Yes, she’s special as are all the g-kids. My daughter home schooled and this one was fortunately the recipient of several scholarships.
Don’t know where the time went. 😕

That would be the same sandal, just deep mud shoved it up his leg and the slip in part is now around his ankle, see the elliptical “tread” on the bottom.

Cowboy boots woulda been fine tho for that maneuver… maybe, or he coulda lost both boots too. Shoulda used boots….. /s had to get that in to complete the set.

Sigh….these days? Yes sir…💕

I’ve had dogs since I was a child, our house was never without a dog. I liked playing with our dog, as a dog – never thought of him as anything more than ‘our dog’ and I felt like they were part of the family, and they had to be ‘looked’ after; feed them, let them out, teach house training, teach how to shake, pet them, praise them, they watched TV with us on any lap they wanted to, , and they slept in any bed they wanted to.
I saw our dog run over by the Priest on our street; cried and cried, then we got a new puppy from another neighbor and our family had ‘our dog’ once again; the scenario went on through raising my own family and now into great grandchildren. From new puppies to burying them, crying and missing them and then enjoying the new puppy.
I’ve known the joys of having pets, I also know from experience the really bad experiences of other people’s dogs. I know the ‘protection’ instinct of some dogs is ferocious. My fear is irrational, controllable with new dogs to the family; it’s out in public that my defenses leave me; the unexpected dog out in real public places. As an ER nurse I saw many dog bites, too……. My fear grew rather than abated in public, not known dogs of the neighborhood, ……. dogs in ICU blew my mind. AND the dog in purses taking the place of children has hit fever pitch.

Animal rights stopped experimentation on animals; so aborted babies became a great demand for experimentation.

Love of a family pet is one thing, celebrating pets as part of the human race in public places is another for me. I see the dangerous side of dogs outside of a home environment; ‘setting the dogs on you’ has true meaning to me in a public park with more dogs than people……

Irrational fear; I haven’t been able to conquer it in public places.

Sometimes I hear her whining like she did when she would first see me when I was gone for a bit doing what ever I had to do, whether it was for 5 minutes or 5 hours…😭

I understand completely what you hear, DG, and I’m sure you hear it. When I keep you in constant prayer, I keep Trouble there as well.

What you describe is something which can’t be explained to anyone who has not loved a dog, one of God’s creations as much as we are. And so as you grieve, painfully so, your friends here do so as well.

But please know, in case you ever have doubts about your agonizing choice, that I believe your big heart made the only one it could under the terrible circumstances you are enduring. You are a selfless, courageous man, dear friend. I pray that you come to recognize this and in doing so receive the inexplicable peace which only God Himself can give 💕

Thank you Betsy your kind words mean a lot but I feel I have failed her and the guilt I am experiencing is crushing. The contempt and hate I feel for the woman who promised me the ability to humanely bring that chapter to an end and bury her in peace and the knowledge that at this moment she is in a crate somewhere is beyond my ability to put into words…

Oh…..deep intake of breath, DG. Where are the words?

I have none…

Yes, dearest friend…

Yes….💔

I knew you were…I knew it. Which is why I needed to write what I did.

Is she in that horrid situation??? Do you know this for certain? Please tell me it’s not so 🙏🏻

So much we have to take on trust, and I know how desperately hard this is hitting you and why you feel responsible.

I hope, pray, that you will come to know that you did not betray her. And I realize now this of no comfort. I wish there were some words I could offer which dulls the pain, but I know there are not. My heart is twinned with yours for all you are feeling. Dear me it is…I am very grateful that you are here among friends, DG. As you were meant to be by God’s never-ending grace. Prayers for you both continue 🙏🏻💕 Bet

Yes, I know without a doubt that she spends most of her time in a crate, Trouble did not like most other dogs and would have to be separated from others.

On top of everything I have been dealing with today concerning this one thread ( I have gone through a half a roll of TP this afternoon crying like a baby), the hope I was feeling several days ago is quickly being crushed over the difficulties I am facing trying to get a GiveSendGo up and running. The one person I trusted to help me with a bank account told me yesterday that he couldn’t help me. The paint job I was supposed to start today didn’t happen and the client has not returned my messages today. I am quickly realizing I am truly on my own. I understand that it is my fault because of the way I wished to live my life and I am man enough to accept the consequences of my actions.

Thank you once again for your support and love, DG

This is a copy of the email I sent to Shawn Ryan two days ago, no response thus far…

Hola Shawn, my name is Ted Chaney and please forgive the familiarity but I have been following you for awhile now and you seem like the type of guy who likes to keep things casual. I am a US army veteran who joined when I was 17 years old, I joined for many different reasons but to put it simply my family had quite a few men who served their country from my grandfather during WW2 and my father and an uncle during Vietnam and quite simply I had no money or opportunity for college and so I decided to enlist. I served a little over three years, 2 in the 7th ID and my last year in the 2nd ID as an 11C mainly as RTO and FDC computer. Over the years since then I have delt with many of the problems that veterans are faced with, tennitus that the VA would never admit to, alcoholism, drugs and anger issues.

