Cycles Six and Seven are interrelated in that one is seemingly a harmonic of the other. Cycle six we will call the <a href="http://virtualacademia.com/pdf/cli267_293.pdf">Gleissberg Cycle</a>, discovered by Wolfgang Gleissberg, is a 70-100 year cycle in the length variation of the Schwabe cycle (11 yr sunspot cycle). The Gleissberg cycle has an 83 year predominate period. Cycle seven we will call the <a href="http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new-e.htm">Landscheidt Cycle</a>, discovered by Dr. Theodor Landscheidt, is a 166 year cycle associated to the Gleissberg cycle.

Gleissberg discovered that the Schwabe (sunspot) cycle durations varied in length in regular intervals. He noted that the longer the cycle (greater than 11 years) —the fewer number of sunspots; the shorter the cycle(less than 11 years)—the greater the number of sunspots. He discovered that about every 83 years on the average the sunspot cycle length grew from the Gleissberg minimum to the Gleissberg maximum and back again.

Something that I noted in my studies was that consecutive short cycles correspond to every increasing solar activity. The graph below is derived from NOAA, National Geophysical Data Center. Note that the length of the sunspot cycles (blue) corresponds inversely to the number of sunspots. Also note that for the consecutive short cycles 16-19; the number of sunspots increased dramatically. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell you that the temperatures on earth increased dramatically during this same period (1913 to 1964 temperatures increased 0.25° C). Finally, note cycle 20, which started around 1966, that the length increased and the number of sunspots fell. Does anyone out there remember the GLOBAL COOLING scare of the 1970s?

<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://api.ning.com/files/*3zQzeO1XXHSuaTXay-jtjBzXeKSmvWtGef4tBxvpbHRbSrlaVP0xnNllfUBOc73B67vx7de2obOtuK8nop41sOM0zHZCEvD/CYCLELENGTH.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="720"/></p>

When other outstanding astrophysicists looked at this phenomenon they also discovered that the earth’s temperatures varied in coordination with the sunspot cycle lengths, or in other words, with the Gleissberg cycle. This cycle accurately points to significant past periods of solar inactivity (Gleissberg cycle minima) such the Wolf minima (1320), the Spörer minima (1490), the Maunder minima (1670 – the Little Ice Age), the Dalton minima (1810), the period around 1895, and lastly during the 1970s. Each of the Gleissberg minima corresponds to periods when the earth was colder. The periods of shorter sunspot cycles as defined by the Gleissberg cycle maxima correlates to past warm periods such as the Roman warm period (100AD) and the Medieval Warm Period (1130).

Dr. Theodor Landscheidt discovered a relationship between the change in the sun’s rotational force and the Gleissberg cycle. He found that the rate of change in the sun’s orbital rotary force has an average period of 166 years that corresponds directly to the Gleissberg cycle minimums and maximums. Landscheidt also noted that the phases between the sun’s rotation and the Gleissberg cycles go through a phase reversal about every 850-900 years. This means that every 850 to 900 years, there are periods when Sunspot cycles do not lengthen, creating two Gleissberg maximums without a minimum. So every 850 to 900 years there is a period where the sunspot activity increases dramatically. The 1952 Gleissberg maximum was followed by another Gleissberg maximum in 1984 instead of a Gleissberg minimum. If there had been no phase shift in the 1970s the temperatures would have dropped during the 70s, 80s and early 90s, and we would have had to listen to Al Gore scream about CO2 causing Global Cooling. Landscheidt predicted that the sun would become less active after 1990 and continue to decrease in activity to 2030 AD when, according to his calculations, the next Gleissberg minimum will occur.

By the way there is a coorelation to the planets on this cycle too. The Landscheidt cycle corresponds to the alignment of <a href="http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/archives/58">Venus-Earth-Jupiter</a> sysygy when Jupiter is at its perihelion. And the 850-900 year period corresponds to the <a href="http://vladimir_ladma.sweb.cz/english/cycles/reson/cconjunctions.htm">Jupiter-Saturn Great Inequality</a>, also known as the Laplace Period.

