drowning at 7 feet sea level
This looks like any other crafted bear, right? It’s not. O.D. makes special occasion/bereavement bears so she made one for Breagha, who passed on August 5, 2019.
The outside is made from Bree’s favorite bandannas and inside Tonie put her favorite pink Wooba toy and some of her hair.
Yes, I broke down when she handed the bear to me; Bree is finally home again. And now, after not dreaming about her, she’s there when I sleep. I’ll cherish this little bit of Bree as long as I live.
Thank you, O.D.
One year ago tonight I took Bree on her last car ride.
It’s been a long, bad year. Other than that horrible night I’ve not mourned her, pushing everything down deep.. so far down I couldn’t feel anything. Then a week ago I was cleaning the house, listening to music (some of us dinosaurs still have iPods!) and James Taylor’s Never Die Young started. I didn’t notice, until he sang “…take the sky, forsake the moon…”. And I collapsed into a weeping rag. You could have done anything to me at that moment; I was immersed in grief, not reality.
Younghaven’s Take the Sky, a.k.a. ‘Breagha’
Guess you’re really gone. At least I can cry for you now. I will forever miss you and forever look for you everywhere, as if you’re only just out of sight.
Breagha (‘Beautiful’) was not a normal dog. She was people-smart. If one of the little dogs needed to go outside they told her and she told me. They are as lost now as we; Daisy won’t even go to the side yard, sticking as close to the back door as possible. She keeps watching for Bree to come out so she’ll feel safe. Bree was her rock.
I could tell Bree something once or twice and she got it. She knew many, many words. Training was a breeze and though we didn’t keep up with it, she remembered even unto old age. A thinker, sometimes she over-thought things.
She saved my life when the electric blanket I was using started to catch fire, barking at it to alert me.
We started each day with a hug, her ears going back while sidling up to me for the ritual.
After I showered each day and started to blow dry my hair, she would come in the bathroom. I’d turn the dryer on cool and run it over her, saying “Aren’t you a purty girl?” and she’d grin and preen for me.
At first I was heartbroken to see her nowhere and now, still bereft, I see her everywhere. Don’t know what’s worse.
It’s probably the last time I’ll say/write this: Her sire, CH Deep River Bow and Arrow, was the #1 Smooth Collie in the US, all systems, in 2008.
I love this dog. And I will miss her until I die. There was so much more to her, so much she gave us, just loving us and being part of our lives. Suffice it to say that she was a good dog and she will be missed. Goodbye, Big Love.
Now that I’m over the shock of losing Breagha (though stuck in a stultifying haze; I dropped my house key somewhere between here and the grocery store. How?!) all the funny things she used to do are coming back.
She loved this chair, but always looked so awkward on it. Possibly the only time she looked so, as she had a natural grace. Bree never even went through that gangly puppy phase.
The chair fell apart and we removed it to the curb. She was not happy, taking up residence in “the comfy chair” for the duration.
Breagha, aka Younghaven Take The Sky, has passed on to her next great adventure.
She was the most intelligent, obstinate, opinionated dog I ever knew, but she was my friend.
I hope your travels take you far, sweet girl. But not so far that we can’t catch up. Dad and I miss you terribly.
It’s been a day.
Well, I’ll start at the beginning. Himself and I are flying to Houston next month to (finally) meet my father. Yes, when I drag something out it gets drug to the limit. Our meeting simply cannot wait any longer, so the plane tickets are booked.
Since we’re unaccustomed to being gone, a trip means about 5,000 different little things need to happen before we leave… among them dog boarding. I figured the best place for boarding my three angels (I’ll let you stop laughing before I go on) would be in someone’s home instead of a kennel, so I set up a Meet n Greet with my selected dog sitters from ROVER dot com for today.
My chosen sitters were two ladies with a great reputation who seemed very nice. Bonus: they only live a few miles away! So, we loaded the girls up, Bree riding with Mike in the Mini and the littles with me in the truck.
When we arrived one of the ladies met us outside and showed us back to the back yard… where there is a pool. To be fair, I knew they had a pool, but assumed (don’t say it!) they’d have a safety fence around it. They did not.
I declined to have the six large barking dogs in the house come out to meet us (!) because for one I don’t know them and two, my dogs were stressed just leaving the house. They never get to go anywhere, poor things.
Would you like to know who fell in the pool first? Yes, it was my elderly Collie, replete with cataracts. She hobbled around and there was no way she wasn’t falling in… fortunately it was near the steps so we got her out without incident. That was followed by Daisy, who couldn’t swim if the debbil himself was chasing her! I let out a high pitched squeal and went in to get her.
