Leo is nine

Today isn’t merely the first day of winter in this part of the word, nor is it merely the King’s Birthday public holiday in New Zealand, no, the MOST important thing is that today is my little boy Leo’s ninth birthday!

Leo came to live with us shortly before his first birthday, and was such a gentle, loving soul that Nigel said, "we're besotted with him,” and he was right. I still am enough for both of us.

I've written several times about the how he and I are the only survivors of the family he joined back in 2018, and how how he's on of the main reasons I'm still here to talk about it—and no, I'm not talking about anything dire that might have happened, but, rather, simply that he gave me a reason and focus to keep moving forward. In other words, Leo was with me during every loss, and that's made me feel incredibly lucky to have had him with me.

As has often happened in past years, he needs to be groomed, but unlike in the past, he's been allowing me to trim his fur and we're making progress. Hopefully he doesn't change his mind before we finish. Today, however, was a day off for him. Of course.

Happy Ninth Birthday, Leo!

(Also I don’t think he’s intentionally giving me side eye in his birthday portrait…)

Related:

Leo is eight – 2025
Leo is seven – 2024
Leo is six – 2023
Leo is five – 2022
Leo is four – 2021
Leo is three – 2020
Leo is two – 2019
Leo is one year old – 2018
Another new addition – The post in which I announced Leo joined our family
All blog posts tagged “Leo” – All the posts in which I’ve talked about him

Fortune’s favour

Maybe fortune favours the bold, as the saying goes, but maybe it’s simply persistence that wins the day. I’d like to think so, anyway.

Back in March, I wrote about a failed project to help Leo: I bought some steps to help Leo get up onto the bed more easily. At the time, it seemed like a good idea, but he wouldn’t use it, which I talked about in that post. But, contrary to what that post implied, I didn’t give up.

I recently moved the steps back to the foot of the bed, but rather than being parallel to the end of the bed as before, I turned them so they were perpendicular to the foot of the bed. I thought that in that position, when viewed from in front of the steps, they’d appear to rise easily from the floor to the bed top, and so, be less intimidating for Leo.

While I’d thought about doing that back in March, the reason I didn’t do it is that I felt it would stick out too far, maybe even creating a tripping hazard for me (I walk past it every twice a day, in the morning to open the window blinds and later in the day to close them for the night). I thought the tripping hazard had become minimal because I’d cleared out some “stuff” that had been stored in my bedroom for “quite some time”, and that meant there was more room at the foot of the bed. It was worth a try, I thought.

A couple weeks or so ago I moved the blanket box over a bit and dragged the steps to the side of it (see the photo up top). However, Leo still seemed uninterested in the steps. As I did in March, I tried to encourage him up the steps, placing his paws on the steps for him, and I did that a few times. That much worked, but he never initiated the climb on his own. I decided to regroup—and chill out.

I thought that maybe he just needed more time to feel comfortable with the steps and so be willing to use them on his own terms. Over maybe a couple weeks, he didn’t use the steps, preferring to jump up, awkwardly and seemingly with much effort.

Then, it suddenly changed.

The night before last, I said to Leo, as I do every night, “let’s go to bed,” and as is our ritual he walks slowly, looking up and me expectantly. I then ask him, “aren’t you forgetting something?”, and he runs back into the living are to grab Brown Dog, his favourite toy. Then we can go down the hallway to the bedroom at the other end of the house, Leo trotting ahead of me, tail wagging.

Two nights ago, he entered the bedroom, and started to veer right, which usually means he’s about to climb under the bed (he always goes under the bed from that side). However, he simply walked up the steps and then climbed them to get onto to the bed. I was shocked, and may even have gasped a bit as I put my hand over my mouth as I muttered a (nearly) silent, “oh my god!”

I praised Leo effusively, and he looked up at me with one of his, “what are you carrying on about? looks. I understood my notes from him and left him to play with his toy while I got ready for bed—wondering all the time if that had been a simple accident.

Last night we did our nightly ritual again and, as I’d hoped, he climbed the steps onto the bed. I cannot express how happy this made me: I started the whole thing to make his life a little bit easier, and seeing that he appeared to have adapted gave me all the feels. Nothing will change that, even if he doesn’t continue using the steps—but I have a feeling he’s worked out that the steps are a much easier way to get up there rather trying to jump up. It did make me think that maybe I should come up with a similar solution to help him get up on the sofa, but that space is much smaller and tighter than the bedroom is. More thought is required.

One thing I didn’t bother to mention in March—or at any other time, for that matter—is that for both me and Nigel, our dogs have always been allowed on the furniture, including the bed. I’m well aware that some people are against that, perhaps even strongly so, and such folks may harbour quite negative judgements of people like me. I couldn’t possibly care less. Both Nigel and I always considered our furbabies to be family, but after Nigel died, having the dogs sleeping near me every night was comforting, and now, after we also lost Sunny and Jake, I appreciate Leo’s presence even more. Many nights I wake up, then reach over to pat Leo before I go back to sleep. After so much loss and the change that demands, having Leo’s reassuring presence is pretty damn important.

And, that, in a nutshell, is why I launched this little project in the first place, and why I persisted after the initial failure. Leo has been so vitally important in my journey to learn how to create a new life for myself that there was never any doubt that I’d find a way forward.

This isn’t just about a plan coming together, or that persistence was a vital ingredient of the success. Instead, it was always about doing that I could to make my little guy’s life a little bit easier. It the very least I could do.

But, yeah: Maybe fortune really does favour the persistent.

A well-meaning fail

Not every project I take on works out, but all of them begin with good intentions. Recently I tried a project with the best of intentions, but it didn’t pan out. Even so, I don’t regret a thing.

The background is simple: Leo will turn nine in a few months, and I’ve noticed that as he’s grown older, he’s had more trouble jumping onto furniture, like our bed. To be honest, I think some of it is performative, because if I walk over to lift him up, he suddenly manages to jump up on the bed or whatever. Even so, he’s a little guy about to turn nine, and, just like me, he’ll need some minor alterations to things to make his ageing easier.

I thought that there was something I could do to help him, and I designed something, a kind of steps to put at the foot of the bed. I imagined a three-tier thing with storage in each tier. It’d be strong enough for me to sit on, like wooden the blanket box that’s there right now. However, the Garage of No Return doesn’t have enough room for me to build anything, and I don’t know when that will change (note I didn’t say “if”—I live in hope).

It was then that I found a four-tier step system (the bottom of the two photos at left; the blanket box I mentioned is the top half) that I thought would work. It’s a bit smaller than what I designed, but I thought that the four steps would make it easier for Leo. Each “step” is actually a soft-sided storage box, and each step is attached to the next-smaller step using a zip (aka zipper) on the front and back. The zips were a little tricky to fasten, but assembly was otherwise straightforward

And that was the end of the success. Leo wouldn’t step on any step, and wouldn’t jump onto a high one like he did on the old blanket box. I tried to lead him up the steps, but his reaction was as if he thought I was trying to hurt him. He didn’t “get” how to walk up stairs. He’s a smart guy, so this puzzled me—after all, we had stairs in the last house we all had together.

