goodbye to Daphne

 

 

She was born in the summer of 2012, and she has been such a good girl - spent her life here with her mom Nova (who passed a few years ago at 13), sisters Sweetie and Minerva and took Charlotte on as her 'puppy' as well when we adopted her (even though Charlotte was two years old, still 'a puppy'.

She was partially deaf - and could howl so loudly and high-pitched that people in the next county probably covered their ears.  The UPS and post men had a hard time as she would get so involved barking at them, often with her eyes closed, that she had no idea to get out of the way of their cars.  Just the other day Mark said she was barking at the UPS man and now we sort of think she had a stroke, and maybe a series of them, although at the time it was just a bit off her usual behavior.  She laid down in the yard to bark at them (not usual) and she couldn't quite howl or bark  with her usual voice even when I got home from work.  She's been 'halfway down' since the UPS delivery day, but she has bounced back and forth from almost her usual self a few times.  

She was sitting in the sun a few days ago with the Lyffan Manx cat and they were having a very good time together.  Back when Daphne was a puppy, we had a Manx cat named Mouse, and she used to follow her all around the road - we called  her Sergeant Mouse walking her pups.  When Minerva got lost in the snow and the thickets at two months old or so - for about two days, and we could NOT find her, we were so worried - it was Daphne that kept insisting on going out every few hours and she eventually brought her home.  It was a bit like a miracle - but she didn't give up.   She also really liked our goats - was heartbroken when our first one Kitty goat passed on at eight - was very upset the next one we got didn't like dogs (we gave that one to another farm, because she really didn't like dogs and wasn't happy either), and spent a lot of time with Melody, our blind goat.  They didn't get along as well as she did with Kitty, but still, they enjoyed each other.

 

We let Daphne out the garage door when she had a bad stumble on the stairs, four days ago maybe? where I had to pick her up and bring her up the rest of the way (she has always had sporadic trouble with that one back leg tendon).  We went to get her back out of the yard and she had fallen into a little hollow on the side of the road and couldn't get back up - Esme and I brought her back in the house and she was better again later.  The next day she seemed fine, and then the rainy weather started up, and she was arthritic and down again.  She went and in and out of the house with assistance a few days during the rain and was enjoying laying in front of the heater with other dogs and cats.  She would say she couldn't get up to go out with the other dogs, and we carried her outside, but then she could walk back into the house afterwards and ask for a treat, but then a few hours later she was again unable to get up again without assistance...

All a prime example of Bluetick coonhound stubbornness, which her mother was 100% bluetick.  Her dad was Catahoula leopard hound and lab.  Today she couldn't get up in the morning.  We carried her out to the yard and she could barely stand.  She went to lay down under the tree where she had the other day.  Mark came back to fetch her up and bring her inside and he said she walked a few steps under the big tree and fell over and was gone within a few minutes.  Her grandmother Misha had a massive stroke, as well, at 17, which we wondered if maybe Misha had had other strokes before that one.  Daphne was 12 (and a half, since she was born in the summer)

We will miss her greatly, the two-legged and the four legged family members alike.

at a year old

at a few months old

Goodbye Tink and thoughts

We had to say goodbye to little Tink today, the little black kitten that wasn't even quite six months old.  We really don't know what happened to him - but suspect he ate something bad, or something that had eaten something bad (like a mouse or bird)... he was fine at nine o'clock last night, and dead before seven o'clock this morning... with no apparent injuries other than throwing up on the floor.  So very sad.. Esme had to see him as well before we took him out to bury him.  She was shocked, but maybe felt better for knowing... his eyes were still open - and that bothered her a lot.

Sorry to be so frank on all that.. it bothered me quite a bit, as well.

I had just woken up from a jumbled type of dream before I went down to find him - sort of lost in time in my own mind not sure if my mom would walk down the hallway in her cotton nightgown or not - realizing that hallway was far away, in time and space, but really just around the corner in my head - sorting out that I was no longer a child, .. that my mom had died, and would not be walking in at all - that I was asleep and dreaming, that I was the mother, and Esme was downstairs in her room in symbolic contrast to what my sleeping self had remembered at the beginning of the dream.. that if she did walk in it would be as a ghost - and wondering why my brain was even in 'that place' right now.  I backtracked to my dream self was thinking about she should be writing to my mom about Esme's school supplies and the end of summer/beginning of school -- it would be what I would do, as the 'change of season', to keep her updated, and send pictures etc.. an echo of things that I know would be happening, if things were different than they were right now.  My dream self didn't want to write that letter, or make that call.. the procrastination of the past six months or so with Mom that I had such a hard time communicating with her I would put it off until I had the mental energy..... I didn't even remember at first with that that the real reason to not write was that she was gone - and then feeling that I could still tell her in the dream - that she was nearby, but I would have to locate her - but not wanting to go and 'find' her... and ending up in the time jumble of she is nearby, just down the hallway, in her room, any moment she will come down the hall and check on me... and forcing myself to right my thinking and wake up...  I was about to pour a cup of coffee and come upstairs to write in my own dream journal about that dream.... when I saw the poor kitten laying oddly and not moving on the floor by the bathroom door.

Esme wrote a note and drew a picture of him in her Kindergarten notebook.. which she dug in her room and found after Mark took him away - saying she had to get her dream journal and write in it.

So oddly circular... strange day.
Tomorrow we give away the last of the puppies, we hope... and I have the weekend off.  Trying to fight a cold, myself.. tea and ginger.