BarkingProse

Ash

I turned eleven on February 7th. I’m officially a ‘senior’ dog, though nobody has bothered to tell me what that means.

I’ve had some sports injuries and I can’t jump like I used to, but I can still outrun Journey when we race down the driveway.

Mom says she and I are now at the same stage in life. That’s okay with me since mom can still take us hiking and do silly things with us.

I just wish mom would quit riding horses. She leaves me and Journey at home when she goes to the barn ’cause the horses don’t like us.

Mom tells me I will always be a silly boy no matter how old I get. I hope that’s true. Silly is fun and fun is good.

Journey keeps asking me when we’re gonna find another rescue dog that needs a home. I know mom misses having a pack of worn out mutts underfoot.

But it’s hard to know what to do. Should we get an old mutt who just needs a place to hang out? It would have to be a special dog that didn’t mind Journey racing around the house and using me for a landing pad.

Or should we pull a young dog out of a shelter so that Journey has somebody to play with when I don’t feel like Aussie slam games?

Mom says we have to be patient. The right dog will find us. In the meantime me and mom do fun stuff. She trusts me off leash so we walk together in quiet places.

Sometimes I wish you could put life on rewind and go back to times when everything was just right. Maybe that’s what pictures are for. They remind you of a special time that you want to remember forever.

Here’s one of my favorite pictures. It’s me and Tess with Jack and Nellie in the back of the car. It was crowded but we sure had fun together.

The Pack

It’s hard to make sense of things. If we hang onto the past we can miss the present. Without living in the present we won’t make a past to remember. I don’t know what to think, so I try to enjoy every minute of my life the way it is. And right now I have little Journey, the best pal a mutt could have. She’s my present and my future. She’s pure joy and I love having her as my sidekick.

Journey

Ash

Time is a tricky thing. It brings you the future but it also takes away the present. I’m just a mutt, but I know that time doesn’t heal all wounds. Some things can’t be fixed. Some losses are forever.

It’s been five months since Shiloh left us. I miss that little girl every day.

I’m not sure what the universe had in mind when it gave Shiloh so many challenges. I do know she overcame abuse, starvation, a crippled body and cancer to live a happy life at Asherpark.

My life has come full circle since I was born in 2006. I was one of two blue dogs when I joined my beloved Codie. She died in 2009 but I still miss her like it was yesterday.

For six years we took in as many rescue dogs as we could manage. Mom would have brought in more but there wasn’t space in the bedroom for another mutt.

One by one we said goodbye to the rescue dogs we had come to love: Darcy, Nellie, Jack, Mama, Tess and finally Shiloh. Now it’s just two blue dogs again – me and Journey.

Ash and Journey

A couple weeks ago Journey asked me why we weren’t posting Barks anymore. I told her we were too busy with classes and all her training, but that wasn’t the real reason.

After Shiloh died my heart felt  heavy. Even the funny things Journey did couldn’t make me laugh. Then one day I saw Journey loving on mom. Journey’s little butt was wiggling, her tongue was going a mile a minute, and mom was laughing like the old days.

That’s when I realized I had to let go of missing Shiloh. I couldn’t keep wishing for the past. Little Journey is already sixteen months old. I’m ten years old. Time keeps bringing us lots of good stuff. I gotta pay attention to what’s happening now.

This morning I told Journey the truth about why we hadn’t been posting Barks. She looked at me real sad for a minute. I thought she was gonna cry.

Instead Journey looked right into my heart and said, “We can do this Ash. We can keep BarkingProse running. We’re working dogs……we can do this!”

Yes we can, Journey. Yes we can.