, the pair would always enjoy a crossing on the bow of the ferry, with that massive head poking out through the gate, doing his best to consume all of the salt air and scenery he could. I already miss these trips. He truly loved each lap of that island (especially with Stan in Trees – the truck), each trip to Centennial beach and each stay with his loving grandparents who I know are sharing this aching with us.

Amanda is in pain right now; there is a hole in her heart I cannot fill right now and a hurt I can only hope will soften with time… as the only one who could make it all better is now gone.

Thank you Brody for a lifetime of memories.

This is my new mantra every time I drive towards my house. I repeat it. I beg. I cry. I park the car holding my breath and I walk in the door full of wishes and promises to do anything to have Brody meet me at the top of the stairs.

I have heard that knowing your dog is sick matters less about their food consumption, less about their energy level and more on that one moment when you come home – are they greeting you at the front door? It has been about two weeks and only once or twice (yesterday was one of them) have my prayers been answered and there has been a wiggly nub waiting for me as I walk through the doorway.

Brody is hurt and we can’t find the pain. We have had x-rays, we have had blood work, we have had an ultrasound, we have tested for lyme and he passes every medical test. It isn’t the cancer, it isn’t the solo hind leg, it isn’t an infection and it isn’t lyme. I am out of money – let’s face it… I am beyond the point of out of money. We have him on 3 pain killers and have him on the oral chemo. He eats, drinks and goes to the bathroom just fine but he hurts and I hurt too.

I haven’t slept in my bed with my wonderful husband in about two weeks. I sleep on the schedule of a new mother – I sleep when my baby sleeps and that is a sporadic schedule. We have more appointments that I cannot afford next week. Until then I keep him comfortable, we snuggle, I operate day to day on autopilot and I hope, pray, and make deals with higher powers for some sign of recovery.

I have invested most of my wishes on that wiggly nub at the top of the stairs, greeting me at the door when I come home – that will be my sign.