Teacher bravely disarms shooter - great story, but

Hero teacher bravely confronts, disarms California school shooter

Awesome, awesome story!!

But, my son will graduate in May with a degree in education.

I seriously fear for his life.  Every day.

But then, anything can happen at any given time.

When I was in school back in the stone ages **cough** (I graduated in 1989), there was nothing like this.  no school shooting.

Were there shootings?

Yes.

Just not at school.

My junior year of high school, there was this party.  Half the school, at least, was invited.  I've tried doing a google search for it and I can't find anything.  Trying to remember back to then is hard.  All I can remember is that the boy that was killed's name was Brian and the boy that shot him was Jason.

Jason killed Brian over a fudgescicle.

Dumb, right?

Brian was 20, and at the time, that was legal, if I remember right, to buy alcohol, or he got someone else to get it.  There was beer involved.  Jason was 15.

15.

I think that was the first time ever I heard of a teenager shooting and killing someone.  At least where I lived at the time.

Why did Jason shoot Brian over a fudgescicle?

Because Jason's step father was abusive and they told him there had better not be any food missing from the house when they got back from a week-long trip they were on.  Meaning, no missing fudgescicles and he was supposed to eat elsewhere while they were gone.

Being as there was alcohol involved, Jason was not thinking.  He went to his step father's room, got the gun, told Brian to put the fudgescicle back, and when Brian didn't comply, he shot him.

In front of about 30 people.

I can remember in the week that followed the shooting, there was a line all the way around the round (our high school was round....litterally....it looks like a prison) waiting to talk to the guidance counselors.  Kids were terrified.  Scared it was going to happen to them.  Scared for Jason, who at 15, was tried as an adult and sentanced to 30 years in prison for manslaughter.  Sad for Brian's family.

Crazy, right?

And now, things like this are common place.  We hear about them on just about a daily basis.

And it makes me sad...and scared.

But, I support my son's choice 100%.  And I'll be there for him if he ever has to go through anything like this, and I pray that he does not. 

Just as I pray that nothing like the shootings that have happened all over the world will not happen again.

*sigh*

Melancholy day, I guess.

But a good story!!

Gym tonight! 

Oh, and an update on Georgianna - she is a perfectly healthy 13yo boxer, just needs to lose some weight - just like me, lol.

Thinking good thoughts for one of our dogs :( ..and a plug for a few rescues

We have boxers.

We LOVE boxers.

We have had chows, standard poodles and German shepards......Boxers top them all.

The only problem with boxers is that they are VERY prone to cancer.

We lost Dallas in 2003 to a brain tumor.

We lost Sampson in 2009 to lung cancer.

Georgianna, our 13-year-old that we got from a rescue in Alabama - we know that she has mamary tumors, but with her age, they said to leave them alone, that as long as they don't grow, they are fine.

A few days ago, she started vomiting and had diarreah.  Yay.  Awesome to go home after work and see your husband running out of the house with a trash can, trying not to yack everywhere because you walked in to dog poo in the house because the poor girl couldn't hold it.

Megan is taking her to the dr today, because even though the vomitting is gone, she has this hack.  I am thinking that she has the beginning of congestive heart failure.  If I'm right, it's totally treatable.  We just have to make sure to get her on the right meds.  I love our vet, too.  They are verry supportive and, unlike some vets out there, they try to make things very affordable, too.

The rescue we got George from is Rockin P Rescue.  Sam, we had him from a puppy.  Dallas was a rescue from the Carolina Boxer Rescue.  He was a dog that was rescued after Hurricane Floyed and no one claimed him.  He was the BEST dog that  I have ever owned, and definitely my boy.

The blurb on the Rockin P site after I adopted George, at a bout 5 months old:

And here she is 13 years later :)  This was on Christmas day.

Libby, we got her from a breeder that I have known for over 6 years.  She only breeds her females twice, then has them spayed.  They then go to adoptive homes where they can live out their lives :).  Libby is a European boxer.  She has a more laid back temperament and a shorter snout than an American bred boxer.

If you are interested in finding out more about where I got Libby, you can go here: Winn Creek Boxers.  I will say this - you are paying for QUALITY if you go to Kim or anyone that she recommends.  These are not puppy mill dogs, nor are these breeders doing this for money.  The good ones that do all required testing and everything actually LOSE money when they have litters.

I do HIGHLY recommend Kim, and I also HIGHLY recommend both the rescues mentioned above.  There is NOTHING WRONG with getting an older dog.  Dallas was at least 5 when we got him.  He fit right in.  You don't HAVE to get a puppy every single time you get a dog.

Anyhow, while I patiently wait for my daughter to call to tell me what the vet said, I had better do something productive here at work.

Later!

A Trip to Remember Part 2 - Libby's View

** This is a copy of a post I sent over to A Brindle in Belgium.....She posts pictures of our dogs for the Boxer Mailing List..... more to be continued of mine and Michael's point of view tomorrow :) **

We took Libby on our trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina this past week.  She LOVED it!  Especially the water and hunting for fiddler crabs.

We stayed on Hatteras Island.  Hatteras is one of the main tourist attractions of the Outer Banks, next to where the Wright Brothers first made their flight in Kitty Hawk.

The Outer Banks is very undeveloped in many places.  The Cape Hatteras National Seashore is incredible.  We didn’t see maybe 50-60 people on the beach at any given time.  Most had their dogs with them, which the outer banks are the only NC beaches that allow dogs year round  Many of the hotels and rental houses are dog friendly.

Here, Libby is looking for her Boston Terrier friend she had made earlier.

Libby and I checking out the waves.  She loved the water, but when the waves would go back out, she would jump straight up in the air because of the sand pulling against her paws, lol.  She would go out about chest deep and also try to “eat” the foam from the water.

Attacking the foam and waves

Not only were there fiddlers, but there were also horseshoe crabs, too.  They didn’t wanna play as much as the fiddlers.

Every morning, we would go out at sunrise and Libby discovered the joys of chasing and digging for fiddler crabs.  Once she figured out that the were holes where they went, she would dig to China.

And she was always so pleased with herself :p

We visited the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.  It’s the tallest brick lighthouse in the nation.

Come on mom or me and dad are gonna get all the crabs!