|  It's been a while since I've posted anything here, and I'm sure you're all wondering why (all three of you who read my blog lol). Well, when it rains, it pours (but don't despair, and read on, there's good news in this)! There's been heartache, toothache, pain both emotional and physical that's been kind of keeping me away from my computer for the most part, and there's been newfound joy and a lot of busy-ness keeping me tied up too!
Many of you know that our beloved female puppy What In Blue Blazes (we called her Blue) got loose from our house and was hit and killed by a car a little while back. We were heartbroken. We had taken my best buddy in the world, Sammy Da Bull Gravano, to a breeder friend's house in Atlanta to breed him with my friend's prize winning female, who also happened to be What In Blue Blazes' mom. I wanted nothing more in life than to have a son from Sammy so I would have something left of him when he was gone, and my true friend and brother Nick at Cicero AmStaffs <-- click me in Atlanta did his best to give me my dream. (He's also the guy who cried with me on the phone when I called to tell him about yet more bad news a few weeks later, but we'll ghet to that in sec). Anyway, I knew Sammy was not in great health, and I didn't want to wait until it was too late. It turned out that the opportunity came too late anyway, because the breeding didn't produce any puppies, but may God bless Nick abundantly for giving me a shot at it. His dogs are champs, the female he let me try to breed Sammy with was a dual champion (AKC & UKC), but I had never entered Sammy in any shows (even though he would have done very well in a show ring), so Nick had nothing to gain by breeding his best girl to my Sammy. He did it out of love for me, and I love him too. While we were gone to Nick's place breeding Sam, Blue managed to get past a folding table that I had put across the kitchen doorway with a 300+ pound floor-standing spice cabinet against it, managed to slide open our sliding glass patio door, and managed to break through the gate on our 6 foot privacy fence, in spite of the fact that I had pounded a huge, 18" screwdriver into the ground on the outside of the gate to prevent it from opening if she ever broke the latch. When we got home and found her missing, we walked the neighborhood looking for her all night, calling her name, and putting up posters and flyers everywhere we could. We came home and called the animal shelter every couple hours to see if maybe someone had found her and taken her there. No luck.  The next morning when we called the shelter, they had bad news for us: They had found Blue in the street, killed by a car, right outside the shelter. Apparently, someone had picked her up intending either to take her there right away, or maybe to keep her and then changed their minds and dropped her off there after they had closed, just left her in front. We were crushed.
A few weeks later, Sammy Da Bull Gravano became listless, lethargic, and stopped eating. We took him to the vet, and his kidneys had pretty much stopped working altogether. We had discovered that his kidneys weren't functioning very well three and a half years earlier, and this was the day I had been dreading since then. We put him on IV fluids and nourishment at the animal hospital for four days, but when we went to visit him the 4th day, the vet had done another blood test to check his progress, and there was no change in his blood work results. We wanted him to be comfortable, so we brought him home to finish his time with us. He continued to decline, and started having horrible seizures on the 5th day after we brought him home. I can't tell you how it hurt to see it... I loved that dog so much. He and I were like two drops of water that had touched... once we got together, there was no way to separate us again. For 7 years, Sammy and I did everything together. When I sat here typing to all of you, Sammy was usually lying right across my feet under my desk. I never went anywhere that Sam couldn't go. Not shopping, not out to eat, nowhere. In 7 years, Sam and I might have been separated a total of 24 hours if you add it all up, no more than that.  We had brought Sammy home to finish his life with us on Thursday, and on the next Wednesday, we called our vet and asked him to help us give Sammy back to the gracious and generous God who had made him for us and given him to us. He still smiled and wagged his tail when he saw me, but his life was nothing but misery and pain, and the convulsions were so awful. He hadn't eaten or drunk any water for at least 4 days, and I knew he was suffering. He had gotten so weak that he couldn't walk or even stand without help.
