This week

Posts have been lacking this week, I know.

The week started out bad.  Then it stayed bad. What can I say?   The weekend has to be better, right?  I'm curled up in front of the fire under a blanket with dogs all around me now.    I'm missing my darling old Cinder girl.  She was almost 15.  She had to be put to sleep Monday due to her slowly degenerating health.  It was so hard to know when to make that decision.  I miss her so badly.  You pet owners know how there are just plain dogs and then there are best friends?  Well, Cinder was my baby girl.  She was born into my hands.  I tore the sac off her so she could start her life. By 5 weeks old she had claimed me as hers and I placed the other pups with other people, but knew she was mine.    She was the smartest, most loyal, best dog you could ever want.  

 She was constantly saving my ass when working with the livestock.  I'd do something dumb, and she'd fix it.  One time she saved me from being trampled by a herd of cows.  I didn't have to say anything, she just swept in and started biting them.  

Another time my sheep escaped and got mixed in with my neighbor's sheep.  She and I together shed them apart and brought just ours home.  That is a tricky feat for a dog whose natural instinct is to keep all the sheep in one bunch!  I have so many memories of her, 14 and a half years worth.  They just keep parading through my head, during the day or at night when I'm trying to sleep.