Our Juicy Life

May I have this dance?

I'd like to introduce you to Sophie (or "sofa" as her mom sometimes calls her). Sophie is the first dog that Dashell ever met at our dog park. She is a golden retriever and the sweetest dog in the world. Just look at those golden retriever eyes. Lorette is Sophie's mom and dashell LOVES Lorette. He can be on the other side of the park and if he hears Lorette's voice he'll run to her. You must think that there is a special bond between Dashell and Lorette and there is....

It's Mr. Ice Cream Cone..Dashell's favorite toy in the whole wide world, the only toy that he will play with. Lorette introduced Dashell to Mr. Cone, she created our monster! This is Dashell at the park with Mr. Cone.

We saw Lorette the other day at the park and she was telling us about this woman who dances with her dog. She sent us this youtube clip and I had to share it with all you dog lovers (even if you are not a dog lover..gasp!...you still have to check it out). Lorette said that she swears that the dog was leading at one point. If nothing else it will bring a smile to your face.

Dancing dog

Let the countdown begin

I have been feeling antsy lately, restless. I am so ready for our adventure, but it's not until September. Bruce thought it might be good to get a big wall calendar so we can count down the weeks/days. I also was visiting Kim at her blog and noticed her countdown widget...what a great idea. Then every day I can see on my computer screen how many weeks/days I have left, that will be just what I need. So I put one on my blog...thanks Kim! Kim is leaving in July, so her days are 1/2 what ours are....lucky dog!

We only have 4 more weeks of regular after-school classes and then our summer program starts. It will be 12 weeks of 1/2 day summer camps. Our schedule will switch from having the morning & early afternoon free and not having to go to work until 3:00 pm to being at the studio at 8:00 am and working until 1:30, so our afternoons will be free. I prefer the morning free, but alas. We will work the same number of hours per week, a light load at 20, but instead of working Tuesday-Saturday, we'll work Tuesday-Friday. Once the camps start the weeks fly by....usually when we start them it goes like this "ugh, 12 weeks of camps", then the next thing we know it's "ah, only 6 more camps"....then "yeah, only 1 more camp". Camps are great fun, we do super cool projects with the kids have a wonderful time, but it's draining and exhausting (in a good way that doing art with kids brings).

It feels like I'm a kid again...."are we there yet?" We were big on road trips when I was younger, as most of the country was back in the 60's and 70's. We had a big green station wagon and all of us would pack in there at least 2 times a year and head to Florida. I think I have been to Florida maybe 25-30 times. My parents are from Florida and my oldest sister and brother we born there. My sister Anne and I were born in Michigan. My father was a golf professional and started out in Florida and then took a job at a private club in Michigan. But anytime we had vacation it would be back to Florida to see the grandparents and Aunts and Uncles and it would allow my dad to golf.

I recently saw my brother, he and his family came out to San Diego for a weeks vacation, so Bruce and I drove down to have dinner with them. We were talking about the hell we had on those car trips. Mom and Dad in the front and 4 kids in the back. I'm sure many of you had those trips. "This is the imaginary line, don't cross it". "Mom, Anne hit me". "Mom, Mark kicked me". We didn't have DVD players in the car or hand-held games or ipods. My Dad would pop in his 8-track and we'd listen to his music, Edie Gourmet, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, etc... We played the alphabet game with license plates. Yee Haa! My brother also reminded me that on the drive down to Florida we'd always stay the night in a Holiday Inn and every time we'd have to eat, we'd stop at a Holiday Inn. He is sick of Holiday Inn's. We'd also stop in the same city for the night...talk about creatures of habit. Florida was our vacation...my dad didn't want to go anywhere else. Sure, we'd stop at Rock City or Mammoth Caves on the way down, but that's it. It was always St. Petersburg Florida. Staying with my grandmother, swimming in her pool, going to Treasure Island beach, going to Disney World when there was no Epicot center. The sunshine state. All my grandparents have passed on and only my cousin and her husband live there now, so no more Florida trips for me.....ever again.