Yeah, well, I often forget how much time has passed since then. He lived in that house for 19 months (beginning shortly before his first birthday, and we moved away when he was 2 years old). I can’t remember how often he went up and down stairs at the old house, but we left that house more than six years ago, and we’ve lived in this one-storey house ever since.

I know that it may have nothing to do with his past, but the small stairs I bought for him may not have felt safe to him. So, I put the old blanket box back with just a blanket on top of it (making the top he jumps onto a centimetre or so lower than it had been).I moved the fancy steps over to the other side of the bed and put some of his toys on higher steps: He’s never tried to get them, not even when I put his favourite toy on it. I think that if the steps were more conventional, he might’ve been more willing to use it—or, at least, not as frightened of it as he seemed to be, but it it what it is.

This means I’m probably back to building something for him. Right now I think it should have a wide lower step for him to step onto, but I’ll have to create a temporary one to see if he uses it. We’ll see. The point is, just as I have various plans to make this house better for ageing me, I’ll make changes to make things easier for an ageing Leo, too. This particular attempt just wasn’t a good one. Oh, well—onward.

Before everything changed

There’s only one thing in the Facebook “Memory” at right that’s still the same: That barely-in-the-photo black cabinet at the top of the photo is what the TV sat on, and still does. The obvious changes are that Bella and Jake are both gone, but the footstool in front of me wore out after I moved to Kirikiriroa-Hamilton, my jeans are now cleaning rags, and whatever shoes I had on are probably long gone, too. Even the midday news I mentioned was cancelled by TVNZ in a “cost cutting” move (must’ve been more than a year ago now). And, of course, that scene happened in our last house together, nearly 8 months after we’d all shifted into it.

For me, this simple photo represents all the massive losses that began in early 2019, however, as is always true in life, it wasn’t nothing but bad news and sorrow after this photo: So MUCH good stuff happened after this photo, too!

Later that year Nigel and I went to Australia with the family to surprise his eldest sister for her birthday, and we visited Brisbane for the first time. Leo joined the family the following year, we made cool changes to the house (well, Nigel did the cool ones… I did the more ordinary-but-nice ones), Nigel had successes and recognition at work, and, as always, we had a LOT of fun times, sometimes with the wider family, sometimes with the fur babies, and even many adventures with just the two of us.

2019 was, of course, when everything started changing, and so much of what made us a happy family started to end. But even now, good things still happen, and that fact is how I managed to survive all the horrible stuff.

I still have a very long way to go, both in healing and in life in general, but the important thing is that my adventure continues. My former wonderful life travels with me everywhere and forms the foundation of the life I’m trying to build.

So, yeah, nearly everything in that photo from eight years ago has changed, including me, but my adventure continues. I hope you’ll continue to follow along to see what happens next.

I blogged about this at the time, and that post provided more background, as well as including the other photo I took, moments after the one in the FB “Memory”.

Another food conundrum, but for Leo

I’m not the only one in this household who has issues finding appropriate food: That problem now includes Leo, too. That’s my boy! Or, something.

For more years than I can remember, we’ve fed our furbabies dry food made by Eukanuba (owned in by Mars Incorporated, except for Europe, apparently). I was recently in the pet store to get Leo some more of his food, and there was a sign saying that “due to changing customer demand” they were discontinuing most of the brand’s dry dog food, though it said they’d be carrying at least one for a dog the size of Leo, though they were out of stock on that day.

Most premium dog food in New Zealand’ is sold through two Australian-owned pet store chains, and I checked online with the other one and found that they, too, seemed to be eliminating all or most of that brand. No other online retailer seemed to sell it, either, but I confirmed that the pet shop I go to still had some of the adult version of Leo’s dry food, but he’s actually been on the senior formula, which is slightly lower in calories, for a bit more than a year. I was running out of Leo’s food, so I bought the adult version to tide him over, and even used the transition method normally used when changing brands—just in case.

In the meantime, I researched alternatives. Many of the dog foods available are made by big US-based corporations, and I was concerned about ongoing availability: If an established brand can disappear, for whatever reason, it could happen again.

I decided to restrict my search for dog food made in Australia or New Zealand, in the hope the shorter supply routes may keep it more available. I chose the Australian one because they have a small dog senior formula, but I’m also going to buy a small bag of the NZ-made one (which is freeze-dried, not a dry food) to use as treats. Hopefully, between the two of them I should be able to keep the same brands for Leo for several years, just as we used Eukanuba for at least 17 years.

This whole thing has required a lot of research, time, and energy, and now I’ll just have to wait and see if Leo likes the new (to him) brand. That transition is still several weeks away, though, because I only bought the stop-gap bag of food a couple weeks ago. On tyhe other hand, that means I can have a few weeks of normality, too, and that’s a good thing.

This is the first time I’ve had to make decisions about Leo’s food—or any furbaby’s food in New Zealand—by myself, and, yes, I found that reality challenging and a bit confronting. I just approached it the same way I do when I need to find a food substitute: I researched the alternatives, found what I felt was the most nutritious option, and made a decision.

I’ve been doing a lot of that deciding thing lately. Huh.

Photo memory and realities

Yesterday, I was served up yet another Facebook “Memory”, this time for a photo I made my Facebook cover photo. As always, it sparked all sorts of memories and thoughts, which I share on my personal Facebook:

This was one of my favourite photos of the kids as they waited for their other daddy to get home from work. All four of them are gone now.

Around a year and a half after I took this photo, we all moved to the southern edge of the Manukau Harbour, and a little more than a year after that, Leo joined our family. Some nine months later, we lost Bella, seven months after that, we lost their other daddy, nearly a year and a half later, Sunny left us, and Jake around seven months after that. Sometimes even I’m shocked I managed to survive all that loss so close together.

I still have the mat Jake and Sunny are laying on, and the dog rope, too—though no one plays with it anymore. On the other hand, I’ve upgraded my phone several times and my photos have much better resolution now—and the fact that was one of the first things I thought when this photo popped up in my FB “Memories” is an indication of healing (so called…). The fact I remember in detail when each member of our family left us shows that healing from grief isn’t actually a thing: We adapt, we grow around it, we move forward with it, but usually without the searing pain it once produced. I miss them all as much as ever, and I can tell that Leo does, too, but we have each other and some days that’s everything.

After I posted that, I naturally wondered if I’d shared that photo on this blog ten years ago, but I hadn’t at all in all of July 2015. Today, I looked though my stored photos and I found the original, which I took on June 5, exactly a month before I made it my Facebook cover photo. That’s not remotely important—the date I took the photo and the date I made it my FB cover photo were both ten years ago, and the real point wasn’t the date, it was how much things had changed since then.

The whole thing gave me a chance to underscore the fact that grief never diminishes or ends, instead, we grow around it. I’ve talked about this many times, and I’ll talk about more into the future because I think it’s the biggest thing that people don’t understand about grief, and also what they most need to understand.

Still, the photo I took ten years ago was a great example of what my life was like only a decade ago. I miss that life, everyone I’ve lost. But I’m still here, and so is Leo, and together we continue moving forward. And that’s the way of things.

Leo is eight

Today is a very important day on my calendar: Today is my best friend Leo’s 8th birthday! He’s still as awesome as ever, of course, and has no idea what a birthday even is, but I know, and I’m glad to celebrate it on his behalf.

We got together with some of the family for lunch today, which had nothing to do with Leo’s birthday, of course, but he got to go, too, so it was still a treat for him. Later, he got special dinner, as he always does. In between those two, he spent a lot of time sleeping—I think his lunchtime adventure wore him out!

As I said last year, “Leo came to live with us just before his first birthday, but his Daddy Nigel only got to celebrate two of Leo’s birthdays. Nigel would be so very happy to see what a happy boy Leo is these days. I feel both happy and honoured to have spent all seven of Leo’s birthdays with him.

That's still true now that I’ve spent all eight of his birthdays with him. Something else I wrote last year is also true:

Today I also trimmed the fur around his eyes a little bit. Every year on his birthday he’s always being groomed, about to be groomed, or was just groomed. Who am I to buck tradition? He didn’t seem to mind.

Leo still makes every day better, simply by being—whether he’s making me laugh, or just looking at me while I talk to him as if he completely understands what I’m saying. He still loves playing “the chase game” where we take turns chasing each other around the house. He also still loves the toy rabbit I gave him last year.

There are times when I feel bad about how I don’t look after him as well as I should, but I could say the same thing about myself or the house or pretty much anything else. But, like I always say, each day presents us with a new opportunity to do better and be better. Leo deserves to get only my best, and I know one day he will. In the meantime, every day is better because he’s in it. I kinda think he’s rather fond of me, too.

Happy Eighth Birthday, Leo!

Related:

Leo is seven – 2024
Leo is six – 2023
Leo is five – 2022
Leo is four – 2021
Leo is three – 2020
Leo is two – 2019
Leo is one year old – 2018
Another new addition – The post in which I announced Leo joined our family
All blog posts tagged “Leo” – All the posts in which I’ve talked about him

Problem kitty?

I’m a lifelong fan of dogs and cats, and have shared my life with several of both kinds. In general, I tend to prefer dogs a bit more mainly because dogs are so obviously happy to see me when I come home. Cats may do that, too—and some of mine did—but they’re far more likely than dogs are to show what seems like indifference when we return home. All of that, though, is really about furbabies I’ve shared life with. Other people’s furry companions are another matter—especially when they’re a bit, well, odd.

The photo up top is of Leo back in August of last year. It shows a brief pause in his barking at the cat on the fence. Leo likes cats and other dogs, as long as he’s properly introduced—he has very proper, some might say “old fashioned”, manners. However, if he sees a dog or cat walk past the front of his house, he will bark and bark and bark. And when this cat started walking along the top of the fence, he could also run along the fence to bark—and so did the two dogs next door.

The cat belongs to the neighbours over the back fence (I was “introduced” once, but I don’t remember its name—or the neighbours’, for that matter). Over the past year, I’ve occasionally had to go outside after dark to retrieve a barking Leo, with that cat laying on top of the fence, but directly behind my house, not at the corner, as in the photo. The cat seems to be wary of Leo—and intrigued by me. Maybe that's because when we first met, I talked nicely to it. Or, maybe it just likes exceptionally handsome men—that’s equally possible.

There's been a very recent change in the cat’s behaviour: It wants to come inside my house.

A week or so ago, I was standing in the living area, and I happened to look at the partially open slider door to the patio, when the cat appeared and placed one paw on the threshold, then froze when it saw me. I said, “I don’t think coming inside Leo’s house is very good idea…” and the cat turned and ran away which gave me just enough time to close the door before Leo could run out the door and chase the cat across the yard.

Last week, I was doing things in the back of the house and walked down the hallway and opened the internal garage door to get something when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see that cat running out the once again slightly open slider. I closed the door, and Leo was oblivious—until he caught scent of where the cat had be laying or sitting (and not peeing—I checked). He sniffed the area extensively, so much so that there are now very few fibres left in that spot of the carpet. He then demanded to be let outside so he could find the cat.

Yesterday evening, I let Leo outside after his dinner, and I heard a “thunk!” outside, which I thought was the next door neighbour (the parents of Leo’s dog friends) accidentally bumping the fence, like with a rake or something. Leo started barking, and kept at it, so I went out on the patio to being him inside. There was no one on the neighbours’ side of the fence, and Leo was going spare.

I walked over and peered over the fence when that cat suddenly jumped and climbed over the fence and ran across the yard to the same corner in the photo up top. Leo was oblivious, still convinced that the cat was on the patio, under the Vegepod (which I moved onto the patio two years ago this month). He could not be convinced to come inside, and ultimately I had to pick him up to bring him into the house.

As we were walking back through the same (more widely) open slider door, we turned and I tried to show Leo where the cat was sitting. He didn’t seem to really look, but the cat saw that and was prepared to jump and climb over the fence. Leo and I went inside.

I liked leaving the slider door slightly open in nice weather so Leo can go outside whenever he wanted to, but I’m not keen on having a cat I don’t actually know enter my the house, especially because its ideal choice of toilet may not be outside. More importantly, Leo isn’t keen on the idea.

The cat is clearly well-fed and seems happy and active—and it also could be a little too curious for its own good. For now, I'll leave the doors closed whenever Leo’s inside the house—like in winter or on a stormy day. I may eventually try again—until the weather gets too hot, when the doors are closed (and in the afternoon, their curtains are, too) to keep the summer heat outside.

I’ve never had a situation like this before, where a cat I don’t know wants to enter my house, despite a dog living here. But the cat definitely seems friendly, and it's clearly curious, so many I shouldn’t be surprised. Or maybe it really does just like exceptionally handsome men. I can understand that, too. Of course.

Toy obsession

Many dogs love their toys, though precisely what that means varies a lot. In Leo’s case, the pattern is indifference, interest, obsession, de-construction, and then routine. I’ve seen this basic pattern repeated continually since Leo was a puppy, and it continues even now. I may end up with more work out of the deal, but along the way, he’s extremely happy, which is the point.

When I first gave the new stuffed toy to Leo on his birthday (photo at left), he was, as usual, not all that interested in it. He left the toy on the sofa where I’d given it to him, and only paid attention to it when I returned that evening. Even then, though, as I said at the time, “he’s not yet entirely sure about his new toy”, which, I also said, “basically means he hasn’t yet torn it open.” I knew that wouldn’t last.

Leo brought his new toy to bed with him Saturday night, but put it aside and went to sleep. However, when I woke up in the morning, there was some of the toy’s stuffing on the bed. I looked at the toy, and saw its nose was chewed off. Leo had moved to the complementary obsession and de-construction phases.

As the day passed, Leo spent most of his time with the toy. Sometimes he’d lick and chew it, and pause to lay next to it panting (a sure sign of his obsession phase), or he’d have a nap with the toy right next to him. This continued all day, and by mid-afternoon, I noticed there was a lot of stuffing strewn around the floor in the living area, even though I’d been picking it up all day.

Around 3pm, Leo jumped into my lap, chewed on the toy for awhile, then jumped over onto the sofa to have a nap. I could see the extent of his de-construction at that point (photo at right). Basically, the nose was completely gone, and the head was somewhat deflated.

