Things I Know I Know

Today is John Henry's birthday. He's twelve years old. YAY!!!!!!!!

He was born on February 17, 1995. He came to live with me in May of that same year. He broke his leg on May 7. 2005, which turned out to be because he had bone cancer. The vet school removed his leg, he had chemotherapy and he's still here twenty-one months later. Yay, modern medicine and stubborn dogs.

He's a cranky old man who still picks up the shovel and tosses it if he's outside when I'm shoveling snow, who loves cookies and things to chew on and going for walks (though he hasn't gotten to do that lately because of ice and snow). He believes half to possibly three-quarters of the couch belongs to him. He didn't get up on the couch for a year after his surgery and I think it was one big happy thing when he realized--oh yeah, I can still jump up on the couch. He doesn't particularly like other people or going new places, but he's traveled to New York with me many times over the years and is, really, one of the easiest dogs to stay in a motel with (because he does not consider it his job to worry about anything outside the actual room we're in). He thinks men are possibly the devil, but if they--the men--LISTEN TO ME (which, unbelievably they hardly ever do) and ignore him, he will eventually decide that he's known them forever and they're probably okay.

He is my boy. And I love him.