www.Straydog.org UPDATE posted THURSDAY 12/25/03 at ~9:47 p.m. ct usa

Bill Arnold's Daily Straydog Log

THURSDAY DECEMBER 25 2003

"Merry Christmas, Dad."

My dad will be 95 years old a week from tomorrow. (That's my (Bill and Pat Arnold's) daughter, Erin, on the left.)

 

Thanks to you all for your donations,

including these many toys:

Doggie toys and supplies donated by our wonderful contributors

(Photo taken just inside the hospital/office trailer's sliding-glass kitchen door.)

Lots of good doggie stuff!

 

Everything is okay here at Straydog, but it was a difficult day for me

     This was one of two days each year (Thanksgiving being the other) that Pat would take a break for a few hours and we often went away from Straydog to spend Christmas morning with our kids. Pat would allow us to stay for at most three or four hours. Then I'd drop her off back at Straydog, where she would resume her duties of running the shelter, and I would go to Dallas with the kids to visit my brother and his family and my dad. Pat hadn't been able to make the second half of Christmas for seven or eight years. I would represent us both at the bigger family get-together.

     Today I left Juana in charge of Straydog (she had celebrated Christmas with her family Christmas Eve), and I went to Dallas to spend a few hours with my kids and then a few more hours with my brother and his family and my almost 95-year-old dad. We had a nice time, but I really missed Pat, especially during the part of the day Pat always attended with the kids, which took place this year at our son Joe's apartment. ... I don't think I was as pleasant as I was on previous Christmases, and I'm sorry, and I say this especially to Erin. (I kind of yelled at her for a little mistake she made at Straydog, and I am sorry.)