{"id":1751,"date":"2012-06-03T08:53:42","date_gmt":"2012-06-03T15:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourhousehaswheels.com\/?p=1751"},"modified":"2013-12-30T19:05:03","modified_gmt":"2013-12-31T01:05:03","slug":"not-what-i-was-working-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ourhousehaswheels.com\/?p=1751","title":{"rendered":"Not What I Was Working On"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gingerella\"<\/p>\n

This was not the post that was supposed to go first \u2026 but it would be wrong to not write it.<\/p>\n

I was working on a very different post several mornings ago. The day started out like many others. This time, it was in a parking lot of a casino resort in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Not that the place mattered.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the dogs had their breakfast, we got the first inkling that \u201cthe day\u201d had come for our \u201clump of love\u201d. Ginger, the ancient queen, was having some sort of \u201cevent\u201d. She was struggling to stand, trembling, couldn\u2019t walk for periods, and was uncomfortable or worse.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been through the loss of too many beloved companions but it is never easy to know when it is time. We held on to Charlie too long. He knew it was time to go, but we held on to him because we weren\u2019t ready. Only when he demanded to go outside in the rain to go lay under a tree did we surrender and take him in. But this time, with Ginger, we weren\u2019t in denial. Neither of us really expected to return to Texas in the fall with three dogs. The writing has been on the wall for a while that Ginger was in decline, but she continued to eagerly participate in the usual highlights of a dog\u2019s day: eating and going for walks, which, in Ginger\u2019s case was actually going for rides in the jogger, but she quickly loaded up in anticipation of getting a cookie for her effort.<\/p>\n

After some discussion, we headed on towards Durango, Colorado with Laura monitoring the old girl. After a couple of hours, we pulled over for a comfort break. We lifted Ginger and it was clear. She declined food. Human food. She tried to stand to do her business, but wasn\u2019t successful. She lay peacefully on the ground, still stoic, but we had a sense that systems were shutting down. She no longer responded to us, even with her bigger-than-big eyes.<\/p>\n

The decision was made that Durango was too far. The next community of any size with a vet available will have to do\u2026 we don\u2019t want to prolong her suffering. Laura found a hospital in Farmington, New Mexico. The staff was terrific, even if the circumstances weren\u2019t. Ginger left us. The grief hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Having two dogs will be so much easier. In addition to not being able to go for walks, other than in the jogger, Ginger had also been deaf for the past several months. We developed some gesture-based commands that she responded to, but you couldn\u2019t just call her\u2026 well you could, and we did \u2018cause we\u2019d forget\u2026 but it didn\u2019t do any good. She had to see you with her one good eye. She took more pills than the rest of the family combined and her medical conditions caused a great deal of worry. Like I said, having two dogs is going to be so much easier, but right now, it really isn\u2019t. Someone is missing. Someone larger than life. Ginger had a presence that people responded to. So did dogs. Never once did we see another dog respond aggressively to her. We called her \u201cour Ambassador\u201d because of her way of approaching strange dogs that put them at ease. She was a special girl.<\/p>\n

We have and will continue on, but our lives are less for her loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was not the post that was supposed to go first \u2026 but it would be wrong to not write it. I was working on a very different post several mornings ago. The day started out like many others. This time, it was in a parking lot of a casino resort in Albuquerque, New Mexico. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ourhousehaswheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ourhousehaswheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ourhousehaswheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ourhousehaswheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ourhousehaswheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ourhousehaswheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1756,"href":"http:\/\/ourhousehaswheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751\/revisions\/1756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ourhousehaswheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ourhousehaswheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ourhousehaswheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}