Hi. Welcome to my site! At this moment, it’s a sadly neglected thing that was well-used during the blogging era, but has been trampled by modern social media and my endless distraction. If you’re feeling nostalgic, feel free to click on that blog link and watch me ramble like an old man. There is no telling what I might say.
When I get my act together, I will pretty this thing up and provide links to relevant items, like my books still over on Amazon, a minor swarm of social media, and the rest of my convoluted plans for the near future. Thanks for stopping by!
Meanwhile, I’d like to direct your attention to the lovely creature at the top of the page. That is the late and great Luna, a wonderful dog who was given to us by an Australian Shepherd breeder because the poor dog was born deaf. We had no idea what handling a deaf dog entailed, and in Luna’s case, the answer turned out to be almost nothing. She picked up our mutant version of hand signals quickly, never missed anything, and eventually moved on to respond to vague hand waving with an accuracy that suggested full mind reading capability. As a herd dog, she took on many jobs of household management with OCD levels of determination and an equal level of dismay when anyone was out of place at the time she had written on her little dog-brain schedule. Equally, she could sense when a four-legged threat would appear in the magic window (TV) and pop up from a sound sleep to issue a warning to that dangerous interloper. Most incredibly, she would cook up plans in the morning and proceed to do bizarre things that made no sense until late afternoon when the point of the plan finally revealed itself. She was a very smart girl.
She passed away due to a common cancer called herminagiosarcoma that attacked her spleen. Many dogs die from this one. It causes internal bleeding and dogs can die of it without anyone knowing what happened. In our case, Luna was in for a dental cleaning, and between my wife and our vet, they decided something was worth an ultrasound, which revealed the internal bleeding. In other words, we got lucky. The dental turned into a spleen removal and the understanding that hermangiosarcoma was aggressive and deadly. Our vet gave Luna 3 months.
We tried intravenous chemo, but that almost killed her. We tried oral chemo, and she was too sick to enjoy what remained of her life. We came to the sad conclusion to let it play out. She lasted longer than her allotted 3 months, but eventually, on a walk, she only made it to the first corner before she decided to lie down on her side in the middle of the sidewalk. This was so far out of character for her that I knew it was over. I picked her up and carried her back to the driveway. I set her down in hopes that she would just go back to being herself. She immediately dropped to her side again. I called my wife, and we put her in the car to take that final ride. Among a great many dogs, she will always be one of the best.