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Things are not always easy. Sometimes they make sense and you just go forward just like time. It moves in a progression with each event following the next. Each choice leads to the next and in this way we move on with our lives. There’s no stopping these choices from coming to you, even if you really wish they didn’t.

This choice was a long time coming. It started with the meeting of a friend. She was small, she could be held easily in one hand, but she was fierce. She never sat still unless she was sleeping. She spent all of her time exploring her new home or following her older cousin around. Days spent looking after her, making sure she never got hurt, flew by and then she didn’t need to be watched anymore. At least, she didn’t need to be watched to make sure that she didn’t get hurt. Instead choices were made to ensure that she couldn’t get into anything. Treats were locked away in the cupboard, and then moved to a top shelf after she figured out how to break the lock on the treat container. Toys were chosen with the utmost care to make sure that they challenged her intellect. Bedding was just as carefully examined, though it hardly mattered as she always slept on the bed anyway. Days were spent playing, walking, and relaxing, just being together. People came and went and then she had to go away for a time; down south with her cousin and her “mom.”

Moving is always hard. You think it’s the end of the story but really it’s only the conclusion of one chapter. You worry that you’ll never see anything again. The faces of your friends, the places you know, but you can always come back from a move. She did. It only took a year before she came back home, though her cousin didn’t live to make the trip back. It was a hard blow to take. Everything was as different as it was the same. She endured like everyone else. Time doesn’t stop. There was much more to come. More smiles, more walks, and more shenanigans. Every day after the return got a little easier. Her cousin was still missed, he always would be, but we could carry on with everything and move forward without hesitation.

Then you get the first scare. It feels like time stops just like your heart does. You remember that time can’t stop; that this is coming somehow and you can’t stop it. You can delay it though and so you do. She still seems happy. She’s happy to see you every time you can come to visit, happy to eat all the food in the house, and happy to get into the trash when there’s no food left. You think things will be fine after all. You move on like things are normal.

Then the second scare comes. Then the third… the fourth… the fifth… the tenth… You don’t know how much longer time will wait. It marches forward unrelenting. You start to notice that she’s a little greyer than she used to be. You watch her struggle on the long walks she used to love. You see that maybe she’s not eating as much as she used to. But you look into her cloudy eyes and still see the laughing smile that she’s always had and you still think time will wait. Just a little longer. Time can wait a little longer.

Then you get the call. Time won’t wait any longer. You’ve put the choice off for long enough and it keeps coming back to find you. You sit on the sunny steps with your friend’s head in your lap just like always wondering how it could be so warm when you feel so cold. She’s hurting now. You can see it on her face and in every step she takes. Time’s run out. There are no more chapters in her story. You go with her in the morning and hold her close. You stroke her head and tell her how much you love her. It’s the last chance you’ll ever have.

You leave without her. The last choice you ever get to make for her.

Yep, a mug. I love a pretty teacup, especially if we're out having a real tea, but there's nothing better than a great big mug of tea at home when you need to relax after a long day.

There's a dog on it because everything is better with dogs.

Teapots and dragons are both things I associate with my mom, and are things we share a love of.

I don't need another dog.

I'm a one-dog person, I really am. I love dogs, I work with dogs, but at the end of the day, when I come home, one furry friend is plenty, one love to walk and feed and adore and share my life with. For almost fourteen years now, that's been my corgi, Loki. He's adorable and awesome, my handsome set of giant ears, and for most of his life he's been a grumpy old man, very picky about the dogs and people he accepts - and that's okay! He's my boy, and that's what matters.

I've been working with dogs for about six years now, first in a boarding facility and now at a no-kill shelter, and unavoidably, there are dogs who steal your heart. Dogs I loved and adored, dogs who broke my heart, dogs a part of me would have loved to bring home; but I am a one-dog person, and Loki is how Loki is, and I always knew I never could. And that was okay, because I love my Loki. I don't need another dog, I would tell myself.

Over the last year, I have brought a few dogs home, but not in a way that I ever thought I would. At a no-kill refuge, not all of the dogs will find homes: maybe they have medical issues, or behavioral issues, or trust issues, or maybe they're just 'too old,' and so we are their home. They live out their lives with us, safe and loved, until the day they die. Over the last year and a half, we lost eight of our friends. Three of them were my special dogs, friends who took getting to know, but with whom time spent was the highlight of every day. When they passed, I was given their ashes to bring home.

