Last Updated on: 3rd November 2013, 11:18 am
I really hope this post doesn’t suck, I’m still really tired from taking a two-day first-aid course. But I couldn’t let this day pass without saying something.
Trixie has been home exactly a year. Can anyone believe it? It sure feels weird to me, even though I know it’s true, and the date is burned into my brain. I remember coming home, and everything was new. Sure, I had done this before, but I lived in a different place, and it was so long ago. There was the art of finding a place where she could do her business that was easy to find. There was learning where exactly I was going to go with the dog poop. There was knowing exactly how often she needed to relieve. Oh the first few days, I was out every couple of hours! Little did I know she would do anything to avoid having an accident in the house, and would tell me if she was about to burst. If I was too dense to get the message, she would bug the hell out of Steve until he said the magic words “uh, Carin, I think she needs to poop.”
It was so overwhelming at first. I was paranoid that I wasn’t giving her enough attention, even though I pretty much spent every waking minute with her. ThenI was paranoid Steve would feel squeezed out. Yup, I was a nutcase. An exhausted nutcase, but a nutcase. I remember trying to have a conversation with an old friend, and being so tired and worried about Trixie that it was no use.
And then there were the issues with my knee. I remember when mom and dad saw me getting off the plane and trying to walk around with that brace. It just about killed mom to see me in that much pain. I remember being terrified that Trixie would be nuts, just like Babs, and dad would have a heart attack. But Trixie was nearly perfect. I had to put the gental leader on her because she wouldn’t heel properly, but other than that, she made them love her in no time flat.
As we climbed into the back of mom and dad’s car, I could tell Trixie was wondering what in hell was going on. She squished up against me as close as she could. the poor, poor thing. I joked for a few months that she viewed mom and dad as the ominous agents of change, because they were the first new people she saw once we got off the plane. It was their car that took her to her new home.
This year has taught me a lot of stuff. I remember when I was preparing to get her. I was trying to think of everything, and I was freaking out about what I would have done with her if I was still working with those kids at the women’s shelter. I couldn’t have her in there with them, one of them might fall on her! But I couldn’t leave her up in the office. She might get into trouble or people might feed her, or…oh oh oh what to do? Now I know I would get a collapsable crate, leave it there, and crate her when I was there. Is that really so difficult? But it was difficult at the time. I guess that’s what a year’s experience will do. It takes the overwhelming and makes it ordinary and easy to solve.
People tell me I’ve been through the worst of the testing. Now, things should get better and better. I sure hope so. I want many more years with my little genius.