This overall pattern continued on into the evening, until a little around 8pm, when Leo was busily working on his toy and I noticed that the chest was open and I could see the plastic bottle that provided the air for the squeaky noisemaker. While he was busy chewing on the toy, I noticed the noisemaker itself was laying in my lap—he’d chewed it off the bottle—and I picked it up immediately because it was small enough for him to choke on. I also removed the bottle itself from the toy and put it on the table next to me. Leo apparently only wanted to get that out of his toy, because he wasn’t interested in where I put it. He seemed to calm down—until I riled him up again.

I wanted to see how the thing made noise, so, I blew into one end—the wrong one, it turned out—then the other, and it made the squeaky noise. Once again, Leo was riled up, just as he is every time he hears a squeaky toy. I thought this was utterly hilarious—but then immediately felt guilty for getting him all riled up, so I put the noisemaker into my shirt pocket. He lay on my lap next to his victim, looking pretty pleased with himself, then he jumped onto the sofa, leaving the toy behind. This is what I saw (the photo at right is staged, and includes the ear he’d chewed off late afternoon):

He didn’t spend much time working on his toy after that point, not vigorously, anyway. When we went to bed, he again brought his toy with him. When I came out of the en suite after brushing my teeth, I saw him laying on the bed with his chin on his toy, making it barely visible. He lifted his head to look at me as I tried to get a photo of him (at the bottom of this post).

Today, he’s played with his toy a bit, but at one point he picked up one of his other toys when I thought I was headed to my chair, something he hasn’t done since I first got home Saturday evening. His de-construction of the toy will continue, but less vigorously than when he was still obsessed, meaning he’s moving into the next stage, routine, one in which his existing toys will be played with again, too. And the new will continue to slowly become smaller.

This new toy is tentatively named “New Bunny”, to distinguish it from a long line of stuffed toy rabbits called “Funny Bunny” (the final one of those is in a photo with a post just before sunny had to have teeth removed). Leo hasn’t yet lost interest in any of his toys, and they stick around until they become utterly destroyed, often little more that bits of cloth, and they leave the house when I quickly put it in the rubbish while he’s outside, and none the wiser. In fact, I have my eye on one of his older toys right now, the tiny bit that’s left of “Mr. Turtle”, a toy I mentioned in a post back in December 2022. That’s my role in his routine, I suppose.

I don’t know how long he’ll still be interested in destroying his toys, but as along as he is I’ll continue to give him toys for him be indifferent about, become interested in, then obsessed with, until he de-constructs it and it enters his routine. It’s a small thing, really, but getting him new toys makes him extremely happy, and that’s the whole point.

Leo is seven

Today is the first day of meteorological winter in the Southern Hemisphere, and not all that long ago, that was just about all the significance the day had for me. Today has something far more important about it: It’s my boy Leo’s 7th birthday! That means he’s considered a “senior” for things like dogfood (fewer calories, among other things), though none of that affects his happy demeanour.

Leo came to live with us just before his first birthday, but his Daddy Nigel only got to celebrate two of Leo’s birthdays. Nigel would be so very happy to see what a happy boy Leo is these days. I feel both happy and honoured to have spent all seven of Leo’s birthday’s with him.

To celebrate his birthday, Leo had a special breakfast, as has long been our custom. After his official birthday photo (up top), and the photo he graciously allowed me to take with him (at the bottom of this post), it was time for his birthday present: A new stuffed toy (photo at left), not that he knows what’s a birthday present is, of course (all of this is stuff I bought yesterday, which I referred to in yesterday’s post). I actually wanted to get a new toy for him because two of his toys (formerly stuffed animals…) are now basically just rags, though he still loves playing with them. This makes me want to be more like him, content with what I have and not needing any new toys.

Today I also trimmed the fur around his eyes a little bit. Every year on his birthday he’s always being groomed, about to be groomed, or was just groomed. Who am I to buck tradition? He didn’t seem to mind.

This evening I got together with some of the family to celebrate the birthday of one of our humans, and when I got home Leo got a special dinner, too. He’s not yet entirely sure about his new toy, though—which basically means he hasn’t yet torn it open. On the other hand, he played with it this evening, which he didn’t do earlier in the day.

As always, Leo makes every one of my days better. He makes me laugh, keeps me entertained, gives me someone in the house to talk to, loves playing the game where we take turns chasing each other, and he looks after me when I’m feeling sick or just sad. He really is this man’s best friend! I love how happy he seems all the time, and I like to think—or maybe I just like to flatter myself—that I have a little bit to do with his happiness. In any case, Leo seems as happy with me as I am with him, and that’s probably enough for us both.

Happy Seventh Birthday, Leo!

Related:

Leo is six – 2023
Leo is five – 2022
Leo is four – 2021
Leo is three – 2020
Leo is two – 2019
Leo is one year old – 2018
Another new addition
All blog posts tagged “Leo” – All the posts in which I’ve talked about him

Six years ago, Leo

Leo is clearly a huge part of my life, and both this blog and my social media posts show that. This makes a lot of sense, of course: Ever since Jake died in September 2021, it’s just been Leo and me. And, naturally, there’s a lot that goes with that.

Last week, Facebook served up a Memory of the day in 2018 when I announced that Leo had joined our family, and and a couple days later I also talked about it in a blog post (the photo up top is what I shared on Facebook and in that 2018 blog post, and the blog post also has another photo of him).

What I didn’t mention in the original posts was that my announcement was actually well after Leo came to live with us—a few weeks later, I think it was. I didn’t say anything earlier than that in case his first humans changed their minds and wanted to take him back. Nigel and I tried so hard to be cool about it, and to not fall head over heels for him, but Nigel was absolutely right when he said to me, “we’re besotted with him,” because we immediately were. It was also Nigel who reflected on our family of three dogs, a cat, and us, saying, “We bought a zoo!” (from the Matt Damon movie…). I expanded on that in a comment on my blog post, replying to Roger Green: “I suggested we get a tank of fish and cage of birds so we’d have a complete set. But I think this is enough.”

Six years later, it’s now just Leo and me, and every single day I’m grateful to be sharing life with him. He was an unexpected addition to our family back then, and now he’s my last—and very treasured—remnant of it. He makes me smile, even laugh, every day, and there have been times he was quite literally the only one that could do that.

So, the significance of my posts six years ago wasn’t about his “gotcha” day—I don’t remember when that was precisely because at first Nigel and I tried to pretend we were just his temporary carers. However, it was the day I first shared the fact that he’d joined our family—and you can only imagine how hard it was for me to not share photos of him before my announcement.

So, that particular FB Memory reminded me of how glad I was that he joined our family. I still am. Of course.

Leo has magic, but isn’t a wizard

Today, all the unrelentingly bad news from all over the world, combined with the pressure from seemingly innumerable personal deadlines and challenges, was getting me down. Then this little guy decided he wanted to lay in my lap for a while (and, naturally, I had to take a photo!).

Once again, Leo provided the magic to make me feel less bad. It seems that whenever I feel the worst, Leo’s nearby, usually staring at me—and probably to get me to do something: Let him outside, feed him, give him a treat, or to let him lay in my lap. But it doesn’t really matter what it is he wants, if he wants anything at all, because he always pulls me out of whatever my mind is stuck in at that moment, and that helps keep me focused on “now” and on real life.

Leo’s not a wizard, and he can’t fix what’s wrong in the world or in my life, but he helps me focus on what’s right in front of me, the only thing I know that I have any sort of control over. There’s a kind of a magic in that.

Everyone needs that sort of magic in their lives, I think. I sincerely hope everyone has or finds the magic they need.

Helping Leo

Anyone who decides to share their life with a furbaby makes a lifetime commitment to them to look after their needs and happiness. That requires us to be observant, to notice changes in behaviour or times when they may seem to struggle a bit. This story is about what happens when I observe something that I can help.

The other day, I noticed that Leo had started sitting down to eat. I remembered seeing somewhere that it’s easier for dogs to eat if their bowl is raised (it’s got to do with the distance from the floor to the dog’s withers, subtracting some amount—though I’d forgotten the amount). So, on impulse, I grabbed a dog bowl used by Jake or Sunny (I don’t know which one—their bowls were identical), turned it upside down, and placed Leo’s bowl on top of it (photo above). I also came up with a solution to raise Jake’s food bowl a few years ago.

Leo’s new set-up was an immediate success: He seemed to like it, and he never even hesitated to eat, something I thought he might do (dogs aren’t keen on change in routines). The next step was to get the measurements I needed so I could give him a more permanent solution.

I looked up the measurements, and the consensus was to measure from the floor to the top of the dog’s withers, then subtract 6 inches (I also heard “5 to 6 inches”). I don’t use the Imperial system and I don’t think I even have anything that measures in inches, so the first thing I did was convert the deduction amount to centimetres. I already knew that Leo is roughly 29cm at his withers, and that meant I needed to subtract 12.7cm to 15.24cm to get the proper height for Leo: 16.3cm to 14.76cm up from the floor.

All the raised bowls I found to buy (except one, which is adjustable) measured from the floor to the top edge of the bowl. The temporary setup I gave Leo is 14cm from the floor to the top edge of the bowl, so within the “correct” range.

However, yesterday morning I noticed Leo was “kind of sitting”, meaning—and please forgive the mental picture—he was kind of in the 💩 position. That suggested to me that the “correct” height may still be too high—and then I remembered that I read on one of the advice sites that small dogs (like Leo) do better with a bowl with a low edge (it apparently doesn’t matter as much to larger dogs?).

I’d already fed Leo yesterday evening before I remembered I have a low-edge bowl we originally bought when either Jake or Saibh were puppies (I don’t remember which). This morning, though, I got the bowl out of the garage and washed it (it’s been in there quite awhile…) and gave it to him to see how he got on with that. It didn’t work: He grabbed food out of the bowl, put it on the floor, then ate it off the floor. In other words, it was more work for him to eat than his old on-the-floor bowl had been.

The low-rimmed bowl is metal, and his dog tag would clink against the bowl, making it kind of “ring”. Maybe he didn’t like that? Jake and Sunny used to clink on their metal bowls, and Leo was wary of eating anywhere too close to them so it’s entirely possible he associates the sound with his wariness back then. The clinking against his ceramic bowl is much more subtle, plus it’s the same bowl he’s used ever since he came to live with us.

I have one more thing to try: Some years back, after I noticed Bella wanted to pretty much lay down to eat, I bought some small plates to put her food on, and she munched happily every time. I’m going to get out one of those plates and put Leo’s food on it to see how he likes that. It could well be the same scene as with the metal bowl he didn’t like this morning—picking up his food and putting it on the floor to eat.

If he rejects the plate, too, it could mean he wants his current bowl, and that would mean buying a new raised bowl—regardless of how deep it is—might not be any more successful, and I’d be reluctant to take the risk and end up with yet another dog bowl that isn’t used. So, if he does reject the plate, too, I may just make a more permanent stand for his current bowl.

What this whole situation is about, at its core, what I talked about back when I raised Jake’s food bowl:

What occurred to me later is that this is my strength: I see a problem, evaluate possible solutions to arrive at what I think is the best solution, and then I put it into action. In this particular case, it worked the first time, which isn’t necessarily a very common or usual thing, but what matters is that this is how I operate. And that it worked.

Nigel and I were very different. He’d conduct in-depth research to arrive at the best possible solution, while I’d look at all the observable facts to arrive at a useful solution. He was more about the right solution, and mine was more about a workable and fast solution (and, to be honest, one that was cost-effective). This particular time is one where my solution may have been his choice, but it’s also one he’d have have backed, even as he looked for a different (probably more elaborate) solution. Whatever works, especially for our furbabies, is all that would’ve mattered to either of us.

This project (for lack of a better word) has been one of those times when my first attempt at a solution didn’t completely work, something that’s a fairly common outcome. But this tale also gets at another truth: I’ll keep working on a problem until I either find a solution that works, or I reach a point at which there’s nothing more I can do/try. When the latter happens, it means that maybe I need to hire someone to do it, or maybe I just need to buy something rather than trying to make what I already have work. Or, maybe I just need to give up, if it’s not important. Flexibility and persistence are the common elements in all my searches for solutions to problems I’ve encountered, but I’m not too proud to admit defeat when it happens.

At any rate, this story isn’t over quite yet. But telling it now gives me an excuse to share a photo of Leo, which is reason enough to not wait until the story’s conclusion. This is really all about him, anyway.

Leo’s big day

Big day today: Leo finally got groomed! I hadn’t been able to find anyone for so long that I just gave up and tried to groom him myself—and some attempts better than others, to be honest. I stopped in chain pet store Animates in early January for Leo’s food, and they mentioned they had a groomer, which I thought was a new thing. It turned out, she’s been there the better part of two years, apparently. Okay, then.

I’d taken him somewhere else as recently as last year, but I wasn’t completely comfortable with the groomer, and since I thought Animates didn’t have a groomer, I decided to take it on myself. Guess I don’t have to now.

I like Animates because it’s all on one level and really easy and quick for me to get to now that the connecting road is open. Plus, his vet is in the same place (owned by the same company). However, today’s appointment was the first available when I booked last month.

He hasn’t exactly forgiven me yet, though. After an evening of trying, I think I may run out of treats trying to bribe him…

Leo’s “disinterested model looking away” pose…

Four years turning a key

Four years ago today, I unlocked the front door of my house for the first time as the owner. That was sixteen weeks to the very day after Nigel died, and that, along with pretty much everything I’ve done since that horrible 2019 day, was made possible by the help and support of family and friends. That’s something I can never forget—nor should I.

In the time since this house became mine, life has been a non-stop rollercoaster: A bit more than two months later (and a few days more than six months after Nigel died), New Zealand went under its first Covid Lockdown, and there were several more after that, with varying degrees of strictness. I lost Sunny, then Jake, and that was against the backdrop of me still trying to come to terms with the loss of Nigel. Last year, we were hit with three major storms, pretty much literally washing away our summer. I’ve waged war with weeds, I fought fatigue, and I battled to make sense of what was and is the nonsensical reality of my unexpected solo life.

Also in this house, took on and successfully completed many projects, I entertained friends and family, and I enjoyed TV, music, reading, and also playing games on my iPad. Leo and I played The Chase Game, or just cuddled, and he’s repeatedly demonstrated his huge talent for looking cute.

Through all of that, the good and the bad, this house provided me and the furbabies with shelter and safety and security. I always knew that when the world made the least sense to me, when I needed a safe harbour the most, this house was it.

