Instagrams of the Past

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Marquie

The other day an Instagram user was browsing through my photos and liking loads of them. It made me smile and cry: happy tears and sad tears. They liked a bunch of old Instagrams, many of which included Lassie. They were photos I hadn’t seen in awhile, so to have them pop up in my notifications was a lovely, if not bittersweet, surprise.

I thought I would share a few of my favorites.

1: Lassie randomly decided to lay his head across my chest and press his face against mine. So soft and so warm… I had no complaints.
2: Lassie snuggled up with me again. He was the best snuggler in the world. I miss those snuggles so much. He kept me warm and made me smile.
3: This one still cracks me up! Petal decided to put Lassie’s thick mane to use: as her leg rest! Haha.
4: I miss this face. I miss it so much. This is the “Try and take my ball.” face, “Try and take it. I DARE you!” He’d growl and grumble and chomp on that ball, showing you just how fun and awesome it was and oh, don’t you just want it so bad?! Then you’d reach for it and he dodge you faster than you could blink and he’d take off running. Such a tease!

Petal misses you too, Lassie. I can tell by the way she looks for you when she hears your name or even just a word that sounds like your name. She’s doing this less as time goes on, but just the other day someone said a word that sounded like your name and she stopped what she was doing and turned around to look for you.
She’s taking good care of me though. I often think of her as my “Therapist” or “Grief Counselor”.

Thank heaven for photos and for my tendency to photograph everything, every moment. I couldn’t imagine not getting to see your face at all anymore. You’re my wallpaper on my iPad so I can see your face everyday. Of course it’s not the same as seeing you face to face was, but it’s something.

I love you, Lass.

Today we are participating in the Throwback Thursday blog hop hosted by Dolly the Doxie and DOGthusiast.

This and That and Throwback and Thursday

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Marquie

(Read the title in a Daffy Duck voice. Trust me).

Today I am joining two blog hops.

Because I want to and I don’t think there are any rules against that.

Even if there are, rules are meant to be broken. 😉

First up, This ‘N That Thursday hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Ruckus the Eskie. Check out either blog for more info on the hop.

I have a question for you pet owners. Do you guys ever look at your dog or cat or other pet and ask, “Could you get any cuter?”
I’m sure you do, especially when they’re doing something extra sweet or extra cute. You know, right before they do something not so sweet or not so cute. 😉

I ask Petal this question all the time. One morning I got an answer.

One morning I asked myself, ’cause Petal was sick of trying to explain, “Could she get any cuter?” then I stuck her little toy on her head and realized…

She absolutely could.

Thank you to the hosts 2 Brown Dawgs and Ruckus the Eskie!

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Now for Throwback Thursday! This blog hop is hosted by Dolly the Doxie and DOGThusiast. Check out either blog for more info on the hop.

Today we’re going to throwback to that time Lassie used me as a human chair.

February 2006.
Lassie was just little over a year old and I was coming up on my 15th birthday.

This was simply everyday life with that goofy boy. I was his chair and he was my pillow. It’s impossible to know who played their alternative role more often, me as chair or Lassie as pillow? We didn’t keep score.

How about we go forward a few months, to that time Lassie wanted to ride his motorcycle?

“Not without your helmet, young man!”
June 2006

In actuality it was that time we discovered that Build-A-Bear hats and helmets fit collie heads very well!

Or how about that time that our family Great Dane, Tal, really wanted to play but Lassie just really wanted to eat the snow?

This photo is so over-exposed it blends right in with this post.
Yes, Tal was literally dragging Lassie through the snow by his mane. No, Lassie didn’t mind. Too much.
I can’t remember what year this was and I can’t be bothered to look, but it had to have been either late 2005 or early 2006 because Lassie is big and Ella was not a member of the family yet.

When Ella joined the family…

October 2006.

Lassie ignored this little black and white puppy for weeks until one day she curled up against him and he realized she was an okay puppy after all when used as a pillow.

To close I’ll leave you all with a link to one of my favorite Lassie posts:
How to Make a Collie Snow Angel

Thank you to the hosts Dolly the Doxie and DOGThusiast!

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Black & White Sunday: My BFF

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Marquie

BWmelasscamping_AUG2005 BWmybestie_AUG2005 Pictures taken in August 2005. Lassie’s first camping trip.

I miss him more than I express.

nolasugar_bwbadge_pm

Today we’re linking up with the Black and White Sunday blog hop hosted by these two lovelies: Nola and Sugar!

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Hello. Feeling lost? I’ll explain.

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Marquie

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

Posted on August 31, 2013 by Marquie

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.