Jolene,
Thanks for your story! I hope Maggie and Coco see this and add their story too! Sara will be able to catch us up on Gracie since her parents have her. And Donna, who has Remi, will not be on for a while but we can tell Joy some of it and Sara can fill in the blanks.
Now Joy,
As for Aka and me, our story is a bit different. Back at the very beginning of this year, a small dog had been seen wandering in our neighborhood. He was very shy and looked like he could be a Rattie or a Rattie/Basenji mix or perhaps a Basenji with a docked tail. Trying to condense a longer story, I wound up rescuing him, naming him Beeji and deciding to adopt him. I was looking for information on both Basenjis and Rat Terriers when I found RT.com
As everyone has said, rt.com is a great forum and I began posting and sharing stories about Beeji. I am currently a full time care provider for my mom who is very ill. I was fortunate to be able to retire early and move back here to NC to live with and care for her. One of her medical problems is pulmonary. We have a history of COPD in our family and two years ago, my uncle had to have bilateral lung transplants. He is doing great. Sadly mom is not.
Not too terribly long after I adopted Beeji, Mom’s breathing and coughing began to get worse. Her primary care physician told us he felt it was the animal dander from Beeji and that we needed to get rid of him (doctor’s words not mine). I posted on here (at our old site, that no longer exists) that I needed to re-home Beeji. It was breaking my heart but I felt I had to do what was best for my mom. Re-homing Beeji just about broke my mom’s heart too since she not only felt responsible, she also loved Beeji.
Beeji went to live with his new family, but mom didn’t get better. This was puzzling and scary. Her GP sent her to a pulmonary specialist and a ton of testing began. The upshot of it all was that animal dander was not what was causing mom’s deterioration. Her condition is critical and there isn’t anything we can do about it but enjoy each day we have.
During all this, Sara had been posting pics of the puppies and everything Jolene told you had been happening. I had seen the pics and had fallen head over heels in love with Aka (who was called Tater and also Zorro for a while). I still had Beeji, then Mom got worse, we re-homed, found out that we didn’t have to, had broken hearts and then Mom said she wished we could get Beeji back but knew we couldn’t. I told her that I didn’t want her to be upset. I showed her the puppy pics to cheer her up and when she saw Aka, she too fell in love with him.
Mom said she wanted to get Aka for me, NOT to replace Beeji as that could never happen but as another fur kid in our lives to love. I figured all the pups would be spoken for at this point, but Aka also called the sable male still hadn’t sold. A lot of folks had called but it seemed everyone was looking for a female pup. I told mom that I had no idea if he was available but I would contact Sara and see. If it was meant to be, he would be available and she would be willing to sell him to us.
I told her all about Beeji, Mom, etc. She had read about having to re-home Beeji on the forum and I wanted her to hear the rest of the story as I hadn’t had time to tell anyone on the forum about Mom’s new round of testing and her outcome. After explaining it to Sara, she said she would love for Mom and me to have Aka! I burst into tears I was so happy. The next hurdle would be to figure out how to get him from Austin, TX to NC.
In my earlier jobs, I had worked as a consultant and had been on several national committees, which meant I had done a ton of flying. That also meant that I had air miles left over. I really didn’t want Aka to have to fly by himself as in shipping him, so I called my Travel Agent, used my miles and did a quick same day round trip to and from Austin!
Aka was a great flyer and on the last leg (Dallas to Charlotte) I was able to take him out of his carrier and let him sleep on my lap. The flight attendants fell heavy for him and I could have drowned from all the sodas they offered!  During the flight Aka got hungry so I pulled out some of the food Sara had packed and hand fed him as he sat in my lap. When we got home, he thought that I was supposed to hand feed him all the time!! ACK! But he soon learned that he had his own food station.
I flew in and out of Charlotte, NC where my Uncle and all of his family live. I was able to stay with my cousins and the day after I got back from Austin, I was able to meet Jolene, Emma, Apollo, Shannon and Mario! It was a fun morning and we really enjoyed one another.  After our visit, Aka and I got in my car and headed home to mom where Aka now lives getting more and more spoiled every day!! He and Mom share a fondness for vanilla ice cream so mom “slips” him some from hers every time she has some. Just say ice cream and Aka comes running!!
I pretend to not notice the clandestine ice cream caper  and they pretend that they are pulling one over on me. At night, we get mom to bed and Aka and I get in beside her and he kisses her and “digs” under her as if he is looking for something and then he runs down to the foot of the bed to check that her feet are covered and then back up to the head of the bed to try and pull her pajama tag! She loves it and so does Aka.
He is growing so fast and so much that it amazes me and it feels like I have had him forever rather than the few short weeks that he has been here. His full name is KeAka KeKoa NoHea, which is Hawaiian for Bold Bright Shadow and he is definitely that. We call him Aka for short, which is the word for Shadow and he definitely is my shadow, where ever I am he is right there at my feet.
So another chapter or rather episode in Days of Our Ratties!! |