This week has been a doozy.

On Sunday, September 17, we said our final goodbyes to our much-beloved baby-old-man dog Shiloh. He was 14 years and 7 months old. 

Every year that we marked with him was a year I felt really blessed that he was still around. The dogs in my childhood all came to early and tragic deaths and I had sworn I’d never get a dog again because it was so painful to lose them. I remember crying into my pillow yeeeeeears after these dogs had crossed the rainbow bridge. Tears have never been hard for me to find. Alas, I grew up, got married, and then had a little girl who very badly wanted a puppy. She got one just before her 5th birthday and that was it. I was head over heels for a dog again.

Shiloh’s doggie life paired well with family life, and even now as I go back into my blog archives I can see that he was exactly the same dog through all the years. He always loved to shred tissues. He always wanted to be nearby us, a part of our pack. He loved eating all human food—including veggies, with the exception of undressed lettuce—and was never a snuggly dog. Livia marveled at a few photos of him cuddling with her on the floor of our first home and I assured her that I was very good at snapping photos quickly. He loved his kennel. He loved routine. He understood the pecking order in the house which gave him something of a respectful worship for Jeremy, a loving protective nature toward me, and a sibling relationship to Livia. With me he was equal parts sassy and adorable, and it didn’t help that I found much of his sassiness to be hilarious. I am a far cry from an efficient dog trainer. But with Jeremy’s affinity for structure our Shi was potty trained quickly and was an all-around terrific dog. His enthusiasm for greeting people at the front door was only tempered by hearing loss as he aged. He still surprised us with a few zoomies in these last years. Oh, and he loved to lick. He was a licker. Himself. Others. Obsessed. Kissed the back of Judy Schlarb’s teeth after bible study one day, and one time enjoyed slurping my mouth out when I was laughing so hard I accidentally shut my eyes. That’s not a mistake I made twice. 

This week has been the strangest week as we begin to adjust to life without our furry buddy. The tap-tap from his claws has gone silent. No little face appears in my doorway after the guys come over for D&D or Magic. There’s no heavy breathing coming around my side of the bed to see what crumbs have been dropped by the type 1 diabetic mom. No snuffling through the piles in Liv’s room, no nesting on her bed, no staring with rapt attention at the gecko. The morning shift of potty-treat-meds has been traded in for a quiet cup of coffee and time to sit. The evening shift of potty-kennel-treats is no longer necessary. The expenses of an old pup—medicines, dry and wet food, extra vet visits—have been replaced with grief take-out and grief coffees this week. The doorbell draws no barks and no front door scramble. It is quiet uptown… in a canine type of way. 

Shiloh ultimately succumbed to congestive heart failure. He lived about 15 months after the condition was diagnosed, which is fairly average I believe. I opted to medicate his little body for all of that time, but his coughing grew worse at the end of last week and his rapid and shallow breathing Sunday morning was not sustainable. I could not ask for more time with him. He had lived so well and so lovingly for so many days. There was truly nothing more to do and enjoy with Shi—we enjoyed each other so fully every day that choosing euthanasia was our final act of kindness for this furry boy who had shared his entire life with us. The emergency vet office here in Lincoln was extremely professional from my explorative phone call around noon to the moment we walked out of their clinic around three hours later. I have been afraid of having to put a pet down for my entire 45 years and in the oddest way possible it felt like a relief to have survived the weight of that event. The vet was incredible. Our boy was so very tired. He very gently and quietly experienced a final rest.

He was the best and I loved him more than words can express. 

Shiloh, we love you, bud. I will miss your perfect furry face forever. 

Thank you, God, for giving us this precious bit of fluff that brought so much joy and rhythm, hilarity and light to our days. We are grateful. We are sad, but we are grateful, too.

This is Shiloh Roosevelt Tredway.

He is my favorite dog in the entire universe and he’s utterly bewildered why I 1) made him put on his collar and did not actually take him somewhere and 2) made him sit on the dining room chair when he’s not allowed on the furniture.

Despite his confusion and my insistence that I’m not a good pet photographer, we came up with this precious shot. Shiloh is sporting his Christmas present, a Ruff Rambler bandana (made by Lincoln locals and friends Bryce and Karen!), and I’m only now wishing I had moved his tags to a different spot. Turns out that keeping my model on the chair and focused on the treat in one hand while my other hand shot the picture was not an easy feat. I have no clue how Bryce and Karen are getting such beautiful shots, but I suspect there are a gazillion images in the trash bin, too.

