Requiem pour Ma Chienne

It was a difficult time over Christmas, 2008.  Mrs. Andrew, beloved of Beans, she of the scooter people (powered wheelchair) had just been robbed, the second time, while in her chair.  People at her work were still giving her poop about being in a power chair (like she had any choice in getting cancer on her spine and then no-one doing anything about stabilizing the area until after it was too damned late.)  And she was doing tutoring in an underperforming school in the worse section of our city, travelling from work to school and back in her chair.

So, under fear for her life, and to make her life better, Mrs. Andrew announced the need for a service dog.  One to help with mobility and all the things that she needed when I wasn’t around, like something or someone to help her up in bed and such.

The search began.  Various organizations dealing with dogs for the disabled were contacted, and all were found wanting.  Like, because we weren’t totally broke they wanted a king’s ransom for a mobility dog.  Stuff like that.  One organization, which shall remain nameless, turned out to be run by a seriously bat-shirt crazy human (insert name for female dog) who would ‘lease’ the animal for 4-5 years, and then ‘retire’ the animal by putting it down  (see, I wasn’t kidding about  the woman being bat-shirt crazy.)

So, we decided to go it alone.  Just so you know, this is perfectly legal, moral and correct.  Unlike what you may think or have heard, there is no legal requirement for professional certification of either the trainer, handler, or the animal.  There are guidelines, dealing with the temperament of the dog, and what is and isn’t allowed (One can question the service of the animal, one may not require said animal to perform a ‘dog and pony show’ to prove it can do what it can do.)(And ‘professional certification’ is available over the internet for not much money, and is worth exactly what you pay for it.)

Mrs. Andrew started looking at various breeds, working through a list of needs that she had, including aid in picking stuff up because Beans is a ‘mental’ slob (seriously, I ‘don’t’ see some things until pointed out,) aid in transferring from whatever to whatever, aid in sitting up, aid in stable chair-walking (chair walking is when one walks by hanging onto things, walls, chairs, side of van)(at this time Mrs. Andrew was still somewhat mobile, good for 30 steps (aided) before woe occurred.), and… towing.  What?  Towing?  When electric chair gets stuck in sand or when it runs out of juice unexpectedly, as they are wont to do depending on age of batteries or weather conditions, the dog would be required to help move the chair.

Parameters in place, My Empress looked for breeds that could:  be trained and handle a number of commands and learn new ones all the time; go from full loaf to activity, and back with no problem; be able to tow; be able to support or brace; and be suitably big enough to scare off future potential thieves and miscreants.

Which pretty much left it in the ‘large farm dog’ category, and she settled on looking at Bernese Mountain Dogs, until she found out that they don’t handle changes to their surroundings well, at all.  Stymied by this, she reset her search and discovered… Rottweilers.  Oh, no!

Seriously.  A farm dog, designed to do everything from protecting new-born lambs and young children to ripping the throats out of evil-doers, while also doing herding and carting (one of the reason you dock their tails, by the way) and overall a  general purpose dog.  Carting, that means pulling things like stranded wheelchairs and such.  Breed selected, insurance company contacted (because of ‘bully breed’ stupidity) and USAA (thanks, mom and dad for serving) says no problem with Rotties on my insurance (a nice 10 minute conversation about… rotties with the nice lady on the phone, because she had 3.)

And then the search began, and because I live in a leftist hell-hole in an otherwise non-leftist paradise (Florida) the local search was no-bueno.  Other rescue agencies were turned down because we could not meet their strict background check or home check (we had no fence and they didn’t care that the dog would be attended 24/7/365-366) or for just pure admin bull-scat (Oh, your last name starts with "w", that doesn't work for us.)

We finally found a Rottie Rescue located in rural Georgia (state, not nation) and Mrs. Andrew found several potential candidates and had nice long discussions with the owners and it looked good.  And then Mrs. Andrew was totally surprised because Beans said, “Well, this weekend is free, let’s go Saturday!”  Which caused Mrs. Andrew to about pass out in shock because Beans does not do spontaneous.   Seriously.  Spontaneous to me is planning only 2 months in advance.  I do not do well at all at sudden change of plans.  Oh, movie sold out, how about… No.  Let’s go now to XYZ… No.  How about… No.  I don’t like trying cooking new meals because I don’t know how long it will take.  So big decisions done on the fly?  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!   So I said, on a Wednesday night, “Let’s go Saturday (like 3 days away.)”

Saturday comes, after 2 days of prep, buying and building bedding, getting leashes and bowls and food and toys and a doggy crate and making room in the van (2 not-small people, a powered wheelchair, manual ramp, electric hoist, cooler for food and a dog crate.  Yeah.  A van.  No cars for the Beans Family. (future story on vehicles.))  And we were off to Rural Georgia, to a Rottie Rescue.

We get there, and the owners have two beautiful rottie candidates, sisters supposedly, just a year or smidge older.  Mrs. Andrew is in the yard in her chair, and the first dog comes up near her and swerves and looks fearful but still nice.  Second dog came out, pulled immediately to Mrs. Andrew, sat down right in front of her, placed her head on M.A.’s chest, looked up, both sets of eyes met, there was an audible “Bong” and the dog immediately got on MA’s left side, looked up at her, and said, “Let’s go, Mom!” and away they went, all over the property (wherever the damned chair would go.)

Thus was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

We had to immediately deal with her employer spazzing out over her having a dog, even though they said it was okay before she brought the dog (yes, she checked and got an a-okay before starting the process.  She’s a lot nicer than I am.   What is it about liberal establishments that sucks donkey farts?)

