Birthday Week Day 1

This week is very busy with birthdays at my house. Today is Day #1 with it being Sasha's 6th birthday. Sasha's birthday starts off the same way every year. Mom uses her highpitched voice that hurts my ears so I go hide in the living room while Mom and Sasha have their moment in another room. Every once in awhile Mom uses her high pitched voice throughout the day, but it's worth it because on Sasha's birthday we get lots of cheese. If you're wondering about what Mom is saying in her high pitched voice, don't ask me. It's something about her little girl being a year older and how cute and stuff she is. Sasha likes Mom using her high pitched voice because it usually means she gets lots of scratches and belly rubs and extra special attention.

Mom was going to make us a special treat for Sasha's birthday, but Sunday night Mom and Dad found a really good deal on t-bone steaks so we got some very yummy bones instead. It was driving us crazy waiting for Dad to give us the bones and then we saw Mom get out the special bone chewing blankets and we knew it was time. They were very yummy!

Sasha will get her gift later. Mom said they couldn't buy it early because it was too big to hide and considering what it was she knew Sasha would sense it was somewhere in the house so in this case it has to be a last minute gift. I'll show you pictures of the gift later. Okay, now I'm going to let Mom talk about Sasha's birthday. Happy Birthday to my older sister Sasha!!!! I Love You!!!!!

Kaos's Mom: Today is my little girl's 6th birthday!! I can't believe she's 6! Sasha and I have a very special connection because I had her before I met my husband. She was actually supposed to be a Christmas gift for my mom's neighbor. She didn't like all the cute puppy stuff that I thought was adorable so she gave her back to my mom. I told my mom I wanted her but at the time I was in an apartment that wouldn't allow pets. I was in month 6 of a 12 month lease. That was the longest year of my life not having a pet living with me. The day my mom was able to pick Sasha up she spent the night with me. We snuck her into the apartment that night and then they brought her neighbor over the next morning. That sucked. I was there for Sasha the first night away from her dog mom and then they came and took her away the next morning. When the neighbor gave her back she said that we could keep her until she was potty trained and calmed down and then she would take her back. My mom said noway because then we would be attached to her and wouldn't be able to give her back. Even though she was my dog I still worried about the neighbor coming and saying she was ready to have her back now and my mom letting her have her. She stayed with my mom and sister until I was able to move that June into a house that allowed pets. It was great. Sasha finally got the attention she needed and the care she needed. I got her fixed and updated on all her shots and everything was good until I had to move back to my mom's house. I couldn't stand my roommate anymore and I was completly broke. We moved into the tiny room at my mom's house and we did okay for a year. Sasha was miserable, but okay. She got blamed for stuff that she didn't do and my mom was mean to her. She had a Saint Bernard (a very sweet dog that would let Sasah sleep in her tail or on her back outin the yard and would throw pieces of her food to Sasha as a treat - it was so cute!) and there was also the black lab that my brother had abandoned onto my mom because his girlfriend didn't like the poor dog and yet my little dog got blamed for a big puddle of pee in the family room. After we moved back to my mom's Sasha started acting like she didn't know she was potty trained so she got blamed even for the large puddles. I pointed out to my mom there was no way Sasha's little bladder could hold that much liquid, but Sasha still got blamed. I was working 2 jobs at that time trying to get caught up so a lot of Sasha's care did get left with my mom and sister. My sister did okay, but she was in highschool and was busy, too. I know my mom wasn't nice to Sasha and I don't know what all she did to her but I do know it wasn't good.

