So, happy birthday, Lilly and Ginko.
This year Ginko will be 7. Lilly will be 3.
After our very old Dalmatian dieWe don’t really know Lilly’s birthday, but the humane society guessed (based on her teeth) that she was about 5 months old when we adopted her in October 2004. Counting back, that means she probably was born sometime in May. Since we do know that our big boy Ginko was born May 13, we decided to make life easy. d in June 2004 from kidney failure, all of us needed some time to grieve. Plus, Ginko was still recovering from bi-lateral knee surgery (TPLO, for those who know the lingo), so we didn’t want him running around too much until we were sure the bone had fused and the muscle strength was rebuilt.
Yet, it was a lonely summer for Ginko.
Come fall, we started searching local dog rescues for a new buddy – for him and us.
Shelters, however, freaked Ginko out, and every time we took him to meet potential pups, he got a little snarky with them. I was very discouraged. It seems all the time here in the boonies, all the time with an old, crotchety Dal did not prepare Ginko for meeting lots of strange dogs. (I realize now that I did a bad job socializing him. Live and learn!)
But, we really wanted another dog. So, thanks to my friend Connie, who is the director of operations at the humane society, I got permission to bring Lilly home to meet Ginko.
(By the way, the shelter was calling her Daisy, but my mother-in-law’s sheltie Daisy had died recently. I wanted to stay in the flower family, but my husband would not go for Poppy Anne, which I thought was *very* cute. You see, he could not get that Seinfeld episode where Poppy pees on the sofa out of his head. I looked through a flower book and settled on Lilly Elizabeth.)
Anyway, the deal was that we’d introduce them here, and if it went well, we’d return the next day to do the paperwork. If not, we’d bring her right back. You can guess what happened. ;o)
He snarked at her just once, then when he realized she happily ran around and played with him, he was sold.
He’s been a very good big brother to Lilly, and she’s an enthusiastic partner in mouse and vole hunting, swimming in the pond, playing fetch and all manner of other crazy things –like eating and rolling in horse poop.
So, on Mother’s Day, we’ll also raise a glass to our best, best friends – Mr. Ginko Cornelius Hawn and Miss Lilly Elizabeth Hawn.
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