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.

Merry Christmas, friends!

It’s time to rest. The gifts were all wrapped and then opened. The food was made and then eaten. The stockings were hung and then stuffed and then dumped. And after that, the matching dog pjs were tried on. They fit. Shiloh and I laughed a lot (or at least, I laughed a lot), a picture was snapped—my first DPP of the month with my iPhone—and then… rest.

In the midst of a dark year, God’s light shines even brighter to us. The good and sweet and celebratory things are even better than they used to be. We’re finding comfort in simpler joys, I think, but the eternal comfort of God’s goodness in giving us Jesus is the real gift. It’s freely given, embraced at a deep soul level every single day. Emmanuel, God with us, amen.

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).

December is finally here!! I awoke to a note on our kitchen chalkboard wishing me a happy early birthday and that kind of nailed it in terms of my love for this month. I start out anticipating both my birthday and Jesus’ (um, you really can’t ask for more than that) and the entire month feels celebratory. Love it.

This year I am super indecisive about a theme for my DPP shots. My general desire is to not carry my professional camera around town with me, but I also really love shooting with it (even though it’s got focus issues that will not get fixed to due to its age). So for now, I’m going to post iPhone documentary-style photography on my Instagram feed—and push them through to Facebook. And I’ll post Nikon D2x images here, just because I want to. When that gets overwhelming, as I imagine it will, I’ll shoot just one image and post it somewhere. There, that’s my plan.

Happy December, friends!

I took Shiloh, our 6 year old Coton de Tulear, to visit his veterinarian the other day. Since we’ve been fostering, I haven’t been on top of many smallish matters of life, so Shiloh was a bit late on his vaccinations. On the phone the receptionist told me to bring in a stool sample. O-kay. All day long I stayed glued to the bathroom activities of the dog—super fun, let me tell you—and finally at dusk his little dog body hunched in that familiar pose. I ran for a plastic baggy and when I came back? He was eagerly waiting at the door to be let in.

Have you ever seen a person act oddly in their yard or out on the street? You wonder what in the world they could be doing? Well, that was me that evening. Not only was the sun well on its way past the horizon but the yard was covered in small patches of snow, thus turning this experience into a real life Where’s Waldo with dog poop. I like to imagine the neighbors saying, “Honey, come see this! What in the world do you think she’s doing??” Because there I was, iPhone held high like a torch shining down on the ground with its capable flashlight app, making circles in the yard. I couldn’t have had more intensity in my pursuit if I had dropped my engagement ring. And you know what? I was successful. I WON! I won the, um, stool sample award? Yeah. Who’s keeping tabs on my awesomeness?

So yesterday was another moment like this one, except more gratifying because there was an end product and less humiliating because it didn’t involve poop. As many of you know I frequently collaborate with Maralee Bradley on columns both for her blog and for Her View from Home. Sometimes Maralee will come to me with a specific need, but more often it involves general ideas and I get to figure out what it is we’re looking for in terms of art. (My favorite example of this was when Maralee and I both received new foster children in a matter of days. She literally ran into my house and mumbled something like, “Now Hulk likes them, now Hulk doesn’t” and that was it. Somehow we made it work and it was one of my favorite shoots because I got to play with toys like a kid.)

I knew Maralee was looking for images of plants pushing their way through snow as they come up in the spring. After searching my archives and coming up with nothing, I went exploring. In the snow. And the wind. In the snowy wind. Snow rarely ever delicately floats to the ground in Nebraska; it usually comes down in a sideways driving-rain kind of maneuver, only it was driving frozen bits flying into my eyeballs. So again, were the neighbors wondering what in the world was going on with Mrs. Tredway yesterday? Kneeling on a plastic Trader Joe’s tote bag, I dug through the dirt and dried hosta leaves and found green gold. There it was: Spring making its way through Winter. Spring! It’s coming. Doesn’t matter that we were having a mini-blizzard on the last day of February or that snow is frozen in large patches on the sunken part of our front yard. Doesn’t matter that we’re still donning hats and mittens to run errands or that my snow boots are encrusted in salt from so many days of winter wear. Spring is coming.

I should’ve gotten on my hands and knees earlier. No matter what the neighbors might say.

We believe in cozy around here.

… when I looked through the front windows this morning. One bright cheerful face, happy her mom was watching. One inquisitive fur-face, wondering when he’ll be let back in. Here we are, Snow Day #2.

As I suspected, there will be a learning curve for all of us with this foster baby.

First up for Shiloh: diapers are not for eating. He’ll get it eventually.