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Well, it's 3:30 AM. At 1:00 Lacey started fussing in her crate so I took her out to pee and poop. Let her play for 1/2 an hour and put her back in the crate. Now ahe and Vicki are sound asleep and I've been awake since 1:00. Lacey will need to go out again within the next hour, so no sense trying to sleep. So here I am.
I wanted to wait to get a dog if we ever got another one. I knew no other dog would ever be like my Maddie, and frankly I was enjoying the freedom of not having the responsibility of a dog.
Vicki was miserable. For her, life is as Greg said, "Life without a dog is not worth living." The episode with the cat and losing it just made it worse for her. We looked at shelters with no luck finding the puppy we wanted. She rescued a Cocker Spaniel many years ago and she thought she wanted to find another one. She looked at breeders, but I didn't want to buy from a puppy mill. It just encourages them.
Then I came across an Amish family that had two Cocker Spaniel females that they breed once a year. It seemed like a good compromise. On her birthday I told Vicki I had found a puppy I liked and if she liked her too we could go get her. That was Lacey, and Vicki was in love the minute she saw her picture. Monday we drove up to the land of horse-drawn carriages and picked her up; an 8 hour round trip that exhausted me physically and emotionally. I had a lot of time to think, hoping I did the right thing.
I see so much of Maddie's behavior in Lacey. She reminds me of Maddie when she was a puppy several times a day. I didn't think I would ever have another dog like my Maddie, I loved that dog so much. Now this little girl is stealing my heart. It feels like a betrayal, but also makes me miss Maddie even more.
Also, I remember how horrible it was to be with Maddie through her sickness and death, and now I know I'll go through that all again some day. It's inevitable.
Being up all night is not good for your mental health.
OK, end of midnight ramblings. Time for a cup of coffee and wait for Lacy to start rattling her cr
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