The Rocky Mountains were a special adventure for Saints and kids. Georgetown was our destination when on most adventures. Grammie and Pumpa's house in Georgetown was very old and very special. Not all Saints and kids were allowed to spend the night at the Grammie’s Georgetown house.
When the Saints were 2.5 and 3, they had a family of 13 puppies. We had puppies all over the place! 15 Saints (oh my!). We managed to place all the wonderful puppies in great homes where they would have happy families.
When the first Saint reached 5 years old, he died from a nasty mean devil-neighbor's poison. We were all devastated. His wife was very sad. She did not know where he went. The mommy of all of those puppies lived with us to the ripe old age of 12 (for a giant breed, that is OLD!).
It was lonely without our Saints. We moved to a bigger house, added a couple of "rescued" kids to the mix and started wondering if there was another puppy out there needing a home. In the mid-nineties a Saint puppy chose us to be her new housemates, Oh it was a joy to have a puppy again! She was so much fun!
The kids were much older now and really loved having a puppy to care for.
After a while, jobs took us to the east coast. Our Saint made the drive cross-country while the kids flew. When our Saint was about five, the kids found her in her safe place, where she had died peacefully in her sleep. Sadness.
We debated for a long while about bringing a new puppy into our home. The kids were all in school, doing a million other sports and activities. It seems unfair to a puppy to have all their humans gone for most of the day.
I finally found a wonderful organization called Saint Rescue. We adopted a female who they thought was about three. She was a wonderful Saint, but had issues from her former life (why else would she have gone into rescue?) We worked hard to overcome all problems and in no time, she was comfortable with visitors. She loved her new human forever home.
When she was about eight, Rescue needed foster homes. We brought our Saint to meet two other Saints who lived in a kennel on the eastern Chesapeake shore. They were nice doggies that came into Rescue because their owners could not care for them. I did not know it, but this pair was very sick when I took them in. They had all sorts of worms and bacterial infections. (They pooped and puked all over). I spent over a thousand dollars on vet bills for the three dogs to get healthy. (Although the specific branch of Saint Rescue said that all vet bills would be reimbursed - they never reimbursed any expenses!) This pair of Saints only stayed a few weeks before they went to their new forever home.
We waited a few more months and were asked to foster another Saint. Silly me for saying yes! We went back to the eastern shore with our current Saint and tried to pick up the latest rescue. The dog nipped at my now adult son. We did not take that dog home! They brought out another Saint that needed a foster home. OMG! He was gorgeous! He had nothing but love for us! So back home we went. Our old lady Saint and this new male rescue who was about 2.
Our female was starting to show her age. She slipped a disk in her back somewhere along the line. Steroids were the only remedy. She would go on a treatment, do wonderfully, then degrade, and need more steroids. We kept this up until the steroids did not work.
Now we only have our male rescue. He is HUGE. He weighs in at about 185lbs and is strong as an ox. He loves when our daughter brings her boxer dogs up for a visit. He also loves that the grand daughter is up off the floor and will play with him. Okay, he likes it when she washes his food in his water bowl and gives him hugs and kisses!
Amid all of this Saintly love, I feel the urge to be creative. So I sew, draw, paint, crochet, and other crafty things. Oh and I also grow a salsa garden every year, grapes and raspberries too. I am an avid in composter and recycler too.
That's all for now. I have a lawn to cut and weeds to whack down!
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