Chris Meistre

Earlier this year we went on an Animal Communications Course.  Although skeptical at first, we had an awesome experience because we decided to keep an open mind.  We now try and practise as often as possible to hone our newly required skills.  If you’d like to help us practise, why not check out our website called Listen to Me.

Anyways, this post is actually about what I’ve learned from Kodi recently.  I’ve been going to the lady that presented the course a few times to help communicate with our own animals.  During the last visit, I decided to ask Kodi a few questions about his reactions to his new sister, Lola.  It seems like he doesn’t want anything to do with her.

Immediately after asking Kodi this, the lady burst out laughing.  She said that Kodi wants to know why do we want him to mate with Lola, because he really doesn’t want to.  I was confused wondering why Kodi would think that we want him to do that.  We managed to assure him this was not the case, and that we only want him to be friendly with her.  We continued with a few more questions when I suddenly realised why Kodi thought we wanted him to mate with Lola.

Whenever I speak to Kodi, I talk of his “girlfriend” Lola.  When we asked him about this word association, he told us that word to him means that he needs to mate with her.  I had to laugh, because he was so happy to hear that he didn’t need to mate with her, and that he must see her as his sister.

Just goes to show you, that pets dogs do understand our words!

The newest addition, although it was at the beginning of this year already, is Lola.  A sweet little dachshund.  

We drove up all the way to Upington to fetch this little angel.  Bernadette searched for a couple of month to get her special chocolate colored dachshund.  When she finally found a breeder that had one, we were quite excited.  There was the option of putting her on a plane and sending her down to PE.  For some reason this just didn’t feel right to me, so the next week we drove up.

In about 48 hours we were back in PE, having only slept about 4 hours in total during that time.  During that we got to explore a bit of the Northern Cape.

She’s fit in very nicely and gives her brothers a hard time by wanting to always play with them.

It’s been such a long time since posting anything about our babies.  We even have a new addition to the family.  I’ll dedicate a whole post to her, Lola, soon enough.

Here’s a beautiful photo that Bernadette took.  It may look like it’s Photoshopped, by mommy actually got them to sit still like that!

Tux, Kodi and Lola

Check more of Bernadette’s work at Raven Photography.

Two weeks ago saw another tragedy hit our lives.  We lost another of our fur-children (as Bernadette calls them).  It came so sudden and I feel that I’m still in shock about how it happened.

In April 2008 we were out driving through the Zwartkops Estuary and as we got closer to Redhouse we noticed a little creature walking towards us on the path we were driving.  I slowed down thinking it was perhaps a wild cat, and didn’t want to startle it.  I stopped right next to it thinking it was going to run away any second.  What turned out to be a puppy then surprised us by not running away but just almost collapsing next to the car.

Quickly we got out and picked her up.  The only thing we had with us that day was some Energade, so we decided to give her some because she looked very dehydrated.  A million thoughts and questions started going through our minds.  Where did she come from, are there more, has someone perhaps been hurt in the bush, etc.  We decided to drive around and look to see if there perhaps wasn’t a mother with some more puppies lying around in the bush.

After driving around for a while and looking around we couldn’t find anything.  We drove around Redhouse and asked a couple of people if they recognize the puppy and also went to find out by the community centre.  Unfortunately no one knew.

As we couldn’t just leave her, we decide to take her home.  She was riddled with fleas and ticks.  The evening we cleaned her up and introduced her to our 3 other children.  They took to her quite well and a lot quicker than we initially thought.

The next morning we took her to the VET to get her immune injections and to just check up on her to see that she is healthy.  He estimated her at about 5-7 weeks old.

Over the next couple of days we noticed that she is blind.  To what degree we are still not sure.  Sometimes she would bump into things but other times she would run around the house as if she could see every obstacle in her way.  She became an inspiration for us.  A small little puppy able to overcome being abandoned and then having to deal with blindness on top of that.  That didn’t stop her though.  She was playful and ready to stand up to her brothers if they wanted to play too rough with her.

Sunday, 1 November 2009, we woke up to her looking very weak and puking.  We immediately took her to the VET to see what was wrong.  All her vitals were showing normal, her heart was beating fine and even a blood sample didn’t show up anything serious.  She was given antibiotics and something for the nausea.  We would monitor her for the evening and take her back in the morning if it didn’t come right.

I felt so sorry for her seeing her so weak.  It still haunts me when I think back to it.  I hate it that we are sometimes put in a position where something is clearly asking for your help, but you either don’t know what to do or there isn’t anything you can do but hope.

On Monday morning she was still not looking better, so we got her to the VET again.  This time they booked her in to monitor her during the day and get her on a drip.

14:00 that afternoon we got a call from the VET.  Bernadette was the one to answer the phone, while we were both driving in town.  Immediately from the way Bernadette started speaking on the phone I knew what she was about to tell me when she put it down.  Cache had started vomiting and then just collapsed and passed away.

My immediately response was anger towards the VET.  I wondered what the fuck they did wrong.  We drove to the VET, and in the 5 minutes it took us to get there I had calmed myself down.  I realised then and I still do that it was not their fault.  On the phone they told us it looked like it was perhaps poison that caused it.

They let us into a room where she was laying on the table.  The VET came in and explained again what happened and asked if it would be okay if they do an autopsy to help establish what went wrong.  We insisted they do especially if it is something that might affect our other babies.  He left us alone with her.

She laid there with her little mouth open a bit, a sight I’ll never forget.  I felt so sad and so angry at the same time.  Not angry at anyone in specific, just ANGRY.

