Just Another Memory of Another Adventure

My poor Trooper has been gone since January. I still miss him. His dog pillow is still in my bedroom. Sometimes Jake sleeps on it and sometimes a cat snoozes there but we still refer to it as Trooper’s pillow.

Once again I am amazed at the adventures at this house. And they all involve me. My dog, Trooper, has dementia and failing hips. He is losing lots of weight despite eating plenty. It is not pretty and I have promised when he cannot get up or the dementia becomes so bad I feel like he has no quality to his life, I will do what I have to do. But be forewarned it is going to be a very hard time for me. I have loved that dog for more than 10 years. As with humans, the nights are the worst. He paces a lot and due to the hips he has a terrible time getting up and down. He falls a lot. We lock him in our room at night and when we hear him get up, we get up and let him out. If I am the one who gets up, I walk him down the ramp and turn on all outside lights so he can find his way back. Gene opens the door. This morning about 2:30 he got up and I was already awake so I got up, let him out, walked him down the ramp and had all the light on. Gene says he usually stays out about 30 minutes. So I laid awake waiting for him to come back. Of course, by then I have managed to wake Gene up so after a while I asked Gene to check and see if Trooper was on the patio. He often loses the door and can’t find his way. When Gene opened the back door he could hear him barking in the far back. So he came back to the bedroom to say he is barking in the far back and he has probably fallen. So I jump up, slide my feet in my birkenstocks and take off. Gene took time to get dressed for the weather. I grabbed a flashlight and took off. He was as far back as he could get and down over a bank that is all grown up. I went through the briars and brambles to get to him and could not get him up. So Gene came and it took both of us to get him up and then I walked in front and Gene half carried him by the loop on his harness. We got back to the house, got Trooper back in the house and back to his bed. I washed off my feet and got in the bed. This morning my sheets looked like “someone had killed hogs”. Apparently, those briars and brambles were hard on my legs.