Dogs and Their People

My family has always had dogs.  We're just dog people, and the family unit doesn't seem complete unless there is a dog or two at our heels.  I hardly remember a time when we didn't have one around.  I do remember each of them fondly of course, as one should any family pet.  Sam, Josie, Mike, Lilly, Jasper, Max, Toby, Crackerjack, Molly, and Mickey.  My wife's family is the same way- dogs are a prominent part of the organization and we can't do it without them.

We've had cats as well, but it's been a long time, and not since this was a family of my own creation.  Not that I don't like cats, but I just much prefer the companionship and loyalty of dogs over the the aloof pretentiousness of cats.  I'm joking a little there, but not much, and I like to tease Sarge to some extent with how dogs are better.

Dogs are just more friendly and laid-back than cats.  If a cat could talk and saw you sitting on the toilet, it would say with a little disdain "Hmph, you are sitting on my drinking bowl."  If a dog saw you there, it would say "Cool!  You can drink with your butt!"

The Teenangster LOVES cats, but they don't like her.  Like me, she's horribly allergic to them.  If we even pet a cat for just a moment, our sinuses get their revenge shortly thereafter, with itchy eyes and nasal retribution second only to tear gas.  Pre-medicating with Benadryl when she visits a friend with a cat seems to do the trick though.  The cats we used to have when we lived in the woods of Oregon were all outdoor cats.  Good hunters, every one of 'em, to the point that we barely needed to feed them, the cat food going untouched for days, except maybe for the the occasional thieving Blue Jay.

I don't really remember what became of them- probably lost in the woods to one predator or another.  Not a long life I suppose, but grieving over the cats isn't something we did.  We had plenty of animals on that little farm of ours- dogs and cats, chickens, goats rabbits and ducks.  The goats we gave away.  Chickens became dinner after their usefulness (egg laying) became less frequent.  The dogs were the cause of an inauspicious death to the poor ducks, since the little pond off our creek didn't offer any protection like the chicken coop.  The rabbits were delicious in the stew my dad made, but I was sworn to secrecy by him, lest my sisters discover that those cute little bunnies were no longer.  There were several stews of course, since rabbits do what rabbits do.  I'm sure my folks made up some excuse about selling them or something innocuous.

But back to cats for a moment.

We never did anything that entertaining with our cats, but we didn't do much of anything with them.  They weren't really pets as much as they were part of the farm- ridding our woodshed and little barn of vermin.  So when we didn't have them, there wasn't any mourning or sadness, partially because they were just gone- no little kitty carcasses for us to find and feel bad about.  Other than my little sister, none of us got very attached to the cats, or any of the other animals.  Maybe I'm just a little callous, but the animals had a job on the farm, not a place in the family.

The dogs were different.  We loved them and they loved us.  They were allowed in the house, and could run free during the day; chaining them up wasn't an option.  Josie, Mike and Max all ran away, or so we thought.  It wasn't until the advent of Facebook that I got in touch with an old neighbor I grew up with.  She confessed that her dad had killed each of them, just for them walking on his property.  Out in the woods, there was no trash service.  You just burned it when the pile got big enough, or the 50 gallon drum was full.  Everyone had at least 5 acres, so that was done far enough from the house to not be a nuisance.  Our dogs digging through that pile was too much of a nuisance to him however. 

Special place in hell.   

But anyhoo.  The rest of those loyal companions had had more traditional end of life stories.  Lilly- old and sick.  Toby was given to another family after all us kids moved away and my mom couldn't have pets in her new apartment. Crackerjack slipped a disk in his back due to being overweight, so his relief received no doggy treats whatsoever.  My wife had to put him down when I was on deployment which was hard for both of us.  The kids felt it as well as he was their first pet.  After him we only waited until I returned from deployment to fill the open position- A beagle named Molly, the fat thieving gluttonous Houdini pig dog as I nicknamed her.   The worst behaved dog we've ever had, but the one with the most personality, smarts, and which brought the most joy to us.

“Dogs are great. Bad dogs, if you can really call them that, are perhaps the greatest of them all.” 
― John Grogan, Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog

That's her being quite the diva, sleeping soundly on the couch, which was completely against the rules of course, but that rule apparently was only enforceable until we left the room.  That was one of her more minor infractions, the more egregious ones being food-related.  As a hound, her nose was incredible.  I once spilled the tiniest drop of steak juice on the counter and she was immediately there sniffing just below the spot on the counter.  She could go to any length to get food.  We couldn't put dish towels on the fridge since she learned how to pull it open.  While she got relatively heavy later in life (food thievery, not overfeeding) and we thought that the counters were impossible to reach, she somehow found a way.  We once caught her buddy, the ever-springy Jack Russell Terrier on the counter pushing a loaf off to her waiting jaws.  The items pilfered included countless loaves of bread, a whole bag of Hershey's kisses (foil and all), 2 lbs of peppermint bark (not enough to kill her, but she couldn't keep it down), a box of Cheerios, probably a dozen boxes of Girl Scout cookies over the years, Valentines/Easter/Halloween/Christmas candy, a single lollipop that had fallen between our mattress and headboard (from which resulted in a partially shredded mattress), bags and bags of chips, leftover lunches (and shredded backpacks), momentarily abandoned steaks at the dinner table, scented soaps, boxes of tea bags, 29 out of 30 pills of cherry-flavored seizure medication (stomach pumping and doggy rehab followed), and so much more.  She was fine after eating those meds by the way- just stoned out of her mind.

  

The Teenangster and her pup in younger days.

Plenty of things on that list that should be VERY harmful to a normal dog, but not her as she apparently had a cast-iron stomach.  Unfortunately, she died of a brain tumor in her sleep at 10 years old, and my wife is still sad about it, although how she coped was cathartic.  That left us with only Mickey, who is now 17 years old.  That's quite old for any dog and he's really showing it, having trouble getting up, getting down, walking, holding it in, and pretty much anything.  My wife brought out his leash last night which normally would have gotten him excited, and did up until a few weeks ago, but he just sheepishly turned his head and laid down in his spot.  The bad days almost outnumber the good days now, so I know he won't be around much longer.  I had hoped he'd last until my daughter went off to college- very fond of the old guy she is- but that's a half a year a way and he's aging before our eyes.

This one will be the hardest.  Molly was so much fun, and her passing was unexpected, but Mickey is going to be the last and I know I'll be quite sad.  You see, he's going to be the first pet I've had to put down myself, almost all the others were the responsibility of my Dad, or they had less-than-normal end of life stories.  Except for Crackerjack; he went down for the long nap on my wife's watch.  And we've decided that all the travel we'd like to do over the next decade or so wouldn't be fair to another four-legged family member.  

For all the grief the dogs gave us, especially Molly, I'd do it again in a heartbeat if my kids were young again.  The joy they brought to us was immeasurable and when I think back on our life stories, the dogs lives are tightly interwoven into each chapter. 

“Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day. 
It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them.” 
― John Grogan, Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog