Pets – Page 46

In Memory of Porter

In December 2008 we got an unusually heavy snow in Portland. You can draw a direct line between the day I took this picture and the day we adopted our dog Ellie. Our neighbor’s dog Porter saw me and came running over to say hello as he always did, always with the same enthusiasm, so I took a few pictures then put the camera down and played with him. He loved catching snowballs in the air and I so enjoyed my time with him that it got me thinking about getting a dog of our own. I had never given it much thought as I think our cat Templeton would have been miserable with a dog around. But he had died a year prior, and our three cats at the time had all met Porter and seemed fine with him, so my wife and I discussed it and a couple of weeks later we brought home Ellie.

Porter was always eager to see me the entire time we lived there, old age eventually slowed the speed at which he’d come bounding over but it never touched his enthusiasm. He loved to run back and forth across the yard with me and he loved to be petted. He was well loved by his family and lived a good long life until his health rapidly declined recently. I will always be grateful for this sweet pup, not just for his role in bringing Ellie into our lives, but for every time he made my world brighter just by saying hello.

Let’s Get Outside

“Let’s Get Outside” is an apt slogan for my hiking shoes but not for little Squeaks who, like all our cats, is indoors only. She doesn’t spend much time in cardboard boxes, sometimes I think she tries it just to understand why brother Boo loves them so.

Searching for Meaning

Boo looks out from the picture window in the dining room of our old house in Portland. This morning I noticed the door of one of the kitchen cabinets was moving on its own and suddenly out popped Boo. He quickly figured out how to open the cabinets after we moved here and one has become a favorite. Look inside and you’ll see he’s made a cozy space surrounded by reading materials like Catwoman comics and the writings of Heraclitus. I need to put an end to it because you’re not getting back to sleep when someone wakes you up at 3 a.m. to ask you why you cannot step twice in the same river.

Pupdate

Age continues to take its slow toll on our sweet pup Ellie but at fourteen or fifteen years old she is doing far better than I ever hoped. We found a good vet here in Scottsdale and the good news is her kidney disease hasn’t worsened. She’s lost about 10 pounds in the last 6 months but an ultrasound didn’t show anything alarming. A continuing trend and a symptom of the kidney issues is she is not as interested in eating her food so we have switched to a different food that has helped for the moment. She is still quite interested in the cats’ food but it has far too much protein for her.

She is feeling more pain in her back and hind legs so we are adjusting her pain medicines, there is some risk to her kidneys but at this point we want to make sure the remainder of her life is as happy as it can be. It seems to be helping, this morning she went on a 0.75 mile walk and kept a good pace the entire time, yesterday she went 1.17 miles! With the heat we don’t take her on evening walks but even in Portland it was getting difficult, I could only get her to go to the park and then she’d want to go straight home.

She loves sleeping both in her dog beds and on the tile floors although the tile is proving a bit slippery, we’re getting some booties that will give her more grip. Her attitude is one of joy as it always has been. Her hearing has been going for a while now, when I came home yesterday she didn’t hear me even as I walked up behind her but she happily greeted me when I rubbed her floppy ears.

Every day a blessing.

Great Views

I enjoyed some great views this morning on my first visit to Piestewa Peak but this will always be my favorite view.

26 Minutes

Two pictures taken 26 minutes apart as I tested out a new camera in March of 2017, Sam sleeping in my office in the late afternoon, first in direct light and then in diffuse light. The great snuggler is curled up beside me now.

The Wonderer

Angles

The Portland Farewell Tour

Before we left for Arizona I wanted one more picture of Ellie at the dog park at Irving Park, the first stop on all our walks, and this lovely spring morning gave me the perfect opportunity with the trees blooming behind her. Ellie had many dog admirers, a handful who absolutely adored her, fortunately I had a chance to talk with all of their owners before we left so they wouldn’t assume the worst when our elderly pup suddenly stopped showing up at the park.

📷: Sony A6500 | Sony-Zeiss 24mm f/1.8
🗓️: March 11, 2018

Heat Seeker

Trixie, like many of the cats before her, loved the wooden heating vent in the living room of our old house in Portland as she could lay on the hardwood with warm air blowing onto her belly. Our rental house doesn’t have any floor vents but it is not an issue as the heat finds you in the Sonoran Desert summer. After a hike at sunrise and a swim in the morning, I took a nap in my chair this afternoon with Sam in my lap and Trixie around my head, the heat not sought was brought.