There is more to the story than this however. Landscheidt’s calculations predict that the next Gleissberg minimum will be as strong as either the Dalton minimum or the Maunder minimum. That means that the temperatures should begin to drop dramatically over the next 15 years and possibly put the northern hemisphere back into another Little Ice Age.

Here is my beef. We have a bunch of nut cases screaming about Global Warming and we are headed for a long period of cold. The science is quite clear, but we have powerful selfish idiots who have the media’s attention. We should be preparing for frigid temperatures and stock up on grain and corn while we have this great warmth, but instead we are burning it for fuel. What a bunch of fools we have running this country. Now we have the Wizard in the white house—uh should I say the empty suit behind the curtain.

Here is some corroborating <a href="http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Global-warming-is-not-our.4966808.jp">information</a> just released.

Beginning in 1900 the SODA increased dramatically until the 1960s where it dropped. This was just in time for the unset of ‘GLOBAL COOLING -The COMING ICE AGE’ era, when temperature on the earth fell. From 1964 through 1996 the SODA index rose again, but has subsequently dropped, especially in 2005. Since that time the SODA has fallen to levels close to the early 1900s.
Think of it this way. The greater the SODA index, the more sunspots. The more sunspots, the hotter Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn get. So what does all this have to do with the Hale cycle?
Well, nothing directly, but you needed this information before I quickly explain what the Hale cycle brings us. Since the polarity of the sunspots alternate in a 22 year cycle (approximately ½ of the solar surface material circulation), the polarity of the magnetic flux generated by the solar events (sunspots and flares) alternate likewise. Some very smart people, have discovered that positive sunspots do not divert cosmic radiation as affectively as negative sunspots. If that is true then during the positive sunspot cycles (even numbered cycles) the earth should be cloudier, cooler, and moister than during the negative sunspot cycles.
Well, well, well! Guess what? That is exactly what has been discovered. Scientists in South Africa who were trying to predict the water requirements found that the amount of rain received over a hundred years of so came in 21-22 year cycles! (My goodness, Joseph’s dream was right about the length of the drought. God is so smart!) Another set of scientist discovered that the rate of change in earth’s temperature fluctuate in a 22 year cycle. By golly, our scientists ARE smarter than the average ex-vice president and all his horde of political activist. Just think, all this because the sun rotates and circulates.

Now for a final point; another very smart scientist and mathematician (that is a person who knows about numbers and equations for all you liberals) developed a formula to predict the approximate sunspot cycle strength and polarity. M.A. Vukcevic found that the number of sunspots in a cycle is related to the orbital period of Jupiter (11.862 years), the Jupiter-Saturn alignment (19.859 years), and the angular shift of the Jupiter-Saturn alignment. He determined the starting point of his formula to be in 1941 when Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus aligned. There is a phase shift in the formula that takes place every 110 to 120 years. It has been speculated that this is related to the Jupiter-Saturn inequality. I have put his formula together with the actual sunspot activity over the last 250 years and here is is:

Here we have the first of several solar cycles that affect the temperatures on Earth, hence Solar System Warming. Not to get too off track but I would like to send a former VP out into space to do some data gathering; of course he might have to tax himself so the gases in the space craft don’t get too al-noxious (you can put a little smiley face here). Anyway this fourth cycle is called the Schwabe cycle, also known as the eleven-year sunspot cycle.

Many warm and cold periods ago in 1843, an astronomer by the name of Samuel Schwabe was searching for a new planet closer to the Sun than Mercury. Supposedly this suspected planet was to be called Vulcan. During his searches he discovered that the Sunspots increased and decreases in an eleven years cycle. Just like today, when a real discovery is made no one notices. He didn’t get an award and he didn’t make a docudrama. In fact, his discovery didn’t make the news, especially the evening news, until many years later.

Today, we have years and years of data that show that the average sunspot cycle is around 131 months, or 10.9 years long. During the active periods of the cycle there are huge numbers of sun spots, and many are visible to the naked eye if you care to look at the sun. That is a no-no during the mid-day hours unless you have the proper equipment. I have seen them but only while the sun in on the horizon and I don’t look without good sunshades.
During the quiet periods there will be very few sun spots.