I am writing this email while sitting in a tent in a friend’s backyard because I once again have made a rash decision and it cost me everything that was dear to me…again. I came here to Mexico with my wife 14 years ago when Obama became president and I quickly recognized what he was doing to our country. My idea was to come here, get of the grid and live a simpler life but unfortunately that was not to be, mainly because the wife had other ideas. For the first year I volunteered with the local church in the morning and then played volleyball all afternoon, drinking and smoking and enjoying the little fishing village of Puerto Morelos. When I first arrived and saw that green water I knew I had found paradise. Now of course the wife wanted things so I decided to cut my hair and start selling timeshare, an English speaking person can make a lot of money in this industry as long as you can deal with the egos and the deception that go along with it. I had sold cars in the states (that’s how I met my wife) but this business is next level shit, you have to be a salesman, an actor and a psychologist in order to do it well. It took me several months to get my first deal but after that I quickly learned how to do it even making $10,000 in one day once. Now during that time I was here on a tourist visa and I wasn’t supposed to be working but the resort I was working for said that they would help me get the proper paperwork. Now this process is pretty straight forward and mainly just involved money and time but after about a year of nothing happening and me making some inquiries I came to the conclusion that nothing would be happening quickly, they was dragging their feet because evidently once they get someone their papers they take them and go somewhere else with them. So I left and went to work for a different resort and after two years with them and still no paperwork I left them and went to several other sales rooms over the years still on a tourist visa and being paid in cash.

The scamdemic happened and everything changed, the tourists slowed to a trickle and resorts where all wanting vaxed sales people and everyone was forced to wear masks. Not me, I was just not able to fathum why anyone would be worried about something that had less than a 1% chance of killing you if you got sick and once again quickly saw what it was about, control of the masses through fear. We decided to leave the Caribbean and left for Puerto Vallarta because of a job offer from a friend I had made in the business. The job was not what I was promised and I found myself working from home over the phone selling “Fly and Buys”, cheap vacations to timeshare owners that requires them to attend a presentation. This went on for several years, I wasn’t making a lot of money but it was steady income, while my wife got into real estate. Now, I was happy just making ends meet while my wife began to make good money and over time her need for more and more brought stress to our relationship because she felt I wasn’t trying hard enough to give her the life style she felt she deserved. One day she wakes up and tells me that I am not her husband but a roommate who didn’t pay half the bills and kicked me out of the bedroom because she couldn’t stand the fan I liked to have running while I slept (because of the tennitus). I started drinking heavily and one day when I was drunk she bounced her head off the wall and called the police telling them I had been beating her, I spent 72 hours in jail and when I got out she had moved out taking our three dogs with her. I was beyond furious but was unable to confront her in person, luckily I was able to get my favorite dog back from her through a third party and left to go back to the Caribbean.

I had made a good friend with a fellow brother in arms when I was in Puerto Morelos, an ex-special forces guy named Bill Felton, we had spent many a nights drinking together and he took me and my dog in and gave us sanctuary. Bill was a practicing hypnotherapist, had a small clinic in Playa Del Carmen and was working with people with a wide range of issues, he walked with a cane because of a IED from the sandbox and needed someone to run errands and do some cooking and light house cleaning, I was his assistant for several months and still working the phones till he died one night in his sleep from a heart attack. I had been in Mexico long enough to know that the worst thing you can do is call the police right away so I texted a mutual friend and once he arrived we got rid of any illegal substances that was around and then called the police. When the police arrived they saw all the nice toys that Bill had examined the body and even though I told them about his pre-existing conditions and showed them paperwork/ prescriptions from the hospital he had been in and out off (he was told weeks before that his heart was only working at 20%) they declared the house a crime scene and promptly put me and my dog on the street. Now this kind of thing is not uncommon here and the landlord had delt with this type of thing before, after a couple of days I found out that the police had begun squeezing the landlord for bribes because of some stuff that they found on Bills computer, trying to imply he had abused several woman sexually. Bill was impotent from the IED and had gone through a couple of divorces in the past, he had some issues when it came to women but nothing criminal. Eventually the landlord allowed the police to “confiscate” Bills stuff as well as a bribe so they would release the house back to the landlord so he could clean it up and rent it out again. This was about three years ago, I was forced to give my dog up because I couldn’t find anywhere to stay that allowed dogs and she was taken to a animal shelter by the landlords son.