A few days later we were told that what she had contracted was quite a rare disease.  It’s something that had swollen up her intestines.

We still wonder why she has been taken away from us after such a short time.  One thing is for sure, she brought in a lot of happiness into our lives!

RIP Cache, we will always love and remember our little Princess.

Bernadette wrote this, which I think pretty much sums up Cache:

From the day you chose us til the day you left us was a blessed day each and every day.
You couldn’t see us but loved us so purely.
You didn’t let your brothers bully you, you stood your ground even though you were the smallest.
Your favourite snack was Marie Biscuits, just like mommy.
You loved driving with daddy.
You… gave us inspiration because of what you overcame in your short little life.
We can’t believe you won’t lovingly growl at us anymore or get excited about hearing your pellets fall in your bowl or cry in frustration coz you can’t see the water.
It isn’t fair but you left such an inprint we will NEVER EVER forget you and feel so utterly blessed for the time you gave us.

We had to make the most difficult decision of our lives today.

In December 2005 we got a female bull terrier puppy.  We immediately fell in love with her and called her Lexi.

Lexi

She was the most loving puppy I’ve ever come across, far from the viciousness their breed is incorrectly known for.  We used to joke by saying she’d rather kill you with kindness before doing anything that would hurt you.  Even after already grown up, she still acted like a puppy wanting to sit on your lap.

When we moved to Bluewater Bay she loved nothing more than to go for walks at the beach.  Initially she was scared of the water and the waves the ocean makes, but following her brother Tux around she soon became used to running into the water and enjoying it.

Whatever I would be doing or where I would be, she would just want to be with you.  She’d want to lay next to us or just touch us to show love towards us.  We let her sleep on the bed with us many nights, and she seemed to love laying there with us.

She loved playing with her big ball in the yard, and would carry on playing with us long after the other dogs were tired.

Lexi playing ball

About a year ago there were 2 incidents where she would pass out when we went for a walk.  Initially we thought it was our fault for having the leashes too tight, but we decided to check with the VET anyways.  He referred us to a specialist.  After she was there with the lady for the day, it was found that Lexi suffers from a disease that is commonly found with the english bull terriers.  One of her heart valves was leaking and it meant she didn’t get enough blood and hence oxygen to her brain at times.

We managed her very well, keeping her calm, making sure she gets light exercise.  It made it easier to see what to look out for to know when she was about to pass out and most of the times we could stop it by calming her down.  I used to feel so helpless and sad when it happened because once she regains consciousness she looked so scared and confused. Even though it still happened every now and then, she looked to be doing very good.

Then a month ago our dogs got a stomach bug.  When we took Lexi in for her shots and to get pills the VET gave us very bad news.  The bug had affected her heart very badly and it made it get worse very quickly.  We promptly got her on heart medication as well as medication for her lungs, because by now she was also having problems breathing.

She was a changed dogs once we put her onto the pills.  She just laid around.  We couldn’t take her for walks anymore because the exercise would be too much, so I played lightly with her in the yard when she felt up to it.

On Tuesday this week we had to take her for her 2 week checkup.  We tried to remain positive throughout this whole ordeal, but knew in our minds that we needed to think realistic about where this is heading.  The VET gave us the news that we weren’t hoping for, that she is just getting worse and worse.  We left there knowing we’d have to make a decision soon on whether we’d carry on keeping her on pills or would we rather let her go.  We both cried as we drove home from the VET, knowing that it wasn’t going to be an easy decision.

Without talking to each other, we both estimated that within 2 weeks we’d need to make a decision.  Unfortunately, we didn’t know that we’d need to make it a lot quicker.

That evening we slept with the dogs downstairs again on a mattress like we’ve been doing for the last few weeks.  It made it easier for them to go outside when they needed to and we wanted to be close to them.  Lexi had been struggling to breath the whole evening.

She didn’t sleep at all, and kept sitting up next to me with her paw on me as if asking me to help her.  I could see she was really struggling to breath and she looked very scared and helpless.  I felt so bad that there wasn’t something I could do for her then.  By 4am Bernadette and I knew what we had to do, and we were very sad and cried for most of the morning.

We needed to take her feelings into consideration, and not try and keep her with us for selfish reasons.  I asked myself about a million times if what we’re about to do is the right thing.  An hour later she let us know what we should do.  She had wet herself.  This is something she would never do, she’d rather stand at the sliding door and wait an hour for us to open the door to go outside than pee inside the house.

As I picked her up to take her to the car she was so weak that she just laid there limp in my arms.

Teary eyed we got to the VET and put her on the table.  He let us stay there throughout the whole process.  Even though we were standing there crying with broken hearts I felt a sense of relief for her as I saw her become more and more relaxed before breathing out her last breath.  It even looked like she had a smile on her face.

We know in our hearts that we made the right decision.  We couldn’t be selfish and let her carry on suffering and drugged up on pills just so that we don’t have to be sad.  But we still feel like a big part of us has been taken away.

The rest of today has just been a blur and we feel so lost and like there is something missing in our lives now.  I don’t know if our other dogs have realised, and I feel bad for when they will finally realise.

I thought I’d be more angry because of this.  You know how you sometimes just get angry at the world for stuff that happens to you?  But I’m not angry, just very sad.

Lexi

Lexi

Thank you for the love and the happiness you brought us during your short time with us.  I hope you are at peace Lexi, and that you know you’ll always be loved and remembered!