Which is not to say it’s perfect: If it was, I wouldn’t have made or contemplated so many changes to it. However, nearly all of the things that I may dislike about this house are things I dislike because I didn’t come into the picture until after the house was built, so I didn’t get to make choices that I’d like better. Still, there’s pretty much nothing I can’t change, should I want to do it and decide the cost is justified.

I still don’t know what my life will be like in the years ahead: I have no plan nor any idea about what may be possible. I don’t know where I want to live long term, and right now, this is as good a place as any. Future me will figure it out eventually. Maybe. Probably.

For the time being—or forever, who knows?—I’ll continue to enjoy what’s good about this house, and to plan things I want to do to make it better for me and Leo. As I begin my fifth year here, I have a list of projects and also the necessary strengthened resolve to get them done. Right now, that’s enough. And so is this house.

The photo above is from my 2020 post about this, “Rehoming myself”. I published it a couple days after I got the keys, so that post has some more of the story than I shared on my Facebook at the time. I used the same photo again in a post last year.

Furbabies have magical powers

I’ve often shared Facebook “Memories” here on this blog, some of which can spark feelings, good or bad, or are just interesting to me in some way. Today’s was one of the sad types.

The photo above was today’s FB “Memory”. I shared it to my personal Facebook (via Instagram) on October 12, 2017—six years ago today. In that 2017 post, I said:

Bella decided to visit me at my desk again. A welcome diversion! I never have photos like this with the dogs because they don’t do laps—plus, they both need haircuts!

I remembered that photo, and taking it, but it was the caption that caught my attention today. When I shared it on Facebook this morning, I said:

I miss those days more than I could ever find a way to express, because Bella, the two dogs I mentioned (Jake and Sunny, of course), and especially their other daddy, were all still alive on that day. They and that house are all gone from my life, but the stuff that was in it is mostly still around, not that it matters to me. What’s important, though, is that Leo joined our family the year after this photo, and that little guy fills up a lot of the cold void the rest of our little family left behind. Leo is the real secret to how I managed to survive all that loss over those two years that began in 2019. Furbabies really do have magical powers.

I was feeling as melancholy about it as that probably sounds, and it was probably all because I’ve been in a sometimes reflective, sometimes quite sad, head space since the weekend, something I referred to obliquely when I talked about not knowing “what my long term plan is” in my post about this past Friday and Saturday. There were other things that triggered similar feelings this week, too.

This goes to show, I guess, that it’s not just FB “Memories” that can make me feel reflective or sad—in this case, I pretty much already felt that way. However, seeing the “Memory” while still sometimes feeling that way, it was the obvious what sort of reaction I might have.

My reaction the “Memory” today is so completely different from what I felt about the photo on that day in 2017. Back then, I published a blog post sharing that photo and telling the story behind it. My photos often have stories behind them, of course—and it seems that my reactions to photos can have stories behind them, too.

Today’s reactions weren’t all sad, though—at least, not at first. I looked at the photo and thought about how much better coverage I got with my beard dye back then. But, of course, that created reflection of its own: Inwardly, I feel like I still look like I did in that 2017 photo, but I’m also aware that when I see myself in a mirror or a photo taken recently, what I see is how much my appearance has aged since Nigel died (and I feel it’s even more true if I don’t keep up with dyeing my beard).

I was reminded of that today when I looked at myself in the mirror when I had my shower. Then, I started thinking about a blog post in which I’d mention the house where the photo above was taken, and that led to me remembering bringing Nigel home for one last night before his funeral, and I cried. It was a few brief seconds, as such moments usually are now, and ended with me thinking that at least being in the shower meant I just needed to rinse my face. That thought made me kind of chuckle.

So, with all sorts of memories and feelings flying around these days, it’s no wonder this photo from six years ago would make me remember all I’ve lost. However, there’s another side even to that. This morning I picked up my iPad, and before I even had a chance to check Facebook, I noticed Leo laying in his bed looking particularly cute. I shared that photo of him (below) in a comment on my Facebook post sharing the “Memory”, and said: “Coincidentally, I snapped a photo of Leo a little while before I looked at FB and saw this ‘Memory’.” And, I knew that Leo also needs a haircut, but unlike Jake and Sunny that 2017 day, Leo is partly shorn in that photo.

I take two lessons from today. First, stories are literally everywhere, sometimes in multiple layers. The other lesson, though, fits right in with my mood this week: Everything changes. Oh, yeah, there’s the third important lesson, which is more of an important reminder: Furbabies really do have magical powers. And I’m certainly glad they do.

Winter realities

It’s still winter in the Southern Hemisphere, something we’re certainly keenly aware of here in New Zealand, and the fact that meteorological Spring arrives one week from today doesn't exactly soften that reality. Maybe next week? This has been a more “normal” winter, which is probably why it’s seemed hard this year, and the realities of winter—the cold, the rain, the dampness—seemed a little more real this year.

Last year, our winter was unusually mild—often warm, even—and fairly dry. Spring was more or less “normal”, though maybe still a bit milder than other years. Our summer was unusually wet—including those three major storms with the first few weeks, and a lot of rain the rest of the season, too. Then Autumn, and a continuation of the rainy and stormy summer. I think those facts together have made this winter seem harsher than it really was: Despite more rain and storms than usual, overall, this winter has been more or less like they used to be. Unfortunately, those are also the sorts of winters I hate, especially when they’re wetter than normal. Still, I adapt.

As I’ve said before, mowing the lawns during winter can be a challenge because they’re so often wet. On the other hand, the fact that the cold weather makes the lawns grow more slowly means it’s usually possible to wait until things dry out at least a tiny bit before attempting to mow the grass. This is just one of the challenges of winter, and watching for a couple sunny days is necessary.

The photo up top is of the sofa arm nearest my chair in the living area. It has a tea towel I don’t use for much of anything on the arm to protect it from Leo: First thing every morning, he goes outside and when he comes back in, he wants to sleep in my lap. However, because the lawns are always heavily wet in the mornings (from rain, heavy dew, or both), his paws are soaked. The photo below is of my “lap blanket”, which he will lay down when he comes back inside from his morning rounds.

I started using the blanket my first winter in this house, because he was always coming in with wet, and often muddy, paws. I have a few such blankets, so I can wash them and not have to get my sweatpants wet or dirty—or my regular pants later in the day, because he loves laying in my lap, especially after being outside.

I added the towel not long ago because I noticed he was leaving wet paw prints on the sofa arm, and with the clay exposed on the bank (where he and the neighbours’ dogs catch up with each other), I knew I needed to protect the fabric so I don’t have to clean it. Whenever I’ve just finished mowing the lawn, he also tracks in grass clippings. The photo above shows the towel after I’d already shaken it once. Basically, the towel’s a kind of antimacassar, something I’d never even heard of until I moved to New Zealand and heard Nigel use the term—though I don’t remember why he did. He had to explain it to me.

Something I did almost as soon as I moved in was to put a bathmat I bought for our last house in front of the door to the patio that the dogs used. At the time, the “lawn” out back was mostly clay, and the matts helped protect the carpet a bit (I have two from the last house, so I always have one to use when the other has to be washed).

