DogHobbyist News
The newsletter of DogHobbyist.com
Holidays 2006

In This Issue:
# From the Site Coordinator
# A Special Gift
# Everything They Say About Old Dogs Is True

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From the Site Coordinator

Best wishes to you and your family for a Happy Holiday Season and New Year!

We know that the holidays can be a hard time for those struggling with the loss of a pet, either past or soon to come. Our Pet Loss and Grief Support chat hosts are here 365 nights a year, including Christmas Eve, Christmas night, New Year's Eve, and New Year's night. The complete schedule is here:

http://chat.pethobbyist.com/schedule.php?site=loss

Our friends over at CatHobbyist.com will also be hosting chats on Christmas Eve and Christmas from 9-11 PM ET in the Cat Care Central chat room ... just click on the link at:

http://www.cathobbyist.com

to join us!

PHKeeper
DogHobbyist.com Site Coordinator

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A Special Gift

We wish a wonderful holiday season and Happy New Year to the users of Pethobbyist.com!

Thank you all for being part of our community.

The staff, volunteers, and patrons of the Pethobbyist.com family of web communities have made a donation of $500 to the Wildlife Warriors Fund, which was established in 2002 by Steve and Terri Irwin to support the protection of injured, threatened or endangered wildlife. This donation was made this holiday season in the memory of Steve, in hopes that it may be put towards the conservation of the animals and habitat that Steve helped us appreciate so much over the years.

Steve's memory will forever live on in the hearts and minds of those that he inspired. The world has lost a spokesman for the animals.

Jeff Barringer
Clint Gilders
Christie Keith
And all of us at Pethobbhyist.com

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Everything They Say About Old Dogs Is True
By Christie Keith
PHChristy

Once upon a time there was a tiny little newborn puppy. She was the only female in her litter, which had been carefully planned and anticipated by her breeders. She wore a little pink ribbon around her neck, because even though her breeders were staunch feminists, they were also total suckers.

Even before her eyes opened she must have known she was special, because she spent almost every waking moment, and probably most of her sleeping ones, cradled in someone’s arms.

By the time she could see and started running around outside, she knew her name was Rosie and that she was “our only girl.” In fact, she thought her name really was “Rosie, our only girl.”

She had a new collar with pink roses embroidered on it. Unless she was playing, her feet never touched the ground. She was her dog mother’s favorite puppy, too. Everything in life was wonderful. The sun came up every day, it was never too hot, the people loved her, the dogs loved her, and really, the whole world was her oyster and that’s just how it was.

And this isn’t a cautionary tale, because while Rosie did have a few rough patches in her long life, basically it continued just the way it began. She finished her show ring championship before she was a year old, racking up quite a few nice wins. She had a little trouble with her first litter, but she was a stellar mom. She never broke a leg or had a serious illness, although there was a rattlesnake that bit her once, and that kind of sucked.

Her dog mom died, a very old deerhound at the age of 12. She was very sad to see her go, but her people seemed to love her even more then, so life kept being good. Sometimes other old dogs would die, and she always felt sad, especially when it was one of her brothers, or her friend Scarlett, the little brown dog. And the worst was when Colleen died, because Colleen was queen of everything, and shouldn’t ever have died, no matter how old she was.

Well, the worst until Rosie’s puppy died, when he was four years old. Rosie was philosophical, though, because by now she’d figured out that sometimes these things happened, one day the dogs would die. First it would be hard, and then life would be good again.

And one day, after a lot of really nice things happened and everyone kept loving her, she was old. Older than any deerhound at her people’s house had ever been. A very, very old deerhound. When she turned 13, people she didn’t know sent her birthday cards and emails, and the deerhound list was all excited about her advanced years, and the people who’d lived with her brothers when they were alive all got teary-eyed and called to wish her a wonderful day.

And Rosie had a little trouble getting up, although once she was up, she could happily go for short walks. She loved her meals and her people and the other dogs, and really, life just couldn’t have been better.

And every night she followed her human mom into the bedroom and curled up on her big comfy bed and fell asleep, only to do it all again, just as happily, the next day.

Old dogs are love.

(Copyright 2006 by Christie Keith. Used with permission.)

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DogHobbyist News is copyright 2006 by OnlineHobbyist.com, Inc., except where otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
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