Running Free

Yesterday was a bit of a stressful day. It started out okay, and I had high hopes for a nice day of General Conference watching, but apparently Luna had other plans of for our day. Lately Kevin has been working on off the leash training with Luna. She does pretty well, and if she does run, she is pretty easy catch. 

However, yesterday as she took off running, she decided to take a different route through the houses.  (Ironically there is only one set of houses that does not have a fence on our entire street.) We kind of waited for a minute because we assumed she would be right back. Kevin called for her, but she didn’t come. She just seemed to be gone.

This was around 8:30 in the morning, and I was still barefoot and in my pajamas, so there wasn’t much I could do. I ran into the house, grabbed my flip flops, and jumped in my car. We spent the next little bit driving around, but saw nothing. Then Kevin dropped me off, and I walked around the neighborhood while he drove.  As is my usual, I quickly got blisters from my flip-flops, so I ended up walking around barefoot and in my pajama bottoms that kept sliding down. Plus, I had on my glasses, so I couldn’t really see well between their dirtiness and the sun. I eventually gave up and went back home so I could change and put in my contacts. Kevin came home shortly later. I didn’t end up going out on foot again, but we drove around the neighborhood pretty frequently until about 2:30 pm.

Throughout the day, I had been trying to post a lost dog posting on the animal control site (I also posted on Facebook and KSL.), but it wasn’t working. I had looked at the found dog listings in the morning, but not too well. Around 2:30 I was checking out the Animal Control site again, and found this post:
 

I am an unaltered female, brown brindle Boxer.
You will find me in kennel TRUCK.
I have been at the shelter since Mar 31, 2012.

County Shelter - 511 W 3900 S ID# A372249

I got really excited and immediately called the number for dispatch. It ended up being the general dispatch for the police, which wasn’t very helpful, so we just jumped in the car and headed for the pound. It ended up being quite a ways from our house, so it was kind of an agonizing drive because we were both hoping that Luna would be the brindle Boxer, We finally got there, and a guy led us to the back of the building, and we saw a boxer, who immediately began to waggle her butt in happiness. We had found our fugitive. Fifty-seven dollars later we were able to bail her out and take her home. She was super excited to see us, but she was also super tired from her day long adventure and spent a lot of the afternoon sleeping.

It affected me a lot more than I ever thought it could. I was a mess all day, and poor Kevin had to deal with my breakdowns, meltdowns, and angry outbursts. It just seemed so surreal. Luna has become an integral part of our home, and I was devastated that she might be gone forever. I am grateful for the power of prayer, even if we didn’t find her immediately, but I did feel much calmer and hopeful after awhile. I think my over protective dog parenting might go up a notch now, hopefully I don’t smother her too much. And hopefully she never decides to go on an adventure by herself again. That is just way to much stress for me and our marriage.

My Favorite Television Show

Life hasn’t been too exciting lately, at least not blog-worth exciting, so here is another random get-to-know-you post.

Naming my favorite TV show is actually kind of hard. I have quite a few that I enjoy watching. However, I guess you could gauge favorite by my desire to make sure I don’t miss an episode. In that case my favorites would include: NCIS, NCIS: LA, Glee, Raising Hope, The Office, and Bones. I think out of those six, my favorites would be NCIS and Bones. I just like the dynamic between the characters. I love Abby in NCIS and Dr. Brennan in Bones. They are just such smart women, and I like that.

I also enjoy watching Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and Animal Planet. Honestly, I enjoy the actual factual documentary shows the most, but I also like the reality shows too. Except Bear Grylls. For some reason I really don’t like him. Probably because I think he is over the top dramatic. Dual Survival is much better. I think my favorite reality show is Gold Rush, but I am partial to the Hoffman’s. I think Dakota Fred is a jerk, and Parker is a bratty kid.

I used to watch a lot of Disney Channel, but all of the shows that I used to watch aren’t on anymore, plus the shows that I do enjoy never have new episodes. I still watch it when there is nothing else on though.

Luna Update

Luna’s surgery went well. Her behavior during her night at the vet’s office, not so much. Somehow, she manage a jail break out of her kennel during the night, and commenced eating the frosting off of some cupcakes the staff left out. She was waiting at the front door for the staff to arrive Saturday morning. However, despite her spunk at the vet’s office, she was pretty sleepy and sore over the weekend, but by Monday she was wanting to play again. She either has a high pain tolerance or else she gets over surgery pretty quick. We tried to get her to take it easy this week, but she found that boring. Fortunately, my mom bought her a laser pointer for Christmas, and that has provided a lot of entertainment for both Luna and us. It is amazing to me how much she likes that red dot. Even when we get done playing with it, she is still looking for it. 