Then Bree fell into the deep end and Mike had to dive in to save her! To her credit she can swim, but her limbs aren’t strong enough to extricate that body anymore. That’s when I started cursing. Stress does that to me, like some people come out in hives.
Badger was surprisingly smart enough to stay clear of the water. She was too busy marking all the other dog’s pee spots.
Bree will stay at the Vet’s, Badger at a ‘Spa’ and Daisy? She’s coming with me.
What has happened to WordPress? Everything is blocks…
Not crazy, but here are the little beasties who try to push me off the bed at night. Snoring their butts off…
My sister-in-law sleeps with three Rottweilers in her bed and I have trouble with a couple of small dogs!! LOL!
Anyway, I think I mentioned Guy Who Yells at Me in a previous post. He started over a year ago while walking past my postage stamp house/yard with his little black and white dog. My dogs started barking (of course!) and I walked over to Bree and hugged her to calm her down and stop her running around, trampling the little dogs.
The Guy then went berserk, screaming “You’d better not be hurting that dog!! You better not!”. I was taken aback, to say the least, and replied “Sir, not that it’s any of your business, but I’d never hurt this dog”.
Well, he kept it up for another few minutes, accusing me of hitting her and all sorts of things! I was gobsmacked.
And every time he walked that mutt past the house and we were out there, he would go crazy on my ass. EVERY TIME. Once he yelled “Are you hitting that dog? You better not be hitting that dog!” To which I replied “Sir, I am 6 feet away from her; just how crazy are you?”
It got so bad I started hiding in the house and then one day I ran inside to hide because he’d come around the corner and Arthur saw me. He stepped outside and told the Guy “Stop yelling at my wife or I’ll call the police.”
And that was it. I didn’t see him again. Guess he chose another route. Huzzah!
Enter Woman Who Yells at Me. You can’t make this shit up!
Bree will be 11 tomorrow (I know!!) but when she was younger I used to bathe her outside in the summer. And we used to play with the hose, her trying to catch the water. Most of us with dogs have.
Well, the Woman happened by with her dog one day a couple of weeks ago while I was outside with the dogs.. and I had a hose in my hand. She lost her mind and started screaming “You better not be spraying that dog in the head!!”
I thought: Is this Guy Who Yells at Me’s wife???
Better prepared for the insanity, I just smiled and walked away… Until she caught me on a bad day. The inspector had shown up (for the fifth time) but once again the contractor was a no-show. I had just fed the dogs and took them out. I always go with them, they’re never alone.
There she was, across the street, watching me. Bree and the little dogs went nuts and because Bree is a deep chested breed and I don’t want her to torsion and bloat, I picked up the hose. She thought she was getting a bath and shut up and retreated to the back yard. That should have been that, but the Woman had to open her mouth, didn’t she? I don’t know what she was screaming because I was louder. And it was profane. Haven’t seen her since.
Crazy people are everywhere… but lately it seems like I’m seeing more than my share…
Bree barks while Daisy suns.
There is accepted scientific fact, and there is truth. Sometimes they’re not the same thing.
I watched a canine documentary a couple of years ago that centered around behavior. The Host started right in on a dog’s limitations, of which there seemed to be many. For instance, one of the first listed was the leash/obstacle problem.
The Host posited as truth the old chestnut that a dog can’t comprehend that they must stay on the same side of an obstacle as their owner; that they are connected by the leash. ‘They just cannot think laterally’, he said. ‘They can’t work it out’. That’s when I turned the show off.
Well, Bree worked out for herself as a puppy that we were connected and after two times going the wrong way around a light pole and never did it again.
Last night while watching Stephen Fry’s series QI I heard him say that dogs cannot follow where you point. They watch your finger, not the direction in which you are pointing.
Once again, Bree got pointing right away. I can point at stuff anywhere and she’ll go get it. Stuffed babies, usually. She loves it and regards it as work, which is the highest calling for a herding breed.
She also knows how to ‘take it’, ‘come’, ‘go’, ‘hug’, etc… and saved my life once when the electric blanket I was using caught fire.
Got kids? Get Collies. There will be an excess of hair, but your children will have a best friend you can count on… one who won’t introduce them to meth.
Conversely, Badger, also a herder, does not always get it. Maybe her original people didn’t spend much time with her when she was a puppy.
She’s old now, the Bree. Her face becomes progressively whiter and she moves slower. But she’s still the best girl.
pamibe 