I walked around and eventually found a place that let me sleep in their yard in a tent that the owner had, I was paying 100 pesos a night to sleep there. Eventually I found a part time job working in a restaurant making 300 pesoes a day and started once again to pick myself up and put my life together. While working there one of the owners friends happened to be involved with the shelters here and after me talking about my dog and how I lost her she convinced me that I needed to go and get my dog back…and I did. That first day I went to the shelter was one of the happiest and heartbreaking days of my life, I went there and after introducing myself to the administrator who i will call S and telling her my story of why I had to give up my dog and the circumstances behind that action she allowed me to see my dog Trouble and boy was she very angry with me not even acknowledging my presence when I called her. I spent a couple of hours with her and was told I could come back for her the next day. Now I had a serious problem, I was pretty sure that the place I was staying at wouldn’t want a dog there but at that point I didn’t care, I just wanted my dog back. The next day I returned to the shelter and now Trouble was beginning to forgive me and allow me to love on her and I sat there and loved on her and cried not knowing what I was going to do. It was then that S introduced me to a woman who told me she had a house to rent that I could use and it would only cost me 2000 pesos, sounded too good to be true and I said so and it was. The house was being used as a shelter for dogs, it had electricity and running water and it was a absolute shit hole but I could have my dog with me again and gave her 2000 pesos and we moved in. It was a three kilometer walk to my job but I didn’t care I was determined to make the best of it. Three days before X-Mas my boss tells me that he will be leaving town for about 10 days to spend time with his family. I was pissed, asking him why he didn’t say something earlier so I could have managed my money better in order to make it through that time with no income, he said that he didn’t think about that and was sorry but was confident I would be alright. Since I suddenly had lots of free time I decided to go to the shelter and volunteer there to try and give back for how they took care of Trouble. It was a four kilometer walk to the shelter and the first day I arvied there and told S what my intentions where she was floored because one of her employees was leaving and she was concerned about filling the position. The job didn’t pay much but it included a place to stay and other perks like vet services and food for Trouble, I told her I would be interested and she said I needed to prove I could do the job because it was very physical work (I was 52 at the time) so I agreed to her terms and for the following week I volunteered and learned how to do the job. Basically I was going there to help but Jose (the guy who wanted to leave) was buying me lunch everyday so that was a big plus. After a week S said I could have the job if I wanted it and I said yes but I needed to give my boss two weeks notice, she agreed and I went back to the restaurant with the knowledge that I had finally made progress on improving our lives.

I worked for the shelter for 2 years taking care of between 120 to 140 dogs a day depending on what we had not really having a plan just enjoying the little things in life and spending my free time with my best freind. I lost my job in Jan and it was because I was fed up with the way the animal shelter was being managed and because of a promise that was made to me by S. I was told by S that when my dogs quality of life had gotten to the point where I felt it was time, that I could put her to sleep. So after two years of working hard, cleaning, caring for the animals and doing maintenance on the facility I had decided that it was time for me to move on because while working with this woman it became quite clear to me that she cared only about the welfare of the animals and treated the people who worked for her like tools. There are many sick and hostile dogs at the facility, they spend money on chemo for dogs with cancer and take care of several very aggressive dogs who will never be adopted in addition to the other 200 dogs who they hope to have adopted, yet run the facility with a skeleton crew, claiming they can not afford another person and depend heavily on volunteers. When someone gets sick, hurt or some other personal issue arises everyone else loses their day off and the workload is increased, I once worked 21 days straight. When a dog dies the body is put into a freezer and maybe one day down the road they dispose of them.

Trouble had reached 13 years of age and had been having mobility issues so it was recommended that I start giving her Prednisone daily, I was hesitant at first because I knew that it was a strong medicine and came with side effects but I was convinced by others that it was time. The first few weeks of the steroids did increase her mobility but she was always hungry, thirsty and was losing control of her bladder constantly. In December just before X-mas I decided to stop smoking weed and to greatly decrease my alcohol intake. In my moment of clarity from not escaping into smoke and drink I made the decision to put Trouble to sleep and move back to the US. I asked S if I could put Trouble to sleep and bury her on the property and she said yes. It was soon after that I received a very long and condescending voice message from S (she liked to speak to me like I was a child) concerning something that I had been doing for almost a year and a half and decided that the next day I would give my notice. I had no real plan, no money saved, I thought it would take them several weeks to find someone who was willing and able to do the job and that I would have to train them. I was wrong…once I told her that I didn’t want to do the job anymore she immediately started yelling at me saying “Your rude, ungrateful and stupid” getting so angry that talking with her was impossible, later she denied that she even said those things. Eight days later I was told to leave the property and that she would not help me “kill your dog”. I was given some “go away money” (my unused vacation time) and me and Trouble was on the street. I sank into a depression because I was not able to give Trouble the care she needed or able to bring what I believed was a noble end to this chapter of her life. I was soon forced to return Trouble to the shelter so that she could at least be taken care of properly, S promised to have her sent to the States by way of adoption but instead took her home to her house to be with some other 20 dogs that she takes care of. Not a day goes by where I do not shed at least one tear over this. Last week at the behest of my few good friends I went back to the shelter to apologize and ask for my job back, I had heard through the grapevine that the new guy didn’t last three weeks and that they had been struggling. I did not want to do it but being in a bind I decided to eat some crow no matter how bad it tasted, S was very blunt (I could use a different word that rhymes) and told me I couldn’t come back.

