Ellie – Page 7

The Last Picture I Took in Portland

This is the last picture I took before leaving Portland, the three cats crated up, the last thing to be packed into the car. I love how Ellie snuck into the picture. I thought today was going to be more emotional than it was, leaving the house for the last time after 16 years, leaving Portland, leaving Oregon. Maybe it’s because the past month has been a slow-motion move, maybe it’s because I just want the move to be over with, maybe it’s because I’m more than ready to start my life anew in Arizona.

Goodbye Irving Park, I Love You

As our move to Arizona draws close, let me say goodbye to some of the things I’ve loved about our time in the Pacific Northwest, starting with Irving Park. When we moved to Portland 16 years ago, we only had cats so we never considered how close the house might be to a dog park. When we adopted Ellie in 2009 and trained her to go off-leash, it was a delight to discover a dog park was only a few blocks away. After not stepping foot in the park until then we’ve visited twice a day, every day, since. In the sun, in the fog, in the rain, in the snow. Not the ice, Ellie hates the ice.

These days Ellie keeps her evening walks short so we go up to Irving Park but not all the way to the dog park, but most mornings she wants to make it up the hill. More to meet the owners than the other dogs, both because she adores people and because she never misses an opportunity to try to convince someone to give her a treat. After that we head out into the neighborhood, occasionally she wants to go straight home but usually she’s up for a longer ramble, even at 14 years old.

The trees started blooming a couple of weeks ago so I took advantage of a sunny morning to get one last picture of Ellie at the park. A variety of trees ring the paths of the park, some giants from long ago whose lives were spared when the area was carved from the forest. A handful of years ago I deliberately traded a lot of my hiking on the weekends for long walks with Ellie when I realized our aging pup would still go on long walks if they were in the morning, and while I miss the hiking I wouldn’t trade my time with Ellie for it.

Thank you Irving Park for many great memories with this greatest of pups. Thank you to all who helped create and maintain the park over so many years. Goodbye, I love you.

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

The Ball Game

Someone from the moving company came the other day to do a walk-through of our house. Ellie was eager to greet him, as is her wont, but then she got her orange ball and starting tossing it at me. She followed us around, trying unsuccessfully to get me to play, the entire time he was there. When we were finished, the moment he was out the door I turned to Ellie to play with the ball but she wouldn’t even put it in her mouth much less play with it.

You make me laugh, my pup, my heart and my joy.

Guarding Boo

Tired

When my team got laid off at the start of November, one nice thing the company did was set us up with another company that gives advice to people in our position in starting the job search and updating resumes and online profiles. They gave a lot of good advice which genuinely helped on the job search, but one piece of advice I deliberately didn’t take, even though I think it is a good idea, is to treat the job search like a job and take the weekends off to recuperate. I didn’t do it because I was looking at different industries and different cities and had a lot of research to do. I don’t regret it, pursuing even the long shots as long as they interested me is how I got the job I accepted. But there’s also no question it left me mentally worn out.

And physically worn out as well, the past four months I’ve a hard time getting back to sleep once I wake up in the morning. In the early days it was because the reality of what happened would hit me after being blissfully unaware of it while sleeping, then it was because I started thinking about everything that needed to be done that day while I was searching for a job, and now I think about everything that needs to be done as we prepare for our move. For all that, once I accepted the job my mood became much more upbeat as I’m excited about both the new job and the new place where we’ll be living. This afternoon I even felt a strange sense of euphoria about it, despite so much being unsettled and how much needs to be done before I start. I suppose it’s a mix of being over-tired and legitimately excited about the new adventure we’re about to undertake.

The pup, though, she’s still sleeping like a champ. I prefer when she sleeps in one of her beds as, if she starts running in her sleep, it keeps her leg kicks from getting too violent. In her younger years they were adorable little leg kicks but these days, either from old age or side effects of medicines, she can get into a full-on gallup. Perhaps it led to her injuring herself a couple of weeks ago, but we’ll never know.

The Pup is Up

Ellie wasn’t feeling well, whether from injury or illness we still don’t know, when the snow fell right before my trip to Arizona. She did go out for a short walk that morning and got to experience the snow, even if she wasn’t up for her normal morning walk, and at one point did surprise me by rolling around for a moment in the snow. For a while there she appeared to be in some discomfort and was having trouble with stairs, and on top of that her appetite was off. She’s been on the mend since, yesterday she was up for a long walk and this morning even wanted to go for an hour and a half, which is about as long as she’s ever wanted (although we don’t go as far as we used to as age has slowed her down). Her appetite is back as well, we’ll see if it holds.

Between her kidneys and her heart and other age-related ailments, the vet was pleasantly surprised she’s been as stable as she’s been, so we’re keeping on her current medicine levels. The past few weeks show how fragile that healthy balance is on a dog this old, and I hate that soon we’re going to make her go on a three day car ride to her new home, but there are no better alternatives. Her health isn’t good enough for flying, and besides we know from long experience that she just wants to be with us, even to her own discomfort. I think she’ll do OK now that she’s walking better, our little Subarus aren’t the easiest for her to get in and out of but she should be better on the ramp now. It’s the cats that worry me the most on the car ride but hopefully in a month they (and we) will be adjusting to their new home.

Still Sleeping

Even though I’ve seen Ellie sleep like this thousands of times, at her advanced age there’s something about this pose that stops my heart for a moment every time I see it. Sometimes she runs in her sleep but other times she’s so still I’m afraid she’s passed away in her sleep. Especially in low light it’s hard to see the subtle rise and fall of her chest as she breathes, I’ll watch her until I see an ear wiggle or a tail wag or notice her breathing and then I, too, can breathe.

The Last Snow

We got a few inches of snow in Portland on Tuesday, but with Ellie’s recent injury or illness she didn’t want to go for a long walk in it so I was surprised when she flopped down in the backyard and rolled around in the snow. I’m glad she got to enjoy it a little bit as I suspect this snow will be her last, not because she is in any imminent danger but because I have to choose now between two job offers, one in California and one in Arizona, and neither place gets snow unless you drive a ways to the mountains to look for it.

Adjustments

Age has rendered Ellie mostly deaf so she can no longer hear me when I walk up to her. While she’s always slept on the kitchen tile or the hardwood floors, especially when it’s warm, she now often sleeps where I’ll have to step over her so she can more easily keep track of where I am in the house. The cats have adjusted by hopping over her when she inadvertently blocks them in a room.

At the dog park this morning the two other old black labs in the neighborhood were both there, one of their owners asked me if there was ever a time Ellie wasn’t smiling. I thought of all the solemn looks the pup has given me over the years when she’s been bored as I’ve photographed her, but I knew what she meant. That smile is contagious, I’ve seen it spread onto the faces of so many people who have met her. And countless times, to my own.

Happy 14th Birthday Pup!

A picture from 9 years ago on the day we brought home this most wonderful pup. We don’t know her real birthday so we celebrate it on the anniversary of her adoption, even though she might have turned 14 months ago. You can see bits of white paint on her neck and face and ears, her previous owners were moving and must have been painting. The white fur below her mouth and just above it is natural, these days it covers most of that adoring and adorable face.