Dogs

The day Mica and I closed on out house after apartment living for a couple years together, I drove the moving truck to the new house after I got off work, said "have fun" then hopped in my car and drove down to Denver. While her and her sister carried all of out stuff inside, I was down picking up Sierra, my black lab. She moved into that house the day we did. Over the next 8 years or so, she's been a great dog. A hunting partner, a friend, a pillow from time to time, and now a bridge more than anything else. One day I came home from work and found a huge growth on her side, I took her to the vet and had it checked. Cancer was the diagnosis, and Sierra was operated on almost immediatly. That was 5 years ago, and you can still feel the divot in her side where she had a huge chunk of her body removed.

Two years after Sierra came Jasmine the Chocolate. The Chosen One as dubbed by my friends, the dog that could do no wrong. Jasmine is my dog through and through. I paid $1000 for her, her hunting lineage is awesome. Her mother and father are both Master Hunting Retrievers. I had hunted with both Jax and Max (mom and dad) before and knew I wanted a puppy from them. Hell I paid the 1000 before she was even conceived. Jaz can hunt, handle (where she can be guided by hand signals and whistle) and is the coolest little dog in the world. On the first day of our first hunting season together, the guy I was hunting with, hit Jaz with his pick up, pulling her under the L/R tire and pulling her hip out of its socket. After the surgery, she almost lost the leg to infection. Jaz runs with me from time to time in the morning when the situation allows it and I spend time with her every chance I get.

Riley belongs to Mica. A yellow lab, that I haven't really spent much time with. She's a cool little dog, don't get me wrong, but she hasn't been trained by me and she's wild still and has poor manners. Mica was given Riley at the time when our marrage was really coming apart. I had pretty much checked out of it at the time. We were living in the same house, sleeping in seperate beds. We never fought because I pretty much worked all the time and when I was home, I was sleeping, or just closed off. She needed something or somebody and so along came dog #3. Riley was mauled by a Chesepeke Bay Retreiver owned by the people who owned her before us. Her right eye still tears and she is missing teeth on the side that they had to do surgery on her to put her face back together.

Through all this, all three dogs are still alive, still living up at the house. On a day like yesterday, my day off from work during the week, I was able to go and spend the day with them. They are like children to me, and many dog owners are this way.

The person who is one of my best friends in the entire world, is living what could prove to be the toughest weekend of her life, as she faces having to put her dog, her baby, to sleep at the end of the weekend. Because we both love dogs, we talk a lot about them, hers and mine. We've never met each others, but feel like we know them personally. I thought a lot about her and her dog yesterday as I spent the day with mine. I'm sorry Chris. I don't know what else to say.

Race report on my half to come tomorrow.