Furry Friends

With the sad news this week that BillinGlendale had lost his beloved Nikki this week, just a few months after losing his other pup, Conni, I asked Bill if he would be willing to share more about his beloved girls with us.

Nikki Crosses the Rainbow Bridge, by BillinGlendale

My cocker spaniel Nikki passed away late Sunday night.

Nikki was the sweetest and happiest dog that I’ve ever known. She was always happy and wagging her tail. After the last of our previous pack passed on (a Shih tzu, the other dog was a cocker), we waited several months before starting a new pack. My wife found a private breeder that was selling cockers in West Covina so we made an appointment to visit.

The breeder was an elderly lady and she called the remaining puppy freckles since she had tan and white spots on her nose. We took the puppy home that night and named her Nikki. Conni came to live with us a few weeks later. Nikki loved toys and a good bone. She was really smart and had a great sense of curiosity (I said when she was a puppy that she was more curious than the President). She loved her doggie bed and that’s where she took her last breath.

The photos at the link below show Nikki throughout her life, starting as a puppy in 2007 and ending with the last two photos I took of her this time last year. Both girls stopped eating their regular meals last fall (I think there was a problem with their food) and Nikki developed glaucoma. We though we’d found some food that she liked the past few weeks but she ate her last meal Friday morning and developed digestive discomfort Saturday. Sunday night, she was gone.

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Conni Crosses the Rainbow Bridge, by BillinGlendale

My Yorkshire Terrier/Pomeraniian mix passed away in late February.

Conni came to live with us when Nikki (the cocker) was about 3 months old and had been with us for about a month. A friend of madame knew someone that couldn’t keep her dog (this same friend provided half of our previous pack in a similar fashion) and we went over to pick up this black ball of fur named Blanco. We renamed her Conni (no ‘e’) since Blanco didn’t seem fitting for a dog with black fur and no ‘e’ to match Nikki.

Conni must have not been in a multi dog household because she wanted to eat in a more leisurely fashion, not realizing that if she left food, it would be eaten by an always hungry Cocker Spaniel.

I used to walk my pack along the local main drag where we lived in the community we lived in in North Glendale, the comments I’d get about Conni from adults was “What kind of dog is that?” and from children “Toto!”.

Conni hated trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles. If any of these would pass her, she’d start barking until they went away.

Conni would wander off sometimes…early one morning, I was still awake and noticed that Conni wasn’t around. I looked everywhere for her: in the back of the house, out in the yard out front, and even outside the gate. It was about 3am and I’m calling for the little girl. I went out back for about the third time and heard the jingle of the bells on her collar. The landlord had folk doing work under the house and left the access open and Conni decided to explore. I put a Tile tracker on her collar after that.

Conni didn’t seem to get the concept that going to bed at night meant going to sleep. When we’d go to bed, Nikki likes to get under the covers and sleep, until she gets hot and then sticks her head out and finally sleeps on top of the covers. Conni saw it as party time, would wander around and eventually want to get down and go out (we’d already just gone out before bedtime). I’d lay there sleepless until I heard her come back in the doggie door. Then she’d want me to help her back into bed.

Conni was queen of the pack, and let Nikki know her place.

Conni and Nikki were loved.

Click the links for the wonderful photo galleries and more about Nikki and Conni.

Guest Post: Nikki and Conni ForeverPost + Comments (89)

Something Fabulous shares her kitties and their story with us.

There is something to be said, another time perhaps, about a feminist critique of pet ownership: Why is it “Cat Lady,” never “Cat Dude”? Why is there no similar snide pejorative about dog people? How many cats do you need, actually, before you get the title? Briefly, the answers are:

• society still frowns less on men being single and childless;
• it is much easier, logistically, to hoard, say, 45 cats than dogs in an apartment; and:
• 3 cats

So, here I am, a formerly proudly dog-only person, and my two cats: Meet Milo and Gigi.

Milo and his brother Oliver had just been returned to the rescue where I volunteer. Oliver, a tabby, was friendly and flirty, literally put his paw out between the bars of the cage to pet me. And when I sat down and opened the door, he came right out and sat on my lap. I was Chosen.

But he was a bonded pair with his very handsome but extremely shy brother Milo. And I had not been in the market for one cat, let alone two. So I went home to think about it, to talk with my landlady about making an exception to the no-pets lease, see if this could be a thing.

Two mornings later, the director of the rescue called me in tears. Oliver had died in his cage overnight. Ultimately the vet looked at his records and noted he’d had a chronic kidney disease and decided he’d likely died of it, exacerbated by all the changes and stress he’d gone through.

I took Milo home that day. Landlady, schmandlady.

Later, our director told me how black cats, shy cats especially, are the hardest to place. She was sure Oliver hung on long enough to find Milo his new home. I, who never cry, and don’t believe in spiritual hoo-ha; wept and wept.

We went on happily for a few years. I would occasionally foster a kitten or 2 (or 4). Keep ‘em in the bathtub, train ‘em up, and send them on their way.

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Something Fabulous and Milo: A Love Story (and Gigi too)Post + Comments (80)