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A reason to celebrate! July 9, 2015

This is a pretty special week: Teradog’s Gotcha Day was on Tuesday.  Three years ago, we welcomed him into our family, thinking it was only going to be temporary.  The truth is, we’re foster failures.  Despite Mike’s insistence that he was just staying for a couple days, we ended up staying for a month before Mike asked about whether the rescue group had found him a new home.  I said they hadn’t been looking but I could contact them, if he wanted me to.  By that point, he didn’t want me to because that giant ball of fluff and love had steadfastly attached himself to Mike’s hip.

We weren’t sure how long he would be around, which was the really scary part.  The vet couldn’t figure out how old he was (his teeth were in bad shape) and said he could be anywhere from four to ten years old, his teeth indicating the high end of that range.  We took the median, seven, which is getting old for a Newfoundland.  He was also in very bad health.  However, he’s doing very well now (except for a bit of arthritis) and is happy, healthy, and generally content.  We’re hoping he will be around for a while longer.

Happy Newfie!

Today is another anniversary: I will have been writing at this blog for five years.  While that’s generally a happy thing, you may have noticed that things have been rather quiet the past couple months.  That’s because, after five years and not quite a month at my job, the research center I’ve been working for has turned into a support lab and all the research staff have either been terminated or will be let go as soon as funds on their respective projects are gone.  Because of this, there hasn’t been much to talk about.  I’m spending a lot of time in front of the computer, working on my thesis, hanging out with my critters.  While it lends itself to a lot of cute puppy and kitty pics (and often kitty AND puppy pics, probably snuggling), there hasn’t been a whole lot of narrative material there unless you’d like me to get into the specifics of drooling and sleeping patterns of Newfoundlands.  The only thing I am sure I could do on a fairly regular basis is complain about how certain programs are a pain to use, but I’ve already done that (probably ad nauseum).

All of this boils down to today being a good day to celebrate changes.  Change is generally a stressful thing, but it’s all in what you make of it.  And there’s certainly worse things to do than to hang around with domesticated bears.