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This page is under construction. Check back for updates. I
need to find the slides and negative of Moon's early years to scan.
I have them somewhere.
Born: 10/21/1994 (two days after the full moon,
according to calendar)
Came Home with Me: 12/2/1994 (new moon,
according to calendar)
Died: 1/19/2007 (new moon or day after new moon, depending on
calendar)
I got Moon when she was six weeks old and weighed nine pounds. It was on a Friday night, after work. She rode home in a box on the front seat of my car. The next day I took her to the vet. When we got home, I gave her a bath in the kitchen sink. This would be the last time she fit in the sink.
When I first got Moon, I rented a dumpster and was disposing of the bricks from an old half-walled patio and barbeque pit. I put the brick in my wheelbarrow and pushed them to the dumpster. This was the first week or two that I had Moon. She followed me pushing the wheelbarrow and barked at it. All through her life, she would go crazy and bark at the wheelbarrow whenever anyone was using one. Her Uncle Billy said that one time she bit the old tire on his and punctured it. She was staying with Uncle Billy while I was away, probably in 1998 when I was sent to Washington by my employer, Microsoft.
One of the first hikes I took Moon on was in Doughton Park off of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Moon, her Uncle Carl, her Uncle Rick and I hiked up the trail that went along a stream bed. Moon didn't know how to drink water out of the stream until her Uncle Rick taught her.
In February of 1995, we went to Green Acres Music Hall to see Norman and Nancy Blake. Rick, Carl, Moon and I camped out overnight. It was cold. The photo below was taken the next morning. Moon was about three months old.
Also about this time, in either February or March, Moon and I went to Atlanta to help Billy move back to the Charlotte area. The photos below was taken at a rest stop on I-85 North, just north of Atlanta. She weighed 23 pounds at this time.
In November 1995, my employer, Microsoft, send me to the main campus in Redmond, WA to work on the beta of Visual FoxPro 3.0 for the Macintosh. Moon went with me. I got a big, plastic dog crate for her to fly to WA in. Jack drew a cool design of her name with the crescent moon and stars on the back of the crate.
Moon and I arrived in Seattle the day after Thanksgiving 1995. It was fun getting Moon in her crate in the airport and then going to the auto rental desk and getting a car. She needed to get out after over five hours. But there was nowhere to go, we were in a concrete parking garage. Then I had to drive in the rain at night in a new place and wonder where I was going to let her get out of the car.
We had a nice rental apartment in Bellevue right next to a park. This was a good place to take Moon daily. The photo below was taken in the apartment with an early digital camera that I borrowed from the MS Lab.
When I had free time, I first took Moon into the Cascade Mountains east of the Seattle area. The first time, we found some crusty snow on the ground. I made snowballs and tossed them to her in the air. She tried to catch them but they burst when she bit them.
Over Christmas, I had four days off so Moon and I drove down I-5 from Seattle into Oregon and cut over to the Pacific Coast on a back road and ended up in Reedsport, OR. We went to the beach there and Moon thought the sand was snow. She kept picking up mouthfuls of it and then spitting it out. She liked running on the beach but didn't want to go near the water. We stayed at three different Oregon State Parks in yurt shelters as we drove up the Oregon coast to the mouth of the Columbia River. We went hiking in Fort Stevens State Park which is right at the mouth of the Columbia River. We drove up through far western WA after crossing the Columbia River on the bridge at Astoria.
Over New Years 1995-1996 Moon and I went to Vancouver, BC, Canada. We stayed in a small mom & pop type hotel a block or two from English Beach. This is also right by Stanley Park. Moon and I went for a good walk in Stanley Park in the rain. We also hiked in Golden Ears Provincial Park (where the first Rambo movie was filmed). While in Vancouver, we also went hiking in Mt Seymour Park. A lot of this was in the snow. Moon like running around in that.
While I worked in Redmond, I took Moon to the dog park at Marymoor Park. It was a place where dogs could run around off leash. You just had to pick up after them. Moon interacted with lots of other dogs here. Even though lots of other dogs were swimming here, she didn't want to go in the water. She let a couple of tennis balls float away.
One weekend in February we took the ferry over to the Olympic Peninsula and drove to the coast. We went hiking on Rialto Beach in the Olympic National Park (ONP). Dogs were allowed on this beach if they were on a leash, a ranger told me about it. That night we stayed in a cabin on the Pacific Ocean on the La Push Indian Reservation. You could literally see the ocean while sitting on the toilet.