Next week we will be able to get her stitches out, so we should be able to take her for walks again. I think that will do wonders for her boredom.

Luna’s Surgery

Today we took Luna in to the vet to get fixed. I’ve been dreading this day since we decided to get her fixed a few weeks ago. I don’t want to deal with the mess of her being in heat, but I also don’t want to cause her pain. I think the worst part was dropping her off and seeing her in a kennel. She had already been sedated so she wouldn’t let me pet her through the door of the cage. I know it was probably because she was confused and sleepy, but it didn’t make me feel any better about dropping her off.

 Everything went well in surgery, but she is staying at the vets tonight so they can observe her and make sure she has no complications. Even though we have only had her for a couple of months, it feels really quiet and empty without her here. Before we got Luna, I would have never guessed that I would be one of those people who fell so in love with an animal. I really enjoyed Sissy and Tootsie, the dogs I had when I was younger, but I think the fact that Luna is constantly around when I am home endears her to me more. I look forward to seeing her tomorrow night when I get off work. Hopefully she doesn't feel too sore and crummy, but I'm not expecting her normal walking sideways frantic butt waggle for a while. At least until she feels better.

Christmas

I did not have to work this Christmas (since I worked the entire Thanksgiving weekend, well except Sunday because three in a row is torture enough), so we were able to go to my parents’ for Christmas. 

The Thompson Christmas party fell on the 23^rd this year, so we headed up there Friday after I finished with the chiropractor and a facial (I’ve decided to take care of my face better and my back. Both are much happier now.) We pretty much arrived in time to head right to Oakley. The whole clan was there, so it was the normal chaos, complete with a really fat wiener dog. The highlight of the night was the borderline lecture we got my 20 year old cousin about our lack of munchkins. It was quite entertaining. Apparently we are ancient and need to have kids soon before we die of old age. At least we have a dog now, so at least we are moving slowly in the right direction. 

Everyone’s reaction to Luna consisted of questioning why we got “such a big dog.” I come from a family of miniature dogs, unless they are used for herding or hunting purposes. Which speaking of miniature dogs, the poodle does not approve of Luna. She just shook and tried to hide. Luna just looked at her like she was some kind of weird thing. So much for wanting a picture of the two of them together.

Christmas Eve consisted of a lot of lounging around. I did help my mom with some cleaning and other stuff, but I was pretty successful at clearing out my inbox and google reader cue. Kevin and my dad, on the other hand, spent the day cleaning out the shed, so the lambies have a nice clean place when they are born in a few weeks. Kevin again reaffirmed that we are never having sheep or goats. I’ve pretty much given up on the sheep, but I still want some goats when we someday become rich and can move to Kamas and have our house by a river in the woods (Not sure of the best location for that, maybe Weber Canyon?) We had our traditional ham slice dinner, then opened our present since we had church and the family Christmas party the next day.

Luna’s Christmas Eve Photoshoot

Luna excited to celebrate Christmas

The mean dog pose. Maybe she is sick of being a model?

Nope not another Luna mess, just an exhausted dog after all of those presents.

On Christmas Day, we woke up, ate breakfast (some sort of sausage thing), then went to Church. It didn’t really feel like Christmas Day since there were no presents involved, but we really didn’t have time with Churc and everything. After Church we went to my Aunt Dixie’s for dinner. There were only two Thompson families, instead of the usual four, so there was much less chaos. After dinner, we headed back home so we could celebrate with Kevin’s family.

We had Hawaiian Haystacks for our second dinner at Tiffany and Shane’s. A touch untraditional, but it was still really yummy. After dinner, we opened presents. A large majority were Milo’s, but we all had a pretty good haul. Luna even got a present from both sets of our parents, which I thought was quite nice.

Grandma & Grandpa Rees  and Milo

Milo makes a good wall to hide behind

Milo & Tiffany

Milo in his bouncy chair

 

After the present opening, it was time to go home as I worked the next day. Joys. All in all though, it was a really good break from the normal grind and it was fun to be reminded of the “reason for the season” in Church.