Resolutions, not here

Happy New Year!

I don't like resolutions so there for a I don't make them.  I have really worked hard over the last few years to just stop beating myself up.  I am happier that way.  There isn't much I can do about the past but I can make changes for my future even if it is only one step at a time.  One of the things I am trying to make sure that I am doing more of is writing about the little things, which I have always felt it important to do.  Someday I am not going to be here to tell the stories or to tell my children that they are loved.  I don't want any of that to disappear so that is a reason I scrapbook, journal or blog.  So onto a important little thing.........     

Durning winter we always let our outside dogs become inside dogs.  They LOVE it but it is an adjustment for me.  I love them but they are always underfoot and it can be very frustrating.  Like most dogs they thrive on attention and I do think they believe they are people not dogs.  I don't allow them up on furniture unless there is a blanket.  At night they will wonder around the house so we put them in the laundry room with there blankets. 

This is our oldest dog Arthur, he is 12.  We've seen some changes in him this past year, as you do with most older dogs, that has required us to make adjustments on how we interact with him.  His sight has been changing for months, he can still see but depth perception is a problem.  It is better if he has plenty of light to see when going downstairs and one of those flameless candles in the laundry room helps him at night.  The big thing that has changed is he has gone deaf.  We started to notice it this summer when the fire station would turn on the sirens and he wouldn't be howling.  He responses to vibration in the floor, knocking on the garage door to let him in and of course he watches the other dogs pretty closely.  If he is sleeping sound we have to be ever so careful as to not startle him.  We touch him gently to get his attention.  When my son is home he is by his side, even if he just gets up to get a pencil he is the constant shadow.  My son is his boy.  There are days he still thinks he is a puppy especially then the snow falls.  He eats snow even when his water bowl in the house is full and loves to chase after snowballs.  He will dive right into the deepest snow to find them and will bark very loudly when his boy isn't making snowballs fast enough.  It is quite funny.      

At his last vet appointment over the summer he had lost a bunch of weight so we had to adjust his feeding schedule from once a day to twice.  It seems that his body can handle it a lot better.  He has put back on the weight so for that we are glad.  He has always had this thing of not being able to stand on anything but carpets, it makes going to the vet interesting.  We have to actually carry him in and place him on a blanket because he feels safe.  On our wood floor landing, we have to have a small carpet because he won't come upstairs otherwise.  It will be a sad day when he is gone.