The last two weeks have been an emotional roller coaster

Hi there everyone,

Well, the last two weeks have been quite the emotional roller coaster. As you know from our previous post, two weeks ago, we lost our beloved Boxer Boy Tyson. We adopted him when he was 9 months old, from a family with a couple of young boys who tormented him a lot. After about a year, we got Tyson out of his shell and he was a great companion for the rest of his time with us. We miss him horribly.

Last week, we lost our very special Kitty 'Spot'. He was about 15 years old. He had some sort of heart condition that was caused by a slight murmur that he has experienced since he was a young kitten. Carol and Katie raised spot from a very early age. They bottle fed him for a very long time until he was big enough to start eating solid food. Spot was a real lover of a kitty. Though he didn't know what to do about the ceiling fan, which he was sure was going to chop him in half (his own personal neurosis), he was always full of love. Now, Tyson and Spot are keeping each other company in the big motor home in the sky. :-(

On the brighter side, Rosie, our Boston mix is fitting in to her new surroundings wonderfully. She is such a love. She is also learning the rules of what is and is not acceptable in her new home. Also, she doesn't like to leave our side. So, even if we loose grip on her leash, she stops pulling and waits for us to pick it up again. We are so glad that we were able to adopt her from the Amador county shelter. I'm sad that she was in the shelter for so long, but as they say, sometimes things happen for a reason and maybe that reason was so that we could adopt her.

Karen and Mike came down from Ashland Oregon on Friday of last week as they started their 3 month trip through the Southern US. They brought their daughter Kris down to hook up with her brother Marq as she begins her trip back to Connecticut. She's been back on the west coast to for a week to visit her friends Lauren and Lisa who both have new babies and to also visit with her family. We were lucky enough to be able to hook up with the whole clan in Vacaville for dinner with Karen, Mike, Marq and Kris for dinner. We also got to meet Marq's new girlfriend Deanne at dinner.

Saturday morning, we hooked up again with Mike and Karen to let their dogs Neigel and Guinness run with Lilly and Rosie at the dog park in Sacramento that is part of the new animal shelter for that county. All four dogs had a great time running around for an hour or so.

Well, that pretty much covers the latest and greatest of what is going on in our home. We hope you all are doing well.

Happy Camping! Eric and Carol

From sad times come good things

Hi there everyone,

On Thursday night of this last week, our 10 year old Boxer boy Tyson had some tumors inside of him that ruptured. We didn't know that at the time, but we could tell, by the way he was acting on Thursday night and Friday morning that he wasn't doing well. We took him to our local vet on Friday morning and to a Veterinary surgical center in Sacramento Friday afternoon and they told us that because the initial tumor in his abdomen had metastasized, the outlook was grim.

After some soul searching, we decided it was time to remove Tysons pain and put him to sleep. This was not an easy decision for us, but we knew, based on the breed, that his future was not looking good.

We realize that most of you may feel that the following decision might have been reached as a spur of the moment, but it was one we had also considered for some time. Today, we adopted a dog from our local shelter. Her name, is Riley, though we have changed it to Rosie. She is a very sweet Boston Terrier/Pit bull mix. She is a real sweetheart and is getting along with Lilly and Roxy just fine. She doesn't seem to fear anything about her new home, she just seems to be making herself comfortable.

We miss Tyson dearly, but we are glad that we are able to give a sweet dog from the shelter a new forever home.

Happy camping! Eric and Carol