What was I talking about? Sorry, got side-tracked. Ah, yes....counting the days until France. It seems so far away, but I know that once the summer gets going it will come up fast. It's hard to be patient when the countryside is calling you. The picture above was taken in September when we visited the Aveyron region. This is very close to where our house is. The nice thing about that area is that it won't change from when we saw it in September to when we'll be back in September. It is patiently waiting for us.

Such an exciting small world...

So, I wanted to do some spring reading and of course I wanted to read about France. I have read "a year in provence" but it was 10 years ago, so I figured I'd read it again. I went to Amazon.com and looked it up, Amazon.com also gave me some recommendations based on my "a year in provence" order...one of them was "French by Heart", by Rebecca Ramsey. It sounded really good, so I ordered it. The books came last week and I started on "A year in provence" and Bruce started with "french by heart". He said it was really good. Today I was looking at my comments and noticed a new one from a blog called Wonders Never Cease, so I went to that blog and started to read the latest post. I was about a backyard garden (not in the ground but above ground) thanks to their golden retriever tanner. Tanner looked so much like Dashell, it was scary....but many goldens look alike. I then read a bit further down and it said "when we lived in france"....so I went back to the bio and who is this blog by.....Rebecca Ramsey....yes, yes..the women who wrote "France by Heart", the book that is on my husband's nightstand right now.

I had to email Rebecca and tell her what a small world it is. Go and get her book, it's a really good read, even if you are not moving to france like us....you'll still get a feel of what it would be like. Thanks for visiting Rebecca, your book is making us so excited for our sabbatical in france!

All about Augie

                   

I wanted to take a moment to introduce everyone to Augie (Augustus).  He is 15 1/2 and a "smutty" pug.  He has been gray since I rescued him at 6 months.  They call this type of gray pug "smutty", which I don't think is a very nice name to described him...his coat is lovely and soft and salt & pepper.  His face was pure black, but now it's almost all gray.  He is the man, the Buddha pug, my baby.  He has been with me for so long.  This picture above was taken about 4 years ago, when we was 11 1/2. 

Augie was rescued from Little Angeles Pug Rescue here in Los Angeles.  He was 6 months old when I got him.  He had been thrown from a car and picked up on the street, he came with the name Dino, but I changed it to Augustus (Augie for short).  He had pneumonia and was malnourished (patches of his hair were gone).  He was skinny and scared.  But he soon realized that he was safe and became my shadow.  He has followed me to every room I went to since I got him.  But that's changing a bit because he is so old and can't hear anymore.  Because he is getting older I wanted to do a post about him.  I'm not sure how much longer he'll be with us.  The average life span for a pug is 13 years.  Augie is something like 107 years old in human years.

This picture above was taken a while ago too...notice the black his face, not pure black but not completely gray.  Right now Augie is deaf and is loosing his site.  He doesn't produce tears (which is common with pugs) and so he has developed scarring on one of his eyes.  I have to give him drops, 2x a day.  The prescription says "1 drop 2x a day...FOREVER".

5 years ago we dressed him up as a Bee for Halloween.  He wasn't too happy about it.  He didn't like the costume too much, but he was a trooper and went to the studio so the kids could see him. 

This is a typical scene these days.  He's an old man...and he falls asleep either sitting down (this picture was taken about 2 years ago) or now he falls asleep standing up.  When you are tired your tired!

This was our Christmas card in 2007.  It took a while to take the picture, Augie can't hear so we had a hard time getting him to stay.  Stella is young and moves all the time.  Dashell was great - he sat there with this bow on his head for about 10 pictures, never moving a muscle.

This is Augie at the dog park.  Every day we take all the dogs to the park.  Dashell plays with his cone, Stella plays with her Frisky frolic and Augie roams around.  I have to keep a close eye on him, because he can't see well and can't hear and sometimes he wanders off...not sure he knows where he is going.  Sometimes you come up behind him to grab him or tap him on the shoulder and he takes off like a deer - just running away from you...it's a pretty funny site.  I think going to the park keeps him young.  He has a great time there.

These 2 pictures above are typical Augie when I'm in the kitchen cooking.  He is either alert and waiting for a snack or he's sound asleep.  Either way he's happy just being where I am...and I'm happy with him at my side.  I have never loved an animal so much in my life!

