Goodbye... Hello

 AJ Oct. 1997 to May 2010

Well...  after a month and a half absence, I'm back.  A lot has happened since I last wrote.  Arthur hasn't actually been much of a factor and for that I'm very grateful :)

We lost our beloved aussie, AJ, about a month ago.  He was 13.5 yrs old and his arthritis finally took away all quality of life and we had to do the right thing by him.  Our son actually sat us down and said he felt we were too close to the situation.  By taking care of AJ on a daily basis we had lost perspective. I'm glad we made the decision before he suffered too greatly.  My heart was broken and I cried for 3 days.  The house seemed so empty. 

I know some people may not agree with this but I started haunting the pet rescue sites nearly immediately.  Poor hubs had really counted on us taking a break from the responsibility of pets.  However since I'm the one home all day every day he realized how lonely it can be.  That's how I found Livia. She's a toy australian shepherd about a year old.  The local dog warden rescued her from a back yard puppy mill along with some other pups.  She spent the first 8 months of her life in a cage neglected and starving. She's highly allergic to fleas, had almost no hair, and was a mess of bites and scabs.  Thankfully she was saved before they began breeding her nonstop.  She had been too sick and underweight to have puppies.  The pound called a rescue group called "Paws with Pride" to take her out of the kill shelter.  They didn't even know for sure what she was because she looked so bad.  Janice at Paws with Pride is a miracle worker and now Livia has hair and is no longer starving. 

Lindsay and Livia

We adopted her about 3 weeks ago and she has brought such happiness and laughter back into our house.  I love taking Livia for walks and playing with her. Our daughter, Lindsay, and son, Aaron, bonded with her instantly.  We will be adopting another full size aussie sometime in the next few months so they will have each other as playmates.  For our family, rescuing was the only option.  The hubs and I are so grateful to have her, she really is the sunshine in our lives!

Aaron and Livia