We are in one of those quiet periods right now and there are many things about this quiet period that the news media is not talking about. One thing is that we are currently experiencing one of the longest sun spot cycles and quietest sun spot minimums in the 300 year history of recorded sunspots. This is significant! And guess what? The intensity of sunspot activity runs in CYCLES! We will get to those is a later post.

Sunspot cycles are given numbers, and the one just ending is cycle 23. The new cycle that we are waiting on to ramp up will be cycle 24. If you track backwards in time you will get to Cycle 1 and past that the cycles are given negative numbers. Thanks to Galileo, we have sunspot records back to the 1600s. If you do some research on tree rings and the like you can track sun spot cycles back even further.

Here is the issue at hand, Sun Spot Cycle 23 began in March of 1996, over 150 months or 12.8 years ago and Cycle 24 has yet to be considered ‘started’. THis means that we are experiencing a long quiet period of solar activity. Trust me, there have been many AGW scientists who have wanted to claim that cycle 24 has begun; and there have been positive sunspots indicating the presence of a new cycle, but Cycle 23 has to die-off first. (I used the term ‘positive’ to define Cycle 24 sunspots because sunspot cycles alternate in polarity: Odd numbered cycles have negative polarity sunspots and even-positive ones. This alternating polarity creates a, guess what? Another cycle, we call the Hale Cycle. I’ll take up the significant of that cycle next time.

So what is the significance of the Schwabe Cycle, you may ask? Well, when the sun is in the active period of the 11-year cycle the Solar Wind, Solar Flares, and Coronal Mass Ejections increase in number and intensity. When the Solar Wind increases, it affects the magnetic field of our planet. It also repels Cosmic Radiation and keeps them from striking the earth. Solar Flares and CMEs significantly affect our planet in many ways other than creating a beautiful aurora borealis. These events can and do cause the upper atmosphere (ionosphere) of the earth to HEAT up! These events also hinder Cosmic Radiation from striking the earth.

So now you ask, what is it about Cosmic Radiation that makes it so important that I mentioned it twice in a single paragraph? Cosmic Radiation creates CLOUDS, low level clouds that shield the earth from the heat of the sun! When the Sun is very active then there are fewer clouds and more heat, GLOBAL WARMING. When the sun is quiet, like it is now, more Cosmic Radiation enters our atmosphere and creates more clouds causing GLOBAL COOLING! Remember the energy cycle: clouds reflect solar radiation?

There is empirical evidence that proves everything I just wrote. It is fairly new information, but not as new as the docudrama mentioned previously. Our Sun is the cause of climate change, not some dairy cow flatulence. If the AGW Terrorist al-Gore wants to tax something, have him tax the Sun. I will put in money to send him there; and the sooner the better.

Now one last thing; scientist are still debating on the cause of the eleven-year (Schwabe) cycle. That is right, the science is not settled, but I have a clue for you. The earth, Venus, and Mercury come into a good alignment with the sun on an average of every 11 years and in a near perfect alignment every 22 years (Hale Cycle anyone). I believe that we and our close neighbors cause the solar cycle that affects our climate.

Hmm, TAX that!

I call this one the Energy Cycle, but it really boils down to the heat from our star’s energy output (no pun intended—actually it was intended, I just thought I’d say that). Raise your hand if you know how many Watts of energy the sun emits. Okay, great, you can put your hands down now. For those of you who don’t know, let me tell you. 

The total amount of energy leaving the sun’s surface is approximately 63.3 Million Watts per square meter. But by the time the sun’s energy has spread out and traveled 93 million miles to reach the earth’s outer atmosphere, it is reduced to an average of 1367 Watts per square meter, which is called the Solar Constant.

The earth actually receives between 1353 and 1395 Watts per square meter. The amount of energy received is dependent on the sun’s varying energy output and the varying distance between the sun and the earth as the earth orbits the sun. So the Solar Constant is really a variable constant. (That is an oxymoron for all you liberals who believe in truth, justice and the American way.)

