It’s been 15 months since Kahlua died. Her absence has left such a hole in our hearts and lives.
For 16 years, Kahlua was the centre of my life. And when Den entered out lives about 13 years ago, we quickly became a family of three (plus two, when you include his kiddies whom we had on the weekends).
After 16 glorious years, her little body, and especially her brain, was struggling. She’d had a few issues over the years with her liver, of which she’d kicked in the ass! She’d also started experiencing sporadic seizures, of which in the last few months of her life had increased to a few a week, and in the end, a few a day. Seizures are terrifying, and she was having so many. It was distressing. In the end I had to make the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. To put her to rest. It was the right decision to make for her, but it destroyed me.
Skipping forward a year, and a bloody hard one at that, Den and I started chatting about puppies and dog breeds. But with our lack of finances (puppies are expensive) and hesitation to ‘replace’ Kahlua, we decided we weren’t ready.
That was until the 3rd of May 2019.
Den was turning 50 on the 4th May, and I was feeling guilty that I hadn’t organised a party for him. I shouldn’t have been feeling guilty. I mean, we couldn’t afford a party and he REALLY didn’t want one, but I was.
As I sat on the couch drinking my wine on the eve of Den’s half-century celebration, I started Googling puppies. (Wine tends to have that effect on me on a Friday night!).
Quickly determining that a puppy of any description was out of my price range, I started researching rescue dogs. And that was when I saw Den’s dream dog – a Doberman – on an adoption site. I didn’t know much about doberman’s, aside from that Den had wanted one for YEARS thanks to seeing them on the TV show Magnum P.I. back in the day (showing our age here!).
After further investigation, I noticed they were holding an adoption drive on #starpawsday 🐶 (aka Star Wars Day aka May the Fourth Be With You).
Was this a sign?
I mentioned it to Den, showing him Maeve’s photo, and suggested we swing by in the morning. We read her bio, which wasn’t much. She was 8-9 months old. That was really it. He seemed a little interested albeit surprised at my suggestion, but said yeah, why not.
The next morning, we were slow to get out of bed. After nudging Den a few times (he’d had a few beers the night before), I gave up on the thought of attending the adoption drive. Miraculously though, we pulled ourselves together and went to meet ‘Maeve’ the doberman and some of the other potential adoptees on our way to breakfast.
We rocked up to the shelter to enquire about ‘Maeve’, but were told she was booked in to meet another family. We were a little bummed, but thought we’d meet some of the other adoptees. Regardless, they decided to let us hang out with her for half an hour. I think they liked that we had specifically gone out of our way to drop in that morning, and wanted to give us a chance in case the meet and greet didn’t happen. They also thought we were nice people.
On meeting Maeve, we noticed she had a lovely temperament and loved to play. She was also beautiful and friendly.
Why had she been surrendered?
Apparently ‘Maeve’ had been owned by a FIFO worker (that’s Fly In Fly Out), had been living with another dog (who was also up for adoption), and had been really skinny when she had been surrendered. We think they had been left alone a lot, potentially inside a small house or unit. Aside from that, her story is unknown (although we are now starting to put the pieces together based on her phobias).
I think Den fell in love with ‘Maeve’ immediately. Me, on the other hand. I was trying hard not to. I was still in my ‘I can’t replace Kahlua’ mindset. I also didn’t want to be disappointed in case the other family showed, in which they did 🙁
Luckily for us, the stars aligned on Star Wars Day. The meet and greet with the other family didn’t go fantastically, and before you knew it we had a decision to make!
Were we ready?
Did we want this?
She was such a BIG DOG when compared to Kahlua (she was a Maltese shih-tsu).
Was this the right move?
And could we afford it?
Obviously, we said yes.
So say hello to our newest family member, Freya 🙂
That afternoon as a family, Den’s kids included, we sat down to choose a new name for ‘Maeve’ (it was her temporary adoption name, and after some discussion we decided on Freya.
Freya: Norse Goddess of love, beauty, fertility, war, wealth, divination and magic.
https://www.goddess-guide.com/freya.html
And now a new chapter of our lives begins with our newest family member.
