Love the Ones You Can

 This Valentine's Day, for the second year in a row, I'm sharing it with Tres C. Bass, who is now 13 (a guess, since they were unsure his age when he went into rescue 9 years ago).  I Gotta Llama Love for Tres.

Tres is fortunate to have the "curb appeal" he has -- every one loves him.  Until he barks.  

Loudest bark ever.  That's how he got the last name "Bass" (like an instrument, not a fish).  The C. is in honor of two people I care about deeply who were starting cancer treatment at the time I adopted him near the end of 2020.  But I decided to make it a reminder for me of Covid, as I suffered a terrible week with it, likely contracting it just hours before I picked him up to bring him to my home -- his new home. 

It wasn't going to be the last home of his life, because there was a little curve ball waiting for us as summer turned to fall.  Landlord's cancer brought his life to an end, and landlady sold with only the time legally required to outst a tenant.  He died, I was out, and the place sold, all within a week's time just over a month after I was first notified of their decisions to sell.  Having a mobility-impaired, 85 pound dog nearing end of life as a factor to find housing was going to provide a challenge, along with the need for the usual things one needs to rent a new place -- first, last, damage deposit.  "If it weren't for Tres, I'd head to ________" (other places with more opportunities for the kind of work I do, or better climate -- of people and weather).  

But things happen the way we cannot foresee at times, and I have come to realize life unfolding as it is "meant to be".  Out there, somewhere, somehow (and I have my ideas of what), there's a grand director or board of directors that influence things with us humans on Earth so eloquently, it is literally beyond our comprehension of how. 

Little did I know, a mile past a home I used to be at every day of the week some weeks, before communal living was needed for a guy I helped, a family was in mourning.  And they were preparing the house for someone to come live in and take the "night watch and listen" role on for the disabled young man whose mother had suddenly gone from vibrant to having had a stroke, and died of cancer, in a short time over the summer. 

In attending the funeral of the gentleman who'd lived a mile away, clear across town from where I was living for just over a year, until ousted by the owners with their unexpected cancer and death take down, I was asked if I only help the elderly, and I replied I help people of all ages, he'd been the oldest, and the youngest had been 15 months.  The wife for 49 years of the old gent heard that and realized there'd just been an e-mailed appeal from her church regarding the young woman who was looking for someone to occupy the house she inherited, and watch over the disabled brother, who she also inherited. Not a single step, and special floor coverings to cushion falls.  And the "coincidence of Providence -- not long after the family moved into the house when she was in junior high, they bought her a yellow lab boy puppy who looked a whole lot like Tres!  

Now, Tres has a better place to spend his last Valentine's Day. And hopefully, it's in the last house of his long life. I'd love that for him.  Talking about his upcoming end of life, knowing that they are in the process of healing the loss they suffered, and this beautiful, loving dog had a part to play, means so much to my heart.  

How many others, human and otherwise, have loved this beautiful, sweet dog along the way, is unknown.  We are fortunate to have  a couple of little female dogs visiting regularly, we call his "girlfriends". Both are about his age and doing better with mobility, as they don't have bilateral elbow dysplasia missed in puppy hood and not addressed then or after.  They no longer have keen hearing and eyesight, as he has. 

It's funny, how we age differently.  And how our strengths and weaknesses, if we team up well, can make us better together than not.        

At our last veterinary appointment we added more medication, did no acupuncture, and the veterinarian suggested right now we not concern ourselves with diet for longevity and symptoms, and concentrate on enjoyment.  So I LOVE giving him more canned food, which he LOVES.  I buy good meat when marked down and cook it for him, additionally.  While at Chow Down Pet Supply in Grand Junction getting more food shortly after that appointment, I got him a new bed, one you see advertised for large dogs with orthopedic problems -- Big Barker brand -- having saved on the budgeted acupuncture. 

He didn't like it, I think it was too firm.  So I returned it, went to a big box pet supply store after calling around, and got one he likes, but prefers the ones I bought him at Sams not long after we were a pair, a year ago.  Butting two "large" bolstered together to make a "doubly large".  I just don't want to have any unnecessary regrets, after he's gone from his Earthly body.  

I'll go to the store later today and look for a special treat for me, similar to the decorated cookie in the photograph, from last year.  I hope they have some chocolate dipped strawberries.  And of course, find something for him.  And his girlfriends.  

Love the ones you're with.  It adds up to a llama love.  ~~ Mardy 

P.S. -- added later.  It was strawberries and cream for me, and organic ground turkey for them, which they preferred cooked.  Only one girlfriend was with us, the other has out of town /country guests at home this week.  Because there's just a lot of love to get together for. 

And then I went to the library to pick up the book I'd asked to have put on hold: