SETTING SABLE FREE

Two friends have recently started/re-started blogging, and in the process of commenting, I once again opened my blog. Goodness, it's hard to believe that it's been dormant since 2009. Perhaps now is a good time to revitalize Cath's Corner, too.

Today was a sad day. We set our sweet Sable free to join Jelly Bean and Taffy and Midnight in Heaven. She can once again see and hear and run freely. I know they are having a wonderful time frolicking tonight.

It was time to let her go. She was blind and deaf and had started getting confused to the point of getting trapped in random corners. How scary that must be to have no idea where you are or how to get where you're trying to go. She even had trouble finding the water in the water dish. For the longest time I thought she was just drinking copious amounts of water. She would stand at the bowl and lap and lap and lap. Then, after a comment my neighbor made, I started watching and realized only about one in ten laps actually connected with the water.

Bless her heart. Her old plumbing hasn't worked properly the last couple of years, but she valiantly tried to make it outside in time. She had a funny routine. First she stood and stared at the door, waiting for it to magically open. And sometimes, if one of us was walking by at just the right time, it worked! But if the door didn't open, she would start growling very softly. As the minutes passed, the growl increased in volume until it finally, in one last valiant effort to get the door to open, became a bark. That worked almost every time.

There was one "constant" in her life to the very end. Roy and I never figured it out. Sable had a "sixth sense" when it came to my food. While I was still dishing things up in the kitchen, Sable could always find the steps leading up to the couch and would climb them and wait for me to come sit down with my tray of food. As she got creakier, she sometimes fell off of the steps...but always climbed back up in a flash. What could I do but reward her for her perseverance?

Rewarding her was a bit tricky. Since she was almost totally blind, she thought anything moving in the vicinity of her mouth was food. There is a true art to turning loose of a morsel quickly enough that your fingers do not become part of the cuisine.

I'll miss the click of her toenails on the floor in the morning. I'll miss her meeting me in the kitchen for her morning treat. I'll miss her "high 5" over and over as she tried to impress anyone and everyone to offer her food. I'll miss her barking when her leash came into sight. I'll miss her loyalty and her love. You blessed our lives, Sable, and we'll miss you.