Woeful and weird weekend

The last post I wrote, I was merrily counting my blessings.  I thought about titling this post "Wallowing in my Woes", because Stu best summed it up when he said, "Yeah.....2011 is not going to go down in the books as a 5-star year."  Our family has been through a lot of stress, upheaval, and change since the beginning of 2011.  I write my blog to try to keep track of some of the snippets of our life.  And sometimes life is not happy, funny, and/or easy.  Sometimes life is sad, stressful, and just downright hard.  I won't spend the whole post "wallowing", but in all honesty, the past several months and especially the past few days have really, to put it mildly, sucked.

It seemed like the weekend was going to start out ok.  On Thursday, I took the day off (worked on Wednesday, my usual day off, instead) and Stu and I took the kids to Bunker Beach.  It was super fun.  We'd highly recommend it.  But when we got home that afternoon, I noticed that one of Rosko's myriad lumps and bumps was oozing a clear, smelly, sticky substance.  I knew deep down that this was not good.  I talked to Stu and my mom about how worried I was and came up with a plan to have the kids say goodbye to Rosko on Friday morning, just in case, and make a vet appointment ASAP to have him looked at.  Then things seemed to snowball from there.  Rosko woke up Friday morning, seeming fine and drank some water.  I took him on a leisurely walk and moments after starting out, he puked up all the water he'd just consumed, mid-stride.  He seemed perky, trotting around and sniffing stuff on our walk.  As I'd planned, I had the kids say goodbye to Rosko, tell him they loved him, and giving him hugs.  I took some photos.  Ok - the next part sounds a little woo-woo but stick with me here.  Stu and the kids walked out the door to head to daycare and I began to dry my hair.  Suddenly I thought, "I wonder what Rosko's doing?" and I peeked out from the bathroom to the living room.  What I saw left goosebumps all over my body.  Rosko was sitting, stock-still, staring at the family picture of us on the end table.  I would have thought he was looking outside, watching Stu and the kids drive away, except the shades were down.  I ran for my camera and by the time I returned, he was looking at the side-by-side framed photos I have of him as a puppy and as an adult.  It was the strangest thing.  I just "knew" that he "knew" that it was his time and he was looking at his family for the last time.

My poor lumpy, old dog looking for one last time at his family and his own baby picture.

I wanted a picture of Rosko with me so I set the timer on my camera and tried a couple times to leave Rosko sitting and get back to him.  He kept laying down.  This only supported my feeling that things were not good with him.  But we did get a nice shot before I had to leave for work.

To me, Rosko looks tired and sad in this picture :(

I left for work and called the vet as soon as they opened.  They got me right in.  I drove home from work to pick Rosko up, secretly praying that he would have just passed away during his morning nap because I so didn't want to have to make the choice to have him put down.  He greeted me at the door though and seemed his normal self on the way to the vet.  I love our vet and when he drew some fluid from the oozing lump I was worried about, he didn't really mince words.  He basically said it wasn't looking good but there were some rather drastic measures we could take.  I broke down and explained that our family did not want our beloved, old-man dog to have to go through anything like what he was proposing, only to prolong his life for potentially only a short time longer; that we'd said our goodbyes that morning, just in case.  The vet said that if I was ready, he wholeheartedly agreed that putting Rosko down was the right and most compassionate thing to do.  I stayed with Rosko until he was gone and as I sobbed, the vet explained to me how now that Rosko had passed, he was even more certain that it was time, if not past time.  In his many years of experience, he's found that healthy dogs that need to be put down, for whatever reason, pass very quickly since their internal organs, cells, etc. are healthy and the "medicine" passes through them quickly.  It took Rosko about 15 to 20 seconds to pass, which told the vet that he was likely very sick on the inside and had simply been existing for some time.  That put credence to how Stu and I have felt this summer.  Rosko wasn't exactly his same, young, exuberant self.  He slept probably 22 hours out of 24 each day and more recently, had refused food a couple times.  I am happy that Rosko has crossed the Rainbow Bridge and is in doggy heaven but this has been a houseful of grief for the past two days.  Max and Adam are doing ok but Stu, Ryann, and I are taking it pretty hard.  Rosko was mine and Stu's first baby and for the past couple years, Rosko has started out his nights of sleep in Ryann's room (then I'd go get him and move him to our room when Stu and I went to bed).  Just as we've gotten past all the other crappy stuff this year, we'll get past this too.  In the meantime, here's a tribute to our wonderful friend who we'll never forget:

Stu and I adopted Rosko from the St. Francis Animal Rescue organization when he was almost 8 weeks old.  It was about six months before we got married and about 2 weeks after we'd moved into our new house together.

