Dogs archive at isaac downing

Archive for the 'Dogs' Category

18AprSayonara, Sierra.

We’re officially down to one dog today.

Our yellow lab, Sierra, left last night with one of my coworkers to go live at his place. He has a big yard. In the country. She’ll have lots of room to run around and play - basically the opposite of our small house and small yard in the center of the city. It was a sad week leading up to the exchange. That is, until yesterday afternoon.

Rachel gave Sierra a bath to get her ready to go. She took the time to brush her, she washed her bed and overall was feeling more than a little sentimental about the whole situation. Then at 2:09p (approximately 15 minutes after bath time), I got the following text from Rachel:

“I won’t miss Sierra anymore - she just peed in the kitchen!”

Alright then. The sentimental moment has officially passed. Off you go, mangy animal.

Sierra and Savanna

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24Novthat’s how i roll.

I’m doing a bit of inventory. I guess you could call it a sort of ‘Isaac-push-pin’ for this moment in in my life. Maybe it’s a reconciling of emotions. Maybe its an early midlife crisis. Either way, here is not quite everything you have been wondering about what makes me …me.

Okay, where to start? …well, I’m a twenty-five year old married guy sans children. I have two labs that I sometimes refer to as my children (Savanna & Sierra). But since they don’t even try to hold it until they get outside anymore, they’ve been demoted from being our ‘kids’ back to just dogs… or maybe frogs. Frogs just drink water all day in case someone picks them up, just like my dogs. They drink water all day just in case I decide to take a stroll around my house in sock feet.

Rachel is my wife. She is the smokin-hot joy of my life. We’ve been best friends for years. Even before we started dating. The past couple months have been the best of our entire relationship. And a couple of months ago, those months were the best. Life just gets better and better with her. Trust me: if you don’t have a wife yet, I highly recommend picking one up next time you’re out and about. They are great for parties and social events, and even better when you get to spend time together talkin, readin, sodoku’in, chillin, and lovin’… good good good.

But I think even more than my wife or my pets or my pastimes…I guess I’m writing about my emotional self. Because I’m afraid that I’m forgetting who I am. Lately it’s been the dreams I had for myself. For instance, I have the exact opposite job of what I wanted to be ‘when I grew up’. In high school, I started playing in a rock band and thought I’d be an all-star rocker. When it became apparent that it wasn’t my destiny, I made plans to become a graphic designer. Fast forward to today and I’m a number-crunching-loan-officer?

Whoa.

I’m hitting the wall. And I’m realizing that I have been treading water for a couple of years. I mostly go along with people’s opinions and ideas. I think it’s what took me from the job at the bank to the job at the mortgage company: never saying no. Granted, I’ve learned tons of useful information, made myself very marketable, expanded my horizons, gained valuable business skills, and helped dozens of people get new bank accounts, mortgages, home equities and blah blah blah… But I don’t think I really planned to go that route. I don’t think I planned a route, period. That’s the problem.

So, I think I need to take some time to see where I turned left when I should have turned right.

There you go… a glimpse into my utterly confusing and largely uninteresting mind. I love my life and I want to change it all around. I like things the way they are and I dislike things the way they are.

But mostly I just feel like I’m the only one going through this.

in Dogs, Friends, Marriage and My Life. 2 Comments

12Junsick day.

It started hitting me last week abut this time. I think all of the 5:00a wake-up’s to go running combined with the preceding late nights are starting to take a toll on my body. So far I’ve gone through a box and a half of Kleenex and I just ran out of Sudaphed, but I think I’m starting to feel a little better. I stayed home from the office today, but I had even mentally planned out my day with things I wanted to accomplish…

Sleep.
Get caught up on podcasts.
Sleep.
Read a book.
Sleep.
Clean up around the house.
Sleep.

Slight change of plans…now it looks like I’m going to be spending the afternoon on my hands and knees in the backyard, attempting to repair the phone box (not just a line this time… the whole box!) that my wonderfully obedient and mindful yellow lab chewed up and ruined. (if you know anyone that’s looking for a new dog…) ah, the joys of being a pet owner. But I’ve made amends with Sierra since this morning’s fiasco and we are speaking again, although there’s still some tension around the house.

in Dogs. 0 Comments

26Maralive & awake.

I can’t believe I am awake. Technically, the sun is still sleeping…but the yellow dog wanted to eat breakfast. The brown dog wanted to go outside. The yellow dog had to poop. The brown dog wanted to run. I know what you’re thinking… "They are spoiled." "They are dogs." "They are [this or that]." Oh shut up.
Promptly (and without warning), at 5:00a everyday, the yellow dog begins her routine of barking for about ten to fifteen minutes at a time (that’s a very long time if you are alseep), followed by my personal favorite, the rattling of her kennel door. The combination of her high-pitched-yelp-bark mixed with the noise of steel-cage-door-rattling, jarring you from sleep at 5:00a every morning, well it’s almost too much happiness for me to bear. Which reminds me of another yellow lab that was in a movie a while back. That dog barked at its owners too…it was called Ol’ Yeller.
The brown dog has a tough bark. It’s a deep, menacing, throaty bark…kind of like a junk yard dog… a friendly, lovable junkyard dog. Why can’t the yellow dog have a bark like that? How did we get stuck with a dog that sounds like a mix between a hyena and one of the sandpeople from Tatooine? What gives?

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14MarSierra.

Tonight at 6:27pm, Sierra came into our world. The van rolled up, the door opened and she hopped out… well… they dragged her onto the street is more accurate. Because she’s afraid of heights. Oh, and our back door. And stairs. But she’s a great new little daughter. (Yes, I’m one of those people. I refer to my dogs as my kids. Deal with it.) We couldn’t have asked for a more well-behaved dog. Hopefully Savanna doesn’t have a negative influence on her! Her former owners over-fed her, so she’s kind of a tub. But apparently she has an excuse…there are, to my surprise, two different types of labradors. English and American Labs.
Savanna is leaner (American Lab), and Sierra is huskier (English Lab).
You learn something new everyday…

Savanna has been trying to show off. She kept getting in front of her when we would call Sierra. She wasn’t defensive, just jealous. She got loose and ran up and down our street, so I was out running up and down the street after her at 9:00 tonight yelling and clapping and whistling and doing everything else I could to make our neighbors think I was crazy.

I love being a dog person.