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One year since Fletch was put to sleep.
The hardest decision you ever have to make for your loved pets.
Sometimes I wonder if I did him justice, then I console myself knowing that he spent at least 1 month of his short life being loved everyday.
He took his last breath with Pete and I both there to cuddle him. He went with dignity after a car trip with his head out the window.
You are not forgotten my boy with the velveteen ears....
A year ago today marked the beginning of a heartbreaking few months for me.
April 1st 2007 Fletcher came into our home and into my heart.
All I have right now is tears. I tried really hard to put together a photo tribute tonight.
I just can't. A year down the track and the sadness is still overwhelming.
Memories of my boy with the velveteen ears are bittersweet
I pray I did the right thing by you Fletch, you are missed immensley.
Today was not a good day.
Started out great, arrived early at the EKKA, got a good car park, had a coffee and a nice cuddle with Romeo - foster dog, not my foster - and then about 9am it all went a bit blurry and somewhat pear shaped.
Angie dog arrived with her foster mum and I went to pieces. Grief is a funny thing, it lurks, then it hits you full force at the most unexpected and inopportune moments.
I am not an emotionally demonstrative person, but I am cursed with a face that can't hide anything. Very often I land in hot water as what I am thinking flashes across my face clear as day before I have time to derail the mental freight train. I do not like people to see my feelings, and try very hard to put on a brave face. This may sound odd to a few of you - notably those that met me for the first time when I was blubbing like an idiot over losing a foster dog! - I know better than to be embarrassed by my emotions, I am not, I would just prefer not to have them scrutinized by the general public. I did a fine job today, relatively speaking, I sat on the couch with Angie in my arms and although a few tears escaped I thought I did remarkably well to stem the huge ball of anguish and rage threatening to erupt from within.
I did some running around today instead of staying at the EKKA for the duration. Just as well I think, I spent most of the day bursting into tears. Not a good look when trying to entice potential adopters for our dogs.
I am surprised at the enormity of sadness that I still feel. Not that I owe them anything less, I just didn't realise how very thin and poorly constructed the layer covering the hurt was.
Recently I am given pause as I look through my photo files for this blog, I am haunted by images of those I have lost recently. Those images make me both smile and ache. I am grateful that I have these images as I miss them so, and yet would not trade a second that I had with them for all this pain and more.
I truly look forward to the day that I can hold in my heart and mind only the cherished memories, leaving behind the blinding hurt.
I have stopped asking "why?"
Now I just need to know "when?"
When I look back, Fletcher was the ultimate April Fool's Day joke.
He arrived that day, and I was already enamored with him. Lucky, cause he kept me up ALL night. If I could change one thing about this experience it would be that first night. I didn't know why he was upset, why he would get up and pace and cry EVERY 15 mins. I found out on the Tuesday. His heart was stopping and he was scared. He was in a new environment and not sure what was going on. I would go back and do something, anything, to make him more secure.
I made the decision that he would stay with us until it was his time. I thought that I would have longer than 30 days.
We packed alot into the month. He went to sleep-overs with Amie, Blaze and Flo. He went to promos, he went to Greytwalks and experienced the beach. It saddens me that that was his first and only beach outing, he just loved the water.
He managed to work himself and Patch slyly into the bedroom at night. If we left him in the lounge he would cry, as soon as he had a bed in our room he started taking himself to bed! He grew on Pete, and Patch loved him too.
They played together, they slept together and they ran away from the evil Chicken together!
Getting access to the depths of the house meant that they had invaded Chicken's space. This was not taken lightly, I would often see the pair of them scrambling up the hallway followed by a nonchalant Chicken. He has always given Patch grief, but Fletch got away with so much more.
I watched my beautiful black dog with the velveteen ears come to love us. If I went out of sight at a promo his little heart would race until I came back. I indulged him, way more than I would have if I hadn't known that he would only be with us for a short time.
I cherish all 30 days I had with my baby, I am sad beyond belief that he is gone. I made the decision to put him to sleep on the 30th of April. The last thing he experienced was hanging his head out the window on the car ride. He was surrounded by people that loved him, including Si, who I couldn't have done this without. 
I gave him all that I could and he gave me such love and joy, and also great sadness. I will never forget my Fletch. He was a gentle, sweet lovable idiot, he stole my heart, annoyed the bejesus out of me on many occasions, made me laugh and made me cry. Good-bye sweetheart, we all loved you and you will be in my heart forever.
Given there has been so much sadness and stress in the greyhound world lately, what with Alice a little while ago, then Mo and Girlie going to the bridge. The news about Fletch and poor Flo having stress with her teeth, the Omo saga, I decided that some comedy was in order.
Besides all the stress and tears these guys cause, they also bring endless joy and laughter.
Miss Pepper is only a baby, she is into everything. She has a promising career at a 1900 phone sex company. While in foster she discovered that there was this thing that made a funny ringing sound. Yes, a phone. Well, not only did her big triangular ears prick up when this happened, she decided to investigate it with her mouth, as puppies do. She started off by carrying it around, and then one day when it rang she "answered" it! The lady on the other end thought that it was a child and kept asking for Pepper to put "mummy" on please. So she can easily make a lucrative career out of heavy breathing while she lays on her couch....ah, the life of a retired grey!
Then there is O'Hara. He is a smart boy. His peeps would come home and find various items from the fridge on his bed. How would that be possible..... all items were safely in the fridge when they left the house.....seems that he has figured out how to open it.... who said greyhounds were dumb?
This is O'Hara about to fall in the bath, he has come a long way from the clumsy boy he was when I first met him.