This picture was taken a couple weeks ago.  Notice the gray face.  Augie sleeps a lot and has aged very fast over the last 3-4 months.  Sometimes he seems very anxious and agitated...we think maybe because he can't hear and just can't relax, we are not sure.  He won't lay down, just paces around the house.  Other times he's out...and I mean out!  When we come home and he's sleeping we have to see if he's breathing because he continues to sleep while we are making a ruckus with the other dogs...but he's sleeping, he just can't hear us.

He also just won a cutest dog contest on the internet.  I had all of our customers vote and he won.  Stella won 3rd place! 

Thanks for letting me introduce you to my little man.  Well, not so little, he's 24 lbs and solid as a rock.  He's so healthy, I have never had to take him to the vet for a medical problem.  His teeth are horrible but other than that he's going strong.  I hope he'll still be with us in September so he can go to France.  I know that he'd love it there.  I am getting prepared...I know the time isn't that long away, but for now, I just cherish every day this handsome guy is around.

France...here we come!!!

               

How beautiful is this house?  We loved it from the moment we saw it on the internet.  We knew this would be the house we would live in for 1 year.  It's called Les Costes  and it's in the Aveyron region, our favorite region of France.  It's located about 1 hour northeast of Toulouse.

We sent an email out today to all our customers.  It's official.  We are taking a 1 year sabbatical in France...1 year in this lovely home.  We have been working on our plan for about 5 months, but I haven't been able to post anything because some of our clients read my blog and I wasn't ready to tell them yet.  But now we have a person who will be taking over the teaching of the classes.  This was the hardest part...finding someone to fill Bruce's shoes.  Everyone loves Bruce and I will say that he is amazing with the kids and is casual, relaxed, patient, fun, cool and a great artist.  We have a friend, Travis, who we have known for 15 years.  He's Bruce's long lost soul brother.  Same personality, same gift with kids, an artist, surfer, cyclist, etc...we wanted him, wanted him so bad...well, he accepted our offer to take over the studio for 1 year.  That happened last week.  So now I can talk about it.  Now it's official.

So...we leave the end of September.  We are going to rent out our home here in LA for 1 year.  We will sell the car (it's an SUV and when we come back we don't need an SUV).  We will rent a car and drive across the US to New York.  We will stop and see friends in Ketchum, Idaho and Boulder, Colorado and see my family in Michigan and then drive on to NYC.  We'll have all the dogs with us too.  We leave on October 4th on the Queen Mary II, from NYC to Southampton, England.  6 days on the ocean.  The boat has 1 level that is a state-of-the-art kennel facility, it's the only way we could travel with the dogs, as I would NEVER fly with them in the cargo area of the plane.  We'll arrive in England, rent a car and drive to France.  Then we'll go to our new home and live a new life for a year.

Bruce will spend part of the day painting and drawing and I'm looking into cooking classes and pottery workshops.  We'll bike with our friends Jacques & Fabiana and Fabrice & Anka.  We'll hang out in the cafe, drink great coffee, great wine and eat great food.  We'll travel and see more of France and I'll take Bruce to Italy.  Most of all we will re-charge our batteries.  We are both a bit burned out right now.  We have been teaching art at our studio for 9 years and the longest break we have had was 3 weeks (and that was in September).  Teachers have the summers off and professors have sabbaticals for a reason.

I'll keep you posted as the time comes closer.  We have loads to do:  rent the house, sell the car, get the studio turned over, get the dogs ready to enter England (loads to do there), get our long-stay VISA's, etc...
We are both so excited and so ready for our new life.  I'll keep this blog going while we are there, so you can hear about all our adventures in France.

Stay tuned...

The Daily Love Session

                      

                  

Every day it's the same thing.  A love session with Dashell & Stella.  They truly love each other and they are so funny to watch.  Stella is 10 lbs and Dashell 75 lbs but you'd never guess it by watching them play.  Stella is tough as nails, she jumps on Dashell, bites him, growls at him and charges him.  Dashell puts Stella's head in his mouth, he could crush her skull if he wanted to, but he's very gentle with her.

                  

I interrupted them....

                

Back to business...just giving a little love.

                

Stella's going a bit crazy in her "bumper"...she's digging at it, burying her head in it and growing.

