I just found out that my sister and her husband had to help their sweet corgi, Lou, be fitted for his wings today. This is such sad news.
He had a little health scare earlier, but I thought he was doing better so this comes as quite a shock.
As a tribute to Lou, I thought I'd re-run a post I did about him when he stayed with us in May of 2011. We have been trading dog-sitting duties with my sister for a long time now, and we always enjoyed having Lou come to stay at "The Spa."
Our Visitor
May 27, 2011 We have a small visitor for the long weekend: Abby's cousin, Lou the corgi. He looks something like this:
Sleeping Lou
Although he actually looks a lot more like this:
Because he is older and so handsome, Abby LOVES him. He . . . tolerates her. Here she is lying across his path, trying to tempt him with her cuteness. He was not buying what she was selling.
He is very short. He fits under things...
...like our bathroom sink/cupboard
Last
night, we put his bed in our room and closed the doors so he'd be in
with us and we'd know where he was all night. In the night, Mike heard
him get in the shower. (Not like actually turning on the water and taking
a shower, but just walking in there. Our shower is attached to our
bedroom, you just kinda walk right into it, go down two steps and turn a
little corner and you're in the shower; no door, no curtain, nuthin'.) I
guess it was cool in there; not sure. Anyway, later in the night, Mike
hears him trying to get back out of the shower--which involves nothing
more than walking up two steps. Guess there was not enough room in there
to get any momentum going, so eventually Mike had to get up and go
boost him up unto the steps and outta there. (These are not deep steps;
in fact they're pretty shallow. I didn't even have to boost my
85-year-old mother with her bad knee outta there!) Maybe tonight we'll
leave the bedroom door open and let him sleep wherever he wants. Wonder
if he'll choose the shower again...
Here are a few more pics, since he (and Abby) are so cute:
He is good motivation for her to eat!
Abby -- sad because Lou doesn't love her
Lou figures out where Ab's treats are stashed
Ab figures out where Lou's treats are stashed
Ready for his close up!
I had forgotten about him sleeping in the shower. He was a funny, sweet, handsome boy.
Goodbye, sweet Lou. You were a good boy. A very good boy. We will miss you so much. Our hearts go out to your mom and dad. Please send them a little sign and let them know that you are okay.
We went away this past weekend with Rita to visit my mom. My brother and his family were there as well, with my brother's mastiff, Leo, and my nephew's Lab-mix, Lucy.
Big boy, Leo, licking the ice-ring that formed in the birdbath
No, I'm not writing about Rita after she comes home from the beach (although I could probably enter a sand castle competition with the amount of sand she brings home from Fiesta Island). Instead, I'm talking about Hurricane Sandy. Helen Woodward Animal Center (where I volunteer) got 45 cats
and dogs this past weekend from shelters affected by Hurricane Sandy. Forty-five!
You can read more about it
here, but basically each of the pets that arrived was already up for adoption before the storm hit. However, there were so many displaced pets after the storm, that the shelters didn't have room for the adoptable dogs/cats anymore and needed help.
HWAC, Southwest Airlines, SeaWorld, Delaware County SPCA and Save-a-Pet all worked together to fly the dogs and cats out to San Diego. Here's a super-sweet little video:
If
this video doesn't warm the cockles of your heart, then your cockles
need some serious thawing. I'd suggest putting them in the microwave on
auto-defrost and just leave them in there for as long as it takes.
A lot of the pups
weren't ready to be adopted yet when I was there on Monday for my usual
shift, so I didn't meet any of the dogs in the video but I did meet some other real sweethearts!
In
other Helen Woodward-related news, remember the other day when I posted this picture of the
gorgeous but somewhat, um, crazed looking pup that I was in love with...
...well,
when I went up on Monday, he was already gone! Hopefully he's being
spoiled rotten in his new furever home even as you read this. Hopefully all the "Sandy" dogs and cats will soon find their furever homes as well.
A Special Shout-out for Tripawd Warrior Princesses
The day after Thanksgiving will probably always make me think of our beautiful Abby. We brought her home from HWAC on 11/27/09, the day after Thanksgiving. We are very thankful that we got to have that special girl in our lives, even if for way too short of a time.
Sadly, this week, the last of the original Tripawd Warrior Princesses that I dedicated the drawing below to earned her wings.
Tripawd Warrior Princesses: Rio, Isabelle and Abby
I like to think our special girls are all together now, with their capes and their wings. Goodbye sweet Isabelle. You were truly an inspiration, surviving Hurricane Katrina and two kinds of cancer. Run pain free and say hi to my Abby!
I hope everyone here in the States had a lovely Thanksgiving!
The hub's physiotherapist suggested freezing cups of ice and using them to ice-massage some of the continuing trouble spots on his knees post-surgery. Well, Rita (who is completely uninterested whenever I try to give her an ice cube) has decided that these are super tasty.
Today, we have a guest mischief-maker that we're featuring - the delightful Pixie. (Rita's just been such an angel, we had to go hunting for mischief.) Doesn't she look sweet?