Not Happening

Eli is not going anywhere. I will never entertain the notion of losing him or any of the furbabies in our family again.
Eli is not just a family pet, which made the thought of not having him in my life that much worse. We depend on each other. Being with me 24 hours a day, seven days a week is what Eli knows. Protecting me and helping me is Eli's purpose. I can not take his purpose away from him. I also can not lose sight of the reason he came into my life and all of the hard work and dedication I have given to him, as well as my promise to continue doing so.
It became even more clear to me when I forgot I had something in the oven. From the living room, it was hard to tell that things were not going so well in the kitchen. Eli, however, was right on top of it. He was wimpering and climbing all over me until I noticed the smoke in the kitchen. Mei-li, our pet Lhasa Apso, would have let the house burn down. She was sleeping nice and cozy in the chair beside me without a care in the world. Eli was so distraught and knew he needed to get someone's attention, though. Not only did Eli remind me that dinner was in the oven, he saved it from being burnt to a crisp.
Eli came out to breakfast with me the other morning and was perfectly behaved. I am not sure if anyone even knew he was there, he was so good. Later that evening, he made sure I avoided a situation that was sure to be an embarrassing event when the MonSter reared its ugly head.
I do not know what I would do without my brave little guy and I do not want to find out. ♥

Sadness

Eli has become my best friend and my tiny little hero.
It is breaking my heart that he will be leaving me. I know he will be happy and loved, but I have literally spent the last 10 months with Eli right by my side. He gave me a measure of confidence to be alright with being out in public with my disability. He has been comforting when I am suffering through bad days and he has alerted others when I have needed someone else's assistance.
Things just have not worked out with our family's living situation. While we have an enjoyable place to live, I can not say that it is dog friendly. We have a nice property, but our doors are in close proximity to the road and letting the dogs outside is nerve racking. I would not be able to live with myself should something happen to either Eli or Mei-li.
I do not know how Eli will handle "retirement." I want to feel like he will slip right into being a pet with his new family very easily. I certainly hope this will be the case. It helps to ease my heartache slightly to know he is going to be loved and well taken care of. I am just going to miss him so much and I do not know what I am going to do without him. Never leave the house again? Probably. I may even give up driving. One of those harsh realities that comes with having an unpredictable disease and now, no tiny little hero.

Almost One

It is hard to believe that Eli is approaching one year of age.
At last check, Eli weighed in at eight pounds. He seems to be staying right around eight to nine pounds so I am pretty sure he is as big as he is going to get.
Eli has been incredible with doing his job. He certainly cannot demonstrate his willingness to do so any more than he does. He does not want me out of his sight. Eli is definitely the cutest babysitter I have ever seen and absolutely the favorite of any babysitter I have ever had in my life.
It has been suggested that Eli is muzzled when we are in public. At first I thought that was a good idea to protect others from being nipped. However, the more I give thought to it, the more I do not like it. People SHOULD NOT be reaching for Eli. It aggravates me a lot when people just reach out to touch him when we are out in public. Eli is supposed to help me feel more confident living with my disability and I should not have to shy away from situations for fear of how Eli is going to be treated. The more important reason I am uncomfortable with the idea of muzzling Eli is that he uses his mouth to alert me to symptoms. I feel as though he and I would have to do some retraining with the muzzle, but I am nervous about how he would react to the device. Eli is not able to stop me as a bigger dog would be able to. All Eli has, really, is his mouth. A muzzle would handicap him, I feel.
We are working on Eli being able to potty outside under the supervision of someone other than me. It is important for Eli to be able to take care of himself out of my presence. Right now, he barely goes out the door if I am not. When he does, he stands on the porch right at the door waiting to be let back inside. This needs to be worked on. Of course, I need to have others' cooperation with this part of Eli's ongoing training.
Eli does tend to test his limits out of doors, although he is getting better with his outside obedience. I am not sure if I can give credit to obeying my requests or if he just goes on his instinct to have to stay with me. In any event, obedience in a distracting environment needs to be strengthened and I have really been looking forward to agility classes to help with this. Unfortunately, I keep coming up short of the finances to be able to attend.
Eli does change people's views of his breed. Not a day goes by that I do not receive compliments on how smart and well-behaved Eli is. I know part of it can be attributed to the hard work and devotion I have given, but not every dog has it in them to be a working dog. It just so happens that this tiny dog has the drive to serve. <3
*??)  CRySTaLLyNN                          
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(?..? (?..` ? God understands our prayers even when we can't find the words to say them.*??)
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