I promised that over time, I would tell about some of my own dogs in my writings, so this is the story of my Silly Sidney.

Sidney was never intended to be my dog. He came to me as a young puppy, fully intended for the rescue program. That was 9 years ago.

At the time he arrived, I had my hands full with my Rotten Scrappy and the two of them hit it off marvelously. Every problem I had had with Scrappy just disappeared when Sidney arrived. And so, I decided that for the sake of my Rotten Scrappy, Sidney should stay. It's a good thing I did, too!

You see, just about his second birthday, Sidney began having seizures. Major seizures. With alarming frequency. Desperate to find out what was causing them, he and I went to specialist after specialist, even going so far as to go to the veterinary teaching hospital in Gainesville. He was finally diagnosed as having "idiopathic epilepsy", which is just a fancy way of saying that he has epilepsy, but they can't determine the cause. For the past 7+ years, Sidney has taken Potassium Bromide (KBr), twice a day and will have to take it for the rest of his life.

More importantly, during all of the testing and running around trying to find out a cause for his epilepsy, one of his test results came back with indications of a liver shunt. Presumably there since birth. He was just over two when we discovered it and even though I had it repaired immediately, Sidney's brain had been damaged. In watching him interact with the other dogs here, it's immediately obvious that he's no more than 9 or 10 months old in his own mind. He's a mentally young pup, trapped in an aging body that will soon be physically incapable of keeping up with him.

I love my Silly Sidney. I shudder to think what might have become of him had all of his problems surfaced in a new home, rather than as one of my own dogs. Yes, it was expensive and yes, I would do it all again for him. Because I had adopted him as one of my own, all of Sidney's expenses were borne out of my own pocket.

As I mentioned earlier, Sidney is a young dog in an aging body. He's a good dog, for whom every day is a new adventure. Every day, I see in him the wonder that a puppy exhibits when discovering something new and through him, I can forget that my own aging body will soon be giving out on me.

But, that's a post for a different day.