I think it is pretty safe to say that Thursday, May 1st, was one of the most fun filled days of Petal’s life. Mine too. It started with a nice drive to Ogden Utah. We swung by a local dog … Continue reading
When Petal meets Cascadian Nomads: Part 1
Category Archives: collie
Black & White Sunday: Stormy day
Yesterday was a very stormy looking day.
I was hoping we were in for more snow.
But nothing ever came from those dark, gloomy looking skies. Nothing but freezing cold air.
Today we are joining the Black & Sunday blog hop hosted by lovelies Dachshund Nola and Sugar.
This is a Blog Hop!
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This ‘N That Thursday: Petal’s Christmas gifts.
Today we are joining the This ‘N That Thursday blog hop, hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs & Ruckus the Eskie, while we share what Petal got for Christmas!
Petal was a very good Collie this year. Which means she received a ton of gifts. It had nothing to do with the fact that she’s spoiled. 😉
Mom, no one wants to see Rudolph. They want to see ME!
Poor Rudolph. Petal shoved him out of the photo. She waited until the day after Christmas before being naughty.
A closer look at all her toys. The blue KONG Squeezz stick & the Wet Noses cookies are from our friends, Carly & Sailor. Thank you both so much! She loves them both, but especially the cookies. 😉 The rest are from me. I mean, Santa.
I got her a little stuffing-free squirrel/skunk/something animal (it has a few squeakers and some crinkle paper, Petal’s favorite), a stuffing-free crinkly Santa, a dinosaur stuffie, a Christmas owl water bottle cover, a stuffed Rudolph and a new bed cover that I made myself.
Reversible bed cover made by yours truly.
See? She wasn’t spoiled at all. 😉
By the way, those Wet Noses cookies are a huge hit. I’m also a little proud to say that I knew exactly what toy you and Sailor had give her, Carly. I knew just by touching it. That is how often I go to pet stores and play with the dog toys. I recognize a KONG Squeezz stick without seeing it. If that doesn’t say crazy dog lady, I don’t know what does.
I got some really wonderful gifts too, but this one is the one that touched me the most.
Thank you Mom & Dad. <3
A ring with Lassie’s name on it. A ring that will never leave my finger.
I hope you guys had a Merry Christmas and Petal wants to know, what did you pups get for Christmas? Were you naughty or nice?
P.S. For those who may be curious, the ring is from Silver Promo.
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Merry Christmas!
In just 40 minutes Christmas will be over where we live.
I hope you all, that celebrate, have had a great Christmas spent with those you love.
Tearin’ Up the Snow
Petal and her cousin, Penny, have been having fun tearing up the snow this winter.
While I have fun photographing it.
Or, at least, I have fun trying to capture their craziness.
I’m not always fast enough.
Running from the Penny Beast while also bracing herself just incase she doesn’t make it out in time.
The Penny Beast glides upon the snow. You better run faster than fast, Petal!
Have you ever tried to tango in the snow?
A couple of goofs.
One happy dog.
This dog is addicted to snow. She would play out in the snow 257 times a day if it were up to her.
Who else has snow? Does your dog (or cat, perhaps) love it or hate it?
For those of you who don’t have snow currently/don’t get snow, has your dog ever seen snow? How did they react?
Jingle Bells
A few weeks ago, after we received a generous amount of snow, I took Petal outside to take Christmas pictures with my wire of brightly and festively colored jingle bells hung around her neck like a garland.
Needless to say, she looked darling.
Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells
Jingle all the way,
Oh! what fun it is to ride,
In a one-horse open sleigh.
Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way;
Oh! what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh!
Hey, wait a second… I don’t see no one-horse open sleighs! I hope you don’t expect ME to pull any sleighs! You’re going to have to raise my pay, woman!
She charges more and more for her cuteness every year. The going rate for a cute Petal dog is 3 liver treats, 5 if you want her to wear something silly.
Don’t tell her, but I’ve been slicing her liver treats into smaller pieces just so I can afford her modeling services!
😉
12 days until Christmas everyone!
I don’t know about you, but I still have some shopping to do!