You might think that is a bunch of Watts and that the earth should burn up if it receiving that much energy. You would be absolutely right except for one thing. The earth has an atmosphere, made up of Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, Carbon Dioxide, Methane, Hydrogen, Helium, and the lesser irregular gases expelled by buffoons who ‘believe’ that man causes global warming. All these gases are essential with the exception of one. I’ll let you guess which one. Another thing that certain pseudo-scientists can’t account for in their computer models are clouds. Again for you liberals, those are those white fluffy things that move around in the sky, those things you have your head in most of the time. All these things reflect or absorb and re-emit back into space. Energy is also reflected off of the snow and ice in our mountains and at the poles.

Another thing that alters the amount of the Solar Energy reaching the earth’s surface is the angle of incidence. Since the earth is round the solar energy reaches a point on the earth at an angle that depends on the season and the latitude. Water only reflects 5% of the solar energy that hits it at an angle that is near normal - like at the equator, in the Gulf of Mexico. But water reflects upwards to 15% if the incident angle is larger than 60 degrees. That means that water in the North Atlantic and near the poles reflects a significant amount of energy back into space.

So, if we do the math, we find that the sun’s energy is reduced from 63.3 Million Watts per square meter to only 475 Watts per square meter by the time it strikes your front yard. Taking the 475 Watts per square meter, assuming 12 hours of sunshine, calculates to 5,678 Watt-hours per square meter per day. That means that on the average, every square meter of the earth’s surface receives enough energy in 12 hours to light one 60 Watt incandescent light bulb for 4 days. The solar energy hitting your 50 X 110 ft. lot in one day would power 29,000 100-miniature-light-strands for 4 hours! Talk about Christmas spirit!

You might say, "WOW, that’s a lot of energy that still strikes the earth, and that it still seems like the earth should be scorched." But here are some facts that you must consider: much of the energy is absorbed by moisture in the air and in the clouds. One fourth of the solar energy that strikes the oceans, lakes, and dew is used to evaporate the Dihydrogen Monoxide. Some of the energy powers the wind and waves; some is used by vegetation for photosynthesis. Most of the sun’s energy does reach the earth’s surface, heating oceans, land, roads, parking lots, your SUV’s dashboard (hot!), buildings, rooftops, and you guessed it—us. Then that heat is transmitted back into the atmosphere via convection, conduction, evaporation, and back into space via infrared radiation.

Trade winds and convection currents (columns of rising hot air, also known as thermals and not to be confused with bloated politicians) are always moving across the earth pulling heat energy from the surface. As these air currents mix and rise they disperse the heat energy that eventually escapes into space as radiant energy. Moisture near the surface evaporates and the water vapor is carried upward by the same air currents. As the water vapor cools, it condenses as rain, snow, or clouds. Heat is released, and again it makes its way into the upper atmosphere, and eventually into space as radiant energy. This energy cycle has been occurring since the earth’s beginning.

The earth-to-space heat exchange rate is dependent several thing including convection currents, wind velocity, and the concentration of ‘greenhouse’ gases, especially water vapor (H20). Light wind, slow convection currents, and high humidity cause the heat transfer process to slow and local air temperatures to increase, but it never stops and it is never trapped. On a humid day in Houston, when the air is saturated with hot, evaporated moisture, you pray for a cool breeze to whisk away some of the unbearable heat. After the sun sets, the nights are muggy because moisture in the air holds heat close to the earth’s surface and not because there is an extra molecule of CO2 in the air.

Here is an interesting fact that you might want to know: Water vapor has 24% more heat capacity than dry air, and dry air has 7% more heat capacity than CO2. Heat capacity is the measure of a substance’s ability to retain heat. Adding more water vapor (higher humidity) increases the air’s ability to retain heat, while adding more CO2 reduces air’s ability to retain heat. When is the last time you heard that on the evening news?

Through convection, conduction, evaporation, and minute amounts of infrared radiation released from the surface the energy cycle of the earth is balanced, such that, for all of geological history, the average global temperature has not varied by more than 16° Celsius. And most of the temperature swing has been below the current average global temperature (think Ice Ages). But in the last 10,000 years, the average global temperature has only varied by 3.3° Celsius and the temperature has mostly been above the current average global temperature, as much as 1.3° Celsius higher than today. For the last ten millennia, the average global temperature has been falling!

Thems the facts, my dear friends.

 It is hot here in Texas. That is because of Texas Warming. If you haven’t heard Texas produces the most power of any state, and likewise the most CO2—YeeHaw!  The last 15 days we have had 100+ temperatures. Just in case you haven’t figured it out yet—it gets HOT in Texas during the summer. Go figure. It always gets HOT in Texas during the summer.

When I was a teenager during the 70s, the summers didn’t seem so bad, but that is because we were all going through Global Cooling and the ‘Glaciers were coming!’ I thought that it would be great to take a vacation up to Kansas and play on the Ice sheets. What can I say, I was only a teenager.

As I said it is HOT here ‘this time of year’. Come, late October we will be experiencing Texas Cooling.  It wasn’t too hard to understand even as a teenager that the earth’s weather (Climate) goes through seasonal variations (Change) everywhere, with the exception near the equator. Isn’t it nice to have seasons? I think I learned in Junior High or maybe even in Elementary School that the earth goes through seasons because the earth’s axis of rotation is tilted with respect to the sun. It is not tilted because of CO2 or any other naturally occurring gas. And even as big as Al Gore is, with all his beefy stature can't alter the tilt of the earth. Therefore, since the beginning of Texas, Texas has gone through hot summers and cool to cold winters. There will be rain and wind in the spring. There will be storms, some quite strong, in the spring even through June. July, August, and September will be hot and usually DRY. Near the last week in October we will have a cool or cold front dip into Texas from the northern territories. That has nothing to do with CO2 either. Then comes November, December, January, and February when it will be damp to wet, cool to cold, sometimes bone chilling cold. Sometimes, we even get that cold white stuff down here in Texas. Then spring arrives again and we get storms to fill our lakes and reservoirs.

That cycle has been going on since I was born. My mother said it has been going on since she was born. Her mother said… you get the picture. It is a cycle. The Seasonal Cycle and we can all thank the good Lord that he tilted the earth so that we wouldn’t be bored with endless droughts, or endless rains, or endless snows, or endless heat, or endless cold. I do feel sorry for you folks down near the equator, but the Lord has given you some really pretty water and beaches to look at. Plus the Rotational Cycle I mentioned earlier keeps the equator covered with clouds so the sun doesn’t beat down on you all as severely. I am rambling now.

Back to my point: The second of sixteen cycles that dictate the weather, climate change, is the seasonal cycle caused by the 23.5 +/- 1 degree tilt of the earth’s rotational axis. In Texas, during the summer, the sun stays up a long time—from 6:30 am to 8:30 pm. More Sun equals more CO2 which equals more heat. Oops, that is not correct. More Sun equals more heat. CO2 has nothing to do with it. In the winter time the Sun refuses to rise before 7:45 am or later and then it takes off early and sets before 6 pm. Less Sun equals more CO2 therefore more heat. Oops, I did it again. That isn’t right either. Less Sun equals less heat. Go figure.

There is also an interesting thing about the path that the earth travels around the sun. This I learned in High school, public high school, so that no one, with the exception of flunkies and politicians, are without excuse. The earth travels around the sun in an elliptical orbit. That is an eccentric circle for you non-mathematically inclined people.  The eccentricity of Earth’s orbit today is 0.0167. (a perfect circle has an eccentricity of zero.) That means that the distance between the earth and the Sun varies between 91,397,488 miles and 94,510,588 miles.  It just so happens that on July the 4^th the earth is farthest from the Sun and closest on January 4^th. So what does this mean to you, you might ask. Well, it means that during the winters in Texas and the northern territories the earth is closer to the Sun by 3.1 million miles than it is during summer. Let me tell you—that means a lot to us here in Texas, in the heat of summer. If we were 3 million miles closer to the sun can you imagine how much hotter it would be.

‘Get that boy a bigger glass of iced tea!’

Now for you folks down under, I am sorry about your situation. You see, you guys are closer in the summer and further away during the winter. I guess that is why most of Australia is a desert even though is resides at about the same latitude as Texas and the northern territories (them other states north of the Red River.)

Can you imagine being so stupid as to think that climate change is due to an extra 100 parts per million of an odorless natural gas. I think Al Gore and his cronies have been in the sun too long. Oh, I digress again.

Tis the Seasons.

  Namesake!

Coco was born on June 4, 1993 and was bought by an elderly lady who eventually knew she could not take care of the lively creature. So we bought Coco when she was 8 weeks old. When we picked her up the lady had put Coco in her bathtub so that she would not have to chase the fiesty little dog around the house when we got there. When I lifted Coco out of the tub she spread her tiny Chihuahua arms straight out in a spread-eagle. She was dark brown with a white belly and a thin white line down her face. Her feet were white and there was a single white hair at the very tip of her tail. That single white hair was still there yesterday morning when I wrapped her in her blanket to bury her.

We bought her a companion, named Blondie, who was born on June 12, 1993. We decided to have two dogs because we had one Chihuahua before that we felt lacked companionship when we went to work. Now we have to help Blondie through a time of grief, or maybe she has to help us through ours.

Coco loved to run around the our backyard and when she did she would drop her big ears behind her head and tear across the yard. She loved to play chase with anyone who would chase her, or anyone who wanted to be chased. She was fast!

Somehow she became ‘daddy’s girl’ and Blondie is still ‘mama’s girl’. Whenever I came home from work she would come to say hello with her tail wagging. I would squat down and she would jump into my arms. When she got older she just stood on her hind legs and let me pick her up. Coco would sleep between my knees, snuggling up to keep warm. Her fur was sleek and thin so she hated being cold. She would always get under the blankets and covers to sleep and then when we went to bed she would crawl between my knees with her head toward my feet. My feet get cold so that was great. Last night, was the first time in fifteen years that I slept in my bed without her right beside me.

I remember the time when we went to White Sands, New Mexico and got them out on the dunes. It was like they knew exactly what to do; they ran and played in the cool sand for a long time—digging, running, and chasing each other and us. Coco and Blondie have traveled across America and have visited over 40 states and seen more than most dogs, which usually are stuck behind a chain-link fence for most of their lives. They have seen the red wood forests of California and the Grand Canyon. They have barked at the elk in Rocky Mountains’ National Park and seen moose and buffalo in Yellowstone. They have barked at bears in the Smokey Mountains and in upstate New York. They have been from Boston to Orlando and from Chicago to LA. They didn’t love every place but they really enjoyed the times we spent together.

About three years after we had the two girls, we found a Chihuahua male lost in our neighborhood. We chased him around the block and finally caught him under a van. He was so scared. We put ads in the paper and poster all around asking for it’s owner to call. We got lots of calls from people willing to take him, but the owner must have dumped him. That was their loss, because ‘Lucky’ has added immense joy to our family. But we had a real tough time getting the girls to adapt to a new member in the family. Once they accepted his presence Lucky and Coco became good friends. By accident we taught Lucky how to sing on command. He still does that today. All you have to do is to either start singing yourself or tell him to ‘Sing Lucky, sing’! Coco would get so excited and she would jump up and yelp. You knew she wanted to sing too, but she never figured out how. She whined and made little sounds but she finally resigned to barking the beat while Lucky sang. Sometimes Lucky would start singing on his own when he saw something outside and Coco would bark right along. They were so cute together. Lucky will have to sing without a beat from now on.

In 1996, my wife and I went on a seven day cruise for our tenth anniversary. Her parents came to stay at our house to keep the dogs. That was really nice of them. When we got back we found that ‘our’ dogs had temporarily forgotten us. They barked at us like we were intruders. We felt kind of solemn about that.  For about two hours they would have nothing to do with us, but then they remembered and Coco slipped back between my knees to sleep that night.

I taught Coco one trick, and that was to rollover and play dead. I would say ‘bang’ and point to her velvet belly and she would roll on her back, tilt her head and paw at the air. I would then rub her belly while she continued to paw the air. Lucky loved to play fetch and Coco tried to play too but Lucky didn’t teach her the rules. We didn’t make the rules for fetching, Lucky did. When they were younger they would play tug-o-war with their toys.

What a joy Coco was. Her middle name was ‘Nught’—Coco Nught like 'coconut'. And she was a nut alright. That is why we eventually nicknamed her Kukee. That is right—the namesake for this blog! Whenever she got scared we would whisper in her ear 'kukee girl, koookeeee' and she would calm down. I adopted the nickname for this blog site because when I express my feelings I calm down.

Three months ago Coco started loosing weight but she was eating the same amount of food. We had all the dogs on a special diet since Blondie had come down with an intestinal problem that almost killed her about a year and a half ago. The vet said it would be fine for all the dogs to eat. So we thought that maybe she needed something more nutritious and we began to feed her regular dog food again. She gained a little and then she stopped gaining. When she started coughing we really got worried and I took her to the Vet. Her ran tests and found that her kidneys were failing and that she would need special care. He put her on the Kidney diet food, gave her some fluids, and sent me home. I cried when I broke the news to my wife, then she began to cry. We knew our time with Coco was going to be short lived. That was Saturday the 12^th of April. That night, her cough was worse and I stayed up all night and morning. I called and told the vet what was happening. He told me to bring her in and he x-rayed her lungs. She had built up fluids from the day before and her little lungs appeared to have some fibrous or fungal growth. He gave her lasix and told us that she had to be feed water every thirty minutes while on this because of her Kidneys and to keep her hydrated. She also began to have frequent short lived seizures. Within two weeks Coco had transformed from a vibrant healthy Chihuahua to a very delicate baby. The lasix and liquids worked; she stopped coughing and began eating again like she was starving, which she was. Then a big thunderstorm came. Coco hated thunder and lighting and they scared her. Her heavy breathing during the storm caused the fluids to build again in her lungs. We fought again to bring her back and finally after two days of sleepless night and tender care she rallied again. She rallied three times and each time her recovery was less pronounced. Saturday, May 10, 2008 she ate a fair amount of food after not eating on Friday. But at 5 PM she began to cough again and I stayed up most of the night. On Mother’s day she seemed to be okay but again by 5 or 6 PM it started again. She was breathing short shallow quick breaths. My poor little Coco struggled to breathe all night. I held her for hours and thought several times that she was gone, but then she would start huffing again. I finally got her to sleep for about an hour by rubbing her shoulders. She loved being rubbed on her shoulders. She would close her eyes and drift off into sleep. She had difficulty breathing while she was laying down so she would rise on her front paws with all the energy she could muster.

By 6 AM Monday, she was still struggling to breathe. I had a 7 AM appointment. Me and Coco were both tired. I woke my wife and told her that I would be back from the appointment and we would take Coco to the Vet to see what we were doing wrong and if nothing, then we would put her down. We cried and hugged. I left for about an hour. When I got home Coco was gone. My wife and I cried for a long time. My wife told me that Coco was resting then bolted up like she had to go out side. My wife carried her outside and set her down. Coco collapsed in a seizure. My wife held her little boney body while she peed, then picker her limp body and put her back in her bed. Coco’s struggle was over, she now rests peacefully. She is running fast again chasing whoever will play. And that would be Skippy, my first collie; Snowflake, my second dog—a Spitz; and Bonita my wife’s Chihuahua she had when we got married. I went to the backyard where she loved to run and dug a hole in our decorative garden. I searched for a place then saw a rock that would mark her grave and began digging. My wife bought an iron garden heart to remind us of the love Coco gave to us.

In remembrance of these joyful, forgiving, loyal, unconditional-loving creatures that God has graced us with. Goodbye my precious Kukee. Hope to see you when God makes all things new, including you!