And after that settled down (She won, as the Fed Gov does not look positively at institutions that suck and don’t follow certain federal rules) we had months of fun with our new dog, Liesl.  Liesl?  Yes.  Good Germanic name for a good Germanic dog.  Much better than the stupid Africanish name the rescue gave her (not saying African names are bad.  Hell, if I had a Rhodesian Ridgeback (do they call them Zimbabwean Ridgebacks now?) I would probably name it some name from that area.  But Liesl’s a Rottweiler, a breed from, Rottweil, so tough nuggies.)  We went to Gulf Wars and Li-li enjoyed the fine art of water bearing, using her double pannier pack to carry lots of liquid refreshments to thirsty people, and she tried to retrieve dropped spears during the Trimarian Spear Tourney (spears only, more later) and we got to find out that Liesl already knew to pull as Mrs. A’s chair decided to run out of go-juice (cold weather affecting batteries) and managed to pull said chair and Mrs. A about halfway to the appointed pickup point before I stumbled across the whole caravan on the way from fighting.

And then… April 13^th happened.  Mrs. Andrew’s brain decided to try to commit seppuku by having a deep brain aneurism burst (Thanks, Tracy and the rest of you a-holes for putting way to much stress on my sweet wife, you bunch of jerks) and so off to hospital for her and so Beans found Liesl suckling his neck because she missed mommy and they wouldn't let him or the dog stay in the hospital, or both of them together stay in the hospital (jerks.)(Seriously. Laying in our bed all alone and wake up to Liesl sucking my neck in her sleep and crying because mommy wasn't there.  Which matched me crying because mommy wasn't there.  I am.... a blubber-butt.)

Well, we all survived that particular brand of horror, and Liesl self-taught herself to alert to all the wonderful, new and exciting side effects of a deep brain bleed.  Like inability to control body temp, seizures, fluctuating blood sugars and, well, don't ever get a bleed on top of your central brain core, m-kay?  Yay, Liesl.  Good girl.

And when Mrs. A got a massive gut infection from another operation (“Oh, that’s normal post op swelling.” Yeah, sure.  (insert mental video clip of gates of Hell flooding out)) Li-Li alerted us to that, too.  So years and years of Her taking care of Mrs. A. and getting along with Beans.  Seriously saving Mrs. A from stupid crap like other dogs and the occasional seizure and fracked up blood sugars and such.  Good girl, goooood girl.

Then Beans went bad.  Like, really bad in a non-evil, life sucks way.  And Liesl thought she could fix Daddy by climbing up on Daddy and holding him down (all 116lbs of her) for hours and hours until Daddy eventually got better.  And Liesl was right.  She fixed Daddy.

All this time she was sweet, and adorable and quiet, never barking except at thunderstorms in her sleep or a short 'Hey' type bark to get our attention.  And she would gum me most fulsomely (people were always asking about her biting me, and I would just cram my fingers in her mouth and she would gum me.)  She never bit or clamped down, but lipped us like a horse does.  And we took her to the hospital with us, and she stayed with Mrs. A. except the one time Mrs. A was in the ICU (and the ass-hats at my work got pissed at me for taking her to work until my mom could come dog-sit.)  Liesl went everywhere we did, except for Radiology and Surgery.

Late September 2017, Liesl started tripping over her left front paw, and then started licking the paw when she was laying down.  Eventually Beans got the picture, and took her to a vet, which resulted in her losing a toe to cancer.  And then after recovering from that, in November she lost another toe to that evil thing.   After that, she was back to herself, slightly lopsided from missing two toes, but still running and pulling and taking care of her humans.  And Christmas with the whole family at the ancient Floridian family home was wonderful.

Come mid January, 2018, the evil returned.  And the vet gave the news that no more operations were possible, and gave Li-li about a month or so to live.  And told us we’d know when it was time. And one of her remaining toes disappeared into a tumor that slowly grew.

So Beans twice daily washed and dressed her foot, rebandaging (paper towels, wrapped around tumor, covered by 2 lady socks, with a dog shoe over the whole thing) and giving her pain meds (piece of bread, smear with mayo, fold over, break into two pieces, insert pills in the fold, let Liesl the horse dog swallow.)  And Liesl kept on taking care of Mrs. A and Beans and continuing her campaign to grind Beans' left patella to dust by grinding her back on it while turning over like a dufus.  Or her continuing campaign to castrate Beans by nut-punching him with her rear legs while asleep and chasing rabbits (seriously, running in sleep, eyes open, snoring like a banshee snoring, somedays I wanted to wear a cup to bed, 10 friggin years of at least once a week getting racked, yay me.)

Until Sunday, June 3rd (I am beginning to dread Sundays, bad things happen to me on Sundays,) when her rear legs gave out and made it hard to stand, walk, pee or anything else that needs rear leg usage, and she didn’t want to eat.  And it was time.

So, Monday, June 4^th, after a wonderful day spent with her laying on both of us and everyone sharing lots and lots of love, I got the splendid and most wonderful task of doing what no real person wants to do.   We bundled her into the van (a newer one than the one before) and loaded up Mrs. A and Lurch the Chair and drove to the rainbow bridge.

Sorry for the depressing post, but I dare not burden Mrs. Andrew too much with my pain as she’s in too much already.

And no pics because Liesl took horrible pictures and Mrs. A’s phone ate the only good ones we had.

So, picture a 116lb German-stock Rottweiler with the softest mouth ever  doing that silly Rottweiler smile and just a big black-and-tan marshmallow, and that’s Liesl.

Liesl

Born:  sometime late 2007, early 2008
Entered Our Lives:  January 17, 2009
Left Our Lives:  June 4, 2018

She saved Mrs. Andrew from the world and she saved Beans from himself.