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What a night. Mr. Rick C. was right. Sometimes I do sit home and medicate. It is not self-medicating, though, as I have my own prescriber. And last night I was using my self-care tools to survive: 0.25mg of alprazolam got me through the first half of the night crisis, and then 2.5mg of zolpidem got me through the rest. Despite these helpful medications, I dreamed of Timothy and Jack in the worst of circumstances. I was amazed at how many positions a coyote could hold my Labradoodle in his mouth. My eyes are still swollen red cherries and my complexion is bad.
Earl and I were not connecting. Who does when they are afraid and grieving? I simply told him,
Sorry honey. I’m no good. Can’t connect.
Earl is gentle. He responds easily to words. He doesn’t react easily to negative emotions. He is a wait-and-see kind of guy most of the time. His eyes are not red this morning. He did not medicate. He did not make this about him.
We made forty flyers describing our Great Pyrenees Jack and Labradoodle Timothy with our phone numbers and including a lucent plea for anyone to call if they saw them.
Our three kids in the mom-van, I planned to go door-to-door and harass people – I mean ask people – if they knew anything about our dogs. We first targeted our neighborhood mailboxes where there is a bulletin board for community announcements. I lifted my flyer to staple in front and center position and, “Darn-it!” My kids had broken my stapler.
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While banging my stapler on the wall, I noticed another white sheet flyer.
2 White dogs found!
More tears. I called the number and blubbered. The woman was comforting me, suggesting more alprazolam and a good psychiatrist she knew. Our dogs were happily frolicking in her back yard with her two German Shepherds.
Timothy and Jack are home now figuratively and literally in the dog house. We have a dog trainer, at much expense, coming tomorrow to help us. We will also be placing an electric wire around our fence before the rest of our neighbors cement a reactive opinion about us. Although our dogs are important, we hope to live here a long long time and don’t want to be picketed out of the neighborhood.
Thank you so much everyone for your kindness, for your empathic responses and patience with your own Dr Q. It was a large blessing for my fragile self last night to know you were all there. I hope that blessing comes back to you.
Keep on!
Friend to Yourself 
glad hes back as we all know dogs are mans best friend and womans i love dogs to i look after my mates jack
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Thank u dear Kevin
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God works in mysterious ways…… Glad today is a better day.
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Thank you Nancy
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TG the hounds are home, Doc!
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Smiling.
Btw, how many languages do u speak?
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I missed the “dogs are gone” post. I had wondered and even worried about what could be happening with you and mentioned it to J.R. I am glad the dogs are home and that you were able to pull out your toolkit during this trying time. Be gentle with yourself. Oh and on an odd note that I am assuming an unknown woman would recommend a psychiatrist to you…
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Too funny XC.
Thx for your interest and concern. U r special that way.
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I’m glad someone found them and that you found that someone. Cool! Blessings…
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Thank u much Carol Ann. We spent many happy seconds together today before I abandoned them to their dog house. j/k. it feels good though to see them cuddling in their little igloo doggy home together. bless back
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I’m GLAD everyone’s home again! It’s OK to be human…we all are.
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dear human,
this is no cliché because in my life it can often be in question. :0
thank u for celebrating w us!!
sincerely,
human
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I am so glad they are back, Sana. And a big “”yay” to the efficient neighbor woman who put up a “found” flyer so quickly. We are always lucky when grief is not extended longer than it has to be by the waiting game…
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thank u sarah! your post was awesome by the way yest!
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There have been quite a few rumors flying around and we think that this would be a great time to clear them up. First of all, we both take issue with the term “got out”. It’s Friday night and a couple of German Sheps down the street swing by and tell us about this party down the block. We sit around for awhile deciding if we should go or not. We decide yeah, the Sheps are good people and we should “go out”. As you may be aware, Labradoodle is Latin for “Coyotes Fear Us”. Grandpa once told us a story of how he saved an entire flock of sheep from a savage group of coyotes… he said there were at least 200 of them. The entire way over there, we imitated wounded gophers in the hope that the coyotes would give us a chance at ’em. No such luck.
So… we get over to the Sheps the party is happening… owners out of town, someone scored a bag of treats, even a couple of cats decided to be decent and hang with us. Cats… it is always where the trouble starts. Cat invites some crazy friend over. She shows up with this “Nip” stuff. Starts talkin trash about dogs couldn’t handle it and it’s too good for a dog. The two of us had enough of this! We grab the bag and and show them how the dogs do it. Whoooaaa…. next thing I know the Sheps are talking to us and everything goes multi-color. Thank goodness the Sheps are good dogs… The let us hang out until morning. Great stuff… trainer, electric fence… all because we listened to cats. I hope this is a lesson for everyone. Cats are bad and so is Nip!
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i can’t believe dogs r using wordpress now!?
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Yes…. No need to pay our new “trainer” for that. All figured out.
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Solmeome – and I can only guess who 🙂 – is really clever! Thanks, Dogs, for the giggle.
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Whew!!
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I don’t know how “someone” got translated to “solmeome” but, hopefully, you get the idea.
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Party Animals! Glad they made it home.
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tee hee.
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