Dogs

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Today I am grateful for Dogs.  Exhausted from swimming laps and spending a lot of time in the pool, we chose to watch the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on TV while playing scrabble.

We have had many dogs in our married life.  The first was a beagle mix, Copper, who smiled on cue,  liked to escape and run wild until he could find the most disgusting thing to roll in, then he’d come home and proudly share the scent.  Copper was a member of our family for almost 17 years, through many kids, cats and other dogs.  He was a half dog tall and a dog-and-a-half-long and resembled a canister vac. A true character.

We went to the pound one day “just to look” (yeah right) and came home with a kitten for my niece and a little black bear-like creature we named Hershey.  He turned out to be a mix between a husky and a Newfoundland.  More Newfoundland. Hershey was a great big black baby who loved to swim.  He worried whenever anyone spent too much time in the pool and would pace along edge nipping for bathing suits to grab them out.   If they didn’t come out, in he’d go in to “rescue” them.  He escaped from the fence when he was only two, during a total eclipse and was hit and killed by a car.  I didn’t know how I’d ever recover.  Maybe I haven’t.

Copper was happy to have the rule of the roost.  Not for long, because we soon went chasing after a litter John had read about in the paper.  When we drove up, one of our sons said, “Look at the deer!”  It was the puppie’s dad.  An Irish Wolfhound.  Clancy, the small pony, was so huge I knew I’d have to take him to obedience school.  He wouldn’t go up the stairs because they were open in back.  Really.  A hundred and fifty pounds of dog refusing to move.  The other dogs and owners were stacked up behind us, like cord wood, but Clancy didn’t care.  He splayed all four limbs out like a cat when you try to put them in a tub of water and sat down.  We finally got him up one step at a time, with one of us lifting his front end and the other lifting his back end.  The only thing he mastered in doggie school was the long-down.  He slept through most of the class.  He was like a perpetual teenager, yet died at 18 months from bone cancer.  Devastating.

Poor Copper had to put up with one more brother after we went to look at a litter of Golden Retrievers and got the puppy-nut-case who couldn’t stop leaping up in the air.  Paddington was the only dog we’ve ever had who had official papers. . .and not just the kind on the linoleum.  His grandfather was a prized show dog and he was a beauty. . .probably the largest golden I’ve ever seen.  He was the only pet we still had when we moved to Jakarta, Indonesia.  He couldn’t come with us so my sister kept him for a year, then he found a new home with our daughter’s family where he was treated like the royalty he was.  Paddington projectile-shed like a porcupine in danger.  The pain of his loss reverberated through families in many parts of the country.  He was the only dog my sister ever really liked and she’s a total cat person.

We didn’t have a dog in Jakarta, nor for two years after we returned.  Then we met, Frieda, a Golden Retriever rescue and nursing home mascot who became depressed because her residents advanced into dementia and stopped paying attention to her.  We went to “look” at her to decide if we would take her.  She leaned against my leg and put her head in my lap. Sold!  Although I’ve loved all of my dogs, Frieda was really the sweetest, most gentle, easiest dog we ever had.  She loved to ride in the car and joined us on many road trips.  Frieda should have always worn a metaphoric big hat, like old ladies at a tea room, in keeping with her character.  She got along with other dogs even if she was a bit prissy about it.  She has been gone for almost three years and I miss her every day.  She was perfect.

I know some of you have recently lost pets.  Even though we know it is part of it, when you lose them suddenly or have to make the difficult decision to have them mercifully put down, it’s brutal.  Just remember, a dog’s love is worth it.