From the moment Jasper laid eyes on Onyx, he was smitten. He could not believe his good fortune. To have someone around who spoke dog was, was just too good to be true. He would come to me, then go back to her, then come to me, back to her. I felt like he was thanking me and expressing sheer joy. They took turns chasing each other, sleeping side by side, sleeping head to head, they chewed on opposite ends of toys. That camaraderie continues today. With a few exceptions.
Onyx wanted to be involved in anything and everything Jasper. That included his food. The first few times she helped herself to his dinner he was tolerant. After a few days he had reached his limit of patience and laid into her (big noise, scary teeth, no injuries). Scared the daylights out of her! She wouldn’t come into the kitchen for the rest of the day. That was the last time she ate food out of his bowl. Treats are another matter.
I won’t give the dogs rawhide. I’ve heard that it can cause a blockage in their intestines. There are so many other healthy choices available that rawhide can be easily avoided. The bully sticks are a favorite. I should say they were a favorite because they fought over that kind of treat so much that I took them away. Onyx wanted them all. And she wanted to hide them where no one else could find them. Like under another toy or a rug. Jasper is a pretty laid back kind of guy. He didn’t care if she left her treat and came over to his to gnaw for a while. When she started getting nasty with him about it, I intervened. They now get no-grain doggy biscuits (Nutro Ultra products) and occassionally cheese for treats. Although I think it’s on the expensive side, the chicken jerky is great. I’ve figured out that if they can eat it quickly, they don’t have time to fight over it. Being a two dog mommy is challenging.
I am so glad I got Onyx. Jasper is delirious. It doesn’t take much more time or money to have two dogs and the benefits greatly outweigh any adjustments that I have to make to take care of them both.
I wasn’t planning on getting another dog. Like Jasper, Onyx was put in my path. Actually, I think it would be accurate to say that Junior was involved in bringing Onyx to me.
My mail lady, Jill, loved Junior. She would get out of her mail truck and bring him a cookie if she saw him at the gate even if she didn’t have mail that needed to come to the door. One day years ago I asked her if she had a chiropractor. Jill told me about the one she went to who worked on her and her dogs.
Dr. DeGrasse has her people practice three days a week in a regular office. On Tuesday and Thursday she practices out of an animal hospital. One Wednesday in June of this year I went in for an adjustment. Dr. DeGrasse asked me if I had thought about getting a friend for Jasper. I said I’d thought about it but hadn’t pursued it. (Actually the thought was fleeting since it had come just before I found that Jasper had eaten the bathroom trash again. Do you know how hard it is to get mad at a dog with a cotton ball stuck to its nose?)
Anyway, Dr. DeGrasse said a woman who worked at the animal hospital had found a puppy on the backside of Silverlake the past Sunday. (Backside means it was in a very remote, unpopulated area of a recreational lake.) The puppy was a female and had an eye infection but otherwise seemed okay. She said the woman who found her couldn’t keep the puppy because her dog wouldn’t allow another one in the house. So, like I knew exactly what I was doing, I got in my car and drove to the animal hospital to “look” at the puppy.
They brought the puppy out to me. I took her and sat with her for quite awhile. She was quiet, very thin, and had the saddest look on her face. I don’t care what anyone says. Dogs have facial expression and I’m not reading anything into it.
I was sitting in the waiting room with her and it seemed that most everyone there (clients) knew the puppy’s plight. When the puppy put her head on my shoulder and snuggled in, everyone in the room went, “Ahhhh”. Soon they were all saying, “Take her. Take her.” It was like they’d been practicing the chant before I got there because they were synchronized in the way only practice can achieve. Think Queen’s ” We Will Rock You”.
Well, I didn’t take her. I didn’t have a crate in the car and I wasn’t yet sure that I should take her. I went home and told Michael what I’d done and what I was thinking about doing. Michael is a friend who was staying with me at the time. If I got the dog, it would be my responsibility, not his. But, Michael is a good person to bounce ideas off of and has no qualms about telling me when I’m nuts. To my absolute amazement he immediately said to go get her. So, I did. Actually, we both went.
Michael took the puppy to the car while I waited inside to get the medicine for her eye. When I came out, he suggested that if I was going to stick with the “rock hound” theme for names, the only ones he could think of for a black dog were obsidian and onyx. Onyx she’d be.
The first stop was PetSmart. She needed a collar, a name tag, a leash and bowls of her very own. Things got out of hand in the toy department. I’d pick up a toy for her and Michael would earnestly ‘recommend’ that Jasper get a new toy, too. $112.00 later we were on the way home to stage two - introducing a new dog to ‘home dog’.
Before Jasper crashed into my life, I was privileged to share myself with Junior, a liver and white Brittany. I got him when he was 6 weeks old. We moved across the country three times. He loved, loved, loved to ride in the car. After we were ‘really’ on the road (doing highway speed) he would curl up into the smallest ball possible on the floor behind the passenger seat and wouldn’t move until the car slowed down, which, for him, meant the window would come down, he could put his head out and that a walk was in his near future.
He had a wanton disregard for any authority, most especially mine. I turned him over to a professional trainer who took him into her home for a week. Thereafter, Junior and I would meet her in a field for an hour each week where she taught me to train Junior. Two beautiful relationships came out of that experience - mine and Junior’s and mine and Peggy’s. Dogs truly bring blessings from the most unexpected places.
Junior died at the age of 13. The last year of his life was difficult for us both, but most especially for him. He had a kidney disorder, he had become blind, arthritic, senile. I struggled with the issue of ‘humanely euthanizing’ him, but just could not do it.