                

She just popped up and looked right at the camera.  Can you see Dashell's paw on her back?  They do love each other.  She is such a crazy little ratty dog, but so sweet.  And like I said before, Dashell is big and strong, but he's so gentle with her, even when her head is in his mouth.  This love session happens every day, usually around 7:30 pm (the witching hour).

                  

I had to add this picture.  Here is Mr. Augie (15 years young) and Bruce.  My niece Gigi has show and tell once a week with letters of the alphabet.  Last week was the letter "U"...my sister called and said that Gigi wanted to bring a picture of "Uncle Bruce" and "Augie"...which she thinks Augie is spelled with a "U" (she's 5 - so it was "Ugie").  So I took this picture for her, my sister laminated it and it was part of show and tell for my beautiful niece.  She loves Augie (and Uncle Bruce).

Their Perfect Day

Every day we take the kids to the park.  It's not an official "dog park", it's an open park with lots of room to run.  We used to take Dashell there when he was a pup so he could play with the other dogs there, but then he discovered his favorite toy in the whole world....MR. ICE CREAM CONE.

This is Mr. Ice Cream Cone.  Dashell's best friend.  Now when we go to the park he has no interest in the other dogs. All he wants to do is chase Mr. Cone.  He even gets bummed when other dogs want to play with him and Mr. Cone.  He's very nice to Mr. Cone at the park, but if Mr. Cone came with us in the house Dashell would rip him apart - de-squeak him and pull off his head (so he never comes in the house...he lives in the car) and is only for the park.

Stella loves the park too.  This is the park where we found her the day after Thanksgiving 2006,  she was scared and a woman found her under a bush.  No collar, no chip.  The lady couldn't keep her so we took her home.  We put up flyers but nobody responded..luckily for us, she is a great dog.  She is not obsessed with her friend "Mr Funky Alien" like Dashell is with Mr. Cone.  She loves to socialize with other dogs, but also loves to chase her funky alien.

She also loves to attack him!

One of Stella's tricks is "turnaround".  She actually gets air and Bruce is convinced that one day we'll be able to teach her to do a flip.  She's almost there.  She is such a circus dog.

It was a bit windy!!!

Augie always come too.  He doesn't play with balls, he doesn't play with other dogs - he just roams around.  Because he can't hear I have to keep a close eye on him because sometimes he wanders off, not really sure where he is going (don't think he knows either).  We think taking him to the park keeps him young!

They all love their park and when they miss a day (if it's raining) they are sad!  So part of our daily routine is packing our pack in the car and heading to the park for some play.

Christmas Dinner for Two

                  

What do you do when it's just the two of you for Christmas dinner?  In our case, it's a chance to try a new recipe and to have duck.  We just love duck but you can't find cut up duck here in Los Angeles.  I have to buy a whole duck and cut out the spine, cut off the wings, legs, breast.  It's a big job with sharp scissors, but it's so so good.  I use my Le Creuset of course, because it makes the juiciest meat.  All I do is make up a butter, herb de provence and garlic mix and stuff it under the skin.  Salt and pepper each piece and then brown it in olive oil and then put it in the oven for 30 minutes.  So easy and so good.  I also made roasted potatoes and a new salad called Bettes de Vigneron (vineyard-style swiss chard).  A parent of one of our students gave me this fantastic cookbook called "The French Market" and I love it.  There are so many authentic french recipes from southwest france.  I had to try this 'warm' salad.  It has swiss chard, onions, garlic, raisins, walnuts and lemon juice (salt & pepper too).  It was really good, very earthy and yummy.  Something we will be eating again soon.

Here is the duck.  Don't get tons of mean from this little bird...just enough for two.

The Swiss chard salad was so good. Very french.

But the best part of making dinner is that Bruce always cleans up.  I love to cook, love to try new recipes and he's so open to try new things and he's always there to clean up my big mess (although I try to clean as I go so I don't have tons for him).  I was going to make this traditional french dessert called "floating islands" - which is custard with meringue and caramel sauce, it's in the "french market cookbook", but after reading it I decided it would be too much work.  I'm not feeling 100%.  Been fighting a sinus cold for a few days, so instead we had vanilla bean ice cream with this armagnac (a french brandy), sea salt, caramel sauce that another parent (who happens to be a food writer for the LA times) made for us.  She told me that you can basically put it on anything and it was unbelievable on the ice cream. 

