Every day I don't know what to write. Either I have too many ideas in my head or I have complete writer's block, just blank. Daily slices of my life include animal antics, thoughts and reflections on animals, thoughts about social injustices, righteous indignation about abuse and mistreatment of humans. Maybe that's odd. That world injustices plague my thoughts on a daily basis.
This morning we had a thunder storm. My dog, Maddie, is scared of storms. She shakes violently and sits on me. Like if I were sleeping or attempting to sleep she sits up on my body and stares at my face. And shakes. My job is try to comfort her. She resists being comforted though. Thunder storms are exhausting for both of us. This morning's storm brought Maddie to the front of my thoughts. And to reflect on how important this little fuzz-ball is in my life. She is my soul mate. My ride or die. My "favorite child." Maddie has been picked up by an owl twice now in the 3 1/2 years I've lived out here in the country. The first time was the night we celebrated Christmas with my Mom and we got home late.... like midnight or 12:30. When we got home, all the dogs came running.... this was when we still left them out sometimes when we were gone. We had the three indoor dogs and Sunnie, the outside dog. All dogs ran in the house and suddenly I couldn't find Maddie. I could hear her whining. But she was in J's room, all bloody and in obvious pain. We found 3 big puncture wounds. Like a bird of prey had grabbed her with its taloned feet. We called the emergency vet line and cleaned her up the best we could and took her in to the vet the following morning. By the time we went in to the vet, her whole underside was bruising already. Ugly, purple and blue and red all along her underbelly. She and I became inseparable. And slowly, she healed. At first, she didn't want to go out to go potty by herself. I would go out and stand with her. She eventually felt safe enough to go with the other dogs without a human going out with her. And she started to gain her ferociousness back. Maddie is a Shih tzu. Not particularly ferocious. But she loves to bark. Bark at the neighbors dogs, bark at coyotes, bark at skunks, at squirrels, at 'possums, and everything else out there.
This year in January the dogs were out one night, doing their thing and then they started barking. And barking and barking. Then I realized that Maddie was not barking. I became alarmed immediately. She loves to bark! Where is she? What is she doing? So I put on shoes and ran out and tried to find her. I ran out to the underground fence line, she usually goes clear out to the farthest corner and barks at the unknown. But all I saw was a little, crumpled shaped slumped on the ground. It was her. My Maddie. I called to her. Nothing. I touched her. She was stiff. I was sure she was dead. Then she breathed just a little and moved her head. I scooped her up. I had already called back to the house and I had said to J, "they killed her, Maddie's dead!" I am walking back to the house and J comes out of house. So I tell J, "she's not quite dead. But I can't find any injuries." Eventually I found puncture wounds, talon punctures! Around her neck and throat area. And I held her. After about an hour, her breathing returned to near normal. She was still in an obvious amount of pain. But we were, once again, inseperable.
Please excuse the very bad Mom-haircut. This is my Maddie. In desperate need of a haircut, and hoping we can swing a grooming service haircut. But if not, she doomed to another Mom haircut
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