Creative Writing on Twitter

I decided to invest my time in a creative writing project on Twitter. With the surging popularity of parody accounts and “celebrity animal” Twitter handles, I’ve created a Twitter account for my little dog, Sammy. Here is his page @LittleDoginOC
I found it gives my a little more freedom to say things that I choose not to write under my own account since I want to keep that more media-professional oriented.
In total honesty, I have found it incredibly fun to write for Sammy, he is a charming little fellow, and I’m looking forward to where this project takes me.

New Dog

We got a new dog a couple of weeks ago. Two weeks to the day to be precise. We adopted Sammy from a rescue organization in front of a PetCo in San Juan Capistrano. I haven’t written about it until now because I wasn’t sure if it was going to workout with him or not. He’s about four years old and was on the street at the time he was picked up by animal control.
We had a couple moments this past week that made me concerned that he may not be good with little kids. But once we laid out some ground rules with the kids about giving the dog some space, we started seeing some results and Sammy is settling in quite nicely.
I’m still getting used to having a little dog around. Sammy is a Chihuahua-Rat Terrier mix and is so little that I keep stepping on him. Since he’s still a young dog, he’s really feisty. I forgot about that since our other dogs mellowed with age. He’s a good dog though, and I think that he fits into our family well.

Saying Goodbye

I’ve been trying to figure out the appropriate way to write about our losing our dog Bo. He was a sweet, tender little soul that blessed our lives for 10 years, and who’s life was cut short by multiple ailments such as allergies, pancreatic disease and finally, cancer.
The decision to put him to sleep was pretty sudden, it came about after we noticed him laboring for breath two weekends ago. We were afraid to take him in, almost knowing that it would be bad news. We took him in on his 10th birthday, September 20, and saw that the tumor in his chest was pressing against his heart and giving him almost no room to expand his lungs. There was no guarantee any treatment would be effective.
We made plans to bring him in for the next day. We took him home to say our goodbyes and give him one incredible last dinner (a hamburger, his pancreatic disease prohibited him from eating breads).
We were debating how we should handle the whole situation with the kids. It was decided that the kids were old enough and mature enough to handle the truth about their dog dying. Gone are the days of sending Spot to a farm in the countryside. We knew that approach would only lead to the truth slipping out and resentment from being lied to, especially if we denied them the chance of saying goodbye to the dog they’ve loved since they were born.
We took the kids and Bo to the park one last time before we took him to the vet, Bo loved watching his kids play, we knew it would be an appropriate way to say goodbye. While we were at the vet, one of the doctor’s children played with the kids and kept them occupied while we were comforting Bo and saying our true last goodbyes.
It’s amazing, the way animals will sometimes hang around longer than they should because their humans aren’t ready to let go. Bo was more than ready to lay down on the floor. Did he know what was coming? I don’t know, but he let me cradle his head in my hands and surrendered, trusting that we knew what was best for him.
Goodbye, sweet boy.