Shiloh is our 11 year old Coton de Tulear and he’s a small, faithful, spirited little shadow that I have come to completely rely on for comfort and companionship. He’s a good dog brother to his human sister and he is a perpetual barking thorn in his master’s side because he thinks he must protect the missus of the house. He sleeps in the cutest positions ever, has never met a dog he doesn’t love, and will wait on the front porch to be let back in if his owners forget they let him out. His middle name is Roosevelt because Liv and I say so.

We love you, sweet Pooch-a-woochers.

I held my camera stretched out before me, lens angled down to hopefully capture Mama Robin’s eggs.

Got it.

I hear there is one tiny robin in the nest now, his shoulder blades still bare. I’ll let the neighbors and my Dr. Dolittle daughter check on the babies now. Time for Mama to have some peace. At least until I unhook our hose and scare her again.

Robin’s eggs are always stunning.

Shi-lawnie the Cotonie. Shiloh-loh-loh. The Woochest with the Moochest. This dog is a bundle of excited energy + long nap times + family adoration. He’s both the biggest goofball and the sweetest dog I’ve ever met. I like to think God gave us dogs as proof of undeserved grace upon mankind. I love my silly Shiloh (who is a Coton de Tulear, thus the title).

We’re hamster-sitting and Livia is in heaven. Our mouse—Dash—isn’t allowed out after the Escaping Act of 2016, so Liv is super happy to be a hands-on rodent sitter for our friends. Shiloh seems utterly perplexed why we’d keep more delightfully stinky vermin in cages instead of letting him chase them. I, too, am stymied by what our lives have become.

Just another day in the life of Dr. Dolittle’s Mama. Note: Dr. Dolittle also likes chocolate chip cookies. Can ya tell?

When you’re doing the December Photo Project and you’ve been home all day, you just might haul a camera out in 6 degree weather and photograph a [clearly starving] cat eating his food. He’ll stop and look at you, perturbed that you’d be so bold as to document him slurping down his kibbles. And then you won’t use the shot of his face because it isn’t flattering. Nor will you use the images of your husband diligently salting the driveway while holding today’s mail with his teeth because the shot turned out too blurry. (You didn’t grab the good camera, knowing you’d be skating on ice and might fall on your way to shoot cats eating food.) Such is the life in the day of a DPP participant. December 17 in a frozen tundra equals dragging a camera to the home where you’re cat-sitting.

We joined friends at Branched Oak last weekend and, as always, the setting sun inspired me. The subject sitting in the light, by virtue of his leash and a well-placed tree, was of the canine variety. Cooper posed nicely, and so did our lovely human friend Dejana.

More images coming soon.

The learning curve on gerbils is interesting. It’s definitely not rocket science here, rather it’s a learn-as-you-go process. For example, these little guys like to tunnel, which means they’ll kick up all their bedding and we’ll inevitably have cardboard chips or paper pieces outside their cage (and on table or floor or whatever). I bought bedding with lavender bits because, ooh!, it smells nice! But then what I earned in positive odors got replaced by messiness. This bedding shoots straight through the bars of their cage and, ugh, is ending up everywhere. The gerbils also seem to like to pee on the upper levels of their house, not so much on the bedding. I refuse to be a gerbil pee-wiper (in addition to my other shall we say “low” tasks as in the home) so I think this simply means we’ll have to clean their cage more often.

But look at these pics! Livia learned to clean the cage last weekend and life already seems sweeter. She puts Shiloh in his kennel (Shiloh REALLY REALLY loves the gerbils if you know what I mean), Vice in the ball and Whiskers in his wheel car, and then we collaborated to make a new home for the rodents.

In the past few days I have laughed more than once as I fed the fish—after hollering, “Has anyone fed the fish today?”—or refilled Shiloh’s water dish or dropped a handful of hay pellets into the gerbils’ cage. This is not exactly the mothering I envisioned for my life, but you know what? I don’t mind it. I like taking care of little beings and if God hasn’t given us more human chilluns to love at the moment, then I can tend to these little beasts in my home.

Fair warning, Whiskers and Vice, you are collectively the low man on the totem pole in this house. If/when respite or foster or adoptive or bio kids show up, you’ll need to start speaking out loud to get any attention from me.