I have overstayed my welcome with my friends and the little money I am able to make, doing odd jobs, allows me to get food but there are days I don’t eat and the money does me no good as far as reaching the border (all my paperwork is expired and I am unable to just get on a plane). I have lots of people telling me that they want work done but thus far only a couple have actually put money on the table. I have a fairly large paint job coming up but even that won’t get me to where I want to go, I seem to be treading water making no real progress. I have reached the point where I have to be honest and admit that I have fallen about as low as one can and need help.

I have no family to ask for help, my brother could help me since he has the means but his TDS makes it impossible for us to have any kind of civil conversation. My sister was living out of her car and still talking to our mother who has been dead for many years last time we spoke. I am in the process of setting up a GiveSendGo, I don’t need much to get to where I want to go, $500 US would get me to the border by bus with money left over for food. $1000 would be better as there would be money for bribes (if needed) and give me some flexibility once on US soil. I don’t have a plan on where I am going or what I will do once back in the US but I do believe that there are many Veterans organizations that may be able to help me as well as what the Veterans Administration can do.

Once I make it back to the US I would would very much like to come and work for you in any capacity that you think I could satisfy, I have many skills, I am a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Thank you for your time and attention, Ted

Sent from Proton Mail for Android.

If something doesn’t change very soon I will sell what little I have of value, lighten my load and take a bus as far as I can to the border and walk the rest of the way.🖖🏻

hi DG, please keep us posted as you can.

I remember when your friend died. So sad.

You are in our thoughts and prayers.

I have to admit, I skimmed over some stuff again.

I see you are from my ‘hood though. How weird is that!

So many have voiced how unfortunate I am to not love and understand dogs.
I have loved our family pets all my life, I have known the sorrow of their deaths, But, I have had really bad experiences in being attacked by other people’s ‘loved’ dogs at ages that have affected me with stranger’s dogs with ‘irrational’ fear of yet another attack.
Our neighborhood was considered a ‘safe’ place, except for some dogs you had to be afraid of. We were taught to be afraid of somethings; strangers, chained dogs, high cliffs, deep waters, train tracks, lightening, etc…..
“Irrational’ fear can be expected from traumatic experiences. I live with it, it was much easier when dogs were kept in neighborhoods, now there are dogs in every public place; ‘service’ dogs are a necessity for some people to go out in public. They are leashed, thank God, I don’t hate dogs I have an irrational fear of them; even seeing pictures I see teeth not a smile.
A dog has never been my ‘best friend’ I loved them as pets and took good care of them; friendship was with school mates, adoration was for God, babies, and family.
Sorry I broached the subject and upset people, I’ll look at the pictures of celebration of Cursday without comment. I will continue to ‘like’ them.

Do not be sorry my friend, this space is for the purpose of sharing our hopes, fears and knowledge so that others my grow and learn from them. That ability to share such things among like minded people is something that I believe makes this Treehouse so special. I for one do understand your fear and don’t consider it irrational or unfounded but based on your experiences.

If you was attacked by a dog, in my opinion it was the owners fault not the dogs. There are no such things as bad dogs but bad dog owners (Once again my opinion).

My reaction, like yours is based on years of conditioning and experience and at this point in my life I much prefer the company of a dog over people.

I send you much love and understanding and look forward to your future postings so that I may grow and learn through your experiences in life. 🖖🏻

Thank You. I appreciate your understanding, and I can use all the prays I can get. I do return prays, too.

By the way one of the dogs was owned by my uncle; one of the most beautiful people you’d ever want to meet. His dog growled, really growled as a puppy, but he thought he could teach it better ways. Didn’t work, it wound up biting 3 people before my uncle gave up. Reluctantly, sorry for the pain that the dog had caused he gave the dog ‘to a farmer’. All his other dogs as the years went by were glorious friendly. My other 2 dog bites – one devastating – the owners said ‘they have always been a problem, but I didn’t think they’d do this’……all had bitten before. So…..

When I see dogs out in public I can’t trust them……I want to go the other way as quickly as possible. And when an owner says ‘they won’t hurt you’…..I don’t trust the owner.

Thank you again and sorry to burden you with my ailment.

Oh yes, them memories, home at last ..freedom…bill