Althea Garcia Jerry

Today has been a not so good day. In fact, I would go so far as to say it's been pretty shitty. For a start, I threw my back out this morning and have been hobbling around in a fair amount of pain and being generally useless.


But far worse than that, Althea - my husband's much loved pedigreed bassett hound that he has had for thirteen years - had to be put down today. She had breast cancer two years ago. At the time, the vet told us that in all probability it would come back sooner rather than later, but we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. She also told us that if and when the cancer did come back that it would be inoperable because of her age and general condition. So we knew it was coming, we just didn't know when. About a month ago she started showing the signs; she had a persistent cough and a tumor started to grow again in the same spot as before.

We all pretended at first that we didn't notice it, but a 60-pound dog with chronic phlegm and a lump on her side is hard to ignore for long. I know some people would wait until the bitter end, but she was beginning to suffer and we just couldn't bear to watch her get worse. Luckily for us, the local vet makes house calls for this sort of thing, so she just drifted off to sleep in my husband's lap surrounded by her family. One of our best friends, Sean, came by and was with us when it happened and also helped dig her grave in the rain. Thanks Sean, you're the best.

We will miss Althea's booming bark and her constant vigil under The Boy's chair waiting for food to fall. We will miss her happy dance when it was feeding time, and her constant bullying of the other dogs - there was never a question who the queen of the pack was. The picture above pretty much sums up where she was most content; waiting patiently to be fed, yet guarding her bowl from any potential enemy activity. She's in a better place now and I sure hope her all-time favorite, pizza, is waiting for her when she arrives.

Birds and Bees and ....Dogs?

Thanks to our dogs, our kids are now completely up to speed on the process of reproduction. Not for us the gradual answering of ever more pointed questions, hopefully drawn out over a couple of years, culminating in a instructive, yet sensitively done, tete-a-tete with said children, perhaps with the aid of some specially written book filled with tasteful illustrations.

Nope, we got the crash course when the girls came racing into the house one day yelling, "Mommy! The dogs butts are stuck together! What are they doing?". Oy.

That was three years ago, and since that time the dogs sex life has much been the topic of conversation at the dinner table. "But why does he keep licking her butt? " is not what passes for polite dining conversation anywhere, I assure them, but it's difficult to keep their attention when the canine version of a Navy shore leave in Tripoli is being acted out in the room next door.

At first, we tried to keep them separated but the instincts of nature are impossible to control. Inevitably, they would manage to hook up, and then spend the next half an hour or so wandering confusedly around in a circle. We have hardwood floors and the frantic clickity-clicking of toenails is extremely irritating, to say the least.

Now we just chuck them outside and let them have at it. The weird thing is, Earnest was spayed as a puppy and up until he met Althea at age 9, had never shown the slightest interest in sex. I can only conclude that she is the Salome of dogdom, her charms irresistible to refuse.

But now we face a different challenge; it seems that their lust has rubbed off on our two Jack Russells, Zeke and Eddie, who have recently taken to tussling each other in a very lascivious fashion. The fact that they are both males doesn't bother them one bit; the love that dare not speak its name has arrived.

I can't wait for dinner.