Finally, there’s a pretty much year-round issue of Leo tracking grass clippings into the house, however, in winter he tracks in much more because it sticks to his paws and undercarriage. I could vacuum every other day and probably not stay on top of it. Of course I’m not that diligent: Weekly is good enough for me, unless I don’t feel like it some week, in which case it gets worse. Of course.

On the outside of the house, the wet and damp weather makes all yardwork, not just mowing, difficult to do. In winter, the clay “soil” is heavy and dense, and in summer it like concrete, so there’s a sweet spot in spring and autumn in which it’s moist enough to dig, but not water-logged enough to make it too heavy to dig. I almost inevitably miss most of those sweet-spots every year, which is part of why landscaping has been such a physical challenge. This year, it’s also been cold, which makes the wetness and dampness feel even more unpleasant.

I hate being cold most of all, and my house often feels cold. The living area is pretty good, especially if I close the door to the rest of the house. However, the hallway and two of the bedrooms and main bathroom have no heat (I installed a heat pump in the main bedroom, but the en suite is unheated). When the sun is shining brightly, it heats up all the living spaces, but when it’s not—at night or on cloudy days—the house outside the living area can get quite cold.

There, too, I have adaptations: As the sun goes down, I close the doors to the toilet, main bathroom, and guest room. My office and the hallway are still cold, but not as bad as when I don’t close those doors. Yesterday, with the sun shining brightly, I turned on a micathermic heater in the hallway, which helped a LOT. They’re more energy-efficient than other electric space heaters, but free if I run one when the sun is shining.

I should add that absolutely none of this is new: At our last house, I put an old bathmat in front of the dog door on the ground level of our house, which is also where my office was located. I also used a micathermic heater in my office (and on really cold days/nights, I used another one in the rumpus room my office was attached to, the path to and from the rest of the house). The dogs also used to track in grass clippings, though we had a service take care of the mowing at that house.

While I’ve learned to adapt to the winters here in New Zealand, and as frustrating as the wetness and cold can be sometimes, it’s still infinitely better than the hell that was a Northern Illinois winter: It doesn’t snow in the upper North Island, we don’t get hard frosts in this part of the country, and it never gets even almost as cold. By comparison, we have it pretty easy. That doesn’t mean I hate winter here any less, though.

And that’s my biggest winter reality of all.

Related: “Autumnal realities”, my blog post from April of this year.

The grass clippings even stuck to Leo's toy bone.

Furry adventurous

Today began with a bit of an adventure, of sorts. It began because of a delivery, and it all made me remember to finally share some Leo cuteness. It’s been a furry day, actually.

Leo and I had been having a leisurely start to the day, mainly because I knew that my latest batch of prescriptions were being delivered this morning, so I was just kind of relaxing in my chair. The driver arrived near 10:30, and I saw that as the driver put the package in my letterbox, he looked up, which I thought was because Leo was barking at him, but I realised he wasn’t looking at my house, but up the street somewhere.

When I went outside to get the package, I heard a small dog bark, and I looked over to see my next door neighbours’ female dog. “How’d you get out?” I asked her. She barked a bit, then sniffed the grass at her feet as she stood on her family’s side of the invisible property line.

Not long after the next door neighbours moved in, their two dogs got out, and it took a search party of their friends to find their male dog. When I saw the female, I assumed the boy was already on an adventure. Nevertheless, I decided I should put the girl back in their yard.

I went inside to put my prescriptions in the house, and when I went back out I saw that the boy dog was there, too. I talked to them both nicely, and by name. She barked at me, a bit and he just looked verrrrry suspicious of me (I was told he’s his daddy’s boy). This time, though, they let me lead them back into their yard, and I closed the gate and made sure it was latched. Then I left a note in the neighbours’ letterbox. Leo was barking through our front window the whole time.

I gave us our breakfasts, and afterward I sat back down in my chair to catch up in the news and such, as I do every morning. When I was ready to go have my shower, I looked behind my chair, and there was Leo (photo up top). When I shared the photo on my personal Facebook, I said:

“Leo’s latest thing is to sleep on the floor behind my chair, up against the curtains covering the doors to the patio. And, I’m all for it!”

I think it’s adorable, though it’s just an extension of what he’s always done: He generally sleeps near me, or else he sometimes lays at the far end of the living area, at the base of the corner cupboard, which is near the doors to the patio I use to let him go outside (photo from June is below; the ratty shoes are what I slip on when I go outside—often to bring in a barking Leo…). In the late evening, he may take himself to bed.

Today, too, I used the electric grooming clippers on Leo, the first time I was able to make them work. A few days ago, I went to get our small battery-powered clippers, something we bought for Jake, I think, so we could snip off little bits of matted fur between groomings. I put a fresh battery in it, turned it on, and it was running very slowly, something I remembered Nigel had noticed and then stopped using them. With a, “why not?” attitude, I got out oil we had for the various clippers, applird it, and then it was perfect. It made me wonder why Nigel hadn’t tried that, because he was so diligent about keeping the main clippers clean and oiled. Maybe he just forgot.

Since oiling the little clippers worked so well, I oiled the big grooming clippers, too—and they seemed better. I’d tried using them on Leo several times in recent weeks, and they never seemed to clip anything. Since the last time I tried, I’ve been clipping off matted fur with scissors (Nigel would be thoroughly appalled if he saw me do that—I wasn’t allowed to use scissors near our furbabies, which is probably why I work so very slowly and carefully), and I also used the little clippers. None of that was enough.

This afternoon, I tried the big clippers for the first time since I oiled them, and they, too were perfect. I only cut a little bit off of Leo today, but it was enough to let me know that I can now use them. Leo seems to be prepared for the ordeal grooming session. I hope that I am, too.

Finally for this day of dog news, I let Leo outside mid-afternoon, and he barked, which drew out the neighbours’ two dogs who joined in on the barking. Their gossip sessions never last more than a minute or two, but it was enough to let me know the two hadn’t escaped yet again.

Clearly, Leo was a very helpful boy today.

Leo is six

Today is Leo’s sixth birthday. A perfectly ordinary day from his perspective, but one in which he got lots of cuddles and treats. When I shared the photo above on Instagram (and also my personal Facebook), I said:

Today is my boy Leo’s sixth birthday—already!!! His daddy Nigel only got to celebrate two of them, but I’m spoiling him enough for both of us—of course. I noticed from my previous posts for Leo’s birthday that there’s always been something about him being clipped: Either he was in the middle of one, just had been, or was about to be. Technically, this year it’s the last two, LOL. Tonight he’ll get extra cuddles and maybe a treat or two. 🙂❤️🐶🎂🥰

This year he was much more willing to let me take a photo of him, possibly because he’s used to me taking photos of him all the time. Then, too, he hasn’t been newly shorn, obviously. Of course, there’s more to it.

Last year, I got Leo groomed the day before his birthday, and said about it: “It took months to get this organised, mostly because of delays of various kinds—especially not being able to find a groomer. However, I also was very uneasy about the whole thing precisely because of all the loss over the past three years.” All of that is still true. Also, I’ve taken Leo to that groomer twice, and both times he wasn’t exactly happy about it. If I’m totally honest, I didn’t think the groomer did more than an “okay” job grooming, and, as I said when I talked about Leo’s big outing a couple weeks ago, it seems they didn’t trim his nails as they told they would (I asked when I dropped him off).

