Cabin Touring

It’s been a stretch of medical appointments for the dogs.  Rainie had surgery on her foot to remove a nasty growth, successfully.  And Helen had a dental cleaning that unfortunately led to six teeth being extracted.  Both patients are rehabbing well, though Rainie is on an extra round of anti-biotics.  Her sore foot is within easy reach for her to lick and she has been taking advantage of that, to the point where DeeAnn had to get hard core and bring in the ‘cone of shame’ to deter her from getting at it.  Rainie of course hates it, as do we since we are the ones getting our legs banged into and having to rescue her from tight situations she finds herself in.  Holly wants nothing to do with the cone, she backs away not at all interested in any sort of playfulness we might be up to doing.  Then too, Holly is not much of a nurse with Helen either.  Holly did manage to share a few tender moments the first evening Helen was home, sporting a swollen snout that had her looking like a golden retriever puppy.  The two laid next to each calmly, Holly appearing to show concern for Helen’s whooziness.  By morning, the nurture bug had left and Holly had full expectations for Helen to get up, keep up and step it up.  It’s handy that Helen is good at selectfully ignoring life.

The wounded warriors were packed up for the week-end and taken to the cabin.  What better place for them to forget about mouth and foot pain.   We had arranged for a cabin tour day with acquaintances of ours who share a passion for dogs.  Joan and DeeAnn’s cabin is about a half hour apart, both in the Cotton lakes area.  We met at Joan’s cabin for the first part of the day, then proceeded to DeeAnn’s cabin for the second part of the day.  There is plenty of conversation to share when you have common ground about cabins and pets.

Reminiscing about how the cabin looked ‘back then’ and reviewing each name on the pet cemetery marker brings on a realty check about how many memories – as in how much fun and work, as well as pets and people have passed through the cabin.  Our time with old friends at the cabin is about tradition and routine; our time with new friends at the cabin somehow puts a punctuation on all of that.  There is no ranking one over the other, indeed it seems each is needed to bring the other to its fullest value.   Reviewing our former pet names on the board brought that out as well.  Iris, Bailee, River, Boden, Kindred, Teagen – all of them carry such a deep level of specialness.  And now Holly, Rainie, Keltie and Helen carry that torch, fulfillling the role as a perpetual memory maker.  Their life preserves the memories of all those prior to them while creating memories of their own from today.   Life seems to thrive on that – keeping the ball rolling!