I was under the impression that greys had somewhat sensitive stomachs, someone forgot to fax that memo to Jeffrey. He has so far eaten; a tube of putty, yes, tube and all. The end result of that was not so nice I hear! If that wasn't bad enough he has added to his list, fertilizer, bag and all, a plastic bottle of coolant, again, bottle too, and a few other things that really aren't meant to be eaten. One might think that he is a little slow, quite the opposite, he has worked out how to unlatch gates and open doors.
These dogs are not your average dog. They are greyhounds and they are just such amazing creatures. Which makes it all so much harder when they leave us.
One of the highlights of my day at K9 Capers was getting to see Murphy. He is as gorgeous as ever, and much loved in his forever home. Seeing him and Fletcher together was quite funny, they are so similiar, even behaviour wise.
Not the best photo, but you can hardly tell the difference between them.
Fletcher was already lying down by this stage. Much to my surprise both he and Patch slept through and Fletch even went out as normal at 5am, but then he came back inside and went back to bed for a few hours. Patch refused point blank to get up before 8am when I had to make her go outside so I could leave for work. On one hand I am grateful for getting to sleep in, on the other I am worried as this means that Fletch just doesn't have the energy to be as active as he was even a week ago.
He still has his moments, his latest game is to pick up a toy from the lounge, throw it around a bit, carry it carefully to the bedroom, play with it a bit there. He then either trots back out with the same toy, then exchanges it for another one, or repeats with the same one a few times! Then he may leave one in the bedroom, back out to the lounge and starts with a new one. The end result is us humans laughing till we cry as he trots up and down the hallway and after about 3 hours all the toys have been moved to the bedroom.
Patch just rolls her eyes as this goes on, she is firmly planted on her bed and has no intention of moving.
Especially when she is all tucked up under her polar fleece blankies, she refuses to wear a coat but loves to be bundled up in blankets. She has even worked out how to pull them over herself when she is cold. I have such a clever girl.....
As previously noted, I am not good in the mornings. I have always hated the neighbour to our right. I believe she needs a hobby. Pete helpfully points out that she has one.... gardening. Yay for me. Her hobby means that I am often woken at ungodly hours by lawnmowing and whipper snippering and other loud annoying gardeny noises. There is a bloody drought, where is all her magic grass coming from???
Ok, so people in glass houses and all that... I know that I occasionally have dogs that make noise. The last few mornings I have been attempting to sleep in. I am getting old and cranky and need my sleep. Having a life is quite exhausting these days. Between pretending I have a job, doing things for GAP and trying to participate in a social life I am knackered. - I digress. Sleeping in is really difficult when you A: are required to get up between 5.15am and 5.30am to let Fletch out to go to the toilet, provide him with a bone to keep him amused for a while and go back to bed. (Patch has worked it out, she pretends she is fast asleep while he gets up,, waits until he leaves the room and then does a theatrical fake "sleep" sigh and artfully stretches herself over ALL the bedding in our room) Then B: realise that Fletch isn't howling and crying and have a panic about whether the gate was really closed (even though I have just checked it) then wonder if he has had a heart attack..... C: finally drift back into la la land only to be woken by barking and howling. Feel somewhat comforted for a second that Fletch is in fact still alive and vocal, climb out of bed, go to the window, only to realise that Fletch is quietly munching on the bribe bone I gave him and the barking dog is not mine.
In some ways this is comforting to me. I realise that nobody likes waking to a whining dog and that Fletch put on a song and dance the first week or so he was here. I now feel much better, I have TWO dogs, and despite the whole damn neighbourhood doing mexican bark wave, they won't lower themselves and join in. Possibly because that would involve effort.... also possibly because they more than likely started the whole thing by thundering around the yard like baby elephants at 6.30am when Pete lets Patch out. See, by this time they haven't seen each other for a whole hour or so, and it is SO EXCITING to see another greyhound that they simply must express this by jumping all over each other then playing chasey up and down the dirt that was formerly known as our yard.
Really, how could these two be responsible for such happenings. They would not tear up the yard and spend the day lying in dirt so that when I come home I have 2 grey dogs, unheard of!
This is a deceptive photo, I swear she has no white on her, I have to wipe them over with a towel before they are allowed into the house at the moment, thanks to the two suspiciously greyhound shaped smudges of dirt that the rug is sporting. - And yet, they look so innocent....
Giving any foster dog the chance to be part of a family is rewarding. Having Fletch with us is a mixed blessing. I get to show him all the good things he would never otherwise have seen or experienced. He has discovered toys...
Patch is being generous and allowing him to have some. Sometimes... she has her moments. Then again, there are so many she can't keep ALL of them all of the time, much as she might try.
I also introduced Fletch to the beach. We went to Greytwalks on Sunday. Patch did the big walk while Fletch took it easy in the picnic area. I took him down for a little quiet splash after the big walk. He LOVES water. Pranced around like an idiot, did a full flip at the end of his lead and went ass over. Landed on his back/head in the water. He sat up looking a little surprised, shook himself off and started all over again. He can't do alot of exercise, his legs go all jelly like after a bit. So went dried off and he had a rest while all us peeps had coffee and cake.
Patch was unimpressed when I took him down to the water and left her behind. She got up and looked for me, sniffed around and then carried my shoe over to her towel, lay down with her head on my shoe and watched me until I came back. My dogs are truly my dogs, or I should say, I am truly theirs.
Before her sulk session Patch was having a great time.
She looks like she is missing a leg in this photo, she is just in mid shake.
I got totally saturated, to be expected I guess. I didn't expect to lose my keys though! Running through the sand and playing silly buggers, they fell out of my pocket, unbeknown to me, until someone asked me if I was missing something. I was so lucky. Couldn't imagine how long it would take to find them if I hadn't realised until later, and chances are I wouldn't have....
Puppies slept all the way home, nothing like happy sleeping puppies....
