Picture of the Day: Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! I don’t have any pictures of my Prince and Princesses in their costumes yet, so for now a basket of my black kitties hugging will have to do. They really do love each other; this picture was in no way staged…Very sweet kitties! Piper is on the left and Pippi is on the right. Have a very safe and fun holiday!

Picture of the Day: Sophie Channels Her Mommy's Emotions

The sweetest Pup in the history of the world, Sophie, is channeling her Mommy’s emotions. Yep, today’s “picture of the day” is for YOU. And you know who you are (ALL of you).

In case you are a little slow, or have been hit on the head thus causing amnesia, or whatever else your "excuse" may be, you are the ones who haven’t called me lately or emailed me to tell me about your entire goings- on. You all are being put in time-out until you get in touch with me!

I miss you!

And Sweet Sophie is getting tired of listening to me talk...

Picture of the Day: Astrid Seems to Approve of Her Cousin Ruby!

What is the best thing for Auntie Christine’s sad heart? Why, a picture of her girls, of course. Astrid’s sweet smile says it all. She seems to approve of Ruby! I can’t wait to see them grow up together to be just as close as Bobby, Eddy, and I are with our cousins!

Have you ever seen such gorgeous ladies in your life?

Good-Bye, My Friend

To anyone who knows me at all, you will understand that this is the hardest blog I have ever had to sit down and type, to date. However, I am one who has always dealt with the good times and the bad by writing my feelings down, no matter how difficult they are.

Lucy, my beloved Rhodesian Ridgeback, was put to sleep. I don’t want to go into any details, so please don’t ask me for them. What I do want to talk about is her life, and what she meant to me and will always mean to me.

Lucy, after Sophie, was my hardest rescue case of all. When I saw her for the first time, she was in a crate in the middle of the Galleria in Dallas during the ASPCA’s bi-annual adopt-a-thon at the mall. At that time, I was working in one of the three towers attached to the Galleria, so in order to go get lunch, I walked past the animals. To some it will seem miraculous that, since I worked for that consulting firm for almost three years, only two of my rescues came from the ASPCA’s adoption drives.

Lucy had, truly, given up on life and all human beings. One can only speculate what had happened in her life to that point, but she had given up eating, drinking, walking, and making any eye-contact with people or other animals. I crawled into the cage with her and tried to get her to respond to me. She did not, she was simply too depressed to bother with anything or anyone.

I called James and informed him that a new dog would be coming home with me that night. It was a Friday and I spent the entire weekend carrying Lucy from point A to point B, scraping peanut butter onto the roof of her mouth because it was the only thing she had to swallow, as there is no way to spit out peanut butter if you are a dog, and forcing water down her throat via 10 cc syringe.

This was the spring of 2001 and eventually she began to trust me and we formed a bond unlike I have ever known with anyone, human or animal. She knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that no matter what had happened in her life to that point, she could trust me. And trust me, she did.

She was also the most intuitive animal I have ever had the pleasure of sharing my life with. During a recent very difficult time in my life, Lucy did not leave my side. She stayed with me 24/7, never even walking away to go to the bathroom; get something to eat; or something to drink. She would wait until I went to do one of those things myself, and then she would take care of her business.

She would stay with me and lay her head on my shoulder, stomach, or leg and just be with me. She didn’t lick me to death as some of my other dogs are obsessed with, she just was with me. She knew I was in a bad place and she just wanted to be with me.

She never liked my other dogs or cats especially, but she always loved me completely and unconditionally. It will be a long time, if ever, before the void she has left behind is bearable. Right now, I am just waiting for the tears to stop falling every time I think of her.

Many people do not understand the love that people can have for their animals. If you are one of those people, I feel sorry for you. They can enrich your life in ways that are just not possible with our relationships with our fellow humans. Animals can provide unconditional love. They never, ever hold a grudge against you. They just want you to love them well and completely. They never harass you about what you did or didn't do for them five minutes ago, much less five years ago. They simply have no capacity for holding a grudge.

Lucy, I loved you, still do, and I hope you knew it. I hope that the time you had with me was able to erase some of the bad things that happened to you before I found you. It seems so selfish, but I wish there was some way to know that I made a difference in what started out such a sad, abused life. I will miss you immensely and forever. Good-bye, Lucy. I will see you in Heaven as surely that is where you are, since if anyone deserves to go to heaven, it is animals.

Pictures of the Day: My Sweet Sophie

For those of you who have not been lucky enough to meet her, allow me to introduce my sweet Sophie. She is an Australian Shepherd that I rescued in 2001. In Sophie’s case, it really was a rescue. It is hard to imagine the kind of people who must exist on this planet who could mistreat any animal so much.

Sophie was approximately one year old when I adopted her. She had been in isolation at a vet for three months for the various illnesses she had (Bordatella, or kennel cough, sarcoptic mange, URI, the list goes on and on). The isolation basically meant that she had not had any human contact, except for vet techs coming in completely gowned and masked (like surgeons) to feed her and make sure she had water and clean out all the waste in her cage. Sophie had absolutely no contact with other animals, and certainly didn’t get any tummy rubs.

She had been tied up in a backyard in the Dallas area with no shade, a rope tied around her neck so tightly you can still feel where it was five years later. She is a dark red and white Australian Shepherd, but her back had been bleached pure white from being in the hot Texas sun with no shade.