Hello. Feeling lost? I’ll explain.
Hello! Long time no see, guys. That is, of course, my own doing. I needed a break and time and space to grieve.
I’m still grieving and I still have days that are even harder than others, but I feel I’m ready to start blogging again.
With Christmas fast approaching I find myself missing Lassie and Ella even more. With that I started missing my blog for the first time in months. Suddenly I wanted to make a Christmas layout and post Christmasy posts and share the ridiculously cute Christmas pictures I took of Petal with all of you. I wanted you all to be here when I start new adventures and I missed following your adventures. I miss talking to you all, reading your comments and your blogs. I missed it all.
But I did not want to post on Two Collies and a Mutt. I didn’t want to even look at it. I couldn’t.
Which is why you’re here instead of there.
Last week I started thinking more about starting a new blog. I already knew exactly what to call it and where it should be, I just had to convince myself to take the plunge.
A few weeks after Lassie’s passing, as I was thinking I would never blog on Two Collies and a Mutt again, my mind wandered back to a thought I had before Lassie’s passing. The thought of moving my blog to WordPress. As I sat in my car, parked in the Walmart parking lot, myself clad in pajamas, untamed hair, and trying to take control of my uncontrolled crying, I grabbed ahold of any thought that might distract me from my thoughts of guilt and what ifs. I thought maybe if I not only moved the blog, but changed the name of the blog with that move… Maybe if I just started over, I could one day blog again. I would bring all of my archives with me, of course, those are precious memories that I don’t want to let go of, but I would start a new chapter.
I started brainstorming new blog names. I wanted something that would pay tribute to Lassie without using his name (I don’t want to get into trouble with copyright laws). I wanted something that would make sense even without my explaining it. I came up with a few ideas and then abandoned the thought for a few months. I didn’t want to blog, no matter where it was, or what the blog was called.
Until the Christmas season began.
You see, December 8th, today in fact, is mine and Lassie’s 9th anniversary. I wanted to do something for him. So I thought, “what about that blog that would pay tribute to him?” Lassie loved it when I was happy, so why not try a little harder to be a little happy?
Blogging made me happy once, it could do that again. I could share more of my memories of him with you all. I could share more memories of my Ella and record and share memories as I make them with Petal.
I could start anew with a blog tilted, “Because I Was Loved By a Collie” one of the titles I thought of in my car a few months ago. It was fitting and would pay tribute to Lassie in many ways. Because I was loved by that incredible collie I learned so much. From the obvious lessons people learn from dogs, like loving unconditionally, to the not so obvious lessons, like budgeting money. However the name was longer than I wanted it to be. So I shortened it to Loved By A Collie. This would make sense even without much explanation. Some may likely assume that the Collie is Petal and it works that way too because it’s true, I am loved by that goofy collie girl.
But when you look closer you’ll see it’s Lassie. It’s Lassie up there, in our banner. It’s Lassie’s silhouette that will be our logo. Because Lassie started this all by being the first dog I owned of my very own, by being the first collie in my life. If not for him there wouldn’t have been an Ella in my life and there wouldn’t be Petal in my life today. If not for those girls and my boy, Lassie, I wouldn’t have all the incredible memories that I have and I wouldn’t have Petal to comfort me through this difficult time. If not for all three of them I wouldn’t have started Two Collies and a Mutt and if not for that blog I wouldn’t have met so many great people who are as dog crazy as I am.
When you look closely you’ll see it was Lassie who changed me. It was Lassie who started it all.
So this blog is for him. It’s for Ella and for Petal and any future dog I may own and it’s for me.
I hope you’ll enjoy this blog as much as I already am. I want to thank you all for following us and our adventures when we were Two Collies and a Mutt. Thank you for every sweet comment you left, the comments I brought with me here, to Loved By A Collie. I hope you guys will enjoy this blog as much as you did Two Collies and a Mutt.
Thank you for reading, for being so kind and understanding.
Thank you for everything.
You guys are the best.
P.S. I will be changing the names of my Facebook page and Twitter handle soon, just a heads up.
