Pinky is one of our three dogs. She is a mini-dachshund, a black and white dapple. We accepted Pinky and her sister from another mother, Mimi when our son and his wife divorced. They called them ‘the girls’ and we did, and do, the same. Mimi is a classic red mini-dachshund. She’s smaller than Pinky by a few pounds and shorter by a few inches. They were both bred and born in Germany. My son and his wife bought them in Germany when they were stationed there.
Our third one is really Tom’s dog. Tom’s the husband. Maddie is his service dog. She is a yellow labrador retriever. For the most part, they do not behave like a pack, simply because Tom and Maddie are so well bonded. The girls hang with me most of the time.
Mimi kind of dances to her own tune. She always loves a visitor. Runs around them in circles flips on her back, and pees upside down. She does this nearly 100% of the time. She prefers to spend the day under blankets. She’s friendly until she’s not. You can have her on your lap for a while, when you put her on the ground she snarls pretty good. When a fight ensues with the girls, it’s generally Mimi that starts it.
Pinky is the youngest of the crew. She will be seven-years-old on January 17th. She was sick this summer, diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. She had cyst-like bumps popping out of her skin, a fever and was generally not well. I thought she wasn’t going to make it. She rallied though and came back to her jovial, mischevious self. One of her favorite tricks is jumping on the kitchen chair and then the table when we aren’t looking. She’s exceptionally social. She doesn’t have a mean streak in her at all. She’s more of a party girl.
Pinky likes to pick up a bone almost as long as herself and bring it in my office when I’m working. If I get up and go to another room she follows, bringing her bone. Often I’m going in and out of a room, back to my office, moving quickly. She follows anyway. I’m her human.
This last week she developed acute pancreatitis. She’s super sick and doesn’t seem to be getting better despite fantastic veterinarian care. She spends the day at the vet getting treatments and comes home at night. I like that they let me bring her home so I love on her.
This morning she’d seemed markedly worse than when we went to bed. Her breathing was troubling her and she was in more pain than she’d been in despite having the pain medication I gave her. I wrapped her in a blanket and sat on the front porch with her on my lap with my coffee and camera close by. I would learn later on when I took her back to the vet that she had a 103 temperature. While we were on the porch all I knew was how much worse she was and wondered if she was going to beat this.
From the front porch, I can see the colors of the sunrise. I can’t see the horizon but I can see when the sky changes colors in the early morning. We are approximately one mile from the Intracoastal Waterway. It’s super nice when you can actually be at the waters edge, however, any day you can sit on your porch and see what I do almost daily you’ve got nothing to complain about.
I was supposed to run a 5k this morning. It’s part of my get healthy, lose weight initiative that I’ve had going on since May 2019. I was dressed and ready when I realized I couldn’t leave her and the care she needed. I couldn’t leave her to Tom. She’s my pup and I’m her person.
It was lightly raining at my house yet the sun wasn’t having it. The sky was opening up to beautiful colors over the Intracoastal. Pinky was snuggled on my lap, coffee was delicious and I got lost in photographing the sunrise from my cozy chair on the porch. Photography brings me to complete mindfulness almost instantly. It didn’t make Pinky physically better but ya know I feel like she felt the calmness that mindfulness brings to people, to me, and how loved she is.
This mornings sky:
