All panda posts

Panda is the dog that made me a dog person. I had a dog as a young child. He was a perfectly fine dog but he lived most of the day outside, had no real training and when he was inside, he was so pleased to be around humans that he was just too much energy for me to really manage. At least, that's what I remember. It was a long time ago.

Then I had a couple of rodents. They did what rodents did and mostly put up with their human and then pooped or peed and I did not know really how to connect with them. I killed most plants I touched. What I'm saying is that I was pretty sure that I just didn't have what was needed to connect with other living things and I was probably more harm than good to them anyway.

In 2000, I met Leo and I really liked him and he really liked me and we liked each other enough that after only a few short months of dating, we decided to quit our jobs and move to the west coast. He had ferrets which were illegal where we were going, so we found a great local rescue, made an additional donation and headed out west. I knew going into this that Leo wanted a dog and I was pragmatic enough to know that the odds of our relationship lasting were something other than 100% so I figured he'd get a dog, it'd be his dog and I would hope I didn't mess anything up too horribly.

My friend is an animal trainer and the company she worked with had a litter of border collie/cattle dog mixes that had a role in a flea and tick commercial. Their human sold the litter to the training company because they'd been a surprise and he didn't want them. The training company quickly adopted them all out except for the last little girl. Her name was Houston

She peed on herself and then crawled up next to Leo. She had been living with trainers for a while so she had a solid sit, stay, speak, and a few other tricks in her arsenal. She was gentle and timid and not at all like dogs I knew. We paid our $1 adoption fee and took her home.

We named her Panda and I began to brace myself for ruined shoes and musky dog smells. But that didn't happen. I once saw her chewing on the tip of my plush Spongebob slipper and told her no in a lightly stern voice and that is the last time I recall her assuming anything was a toy that wasn't given to her to play with. She was eager to learn tricks, affection and energetic.

Panda was a very good girl.

When we lived in Los Angeles, Leo would go on day trips, driving all along the California coast to find dog-friendly places to play. In her life, Panda saw the entire west coast from Tijuana to the Canadian border. She was a nervous dog but not at the beach. At the beach, she was fearless and free.

Leo will hate me for posting this picture but back in her younger days, we'd invite her up onto the couch and she'd sit really close to one of us, push off from her front legs while stiffening her spin and fall onto our arm and rest her head on our shoulder. It was pretty cute.

She grew to love being on the other side of the camera. The sound of the shutter would perk up her ears and she'd come running from another room if she heard it. It was hard to take sock photos but I can't say I minded.

Panda was a really good girl.

When we adopted Thea, she was unsure how to deal with this crazy ball of energy and misbehavior, but she was never cruel. She'd been our only dog for six years and we had a quiet life. Thea shook that all up.

But Thea loved Panda right from the start and she won her over pretty quickly. They became fast and inseparable friends.

Throughout her life, Panda has always been a fetch machine. Neither of her siblings have ever come close to matching her athleticism when it comes to catching "the squirrel."

Panda has been my a central part of my family, my home, my life since 2001. This post could go on forever while I remember the things, big and small, that made her special to me. I could talk about her TV appearances and modeling gig. I could talk about the times she outsmarted us and times she comforted us. I have thousands and thousands of photos of her and looking at them now, I still remember all our wonderful adventures together. She changed me. She made me see the value in being patient and understanding. She taught me to be more gentle and thoughtful with others. I can say, without hyperbole, she made me a better person.

And now I have to learn to let her go. Her decline has been fast. While she was showing her age a bit a year or so ago, the past few months, and the past few weeks, especially, have been hard. We've treated what we could to ensure she was comfortable, but we've always agreed that we'd try to do right by her and not let her suffer. Today, she woke up barely able to walk, uninterested in food and her breath got progressively more labored. It was time. I love my sweet old lady. I will miss her. She'll always be the dog who made me a dog person.

Today, my sweet old girl, Panda, turns 14. She would be born a couple weeks after and about 3000 miles away from when and where Leo and I started dating. We'd adopt her about nine months later, after quitting our jobs and moving to the west coast without jobs or a plan. Looking back, the whole things sounds ridiculous but here we all are, and I wouldn't change a thing.

This was our first meeting with Panda, back in September of 2001. She'd just been spayed, she was scared and shy, she submissive peed a little and then she curled up next to Leo. We took her home that afternoon.

Thirteen years later, her coat has gone from smooth and glossy, to downy and full, she's losing her sight and her hearing and the arthritis in her legs is limiting her mobility, but she seems happy. She still loves her food and her favorite spot in front of the sliding door where she can watch the neighborhood goings-on, and of course, she still loves the beach.

She was our only dog for six years and, honestly, it was a hard sell for me to add anyone else. Panda is a sweet, gentle, easy to train girl who came potty trained and never destroyed any people things. But Thea has kept her playing and Darwin has kept Thea entertained when Panda needs a break. All in all, I think they've been good for her.

She certainly brings me joy, and I hope she feels the same.

Friday, we took everyone to the beach, ran around until they were exhausted and then Leo shared some of his Prime Rib dinner with them. That's basically like taking them to doggy Disneyland and then treating them to their favorite meal. A pretty good birthday party, if I do say so, myself.

So happy birthday to my sweet girl. I love you to pieces.

Today, my blog turns ten. I was twenty-nine years old when I started it, a relatively recent transplant to Los Angeles, and just learning to designs knitting patterns. My website was three at the time. If you want to take a trip in the way-back machine, you can even see the first version of my site here, though it's nothing more than a splash-screen. For a couple of years, it functioned primarily as an online resume. Then, in 2004, I gave the whole thing a makeover, started offering free patterns, and my blog followed closely behind.

*sniff* They grow up so fast.

I don't think I'd be designing knitting patterns, today, if I hadn't been testing the waters online, at the time I started my site. Ten years ago, very few people even knew what a PDF was. Online purchases were the exception, not the norm. While I enjoyed knitting, if I hadn't been connecting with knitters online, I'm not sure I would have had the community of enthusiastic knitters to encourage me,while I learned from the many mistakes I made along the way.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like if, 13 years ago, Leo hadn't encouraged me to start a site. I wonder what would have happen if we hadn't stopped at Big Sur, on our way to San Francisco where we picked up a couple of cute knit hats at a gift shop, and how things would have been different if Leo hadn't pretended to love the ill-fitting hat I knit for him a few weeks later. I wonder if I would have started offering patterns if the owners of Artfibers hadn't encouraged me along or if knitters had been more disparaging of my mistakes and incomplete patterns. Knowing me, I could have easily been discouraged along the way, which would have been unfortunate, as my circle of fiber arts friends has been wonderful and they have challenged and encouraged me, made me laugh and made me think, and overall, made knitting one of the more rewarding parts of my life.

I don't blog as much as I used to, not for lack of things to say, but because so many of us have connected on social media platforms, where we can interact more directly and more quickly than through blog comments and emails. But I'm pretty sentimental about my blog. It's like handwritten thank-you notes, not something I do as often as I'd like but something I still do for more special occasions. Looking through my RSS aggregator, I see a lot of links to now-defunct blogs from knitters, spinners, crocheters and just all-around interesting people. Perhaps blogs are the pet-rocks of the early 2000s, but I'll be keeping mine going for at least a while more. And, presuming you are on my redesigned blog, and not reading this in an aggregator, or through my old blog, you can find me on a multitude of social media platforms, up there, to the right, under the "Find Me Here" heading. I interact mostly on Facebook, but you'll see me pop up on Twitter and Flickr with some regularity.

If nothing else, you'll get to see more pictures of the pooches.

And a few hummingbirds, too.

If you'll grant me just a little bit more sentimentality, I couldn't end this blog post without thanking those of you who come by my blog, read my posts, leave comments, and/or interact with me online, and knit my patterns. I'm a pretty shy person and would never have connected with so many people if I had to do it in person. I cringe at a lot of my old blog posts (and old patterns) but I wouldn't take any of it back. It's the mortified shoe-box of my late twenties and early thirties and I hope I'll always be able to look back, read through the posts and remember all the remarkable people I've met and experiences I've had.

This year my parents gave me a generous gift certificate to Amazon, for my birthday. Leo and I don't exchange gifts for holidays and life events. If we want to buy something we do so when money permits, at the time it permits, which works for us, but it is nice to still get a little spoiled by your parents, a few times a year.

Ever since my trip to TNNA with Julia, I've been thinking about photography, the limits of my point and shoot and the value of good photography to a pattern. If you compare the quality of the photos in Atalanta to those for Willowherb, even adjusting for different lighting, I think the quality difference is clear. The Atalanta shots, done with a DSLR, are sharper, and have more detail in the shadows and highlights than the Willowherb point and shoot images do. I'm generally not unhappy with my own shoots but I'm not unaware of the limits of a point and shoot, for all but the most ideal lighting situations.

So when my parent's gift arrived, I spent a lot of time thinking about whether or not I wanted to put the money towards a DSLR, some lenses and other accessories. You can't just buy a camera body and call it a day. Will better quality photos do enough for my patterns to offset the money I'll spend? Will I be able to develop the skills necessary to even make use of the new camera? Is this the best use of what little disposable income we have? I don't know the answer to any of those questions but I have a new toy tool now.

Hello pretty bird

Ok, admittedly, these awesome bird shots were taken by Leo. He's pretty good at this photography stuff.

Raindrops keep falling on its head

I'm trying to get the dogs acclimated to the sound and look of the new camera. They are so accustomed to the point and shoot, which is held away from the face and is pretty quite. By comparison, the DSLR is a big noisy affair that obscures my face and sometimes flashes unexpectedly.

Thea gives some serious side-eye

Darwin is not impressed

Why is your face weird, human?

But they seem to be coming around.

My sweet Panda Bear

Getting the new camera on a tripod and trying to get good shots of myself, will be an all new challenge, but one I'm looking forward to. If you have any tips and tricks for making the most of the DSLR, I'd love to hear them. Book and tutorial recommendations are definitely welcomed.

Panda is thirteen years old, today, which is, I think, "lady of a certain age" in dog years. We probably shouldn't even be talking about it. Panda had her yearly vet appointment this week, where she got a clean bill of health. Darwin worried about her the whole time she was with the doc.

Will she ever come back?

Yesterday, we took her to the ocean because, of course we did. She's definitely slowing down but she doesn't enjoy it any less.

She's the only one who likes wading into the deep end. Some of that may have to do with the fact that Thea sinks in water and Darwin couldn't care less about fetch. His primary role is to body check his sisters. He's a real stinker.

Thea also enjoys riding her invisible bicycle.

Some seals watched us playing

And we watched some anemones do their anemone thing.

My anemone's anemone is my friend

Then we ended our evening with some fish and chips. The pups may have gotten a little bit of that too. The birthday celebration continues today. The pups are blissfully mellow, leaving the old lady to relax. Tonight, we'll cook up a little fresh salmon and sneak a little into their food, and of course, there are plenty of belly rubs and snuggles to go around.

Here's to my sweet old lady. If you have a pet, pass along a birthday scritch to him or her, on Panda's behalf.