Sam was such an obedient buddy that I never put him on a chain, never walked him on a leash or confined him in any way. He was just that good, and he deserved that freedom. My voice was his leash when we walked, he absolutely lived to please me, and even the police who routinely patrol our subdivision knew him and had no problem with it even though there is a leash law here. I realized, though, that my love for him had become the chain that I never wanted to put on him, keeping him tied to a life of pure pain and suffering the last few days. I had to free him. Even now, I'm crying as I write. He was so good. I loved him so much. He loved ME so much. I still love him. The vet came to our house on his day off. God bless him, he is a good man. Sammy was lying on the loveseat, "his spot", watching a beautiful DVD I have called "Earthlight". It's absolutely beautiful footage of the earth shot from the space shuttle in orbit with beautiful music. I told Sammy that he'd be seeing that view for real in a minute, and I believe he did. In those moments, I wished I could have gone and seen it with him. I wanted to go with him.  We held Sammy in a hug and sang his "Budu Babu Buddy Boy" song, one we made up when he was a puppy and sang to him when we were praising him or just loving on him. He loved that song, and would smile a smile so big when we sang it that it was funny to look at. As we sang and held him, our vet gave Sammy the injection that would end his suffering. He went peacefully, hearing us sing his praises. It was the last thing he heard in this world as he found his way to the next. I hope and sincerely pray to the God who made him for me that Sammy experienced a taste of heaven before he ever left this world. He deserved it.
Before the heartache had subsided, a new kind of pain came. I had a molar that had chipped several months earlier and exposed the nerve in the tooth. It hurt like crazy when it happened, but I prayed and asked Father to take the pain away, took a couple aspirin and went to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, the pain was gone, and it stayed gone until it was needed again. Apparently, my good Eternal Father decided that it would come in handy right about then, and one morning at 2 am, I was walking to my bedroom with a glass of water I had just poured myself, and WHAMMO! That nerve put me in the worse pain I've ever been in (and I've actually been lit on fire once and had kidney stones 3 times)! I screamed like a little girl at first, then like a mindless animal. My mind left me, and all there was in the universe was something that I just can't call pain. Agony is too soft a word. There are no words for it. It was all-consuming, perfect pain. Four hours later, I left the emergency room with a little demerol in my behind and a scrip for some hydrocodone. That got me through until my dentist appointment a week later. The tooth is gone and so is the pain that came with it. That's the beginning of the good news :^)  My Father in the heavens is so very good to me, so very generous and kind. On Oct. 28, we drove to Newport, Tennessee to get a new puppy from the same person who had bred Sammy 7 years earlier. We saw a picture of him at her website a week before, and I spent that entire week trying to talk myself out of calling her and telling her he was mine now. It didn't work.
He's been with us a little over 3 weeks now, and he's everything I hoped for! His name is Colonel Klink, and he shares some common ancestry with Sammy Da Bull, so that comes as no surprise! He's ridiculously outgoing, extremely human-interactive (as are all AmStaffs), afraid of nothing, and as funny as can be. It took him no time at all to find his way into my heart, and today was actually the first day that I spent any time training him to heel on a leash. He did great, and I fully expect he will be heeling on command without a leash just like Sammy did within the next few weeks. But the good news and Father's generosity doesn't end there! A week ago last Sunday, we drove back out to Newport once again. Know why? Carol, the great lady at Edelhaus Kennel <-- click me who bred both Sammy Da Bull and Colonel Klink, told me about another dog she'd bred that was born just a few weeks before Sammy was, around 7 years ago. He was Sam's half brother (same fathers), and the lady who had him was looking for new homes for some of her dogs, including him! Her name is Linda, she also breeds AmStaffs, and I hope you'll all keep her and Carol in your prayers. They're both great people, I owe them both so much for having brought these dogs into my life, and they both really need our prayers right now. You can check out Linda's other dogs at Benchmark Kennel <-- click me. Who knows? Maybe you'll find a buddy of your own waiting for you at one of their sites!  Anyway, there was no way I was going to pass up a chance to have Sammy Da Bull's half brother in my home (especially since he needed a home right away), so back we went to pick him up from Carol, who had driven two hours each way to pick him up for us from the lady who had him. Carol is a wonderful lady and a great breeder of American Staffordshire Terriers, and I'm even more in her debt now than I was before! She's been a beloved friend since the day I got sammy from her.
Our new buddy is a gentle giant named (you're not gonna believe this) Blue. Actually, his registered name is Yukon Blue, but we just call him Blue. Like Colonel Klink, he's already won our hearts as well as those of our neighbors, and he just floated into our lives as gently as a feather on a soft breeze. He already heals on a leash perfectly, and after just a couple days of training off the leash, he's already beginning to heal on command with no leash. God willing, we'll be walkin' free very soon! This boy has muscle, courage, intelligence, and personality plus! He's a big old bruiser, but he's as gentle as dogs come. He's fully aware of his phenomenal strength, but is always in control of it. He's gentle with kids and elderly people, gentle with puppy Klink, but man, I wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of an angry AmStaff! Fortunately, it takes a lot to make one angry, but the last thing anyone would want to do is give him reason to believe that they were threatening me. That happened once with Sammy Da Bull present, and in a fraction of a second, more than 300 pounds of human was down and being dragged across the ground screaming. Luckily for them, Sammy instantly released anything in his mouth the second I put a finger or thumb in it, and that person was lucky for it. He released on command too, but he couldn't hear me over the guy screaming.  Sam would never have done that if that person had not tried to aggress against me though. If not for that, Sam would have never have bit a single person. And knowing these dogs as I do (I've had them ever since 1984), neither will Blue, Colonel Klink, or a female that I think is coming my way in 6-8 weeks! Yes, the good news continues, and a new dream of mine may be about to begin coming true, God willing!
My friend Nick at Cicero AmStaffs <-- click me, just after giving me the bad news a few weeks after Sammy died that Sam's breeding with his girl Indya hadn't taken, told me about a dog that he'd sold to a friend who asked him to take the dog back, give it a home, and finish showing it for a championship after finding out that he had cancer and only months to weeks to live. Nick did all that for his friend. No one could ask for a better friend, or a better, more honest and conscientious breeder. If you're even thinking about getting a dog of your own to love, please please visit his site! During that phone call, he told me that the way I loved my Sammy reminded him of the way that guy loved his dog, and that he would be honored if I'd let him give me a puppy out of a breeding between that dog and another of his champs, an offer which made me cry even more, and which I accepted with a gratitude that almost made my heart burst from my chest. Nick turned tears of grief into tears of joy that day. That call did more than that though. Through Nick's generosity and friendship, it gave me a new dream. God willing, I'm going to try my hand at breeding these noble, loyal, courageous but gentle dogs that I love so much. I've asked Nick and Carol both if they'd help me to learn the ropes and get a good start, and both agreed. I'm so blessed to have such good friends! And I'm blessed to have friends like so many of you, who prayed for us and comforted us during our time of trying. May God bless each and every one of you abundantly for it! Anyway, between all the grief and all the joy, and especially with a new puppy to take care of 24/7, my time for blogging and socializing has been scarce. But I think the time has come for me to come back, God willing, in service of the Kingdom, and the gracious King who has done so much for me, and given me so much. Blessed are you, Eternal Father YHWH. May your name be exalted in all the earth! You've given me so much, how could I not love you? Please bless us and grant long, happy lives to these animals you've given us to love, and bless me in my inadequate but sincere efforts to serve you, your risen son Yeshua Messiah my saviour, and your Kingdom. And bless all reading this, Father, and draw them ever closer to you through Yeshua, who willingly took upon himself the condemnation and punishment that each and every one of us deserved so that we might know you, and live with you and him forever. Amen. |
