Days of Peace

Dillon has been a very happy and easy going guy for the last few weeks. I can’t say that has been the case for the rest of the family, but it was nice to have a break from the stress of taking care of Dillon. The last few weeks have been a little overwhelming for me, with wedding planning, graduate school, and working two part time jobs, I’ve had little time for myself to say the least. But what comforts me the most is to rely on Dillon’s excellent behavior when we are together, and to appreciate the peace and quiet that is finally sustained within the house.

The last post, I talked about Dillon locking himself in his own room by locking the lock on the outside of the door before entering and shutting the door behind him. We have since removed the lock so there have been no incidents of Dillon locking himself within his room again!

The beautiful fall weather has arrived, and while there is a chill in the air, Dillon still remains in the pool during the afternoon, and continues to swing with minimal clothes on when he isn’t in the pool. We have recently put up the pool fence, which is a mesh fence that surrounds the pool, not for Dillon but for our dogs. The large bull headed Pit Bull loves to swim in the pool, and then proceeds to enter the house as he uses his nose to push open the sliding glass door. Jack, the Jack Russell terrier is going blind and has cataracts in both of his eyes and has recently fallen in the pool and didn’t know which way to swim to the steps.  With these two factors in place, it was time for the pool fence to go up, which doesn’t hinder Dillon’s swimming experience at all. He climbs over the mesh fence by pushing it down and stepping on a chair to go over it. Normally I open it for him when I’m home, that way I can keep an eye on both him and the dogs, but sometimes he is impatient and climbs over it himself.

We recently lost one of our beloved cats to an unfortunate accident between the dogs and himself. He was attacked and the damage was too much for him to handle. His loss has caused a great deal of stress on my family, and while we mourn his loss, I’m not sure if Dillon understands what happened and why we are crying. Does he understand death and loss, does he understand tragedy and emotional pain? I’m sure he notices the cat is missing but I don’t think he understands why, and at what cost. These are only thoughts that come across my mind, and I’m not sure how you could ever tell if he misses this cat, but what if it were his mother or father? These questions have come up before, but I have never thought to deeply into this  scenario before.

As for now, all we can do is wish for peace; peace for our wonderful cat and for Dillon to continue to have a great attitude and wonderful behavior and to continue to have peaceful and quiet days.