The day after Christmas 2002 I woke up and walked into a flooded bathroom. I mention this because I’m sure many of you have experienced similar upheavals and their effect on familial peace and well-being. Because plumbers cease to exist on 12/26, we went about figuring out how to manage living without running water. Around 6 PM that night Junior began gasping for air and choking. I called the vet who agreed to wait for us.
The vet confirmed what I already knew. He could ease Junior’s discomfort, help him to go on, but the quality of his life should be considered. That night I made the decision I had been unable to make until that moment. Junior was clearly suffering. Michael and I said goodbye to this dear soul, thanked him for being such a good companion for so long. We sat on the floor holding him for what seemed like only moments, but in looking back the vet and his staff had let us stay with him for about half an hour before coming back in. The injection was quickly effective. It was a relief to see Junior relax. The vet tech started to take off his collar and I slapped her hand away. I didn’t want anyone else to touch him. I took his collar and started to cry. Hard, heavy sobs that can only come from deep within one’s soul.
My mother sent me a plant with a note of condolence. Friends sent cards and email and called me. After those first few days of his passing, no one ever mentioned him or dogs to me again. For years. My sorrow was more apparent to them than it was to me. I didn’t realize that until a friend gave me a battery-operated dog for Christmas in 2004. I took the toy to our family gathering and commented how odd it was that none of them had thought of giving me something similar. Their response was that they would never have brought up another dog because of my grief over Junior. Until that day I hadn’t appreciated the depth of their sensitivity for the loss of my pal.
A few months after that I began looking at dogs on PetFinder.com and other rescue sites. I read the pet section of Penny Saver every week. Just looking, you understand. I wasn’t ready to bring another one into my life yet, but I enjoyed looking at them, reading about them, wondering if we’d ‘fit’.
Late summer of 2005 I decided that I would begin to search for a new companion. I decided I wanted an adult female, A rescue dog, of course. Beyond that, nothing was definite. I couldn’t decide whether to look at the breed rescues or the ‘generic’ rescues. I wasn’t in a hurry, so I looked at them all. Small dogs, medium dogs - I wasn’t set on size either. All I knew was that I wanted an adult female, preferably one that wasn’t too needy, not too aloof, preferrably with some manners and housebroken. Just right, you know?
There is a Great Pyrenees rescue kennel a few miles from my home. I researched the breed and thought we might be a match. I arranged with the owner to visit the kennel on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
Of all the dogs there, a female named Allie was the one who captured me. She was 10 years old. As much as I liked her, I could not put myself into the position of likely going through a loss again in a year or two. The kennel owner, Dottie, and I stood there and we both cried as I told her about Junior and then she told me about her loss of a treasured dog. I wish I’d been strong enough to take Allie in, to love her for however long we had together. But I wasn’t. As it turned out, the universe had other plans for me.
At first I didn’t think he was magnificent. He was cheerfully oblivious of his unfortunate situation, he smelled bad, and from the moment we met he made it clear that he was in charge, unless he wanted me to think I was.
All smelly, arrogant 12 pounds of him crashed into my life a few days after Thanksgiving last year. I had just pulled out of my driveway, going to return a movie. It was dark. As I turned the corner, I glanced to the right and saw a puppy sitting against a garage door, spotlighted by a security light at the eave of the garage. We made eye contact and he ran straight toward the car. I stopped and got out to be sure he was okay and found him under my car. He came right to me, not as a wiggly little bundle as most 3 month old puppies would, but bold as brass on a dead run. I reached out to pick him up and that’s when the smell hit me. What on earth was that smell?!
I picked him up and went to the door of the house he’d come from. No one was home. There was nothing to do but take him with me and try again later to return him. I put him in the back of the SUV. Fortunately he was too little to jump over the seat and spread his love all over the interior of my new vehicle.
All the way to the store, he softly cried. I talked to him, but it did no good. He was going to tellme his story and there would be no consolation. I returned the movie, then went next door to the grocery store and bought a small bag of puppy food. Since it was just after Thanksgiving, I thought the puppy’s owners may be out of town (hey, it happens), or maybe he didn’t belong to that house, whatever. I wasn’t going to let the little guy go hungry while I figured out what to do with him.
As I turned the corner back into my neighborhood, I saw a car in the driveway of the puppy’s house. An odd feeling of relief and sadness came over me at the sight. I left him in the car and went to the door. The woman said the puppy belonged to her roommates and she didn’t think they wanted him anymore. She said he jumped on their toddler, nipped and bit everyone and had probably dug himself out from under the fence. I told her that I’d keep the puppy until she talked to her roommates. But, she insisted on taking him. I had her describe him before I’d give him back. Over the course of our short conversation I became very concerned about the little guy’s well-being. I made sure she knew where I lived (across the street, kitty-cornered from her house). To be sure she understood (or, probably that I felt heard), I repeated several times that I’d take the puppy if they no longer wanted it. Reluctantly, I handed over the smelly bundle and drove the 25 feet or so to my house.
I parked, got into the house, dropped the grocery bag with dog food and receipt by the back door to return the next day and went to wash my hands. While I was drying them, the doorbell rang. Wondering who’d be at my door at this time of night, I was stunned to see the neighbor with the puppy hanging under her arm and holding an empty, battered dog dish in the other. She cheerfully informed me that, yep, she was right, they didn’t want him. I took the dog and the dish from her and watched her walk back into the night.
I’ll always wonder if they’d have kept the puppy if I hadn’t bought dog food.