Rosko grew quickly and came with us on our honeymoon at my dad's cabin.  One funny memory Stu and I share is how we'd asked friends to let Rosko out during the day of our wedding and they waited too long.  By the time they got to our house to let him out, Rosko had held it for so long that he ended up sick to his stomach and leaving a diarrhea mess throughout the house.  They didn't clean it up, just let him out and stuck him in the bathroom.  Stu and I returned home after our reception to clean up dog poop in our tux and gown.

Sometimes, Rosko made other messes in the house (all this stuffing used to be inside that Elmo doll) but we forgave him every time.

Before we had babies, Rosko was our child.  I talked to him in baby-talk and when I referred to Stu, I called him Rosko's "Papa".

Then we started having babies (Max and Rosko)

...and more babies (Ryann with Rosko)

...and more babies (Adam and Rosko)...and he was the most patient, loving, careful dog with those babies we ever could have dreamed for.  He put up with tons of pushing, pulling, climbing, poking, pinching, hugging, kissing, and downright mauling without batting a furry eye.

The poor thing even had to wear antlers one Christmas when I cooked up a hairball idea for a Christmas card photo

The boys posing with Rosko on Friday morning

One last portrait of my old friend

Now, onto the weirdness of the weekend...I decided to take a bike ride this morning as my daily exercise instead of my usual walk/jog.  Three quarters of the way home, I encountered a middle-aged black lab running down the street on its own.  At first glance, I thought it was my neighbors' dog and called out, "Emma?" and the dog ran right up to me, wagging his tail.  I quickly realized he was not Emma. He had an invisible fence collar on but no identification.  He was a good listener, sitting when I asked him to and seemed very friendly.  I looked around for his owner and tried telling him to go home but he laid down on the sidewalk next to me so I shrugged and said (yes, I was talking, out loud, to a strange dog...I'm grieving, remember), "I'm going home; you can come with me if you want" and started off on my bike.  Lo and behold, the black dog got up and jogged right along beside me.  He was panting pretty hard so I was talking to him, encouraging him, and telling him we were almost home.  When we'd cross streets, I'd warn him to "wait now" so that I could make sure no cars were coming because I didn't want him to get run over and I swear the darn dog was listening to me.  He'd slow down and wait until I told him ok, let's go ahead and cross.  I put him in our backyard and got him some water.  I put up signs, at the end of our driveway and on the light post on the street near where I found him.  The sign said I'd found a male black lab and gave my cell phone number.  The family went to church and I waited with nervous anticipation for my phone to buzz.  By the time we got home and had eaten lunch, Stu called me to the backyard to have an adult conference about what to do.  Seems we both had a good feeling about this nice dog.  We decided if we couldn't find the owner(s), he had a home with us. I introduced the kids to him and they called him, "Jumpy".  But I did not want his owners to be pining for him, like I've been pining for my forever lost dog.  So, in a last-ditch effort to find them, I took "Jumpy" to the vet to have him scanned to see if he was micro-chipped.  And, hallelujah!, he was!  The vet tech told me it was only the second time they've ever had someone bring in a lost dog and it was actually micro-chipped and they were able to reunite the lost dog with its owner.  I didn't feel one ounce of sadness; I was just overjoyed that the nice dog was going to get to go home to its family.

The other weird thing that happened today was that when I went out to check on "Jumpy" after we'd arrived home from church - there was a little bird stuck in our garage.  Here's another woo-woo moment for you - my mom believes that often, after a dear loved one dies, you are visited by a bird.  And that bird is your loved one coming back to say hi, look after you, whatever.  So my mom's convinced the little bird was Rosko, dropping by to say hi...or one last goodbye.