When I met my husband we hung out a lot at his mom's house. It was an escape for me to get away from my mom, but Sasha got left at my mom's. Finally I asked my husband if we could talk his mom into letting Sasha come and right away Sasha and her new Grandma bonded. I was able to go to Cancun for a week (free!) and my husband came by every day to check on Sasha because he knew I was worried about her. The week I went on vacation was actually the week before we closed on our first house. When I came back I started packing and Sasha was a completely different dog. She was very clingy to be - more than she normally was - and was horrible when I was gone. We did a lot of work on the house before we actually moved into it and we started moving my stuff first because I didn't want to pay another month on my storage unit plus we needed to get Sasha and I out. The day that we actually moved into the house I wasn't planning on bringing Sasha yet because there was still painting that was being done and I wanted to be able to have her full attention when I moved her in because there was so much newness. Well, my mom called and said she was bringing Sasha over because she was going crazy. Sure enough, Sasha thought she was being left and she was acting crazy! For the first few months Sasha had some potty training issues which took her almost a year to get over. I couldn't understand why. It was only by the front door even though she went out the back to go potty and she seemed to do it mostly in the middle of the night. That first Christmas she was a mess again. We got the boxes of Christmas stuff out and she got worse about pooping by the front door and she'd hide and acted weird. Then she was fine when the boxes were away and then when the decoration boxes came back out to be put away she did it again. I thought it was because she was afraid of being abandoned again so any time there were a bunch of boxes around I made sure she had lots of attention. 3 years ago around Thanksgiving my mom stopped talking to me altogether and I quit going to her house. After a few months Sasha was fine - totally fine. We had Kaos for a year by then and she was nicer to Kaos and even to Gunnar. All I could think of was she finally was out of her puppy weirdness. When my mom died last December I had a hard time with it. Kaos is my nurse and takes care of me when I'm sick or sad, but I needed Sasha to be there for me at that time and I think she knew it because she stopped hiding under the bed all the time and would sit with me on the couch and even in my lap and she never used to do that. I know she may not have fully understood what was going on, but I believe she knew a bad part of our lives was finally over and we were free. We didn't have to worry about the mean lady anymore. Of course I was sad that my mom had died because she was my mom and I did have memories of her that were good when I was younger, but the bad ones were the ones that made me feel trapped and once she was gone her power that she had over me was gone, too and I was free and so was Sasha.

When we started the remodeling of the old house to get it sold Sasha hid a lot, especially when there were only hardwood floors. It took me awhile to realize my mom's house had hardwood floors and that's when I knew my mom did something bad to my little girl when I wasn't around and of course I started feeling even more guilty. She was a little weird about the boxes when we started moving stuff, but what we were storing stuff at Grandma's house so when we would take a load of boxes we would make sure the dogs saw it was all going to Grandma's house and when the Jeeps were being moved to Grandma's they went and then saw them there when we'd take more stuff. Kaos has abandonment issues also and I know that's pretty much a trait of a rescue dog and even though Sasha really wasn't a true rescue dog, I still consider her one because I rescued her from my mom. They would get excited seeing us load up the trucks wih boxes because that meant we were going to Grandma's. We stayed at Grandma's a week and then moved to the new house and both Kaos and Sasha are going through a puppy phase. Kaos has always been playful but when Sasha and I moved back to my mom's house Sasha stopped her playful stuff and started her hiding phase. Now, Sasha is an instagator and hardly ever hides under the bed. If she's hiding that means she's not feeling good or just needs a few minutes for some alone time, but those moments are very rare now. I think she knows she never has to worry about going to the mean lady's house ever again and she isn't reminded about the bad house anymore because there is only carpet and linoleum in the new house. I never thought about the hardwood floors being an issue for her before but when you are that low to the ground, the floor is a big part of your daily life.

Sasha may be our oldest furkid but she will always be my little baby. We've been through a lot together and take care of each other. I can't believe she's 6! I was going to show you some puppy pictures, but that was before I used my digital camera all the time and I can't find the box of pictures of her on film (I'm never moving again!!!!). Trust me, she was a cute puppy. I've learned a lot from Sasha. I've always had pets growing up so it wasn't that I learned how to take care of a living being, it was that I learned about myself and that her symptoms of abuse were very similar to how I was acting. I wasn't pooping by the front door, but I was hiding a lot. Instead of choosing to go hang out with friends, I'd hide in my room. I almost didn't go out on the first date with my husband because I wanted to hide in my room, but something made me not chicken out and I am so happy I did go and so is Sasha. I'm sure Gunnar and Kaos are, too. Now, Sasha and I don't hide, we're both more playful and smile a lot more - and they aren't fake smiles!

Happy 6th birthday to my little wiener dog. I love you very much!!