Showing posts with label casey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label casey. Show all posts

June 7, 2012

The Art of Racing in the Rain

It's been easy to let Gina handle the girl's birthday blogs the last couple of years, especially considering she does such an incredible job with them.  I figured it was my turn to chip in on some level and so here I am blogging about our pooch.

Today, Casey turns ten years old.  It's hard to believe that.

Earlier this week I finished reading The Art of Racing in the Rain (suggested to us by Jeff and Martha) and it felt to coincidental not to take advantage of the timing and say something about Casey and about reaching this milestone.  For those of you who have not heard of the book, if you are a dog lover it's definitely worth checking out.  The entire story is told from a dog's point of view.


We got Casey in August of 2003, four weeks after we were married.  He was 14 months old.  By all accounts, he shouldn't be ours.  The shelter that he was at had a policy in place that would not allow them to hold dogs for anyone.  I had called about him on a Thursday after seeing his profile on petfinder.com but we were unable to get up to see him until that Sunday.  On Fridays and Saturdays, the shelter he was at had open adoption days and if someone wanted him during that time we would be out of luck.  But, something happened in the Thursday phone call.  What was supposed to be a five minute chat about the high level details for coming up to see him on Sunday (if no one claimed him yet) turned into a half hour conversation with the lady who answered the phone.  They had interested families in him that weekend but without telling me they had decided to unofficially hold him for us because she was convinced we were going to be the right fit.  

I fell in love with him right away.  Gina took a little more convincing, but mainly because he pretty much looked like a train wreck with long dreadlock / matted hair (the picture above is from our first day home with him), not to mention his smell.  To Gina's credit, she saw how I responded when he was brought out to see us and she never questioned whether we should take him or not.  She let me make the decision.  She also let me name him Casey (and reference my love for baseball).  

It's only fair that dog number 2's name will be up to her. :)


We had a lot of fun with him the first couple of years.  In this picture we are up at a cabin with Matt and Ann before any of us had kids.


This picture is at Matt and Morgan's place in Chicago.  He stayed with them for a couple of days while Gina, two month old Natalie, and I continued on to the St. Louis area for Andrea's wedding (Gina's cousin).


Casey's been there for pretty much every big event in our life since our wedding and in the process he's gone from being our baby #1 to our baby #4.  At times it's been hard on him but he's transitioned well all and all.  

He's been an amazing dog with our children.  Some of the abuse he's endured from them as toddlers would drive anyone nuts but he's been incredibly patient and tolerant with them.


Here he's enjoying being outside, nothing like a little wind in the face to make his day.


At the park (Spring 2012)


With his girls (June 2012)

In the Art of Racing in the Rain, you're basically forced to think about life from your pet's perspective.  It's a good thing to do.  

I'd be so curious to hear what he has thought of the last nine years being an eye witness to so much of our lives.  More than anything though, I'd just hope that he'd tell us that we'd done right by him and that he's thankful to us for giving him a good life.  We probably should have taken him on more walks or maybe slowed down a bit and made a little more time for him but overall I feel like we've made sure he has been an integral part of our family.

He's been a great dog.  We were so fortunate to have ended up with him.

As of today (his 10th birthday), I am going to try to do something going forward I haven't done very well with over the years.  For so long I have dreaded the day that we will lose him.  I've recognized that even though he's been here with us for so many incredible memories, he won't be here for even more.  The times that I think about it (which is more often than I probably should), I get really really sad.

But, he's only ten.  I need to keep telling myself that.  Initially that seems like such a landmark number for a dog to hit but with some luck (because he is small) he could live another five years pretty easily, maybe even more.  

Going forward, I am going to be very intentional about enjoying my time with him instead of dwelling on what he is going to miss out on with us down the road.  

At a minimum, I owe him that.

June 6, 2008

"Fertilizing the sidewalk"

Other then drinking a bowl of water, between 9pm Wednesday night and 5pm Thursday evening Casey did not eat anything.  Yet, he still found a way to puke seven times (fourteen if you want to get technical since they always happen two at a time).

After talking the the vet when we got home yesterday (I left work a bit early because I was worried about him) it was strongly recommended that we bring him in so I made a 6 o'clock appointment. 

While we were enjoying the torrential downpour, he miraculously began to improve and by 5:30 I was calling them back asking if they still wanted to see him.

The final verdict was to keep him home and for us to watch him closely.  They suggested feeding him only rice, chicken or cottage cheese (I know, weird) to see if he could keep food down. 

He was able to keep the chicken down and hopefully he is on the road to recovery.  He had no issues overnight either.

As for our carpet, we have nine spots that still need to be taken care of so that should be fun. 

Thankfully, our neighbor Kelly let us borrow their carpet cleaner.  That should help quite a bit.

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October 11, 2007

The poor pooch

Around 2am Sunday morning (just four hours after my mono diagnosis), Gina woke me up.  While checking on the girls she noticed a faint streak of blood on the carpet.  She had taken a look at Casey and noticed his behind was bleeding.

After some analysis we figured out it was one of his anal glands.  It had ruptured and he was in a lot of pain.  After some deliberation, I slept on the couch and we put him in the bathroom within eye shot of me.  We'd re-evaluate in the morning as it wasn't a life threatening injury.

In the morning it was still bleeding and looked even worse.  Even though we knew the price tag was going to be substantial (it's nearly $100 just to be seen), both Gina and I decided it was best if we brought him to urgent care.  Just before 10am I left with him for the vet.  Not only was Gina's sick husband and bleeding dog walking out the door...she was just an hour away from hosting 20-30 family and friends at 11am for her sister Beth's baby shower.

The pup and I waited three hours to see the vet (it was pretty ridiculous).  He confirmed what we had expected.  To fix the problem they would need to sedate him and perform a procedure to flush out the ruptured area.  After getting an estimate, we decided it was in his best interest to do it.  I left him there around 1:30.  The procedure would be performed that afternoon.

When I got home, the baby shower was just wrapping up.  Gina was told by many that it went very well (including Beth) even though she freely admits she does not remember much of it because of everything else going on.

After a few calls to the vet that afternoon, we were told that Casey would be ready to come home at 7pm.  We were informed things went well and that he'd need to be placed on a couple of antibiotics.

When I picked him up, he did not even know who I was.  He was still semi-sedated, couldn't stand up straight (he wavered like the wind was gently blowing him back and forth) and had a constant stream of drool coming from his mouth.  It was so surreal.  He seemed so different that it was like he wasn't even our dog.

After getting him settled down that night, he slept off the drugs and was close to the Casey of old (in terms of personallity) in the morning.  I was off on Monday so I was able to spend some significant time with him.  I think he appreciated someone being there since he was still in a lot of pain.

The pain is still there but things are improving every day. 

Thankfully, they say he should be back to normal in the next 7-10 days.

So, there's part two of our weekend.  I think you can see why it will not be looked back on it with much fondness in the future.