She had also been physically abused. I still don’t know the specifics of exactly what they did to her, but I have learned from my five years with her that they did some unimaginable things to her. To this day, I have to hide empty hangers under my shirt when I am doing laundry because the sight of a hanger sends her into a doggie panic attack. I don’t mean to make that sound in any way cute. A doggie panic attack involves a lot of really horrible things including vomiting and severe diarrhea. Any kind of loud noise causes her to try to crouch as low to the ground and hide as she can. When we go for walks, which she loves, if she sees someone she perceives as a threat, she crouches on the ground and crawls back to me to hide. It is one of the saddest things I have ever seen

Despite all of this, she has been the most loving and trusting dog you can imagine, from day one. Every morning when she wakes up, she “chats” to me and James. It is not exactly a whine, definitely not a bark, but indescribable and very urgent sounding. It sounds almost like she is surprised to see that she is still at our house with us and not tied up in a backyard getting beaten.

Sophie’s cousin, Nelly, has a similarly sad story, but her mistreatment lasted much longer than Sophie’s and involved Nelly being trapped in a very cramped cage where all she could do was run around in tiny circles. She was kept there by a breeder who was unsuccessful in breeding Nelly, but still kept trying and, thus, prolonged Nelly’s abuse to a stunning five years. That was five years with no love, no other dogs to frolic with, and certainly no loving human contact. However, Nelly’s entire story is for Eddy and Christine to tell.

My point in all of this is to say to all of you out there, PLEASE, stop the mass breeding of pure-bred dogs and go to your local shelter and adopt a homeless dog, or cat. Sophie and Nelly are both pure-bred dogs. If you are that intent on having a pure-bred dog, than do your research. Find out what breed will fit into your lifestyle and then get on the internet and find the rescue group for that breed. I promise you one exists.

Unlike disease and other like things that are beyond our control, the overpopulation of cats and dogs is 100% totally our fault and 100% avoidable. There is no excuse for it.

This topic came up while a co-worker was explaining that she was going to breed her dog after she came into “season” one time and then have her spayed. I asked her one simple question, why? Why do we need more puppies born when the ones that are out there in the shelters and the pounds are so desperately in need of homes?

Here is where I am going to get angry; don’t ever say you weren’t warned. Who the hell are you people that think you need the latest “designer dog” or feel the need to match your animal to your couch? I am not kidding about that last one, you would be surprised at how many people came into Operation Kindness when I worked there and would choose not to adopt a dog or cat for that exact reason. One woman was looking for a dog that would match her purse. I wondered which would last longer in her life; the purse or the dog.

You make me sick, literally. In fact, I don’t want to know you, I don’t want to be your friend, and I choose not to associate with people like you. If you are so shallow that it is imperative to you that your dog or cat be a pure-bred animal, then shame on you. I would like for you to think of all the dogs and cats that will die tomorrow because shelters cannot keep them and must put them to sleep. When you dump a dog or cat in the country, do you really think that someone wanders across it and gives it a loving home? No. It gets devoured by the real wild animals out there, gets hit by a car, or gets taken to a pound, and, way more often than not is put to sleep.

Wake up, people. This problem is not going to go away if we don’t all do our part. It is totally avoidable. Please think before you enter a pet store that sells animals or contact a breeder. Please visit your local shelter and see the conditions the animals live in, and God knows it is not because the shelter employees are not working their asses off. Please go to one of these shelters and ask yourself if it is worth it. It’s not.

Oh, and your pure-bred dog that cost you hundreds, or thousands of dollars is not cuter than ANY of my five rescue dogs. Trust me. Notice in the picture below that Sophie is sticking her tongue out at all of you who buy pure-bred dogs or cats.

The End Of Target 0046: Sad, But A Lot Of Fun!

So, I know this picture is tiny, but, as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. A few of you know that I am a part of the team that is in charge of closing Target 0046 in Norman. T2220 just opened a mile north of the old Target. Yesterday, 2220 did more in sales than any other store in the company. They are so busy it is not even funny.

Being a part of the closing team of the old store is so much fun. I am so glad I am a part of this team. There were supposed to be about 35 of us, but it has turned out to be more like 15 full-time and a few part timers wandering in and out.

This tiny picture is of the Store Team Lead (STL), Tony Shaw, at about 3:00 p.m., wearing a Dr. Seuss hat and reading us a Dr. Seuss book Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? This afternoon’s break was accompanied by freshly baked (still hot!) cookies that himself made.

I cannot stress enough that even though we are working our asses off, literally, we are having so much fun thanks to our incredible STL, Tony. How many bosses do you know who make sure breakfast and lunch are provided, bake cookies, and have breaks just to be juvenile and goofy and have fun like when we were all kids?

[Sidebar: Dad, this is in no way a hint to you. Your Post-Docs and Lab Technicians really, really don't want you to bake anything for them that they are supposed to eat. In fact, just keep providing beer after hours that is bottled by a reputable company. Don't attempt to make them anything at all. Bobby, Eddy, and I are still recovering from that time Mom was in the hospital and you “cooked” us dinner. Ahem, blackened burgers, which he told us to “just scrape the burned part off”. However, the entire burger was burned, so we were left with nothing but air after ‘scraping off the burned part’.]

Back to Target, we may be working very hard, but we are having a lot of fun. I wanted to take this time on my blog to thank Target for sending Tony to be our STL for the closing of T0046 and thank Tony for being such an awesome fella!

Picture of the Day: Ruby Lee

How’s this for a cutie? Ruby seems to be either singing or saying “Ooh, that looks really exciting! Can I have it please?”

Either way, I adore this picture. She is just so beautiful and full of personality that shines through, even on camera!

Auntie Christine loves you, Ruby!

Picture of the Day: The Prince and Princess Johnson

Prince Ford and Princess Ruby are going out for a stroller ride. Ford has the serious giggles, how cute is that?! Ruby looks a little pensive; perhaps Ford is giggling about something inappropriate? Ruby looks ready to set him straight! I adore this picture, and Ford’s double chin just makes me love it more! Is there anything cuter than a giggling baby? Yes, indeed, a pensive Ruby is just as cute!