Today I am going to post on the year 2008 for me and try to genuflect about what I learned this year and how it has made me the dog I am today.
Early this year, I was starting to learn about boundaries and staying close to my mother. I learned to listen to her and her commands (she was watching marathons of "The Dog Whisperer" and learned a thing or two). This actually gave me more freedom in my life as my mom started to trust Q-Ball and me to walk without our leashes when we went to a park. Mom knows this is what makes us happy and we just got more and more freedom and adventure in our lives (by adventure I mean chasing city squirrels).
Another big change this year was mom's working situation. She was working in a job that exhausted her mentally and made her a little bit grumpy when she arrived home. Q-Ball and I had to work hard to get her to smile and cheer her up when she was home from work. Q-Ball would always do her flapper dance and I would jump and spin in the air to show her how happy we were to see her and have her home with us. We miss her so much when she leaves for work. Well, this year she was laid off and instead of getting sad about it, it made mommy more mellow as the stress in her life was lessen. Q-Ball and I got the added bonus of having our mommy around more and spending more time outside. Mommy had started a jewelry line at the beginning of the year so now she had the time to really work on it and learn how it feels to work from home. We loved it and I know she loves working with us around.
We had a great summer spending lots of time outside in the park with occasional trips to the beach. Mom was happy and showered us with affection constantly. We spent a lot of quality time together. Q-Ball and I would occasionally change spots that we liked to hang out in the apartment to make our own. Mom finally fixed the second bedroom and made a nice closet/storage space out of it so Q-Ball would hang out and lay on mom's shoes for her alone time. I made the little entry hall my space to hang. Central Park is nearby so we went on a daily basis to CP and developed our own little rituals. Mom got a big kick out of this as she loves seeing us happy and out exploring the world. We always stopped to realize how lucky we were as we looked at the skyline of Manhattan every night knowing many dogs around the world would love to be in our place. We lived in the Upper East Side next to Central Park, we had a mommy that loved us and made us a priority in her life and we got to go on many wonderful adventures with her.
However I learned in 2008 that sometimes a good thing must come to an end. This was especially true in the beginning of September, September 7th to be exact, when we lost our Q-Ball. I am not going to go into the details of the story as it is still hard to recount but on that day in one of our wonderful walks around the Great Lawn in Central Park, Q-Ball was hit by a bicyclist on the walkway (he was not allowed to ride his bike on the walkway and Q-Ball and I were allowed to be off our leash since it was after 9pm). Just moments before this happened, Q-Ball did one of her crazy runs toward my mother with her tongue hanging out making us all laugh, then the next moment tragedy strikes us. The man who did it didn't even stop, he just yelled back at my mom. "They should have been on a leash!" I circled my mom as she was on the ground holding Q-Ball not knowing what to do. I didn't know what to do either, I started to go crazy too. Luckily many good people came to our rescue including the NYPD who rushed us to the animal hospital but alas our beautiful Q-Ball was gone. I didn't know what was happening, all I know was that Q-Ball was lying there still and my mother was hysterical. I didn't know what was going to happen to me.
At the hospital my Uncle Adrian, Papa and Aunty Annie came to see us and they made sure to take care of me and make sure I wasn't scared and alone anymore. Seeing Q-Ball buried the next day was scary too as I didn't understand what was happening and I thought I was next to be put in the ground so I disappeared for awhile. My mom found me and we went home. That was the day we started our life without Q-Ball. You have to understand, except for me being sick and staying at the vet for 2 days, Q-Ball has always been with me since we were little puppies. Our whole family dynamics have changed. As much as Q-Ball and I would fight (because she was the alpha dog) I loved her so much as she is and will always be my soul mate.
The last few months of the year have rushed by and I have been the recipient of much love and attention by my mother and those who love us. I am happy that mom still works from home as I am not sure how I feel about being alone for so long. I know she is concerned about me being lonely, she doesn't like to see me sad. Q-Ball was such a ham and I was the more quiet dog so now I have learned to get out from behind my shadow and be the center of attention which was not easy for me.
The holidays have brought a lot of fun, love and attention to me. Writing this post has given me a raison de d'etre which we all need in life, not just humans. The more I write this post, the more ideas I get and I really want to make something positive come of The Powder Puffington Post. I have discovered the power of the post (as I got almost all the things I wanted on my Christmas list)! Stay tune for my next post as I will list how I intend to make a difference in this world for 2009! Chow for now!
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