Saying Goodbye to Bella

My son's dog has passed away.

Bella was 15+, a basset mix rescued from a shelter in PA when my son was 9.

Hounds are outdoor dogs, not pets...
Or so this former country-girl thought. 

My old gal, Amanda, had passed in February. I'd been promising my son a dog for almost a year. In July I attended a writer's conference in the area and stopped in to the shelter where my friend had gotten her springer spaniel. I was hoping to find a similarly sweet and intelligent friend for my troubled son.
We'd already been on quite a journey. The tantrums started at about age 3. He was recently 9, and rather than diminishing with age, they'd grown worse. There was more to come, but we already knew something was wrong. We just didn't know what, or how far we'd have to go before the road would turn for him.

When I talked to the folks running the shelter, he asked me, "How do you feel about basset hounds?"

I rolled my eyes. I had hounds as a kid, and they were noisy, slobbery, boneheaded doofuses, better kept in outdoor kennels than in the house, due to the difficulty of housetraining. My experience with hounds told me they were hunting dogs, not pets. He told me that she'd been returned to the shelter by a family that didn't look after her properly, that she was shy and sweet. I relented and agreed to meet her, knowing I would be bringing my son back later to look at puppies. Smaller, fluffier, easier, trainable puppies.

She came into the visitor's room looking anxious. She went immediately to the windows, staring out as if looking for someone. Looking for her family to come back for her. The family that had returned her, bone thin and shaking. She still wanted them. And my heart melted a little.

I brought my son in, as planned, careful to explain that he was free to choose a PUPPY. That he should meet her, but he didn't have to choose her...
It was a lost cause. She was brought into the visitor's room and LAUNCHED herself at him. Wagging, wiggling, facelicking happiness embodied in a bony hound dog. "I want THIS one, Mom."

It took us SO long to get weight on her.

And so it began.
She came home, only to hide under the kitchen table and bark and growl at my husband. She managed, with her six-inch legs, to get on top of the kitchen table to raid the butter dish. She refused to eat at first, forcing us to get creative in concocting dishes she would nibble at, until she eventually decided to eat properly. She was so thin at first that the vet wouldn't spay her- and by the time we got enough weight on her, we discovered that my dog Charlie had been a bit frisky and there were pups on the way.

I was worried sick... She'd just gotten healthy, and the vet had revealed that her stated age of 3-4 years was inaccurate- by then she was close to 8.

She successfully delivered 11 pups, but 4 did not survive past the second day. Of the seven remaining, we were able to find homes for 5. Two of her girls remain with us to this day.

Bella with her girls.

In the past few months, I noticed a change. She was moving more slowly. Returning to her picky eating habits. Having more digestive upsets, which have been common with her, on and off, the entire time she's been with us. (We've consulted the vet before, and he told us there was nothing to be done; she simply had a sensitive digestive tract.)

A long story short... She was an old lady- past 15 now by our best guesstimate- and she was tired.

She loved the outdoors, even in winter, but summer sun on grass was her favorite.

She spent her last day lying in the sun in the grass. At some point she wandered out by the kennel to be near her girls, content to lie there. We brought her in that evening and she had cuddles on the porch and fell asleep in one of the recliners. Fearing the evening air would be too chilly for her old bones, I moved her inside that night, into her crate with a fresh blanket. When we got up in the morning, she was gone.

This has been a journey. She was with us when my son was expelled from school in the 5th grade. When he was throwing his tantrums (Which we know now were expressions of anxiety.) When he told me he never really wanted a dog anyway, but cried when, out of sheer frustration, I threatened to find her a new home.

She taught him that some tasks- like feeding the dog and taking her out- must be completed regardless of feelings or mood. That some things are more important than our own internal turmoil. That when someone, or something, is depending upon us, we must set aside our personal challenges and rise up.

She helped him grow, helped him mature, and helped teach him empathy. She was always there with her floppy, silky ears, and her sneaky way of climbing onto the couch when she knew she was supposed to go into her crate for the night.

She was slobbery and smelly and noisy and stubborn- everything a hound dog is. She was also, for 8 years of his life, my son's friend and companion. She was a good dog, and she will be missed.

Rest easy, old Girl. You've earned it. 

Don't Sh1t Where You Eat

Guys, something bad happened today.

Not horribly bad, not earth-shatteringly bad. Thank heavens, my family and friends in the path of Hurricane Matthew are all safe and accounted for. My kiddos, visiting their father in Arizona, are having a good time (so far.) Life, in general, is fairly normal in the Teens & Other Wild Things household.

At work, however... Well, not so much. Work is a frigging mess.

Have you ever experienced that weird feeling of devastation, like the world is falling apart around you, but nothing's moving? 

I work for a small store. There are five of us- A store manager, two assistant managers, and two cashiers. I know that sounds like a lot of managers, but there must always be a "key holder" in the store- so they need to split up the hours the store is open between the Store Manager and the assistants. We're a small, fairly tight-knit group. Right now, our Store Manager is out with an injury. She's unlikely to come back any time soon. Fortunately one of our assistants is experienced and well able to take the store over. We talked about it, and thought, hey we can do this. We've got a good manager, and we can pitch in and get 'er done. No worries!
Great, right?

Hey, no worries! We've got a great team, right? He's got this. 

Well... Not so great, because today I learned that the second assistant was arrested yesterday. It was a gut-punch. I literally felt breathless when I got the news. I teared up. I didn't want to believe it. I've worked with this guy for a while. He's funny. Goofy. A decent manager. Just an all around good guy to work with. I wanted to believe it was a misunderstanding. A false accusation. But no... I saw the evidence with my own eyes. He was definitely stealing.

I just don't understand. WHY would anyone steal from their own store? It just makes no sense. There's an old saying: Don't shit where you eat. It's basic survival. In this case, it translates to; Don't steal from the people who pay your bills! You idiot.

Now, I'm no angel. I don't mean to come across as a sanctimonious holier-than-thou finger-pointer. Stealing's not just wrong in a moral sense; it's goddamn stupid because you will always get caught, eventually, and nothing you could gain is valuable enough to weigh against your reputation, your conscience, and your future employment prospects.

A reputation is a terrible thing to waste. 

When my kids were small, they each went through a common stage- the pocketing a package of gum at the grocery store stage. When I caught them, in two separate incidents, I did what my own Mom did when I was about that age and pulled the same stunt- I marched them right back into the store, made them pay for the gum, apologize, and throw it away. Mean mommy? Maybe. But I pray I have instilled in them some sense of right and wrong, and that I will never get a call from my child seeking bail because they were foolish enough to believe they could steal from their place of employment (or anywhere else for that matter!!) and get away with it.

It shouldn't even have to be said: Stealing is never ok. :(

I don't know what else to say, guys. I'm sad. I'm confused. On some level, I even understand- I know what it's like to scrape for every dime on paychecks that never go far enough... but still, I'm having trouble realigning my view of this person to include the idea that he's been blatantly taking advantage of the trust of the entire team. Oddly enough, even though I'm only affected indirectly, I'm hurt. I trusted this guy. Thought he was one of the "good" ones. I'm disappointed and sad.

Goodnight, Friends.
Tomorrow is a new day.
Hopefully it'll be a better one.

All we can do now is clean up the mess and move on.