My sweet girl Twicks was 14 years old. I had her since she was an 8 week old puppy and she was my first dog and she was all mine. I probably made a whole bunch of mistakes since I had never had a puppy before and no one told me how trying having a puppy could be on your sanity. I loved her even though she ate shoes, tore up bathroom garbage, ate a whole bunch of Knorr noodle packets and tore apart a pack of paper napkins. She was funny and I loved to pet her long ears and kiss her long snout. I had some pretty rough patches in my life and she was always there.
My mom likes to say Twicks had been to more places then she had; that might even be true. Twicks visited Lake George and Buffalo NY, the Badlands of South Dakota, the shores of Huntington Beach, and Yellowstone National Park. She lived in Virginia, North Carolina, New York, South Dakota, California, Washington, Iowa, Florida, and Illinois. One thing that helped was that she was always awesome in the car; we even made a trip with just the two of us from NC to NY to visit my family.
We had been through so much together but after 14 years she was so achy from arthritis and the pain medicine she was on was just not cutting it. I decided to let her cross the Rainbow Bridge so she could be pain free. I was pretty inconsolable for about two days and the house felt so empty and lonely. When I got her ashes back they also made an imprint of her paw. It was very nice and I will treasure it. She now shares a shelf with Nick. They are closer now than they ever could be when alive.
Jesse and I have always had a pet. He came to the relationship with Nick the cat and I came with Twicks the dog. This is the first time it was just the two of us and it was too quiet. We had nothing to talk to when the other was not home. We lasted one week and decided to adopt a cat. We needed another living thing in the house and Jesse vetoed a dog (for now).
After some internet research we decided to visit the National Cat Protection Society in Newport Beach. They had several kittens, one female and two males with long black hair and big green eyes. One lady was adopting the female and one of the males. We decided to get to know the other male named Moe a little bit better. They took us to a little room with a big cat tree. Moe really liked the top spot on the cat tree and he let us pet him. He is not a big fan of faces, he pulls away if you put your face near his. When you picked him up he would squirm quite a bit. I was not sure about him at first but he purred and let us rub his belly. You could tell that he would really open up when he was comfortable.
We decided he was ours so we filled out the paperwork, paid our adoption fee and put him in the car to take him home. Since this was a rather quick decision we had nothing for him! I dropped Jesse and Moe off and headed right to the pet store. We needed bowls, cat litter, and a litter box. They gave us some food to start with so that bought us a few days. He hid under the bed for a while, but when you pulled him out he sat with us and purred. After a few days he was laying on the couch with a paw on each of us, purring and dozing. He runs around the apartment and there are six mice under the couch. No more hiding under the bed and he is slowly getting used to being picked up. At six months old he has lots of kitten energy and Jesse thinks he will get pretty big since he has such big feet.
The loss of my beloved dog was so very hard and I still miss her everyday. Sometimes Moe (who we call MoeJoe) is both a pleasant distraction and a painful reminder. Having a cat is just not the same as having my dog but when he curls up on my lap and purrs it is pretty nice. He sure keeps things interesting.
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