Because of all that, I decided to learn to groom Leo myself, as I also talked about a couple weeks ago. I still haven’t actually attempted it, and for silly reasons: I too-well remember him nipping daddy Nigel and me when we tried to groom him, but mostly because—of course!—I’m worried I might hurt him. Even so, I’ve been using the special rounded-end dog scissors to keep the fur immediately around his eyes trimmed so he can see. He seems to actually appreciate that, and I think he may be about ready to trust me to give him a full grooming. Just not today—not on his birthday! Okay, that one is totally on me, but this is basically what I was referring to in the Instagram photo caption: He’d just had his eyes groomed, and the rest is coming soon.

This year is the first of our “now normal”, as I call it: I don’t want to say “new normal” because whatever “normal” is, it keeps changing, and I don’t want to encourage that. This is Leo’s first birthday since his very first in 2018 that marke the end of a year in which no one in the family died—we’ve definitely had a rough ride over the past four years. That means he and I, all that’s left of the family of six we were on his first birthday, survived another year. That’s something to—celebrate sounds kind of weird, but, yeah. Celebrate.

Despite my hesitation to groom him, Leo’s still the same happy little guy he’s always been. He also still loves to sleep on my lap, as he’s been doing since he came to live with us five years ago, and when he isn’t, he’s usually sleeping in one of his many spots not far from wherever I am. He also absolutely loves when we play The Chase Game, in which we take turns chasing each other around the living area. He prefers to play the game inside because he gets a better grip on the carpet, which is good: I’m way too unfit to run around outside. Or, maybe he realises that?

The important thing is that Leo’s still a great companion, an entertainer, and my best buddy. I’m pretty sure I’m all that for him, too. I think his other daddy would agree.

Happy Sixth Birthday, Leo!

Related:

Leo is five – 2022
Leo is four – 2021
Leo is three – 2020
Leo is two – 2019
Leo is one year old – 2018
Another new addition
All blog posts tagged “Leo” – All the posts in which I’ve talked about him

Today is also the first day of meteorological winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Leo had a better day than that would imply.

Leo’s big outing

It was an early start this morning: Leo had a 9:15 appointment for his annual jabs, and it was my job to get him there (and pay for it all). While I’ve never been a “morning person”, the actual reason I don't like appointments that early is that it means dealing with morning traffic, and it’s impossible to know how heavy it’ll be until I’m in it. On top of that, at this time of year, thick morning fog can be another problem, and it was today.

Leo was actually due for his jabs in February, and they sent me a reminder text. I kept forgetting to deal with it, so they sent another text. I kept forgetting again, mainly because I was thinking about changing vets (the one we’d been seeing left that branch). However, the main problem, as it so often is, was that I only remembered when it was after hours.

Last week, I was sitting at my desk and decided to go the chain’s website, then navigated to the vets at my local branch. I wanted to see if they had any vets at the moment, but noted I could book online. With a shrug and a “why not?”, I set up an account (separate from the retail store one I already have…) and went to book an appointment. They had two available this week: 9am and 9:15am today. I chose the latter, hoping that traffic would be better, with most people who needed to be at work by 9 off the roads.

The traffic was mostly tolerable, it turned out, and were delayed just by two red lights and slow-moving trucks. I was well aware, though, that I could’ve shaved around ten minutes off my trip if the long-promised road connecting our houses directly to the rest of the city was open (still no announcement of an opening date—of course—more than a year after the first already three-years-late date was suggested).

Leo got the American expat vet that one of the kids first saw there after we’d shifted to Hamilton (we hadn’t seen her since; we saw a South African expat in the following years). She was good and nice (which I already knew), and won Leo over with treats. After that, I smiled inwardly when she noted that Leo was 400 grams heavier than last year, so he needs to cut back a bit—like father, like son! Although, I’m carrying around a bit more than an extra 400 grams…

I asked for her advice on cutting his nails (something Nigel flat out refused to do—he was afraid he’d hurt them). She said they’d do them right then, and saw that they were quite long. It seems unlikely that the groomers actually cut his nails last time (November), even though I specifically asked if they did that and was told yes. Two claws on his back paws were so long they were curling back into the pad of his foot—poor guy! And, bad daddy!!! for not noticing. The vet suggested I bring him back in six weeks for another trim (because some were too long to properly cut this time).

Grooming, however, is another issue entirely. It’s still very difficult to get an appointment with a groomer, especially with my trust issues adding another barrier. So, some months ago I started watching YouTube videos by a professional groomer who believes that not only can anyone learn to groom their dog, it’s also a bonding opportunity. Aw!

Around 15 years ago, we had a wheaten terrier named Saibh. We had a wonderful groomer for her, but she left the industry and recommended another lady I took Saibh to. That lady complained about Saibh, said she’d never groom her again unless Saibh was sedated, and demanded more money for having to deal with Saibh. I felt awful—for Saibh, obviously; I couldn’t possibly have cared less about the grumpy groomer’s feelings, and I knew I’d never go back to her.

Saibh had some “quirks”, likely caused by her breeder, who was later prosecuted at least twice for bad practices and banned from breeding dogs (many of his dogs had congenital defects, or severe behavioural issues, and several were put down because of them). Not surprisingly, Nigel and I both thought the guy was contemptible scum, but we felt fortunate that Saibh got away so lightly, with mere quirks.

With few options, I started grooming Saibh. I was getting pretty good at it when Saibh died suddenly of a heart attack. Her own congenital conditions had caught up with her.

Jake came into our family, then Sunny, and while I found some pretty okay groomers, we decided to start grooming them ourselves. Nigel bought several pairs of dog clippers, including some professional grade ones, all of which I still have, of course.

When Leo joined the family, he was just shy of one year old, so when Nigel and I tried to groom him, he was still a puppy. The last time we groomed him, around the time of his second birthday, he bit us both and drew blood (well, a tiny bit…). We never really finished grooming him, and then we ran out of time: That last grooming attempt was around three months before the furbabies' other daddy died.

When Nigel was in his final days, he kept pushing me to get the dogs groomed—and he was doing that, I knew, because he was well aware that he was running out of days. He knew people would come round to the house after he died, and he was embarrassed (For me? Imagining how he’d feel? Both?) that people would see the dogs looking so shaggy. That was, obviously, the absolute, very last thing that could ever be on my mind at the time.

My brother-in-law organised grooming for me one of the times I was visiting Hamilton in the weeks after Nigel died. It was such a small thing, really, but, to me, him doing that and even driving us there and back was a huge act of kindness at a time I needed it most. And, the dogs were awfully untidy.

So here we are in 2023, it’s difficult to get a grooming appointment, and Leo’s fully adult now (me, not so much…). I know he hates being left at a groomers because he wants to stick with me. Over the past several months, I’ve been getting him used to me trimming matted fur with scissors, and also with the clippers )so he can used to the sound). I’m about ready to start, and I hope he is, too.

Leo’s spent much of today sleeping, as dogs often do after getting their jabs. Early this afternoon, with another shrug and “why not?”, I lay down on the bed so he and I could have a nap together (it was an early start this morning, after all). He thought that was a splendid idea. He’s a good boy.