Sunday Slowdown

13 years old, and she can still act like a puppy. There are times when she takes a pause before jumping up on the bed, but if let out in the front yard to play, you’d think she was a youngster. Meet Xena, an Akita mix.

    

Growing up, we had dogs and cats, but they were the “family” pets, so I wasn’t solely responsible for taking care of them. Once in a while I’d fill it’s water dish or it’s food bowl, but I never cleaned up after it or gave it the cuddly support it wanted. I left that to my sister and/or mom. I was allergic to cats (still am), so the cuddling most find so adorable with an animal, drove me over the breaking point, at times. With eyes so swollen up it was difficult to see, a nose that felt like someone had taken a fork and scratched the inside of it, and a sneeze that just kept going, I was determined to never own a pet as an adult.

Fast forward – Age 20. The night before taking my SAT’s, my ex husband brought home a kitten. I was a bit stressed, and he thought a kitten would help get my mind off the test for the night. It worked. I fell in love with that little guy, but he ran away and I was sad. :-(  I can remember taking medicines to help with the allergy, but in time, we saw that it was best he ran away.

Fast forward – Age 24. RT wanted a cat. So what did we do? Brought a kitten home from my aunt’s house. *rolls eyes*  What were we thinking?  Kitty hung around for a while. He used to go out on the balcony and look out, so our only guess was that he got brave one day and jumped onto one of the nearby trees. RT was sad.  :-(

Fast forward – Age 28. Got a job at a ranch that has LOTS of cats and dogs. Ummm. I have nothing more to say about this. It speaks for itself.

Fast forward – Age 30. Move in with RM#1 and RM#2. Animal trainers. On average, there’s 6 dogs + 1 cat and often some noisy birds here. It’s a full house. I’ve come to learn that as long as I keep my face away from the animal, and don’t let the cat sleep on my bed or anything of the sort, I’m fine. I wash my hands often, to avoid rubbing my eyes and getting that accidental hair that stuck to my finger lodged in without hope of getting it out.

I can’t fast forward the remote any more. I’ve reached “live” time. So, I’m just going to sit here and watch Xena sleep. Her 13 year old body is exhausted from running around all day with the other dogs. Enough is enough. Time for a nap!