Our email address has also changed. If you need to contact me or Petal you can email us at: lovedbyacollie AT lifeseven DOT com
This isn’t goodbye
Hey everyone,
I’m sure you all know by now that we lost Lassie. He passed away at the vet August 3rd. A necropsy showed that he had pleuritis and died from pneumonia. How he got pleuritis is unknown, they could not find a cause (no injuries, no punctured lungs, no foreign bodies). The doctors who did the necropsy said our vet had Lassie on the correct medications to fight this off, however it was not a good enough concentration. Those who did the necropsy assumed this was because Lassie’s vet did not know he had pneumonia. However, while we were not positive about that, his vet DID say “Sounds like pneumonia.” when I told her about the fluid-y cough Lassie had that morning before we rushed him back in. So why she didn’t give him the concentration of antibiotics needed in order to recover is beyond me. I’m absolutely livid about that. I’m trying not to be though, because I honestly don’t know her reasoning for that.
I’m also trying not to be blindingly angry about the fact that Lassie was already gone when I wrote my last post and I had no idea thanks to a screw up at the vet (someone wrote our phone number down wrong and I guess it took them a whole day to realize they could find the correct number on the back of Lassie’s tag; so much for “Favorite Vet”). I found out Sunday evening that he was gone.
A fact that still seems entirely impossible and completely untrue.
Yet he is and that is evident by the huge hole I’m left with.
Which is why I vanished. This hurts so much. More than I feel I can handle. I didn’t want anyone to say the well intentioned, “I’m so sorry.” Or, “I know what you’re going through.” Because no one is as sorry as I am and though you may know, in theory, what I’m going through (most, if not all, of us has lost a pet at some point in our lives)– you do not know what I’m going through. I refuse to believe anyone would know exactly what I’m going through. My relationship with Lassie was too unique. His relationship with me was too unique. I don’t even know what I’m going through. I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve lost pets and human family members before and each loss was so much different from the other. Each of them painful, but each one different.
This loss is too much. This loss is too unfair. This loss was too unexpected. I had no warning. Yes, he was wasn’t looking so well when we took him to the vet for a weekend stay and yes, I was honestly scared. But I did not believe he was going to die. With Ella, I knew, as we drove to the vet I knew she wasn’t going to make the drive there. I held her in the back seat of the car and I said my goodbyes.
I never said goodbye to Lassie. Instead, I demanded that he stay with me. When we got the call that he had passed away, I felt betrayed. Lassie was more obedient than that. He should’ve stayed like I asked– begged— him to. He’s my best friend, my motivator, my protector, my everything, I don’t know how to keep going without him. I feel broken.
The other day, as I cried, I was wondering why this feeling of denial wouldn’t go away. Why I still felt like Lassie couldn’t possibly be gone. Maybe it’s just too soon for the shock to be worn off yet or… maybe Lassie did listen to me after all. Maybe he hasn’t left my side at all. I can’t imagine him up in Heaven with my other family members, both human and pets, but I can imagine all my other loved ones there, happy and healthy; it seems natural. But when I think of Lassie I can only see him with me, happy and healthy and unfailingly loyal to me and only me.
Maybe this is why we were cheated out of our goodbye. The goodbye I didn’t plan to have until Lassie was at least 15 years old. Maybe we weren’t given the chance to say goodbye because we were never meant to.
This isn’t goodbye, it’s see you later.
I don’t know what your beliefs are, but I truly believe that I will be with Lassie again and I believe that he’s still with me. It’s the only thing that brings me comfort right now, so if you don’t believe this that is fine by me, it honestly is, but be kind if you choose to leave a comment.
I’m sorry if this post doesn’t make sense or if it jumps around a lot; my thoughts are all over the place. Please forgive me if I came across as rude at any point in this post, I honestly didn’t mean to sound rude at any point in this post, if I did it was completely unintentional.
I can’t say when I’ll post again, but I can say that I will post again. I owe Chewy.com a few reviews, so keep your eyes out for that.
Thank you Chewy.com for the beautiful flowers.
Thank you all for all your love and support and patience. It means a lot to me and Petal.