The good…and the bad.

Life is a bunch of goods and bads and, somewhere in the middle, it all evens out, I guess. Right now is one of those “evening out” times. At least I hope it works out like that.

Tallied in the “good” column is a new book coming out this Friday, and this past weekend spent at FetishCon with Sir, a desperately needed weekend “off” where I could just put the world on hold and try to relax and take a break.

I say try, because that’s where the bad column comes in.

Our eldest dog, Scudder, who we’ve had since the day he turned eight weeks old, is unfortunately going downhill fast. He has a bad hip and he won’t even get up now. We have to struggle to get him to eat, and he’ll let us know he has to go out so we can take him outside–meaning carry him outside–but that’s all. He’s sixteen and was the first service dog puppy we raised. (He flunked for a variety of issues, so they let us keep him.)

Scudder, Christmas 2012

He’s not just been our pet. He’s been friend, confidant, the one ready with a wagging black Lab tail to try to cheer us up. My soul friend, and even familiar. Countless tears have been cried into his coat over the years by all three of us. He was always the one to come to us first when one of our other furbabies went to the Rainbow Bridge, there to comfort us with those big, sweet brown eyes.

I even immortalized him, and one of our other dogs, Tessa (who passed in 2010) in one of my stories (Puppy Dog Eyes) by naming characters after them.

Despite the trials of puppyhood, when he ate linoleum in both our kitchen and master bathroom, among other things, he grew to become a great dog, usually glued to me when I was home, and usually the first to step forward with a warning growl if he thought I was being threatened. In his younger days, he was a counter cruiser extraordinaire, including several pairs of kitchen shears (ate the handles), food, paper plates, dirty diapers he fished out of the garbage (prompting revamps of having to hide the garbage cans from him), and underwear. He used to love to fetch the newspaper for us (one of the tasks he learned how to do well in his initial training before flunking), and plenty of times, Hubby and I would deliver cards to each other by giving it to Scudder and sending him after the other.

It’s been reasonably calm around here since 2011, when we had to send our bulldog, Bubbles, to the Rainbow Bridge, due to cancer, not too long after my grandfather died. (Yeah, that was a sucky year, because a friend of ours ended up getting sick and dying of cancer later that year.)

Hubby and I are both having a hard time with this. And it’s times like this that the true depths of friendship come into play. I think some people assume since we have an alternative lifestyle that it’s all about fun and games and kinky shit. The truth is, I’d say over 80% of our relationship is “vanilla.” Maybe closer to 90%. Sir offered to go with us to the vet, if needed, or even to take him for us if we didn’t think we could.

That’s friendship. Today when we got home from our weekend at FetishCon, Sir took a few minutes to sit with Scudder to love up on him and say goodbye to him. We’re going to take him ourselves in the next couple of days, but I’m sure my two-legged black Lab (Sir) will be consoling me and Hubby both over the coming days. So those are good and bad column tallies that cancel each other out.

Scudder, 8/18/13

When I say we’re a family, we are. We call ourselves a “pack” for reasons just like this. And it’s all about love and friendship. The other stuff we do is incidental to all of that.

We’re not sure what day we’re doing it yet. I have to call our vet tomorrow and talk to them. But with all this happening, I have a job to do, yet it feels wrong to sit there pumping out promo for a new release when all I want to do is sit here and cry. Even Gidget and Apache, our other two dogs, are hovering around us and Scudder.

The cats, of course, are cats. LOL As long as they’re fed and their litter is clean, they don’t care about what happens in dog world, even though they share the same turf.

Hug your furbabies. And your human loved ones. Life is short, even when it’s filled with 16 years of love.