Valyn

On Halloween about twelve and a half years ago one of the greatest dogs ever entered our lives. Valyn was a cross between a Newfoundland and a Great Pyrenees and instantly took over a large part of our hearts and home. As a puppy he was the clumsiest dog in the world, but he had such heart and spirit it was hard to do anything other to appreciate the efforts he made.

As he grew up he became the calming force around the house. No matter what other animals came and went over the years, he was the one clam spot in our hectic lives and he did his best to keep all the other critters calm as well.

When he was about 2 or 3 years old he started collecting cats. Not in the pic them up and shake them way, but in the I’m going to hold you down with my big paw until you relax and lay here by me of your own free will. It was amazing to our cats, and even neighborhood strays come to regard his as the ‘safe zone’. It didn’t seem to matter what was chasing them, then cats always made a run right for Valyn and laid next to him for protection and warmth.

His only bad pet experience came one year when the goats Michelle had for 4H were out testing each others skulls by head butting each other. In a fit of curiosity Valyn went out to play and was promptly knocked nearly unconscious. From that day on he enjoyed the company of the goats through the safety of the fence.

As Valyn got older he got like many of us and stopped chasing things so much and spent more time on the porch just letting his voice be heard. He never really seemed to bark at anything in particular, he just liked the sound of his own voice. And it was a loud voice. In his last year with us he made the trip to Tennessee with us every time. Getting in and out of the truck became harder and harder, but he seemed to really love the hours spent together just driving. He enjoyed the rides in the car or truck that in the end the only thing that had made him happy in days was a ride in the car. Even if it was his last ride.

About 2 months ago our vet confirmed what we suspected. Our nearly 13 year old gentle giant had bone cancer. The only treatment would have been to take his leg and hope that he could learn to adapt at his age to life with only three legs. And even that wasn’t going to buy him a lot of time. So we did what we though was best, got him some great pain meds and spent the last two months spending as much time as possible with him and being happy to have him on our lives just a little longer. That time came to an end at 3:47pm on March 12th, 2012. He went peacefully surrounded by the people that loved him and he loved.

Letting a beloved pet go is one of the hardest things we can do. But in the end we know that he is now free of pain and happy all the time and waiting for us to join him at some time in the future. I know he is back to his old puppy form and playing with his best bud Jaba. I just hope he doesn’t mind if we make him wait a little while before we join him.

Spring has finally arrived here, sort of.

I can usually tell its spring when I start hearing Diane holler at me to come out and help with the horses. Time to fix fences that have been damaged during the winter, fix barn damage, and generally try to get the place cleaned back up after a few months of everything being buried under a sheet of white.

This spring we have a little more going on though. Our niece has come to live with us for a while and all she has talked about the last few weeks is learning to ride. So Sunday I found myself outside helping her hop up behind Diane for her first ride on a horse.

I think she liked it.

Plant install, not great

After a couple of weeks we have decided its time to give Leon an upgrade to his little condo. The glass shelves were confusing him, the checker board floor was making me dizzy, and things just didn’t fit quite right. So it was time to make a change.

The first thing we needed to do was drop the tree through the floor of the iguana condo. The top of the tree was hitting the top glass, and when Leon climbed it, the tree would tilt and freak him out. He even fell once. So out comes the jig saw and a hole is cut.

The hole

You can see the advantage of having the cage lifted off of the floor. It gives me a lot of room down there to hide things, like the bottom half of a planter.

Much better

And now with the planter dropped in to the floor it is more stable and doesn’t hit the top of the condo any more.

The next step took a little more time. Leon wasn’t thrilled with the glass shelving that came with the case as a place to rest and hang out. He would get caught in a maze of glass walls and just stress himself out. I know, bad idea on our part to begin with, but that was all we had to start with. I picked up some 1×3 pine from the lumber yard and cut down several slats. I screwed those together to make him a large platform that was all wood to rest on. Once the platform was complete I added 4 12 inch furniture legs to it to make it stable and help it look nice.

The new level

Once all of that was done it was time to finish off the floor. I picked up 2 big bags of washed reptile bark and we covered the floor about an inch and a half thick.

Bedding

Then around the pool and the tree we built it up a bit more so that there is some contour to the floor rather than just a flat board.

Finally, we repositioned the condo so that Leon can see out the huge sliding glass doors to the back yard. He may not be able to go out and run with the horses, but at least he can look at them and imagine a day when he is big enough to eat one.

Since we got all of this done Leon has been on several trips around the cage, and right now he is back in the top of his tree. We still need to find a happy balance of heat and humidity, but I think that now that the major construction is complete on the iguana condo Leon will be a much happier lizard.