We had a lovely day.  It was about 70 and sunny here.  We relaxed, took the dogs to the park, went for a bike ride (although I had to turn around after 8 miles because I wasn't feeling great...Bruce ended up doing 38 miles).  We ate some great food, we exchanged gifts in bed this am with all the dogs and took a great nap this afternoon.

Can't ask for anything more! 

The Aveyron Region

We left the Rousillon region and headed north to the Aveyron region.  This region is north east of Toulouse and is one of the most remote regions in france.  The landscape was so different from where we were and we instantly fell in love.  It took us about 2 hours to get there and once we did we knew we definitely stepped up in terms of beauty, the landscape is like a dream.  Best of all, the Aude valley has...no WIND!  The picture above is our beautiful restored 13th century barn on the property of Nala and Neerva McEvoy.  The hamlet is called Finnerols and it's in the middle of the countryside, the road is 1 mile long and has about 6 houses along it, ours is the very last one on the top of the hill.  This area is in the gorges de l'aveyron, surrounded by the Aveyron river and huge limestone cliffs.

Tonight we went to dinner in Najac a beautiful village about 15 minutes away.  The first thing we see when we get out of the car is this little frenchie.  Just sitting outside of the restaurant.  He was so cute we just had to get a picture of him.  The grey-tiled houses of this beautiful village tail out westwards in a single street along a narrow spur that connects the valley side to the castle hill.  It's a long walk up to the 12th century chateau, but worth it.  We ate dinner at L'Salamandre and had our best dinner yet with the full complement of aperitif, wine, entrees, plats and desert.  The creme brulee was the best we have ever had.  Before we left we had a great conversation with the owner who fled Paris with his family to settle in Najac.  He told us that the restaurant he worked at in Paris would go through 10 kilos of coffee in a day, almost 1500 coffee's.  He and his wife and daughter (17) work in the restaurant and they live upstairs.  They are closed November - February!  Not a bad life. 

We got out for a nice ride through the beautiful landscape and discovered that the roads - at least nearby - go two ways - UP & DOWN.  We are going to burn off every croissant we eat!  We road from the barn house to the villages of Lunac _ Lescure - Laoul and back around.  After some lunch with drove to Villefranche de Rourgue, a beautiful small city on the Aveyron right.  We made dinner in tonight, pasta with Jambon, peas and goat cheese.  Along with it we had a delicious 3 euro Chateau Chateloup Bordeaux and for dessert a cafe eclair. 

The next day our host - Nala (Patrick) took us down the road to his friend Jacques house.  Jacques is 60 something and a huge cyclist.  He actually has an arsenal of bikes, two of which are very close to being lightest in the world - we were in the middle of nowhere and here is this man, living in our hamlet, in a 13th century home and he has tons of bikes...expensive bikes!  It was mind blowing.  He offered to take us on a 30 mile ride along the rive viaur and we road and talked most of the way.  He would become a great friend.  We had dinner at his home with 4 other people and went on many other rides with him.  Our original itinerary was to spend 1 week here and then head back to Spain and spend 1 week in Girona.  Well, after 3 days here we have decided to extend our trip here and not spend 1 week in Girona.  We have found the area we love...we don't want to leave.

The next day we packed the bikes in the car and drove northwest to Cajarc, in the Tarn (the department next to us), we had a great ride along the river tarn and cliffs to the beau village of St. Cirq Lapopie (above).  The ride was mostly flat but the few hills made the 26 mile ride feel like 46.  This village was so pretty.  We had lunch here and I visited a potter who told me that she is open April - September and spends October - March throwing, bisquing and glazing.  Not a bad gig!  We stopped in Villefranche and got some croissants and had sandwiches at the Cafe des Arcades.  They have the best jambon and brie sandwiches for only 3 euros. 