This past January, a month after the passing of my second special dog, as my co-worker and I were leaving after (another) late night, we saw a loose dog walking down the road - the fourth in less than a month. He was a pit mix, skinny and tired and hungry, and we tempted him to come to us with a nice tasty bone. We tried to coax him into one of our cars, but he refused, and so I walked him back down the road to the shelter. It was a long walk, not because it was especially far, but because he was exhausted, walking behind me with dragging feet. I talked to him as we went, and along the way, I decided to call him Hector; there'd been a long run of rather silly names, and I thought he deserved a name with a little dignity to it. We fed him and put him up for the night, and the next day the county came to pick him up, since he was a stray.

They kept him for three days in case someone came looking for him, and when no one did, they called us. He was "unadoptable," they said, and would be euthanized unless we wanted him back. We did. We'd found him, and he was ours. We'd lost too many dogs, were in the process of losing another from lymphoma, and we needed to save this one. They vaccinated and neutered him before they sent him back to us, but they botched the neuter, and within a few days he had to go to an emergency vet for the infection he developed. He was sick and in pain and in a strange place, but not once was he anything other than loving and tolerant, no matter how much poking and prodding anyone did, no matter how many times we stuck our hands in his mouth to pill him because he wouldn't eat.

He recovered beautifully, making friends with the resident clinic cat in the meantime, and soon enough we were able to put him outside in one of our dog lodges...only for him to climb the fence and go looking for the nearest person! Into an enclosure with a top he went, and things seemed to be going well for a week or so, but after awhile, the shelter environment started to get to him. Most dogs adjust remarkably well, but Hector wasn't most dogs. He took to pacing constantly, so obsessed with running back and forth and back and forth that he hardly paused even when we went in to visit with him; even when we took him out for walks, all he wanted to do was go back and run the fence, again and again. Here was a dog who previously had been obsessed with people and hugs, running himself ragged from stress. Watching it broke my heart. I'd been his primary caretaker while he recovered, and I'd fallen in love with him. He'd become one of my special dogs.

I knew it wouldn't work, but I brought Loki in to meet him. Loki, of course, hated him immediately, was all barks and growls and charges and snaps, but our unadoptable dog just turned away every time and refused to engage him. He waited him out until he didn't have any bluster left and just gave up. He was amazing. We did it again the next day, just the same, and that night he came home with us. Loki stayed grumpy for awhile, taking shots at him for this reason or that, and all Hector ever did was walk away. As time went on, Loki gave up on picking fights, and eventually, he decided Hector wasn't so bad after all. Now the second thing on his morning schedule (after breakfast!) is to groom his formerly-unwelcome housemate. My little old man has found a very unexpected friend.

And Loki's unexpected friend - my impossible, unadoptable dog - has been my unexpected savior. A few weeks before we found him, I'd started having strange, sporadic episodes of pounding heartbeats at night; they'd stopped within a couple of weeks, but a month later they were back again, sometimes so bad that I felt like I was going to pass out, and keeping me from getting any decent sleep. The likelihood, according to my doctor was that it was probably anxiety, but maybe not, so if it kept happening, I should come back again and they could do another test or two. About a week prior to my going back, I brought Hector home; Hector, of course, insisted on sleeping in my bed (something Loki has never liked to do), pressed right up against me, and within that week, I realized something: the episodes had stopped. My appointment came 'round and I told the doctor, and she officially dubbed my episodes anxiety attacks. Before I left, she also told me, "Keep the dog."

I kept the dog. I am a one-dog person with two dogs, one I had tried to tell myself I didn't need, but I was wrong.

I'm an indecisive person by nature. I have to think things over for a long time weighing options and fretting over possibilities. About seven years ago I decided I wanted to go back to school since it had been a few years since I had graduated and my life wasn't going anywhere so it seemed like a logical decision. So I went to a tech business school for computer sciences. It seemed like a good idea that would be a good career path for this day and age. It turned out to be a terrible idea. The school I went to was lacking. The classes were either extremely basic, worthless to what I had planned to move onto after getting the degree, or just greek to me. Because of those things I had ended up not enjoying or even caring about my lessons. After a while I found myself almost giving up in my classes but I was still making it as far as my grades were.

After a while, even though I only had about a year left, I decided that it was no longer for me and I couldn't fake my way through these classes any longer. I chose then to drop out. I don't really regret it most of the time but every once and awhile I think that maybe if I'd stuck with it my life would suck a little less. Those "what if" thoughts never really make me think I would be happier though so in the long run my decision to drop out wasn't really a bad one.

Now once again I'm battling a dilemma. Another tech school has opened up a vet tech program and I find myself thinking going back to school there for that program now might be a good idea. Though my childhood dream of being a vet was a bit far fetched, I find myself thinking maybe this would be a good rational option. Right now I'm stuck in the debating with myself part of the decision making process so only time will tell how this particular choice will go. To go or not to go back to school again.... that is my current question to myself.