We went to the Olympic Peninsula a lot. We drove to Lake Cushman a few times. We hiked up Mt Rose, which is in the National Forest just outside the ONP. Great view from the top. We also went hiking up to Lena Lake in the Hamma Hamma River basin with David W. We stayed over night in a shelter in another place in the National Forest areas on the east side of the Olympics. I need to look this name up. Moon didn't like sleeping outside with me in the shelter. There was crusty snow on the ground outside. The temperature was in the low 20's F.
In March 1996, Moon and I went back to Vancouver, BC for the weekend. We stayed in the Best Western. This was a nice hotel that allowed dogs. Moon liked hotels.
In October 1996, Moon and I went for a road trip to New Mexico. We were in Arizona for a while too, near Alpine.
On the way to NM, I took a this photo of Moon at a state park in Arkansas that was on the Arkansas River.
Here she is at a highway overlook with the Gila Wilderness Area in the
background.
This is somewhere on our New Mexico trip. The
passenger side door on the Dakota is bashed in.
Moon was in the back of the truck when that happened in Socorro, NM, just after
we finished up with
Interstate highway driving for the trip out.
Here's a photo that Jack took with his digital camera, probably no later than 1997. It was after we had gone canoeing on the New River. This could have been as early as Thanksgiving 1995, just before we left for Seattle. I can't remember.
Here's Moon and I on the farm porch in the summer of 2002. I was reading a newspaper while Moon was watching the drainpipe for the gutter. I think a rat must have lived in it since she was always watching and listening to it. This must have been in June 2002. Randy took this photo so it was probably when he brought Ralff up to visit. Ralff passed away on July 12th, 2002.
Here's Moon on October 31st, 2000. This was when I was taking the photo on
the home page of this website.
It is hard to believe that she was only six years old here. Some of our farm
land is visible in the background.
The photo below as taken on January 7th, 2006. It is one of the first photos I took with my digital camera.
Close up of Moon on December 10, 2006
Moon's last picture - this is the afternoon of Wednesday, January, 17th,
2007. Her weight was down to 89 lbs.
She is with the new dog, Sunshine. She actually looks pretty
good considering it has been almost a week since she last ate.
This photo is misleading. Sunshine is not nearly as big as Moon. He only weighs
about 50 lbs here. He is closer to the camera.
Moon ate her last breakfast on January 11th, 2007. She wouldn’t eat after that, not even biscuits. Moon lived for dog biscuits.
On Sunday, January 13th, I put the oil from a
can of tuna fish on her food. She ate this but she later puked it out, on Monday
morning I think, or maybe later Sunday night.
On Tuesday, January 16th, 2007, I went to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Control and adopted another dog, not realizing Moon was about to die.
On Wednesday afternoon, January 17th, I called Moon’s vet to schedule her yearly checkup for Friday, January 19th. I said Moon hadn’t been eating since the 11th. They were concerned and said I should bring her in that night. Moon had a 6:30 pm appointment.
We rode to the vet’s in the Dakota with Moon in the front
seat, as usual. She rode with her head in my lap, as usual. She even did good
getting in the truck. It was a little harder to get her out at the vet’s.
The vet wanted to keep Moon over night and do blood tests, etc. Blood tests indicated Moon had either a kidney or bladder infection and x-rays showed her kidneys to be small.
They kept Moon in the hospital and gave her antibiotics and
lots of fluids to try to heal the infection and see if her kidneys were working.
They were not. Moon’s rear legs were also very weak. She had been having a
hard time getting around for a while. She didn’t like climbing steps, even
just one or two. I taught her to go around them at the farm.
The vet called me on Wednesday night, Thursday afternoon and evening and the next day, Friday. On Friday, the vet said Moon’s blood tests didn’t look good and I should come down to see her. Bring some of her food. Moon didn’t want any food. She didn’t even want to smell it. She looked terrible. We had a hard time getting her out of her cage and into the visiting room. At that point I knew it was her time to go. I sat down next to Moon on the floor and petted and talked to her while the vet put the fatal dosage into the IV tube. Moon definitely died peacefully and with me there with her. I sure do miss her.