Today was a rest day for us.  Our legs are killing us from all the hills!  We woke to more sunny skies - we have had the most beautiful weather here and no wind!  I didn't have a converter that worked here, so I had not been drying my hair....I needed to dry my hair!  So we ventured to the Hyper U, which is a sort of mini target/walmart/grocery store.  It sure lived up to it's name, it was 10 am and it was quite hyper.  It was a Wednesday, so children were not in school (they don't go to school on Wednesday).  I found my hairdryer and it was our first investment in relocation...a french hairdryer!  This afternoon we decided to check our emails.  We were told that the library in Najac had internet access, so we headed over there..only to find that they are only open Saturday from 10:30 - 12:30 - so french!  Alas, no news is good news.

Here's Bruce in front of the biblioteque....of course it's not open.

Today we were tourists.  We drove to Cordes sur Ciel (above) to explore a bit and found a studio of a couple who make etchings.  The wife makes the plates and the husband prints them.  L'homme etais tres sympa (the man was really nice).  We bought two small etchings.  We had pizza for lunch at a lovely restaurant.  We then went to Villefrance to the Thursday market - it's huge and there is everything you could imagine - food, spices, veggies, fruit, clothing, toys, pottery, leather goods, etc....a bit overwhelming.  We picked up some fromage, fruit, rose and honey.  Then we drove south to Albi and visited the Musee de Toulouse-Lautrec.  Albi was hot and as always the musee was tiring, so we drove back stopping for some cafe and rose before returning home.

Tonight we stayed in and I made lamb for dinner.  Our friend Jacques stopped by to show us his sprained ankle.  We had a great time talking with him and Nala even came over for a chat.  We had some vin rouge de Gaillac s'apelle Marquis d'orial 2003......so good.

Today we went to visit a village called St. Antonin Noble Val (what a great name).  We have discovered our favorite village as of yet.  Just the right size with a nice mix of people, it is really pretty and friendly...it could be the one!

St. Antonin Noble Val sits on the river's north bank beneath the beetling white cliffs of the Roc d'Anglars, where it developed in the ninth century around an abbey said to house the remains of the evangelizing St.  Antonin.  The picture above was taken in the place de la Halle, the main square in the ville.  The building in this picture is the Maison des Consuls, the town's finest building, whose origins go back to 1125.  This picture below is about 1/2 mile outside of the village...

Bruce is obsessed with these hay circles.  They are everywhere.  Today we went on a long, hot and hungry 50 mile tour de Jacques through the Aveyron gorge with friends Anka and Fabrice and Jacques girlfriend Fabiene, with Jacques in tow in the car due to his sprained ankle.  There were lots and lots of hills and not enough food, it's made us very tired towards the end, although you only have to look around to appreciate the suffering.  We finally made it back to the car and had sandwiches and ice cream in Cordes as our legs stiffened up.   We went to dinner in Najac at a restaurant called Belle Rive, which was below the chateau  Bruce had real Roquefort cheese...quite blue and very furry, but packing a big taste.  Another world from the blue cheese at home.   We have tried many things new on this trip.  Rose, aperitif, duck, lamb, fois gras, pate, Roquefort all new tastes.

Our neighbors

Last night we were invited to a soiree a' chez Jacques.  It was tres intereseant.  It was Bruce and I, Jacques, his daughter, Nala and their friend Francious.  We enjoyed a great dinner with soup d'Averyon, salad with fois gras, confit de canard, potatoes, cheese and great wine.  It was difficult to follow the conversations, always at least two at once, but fun to try.  Our french is getting really good but when a debate explodes we get a bit lost.  We stayed until almost 1 in the morning and ended only because I was falling asleep at the table.

This is a view from our restored barn.  I could never get tired of this view.  We leave today....we are both very sad.

Left takes you to the motorway....and home.  Right takes you to paradise.....which way should we go?????? 

As we crossed the border into spain, we say au revior to france in search of a place for the night.  We are heading to Barcelona and on to home.    We took our last ride yesterday from our favorite village and hopefully new home soon, St Antonin Noble Val, where  picked up a ring that was handmade for me.  It was hard to say goodbye, we stopped at Anke and Fabrice's home and later at Jacques.  We made some great friends on this trip and the Aveyron and around could be the best place we've yet been.  We packed up and said goodbye to Nala and we both had to choke back the tears.

We will be back....sooner than later!

Missing our little lady "Daisy"

                              

Today was a very sad day.  We had to put our little lady, Daisy down.  6 years ago I was searching through Petfinders.com and came across this scrappy 4 year old Boston Terrier.  She was located about 2 hours from us and there was just something about her...I knew I was meant to rescue her.  So, we packed up the car along with Hemet & Augie (Hemet was our first Boston Terrier, we had to put him down 2 years ago).  We drove into this dusty little town and down a dirt road to his old house.  The woman was very nice and went to get this little girl I saw on the internet.  She came trotting into the run, chest out and immediately went up to Augie grabbed his neck and pinned him to the ground.  Basically letting him know that she was boss.  She didn't do that to Hemet though, because he was the Alpha dog.  After she did that, she was fine with Augie, but Augie never forgot that and basically ignored her, up until recently.  She was a brindle boston and we think about 4 years old.  The woman told us that she was part of a puppy mill and they think had had at least 2 litters of pups.  She wasn't allowed in the house, lived in a kennel and her owners dropped her off at the vet and never came to get her.  That just broke my heart...I had to take her home and give her a wonderful life. 

Well, it was obvious that she had never lived in a house, because she wasn't house trained.  She wasn't grass trained either and would only go to the bathroom on the cement patio in the back.  She was also a dumpster digger, she'd break into the trash and get anything that she could (plastic, aluminum foil, paper towels, etc...).  She was very sweet but not affectionate and very alouf, almost like a cat.  I don't think she knew how to trust anyone.  We finally house-trained her and she became part of the pack.  A couple months after we got her she started to get sick with diarrhea, we found out she had giardia and nasty parasite.  This is when the trouble began.  Over the past 6 years she was diagnosed with Irritable bowel disease, colitis, 2 more bouts with giardia and most recently lymphangiectasia, which is a horrible disease where the lymph system doesn't absorb protein or fats, so the dog wastes away. She always had horrible diarrhea and would loose weight and then gain some back and then loose again.  She was just diagnosed with lymphangastasia in March of this year and she started going downhill, fast.

We found this wonderful vet who is known as the guru of the GI Tract, he's known worldwide and he happened to be here in Los Angeles.  So I called him first and then emailed him (attaching a picture of her).  His assistant called me back to inform me that he doesn't take patients anymore, he only does conferences and teaches at universities...BUT something about the picture and story grabbed his heart too and he agreed to take her case!  How cool is that.  He tried things no other vet tried or even spoke to us about but her body couldn't tolerate a few of them them and 2 weeks ago her white count went to 200 (normal for a dog is 10,000) and she got a horrible infection and had to be in the hospital for 2 days.  After antibiotics her white count went back up, but then her liver enzymes came back off the charts and her protein levels were super low.  Not good.  We tried so many things over the years, so many medicines so many different foods,  you name it, we tried it.   Our new wonderful doctor couldn't even help her.  Her disease was just too far along and her little body just couldn't fight anymore.  We looked at her this morning and she wasn't the dog we knew and her eyes told me it was time.  We wanted someone to come to the house to put her down, but couldn't get an appointment until tomorrow, we knew we couldn't wait that long, it just wasn't fair to her.  So we took her over to the vets, wrapped in her favorite blanket and I held her and kissed her until she took her last breath.  Although with that last breath, I did feel a sigh of relief from her.  She was tired, tired of fighting and tired of feeling bad, she was ready to go and we were ready to let her go.  We've cried all day.  I know it was the  most humane, unselfish thing we could do for her, but it's also the hardest. 

I would show you more pictures of her but I don't have any good ones.  She never wanted her picture taken and if a camera would come out she would either turn away or get up and walk away.  This picture was taken by me at a vacation house in Palm Springs last September, she loved that house (we stayed for 2 weeks) and she loved laying in the sun by the pool.  I had to lay on the kitchen floor and sneak the camera around the corner to get the shot.  It's the most beautiful picture of her.  She did finally learn to trust us and would wag her little paint brush of a tail all the time, she finally gave us a kiss after being with us for 2 years, what a great moment.  She had a wonderful life with us, she slept on the bed, had all the food she wanted, had great vacations, went to the dog park everyday, and got so much love.

It's quiet around here without her.  The whole pack misses her right now.  We will always miss her.