Monday, March 23, 2020
Monday, March 3, 2008
Monday, November 12, 2007
Sadie
11/1/2007
We'd adopted Mocha, our Chocolate Labrador Retriever for our younger child, Elliot in about 1990. He was age six then; she was about twelve weeks. She helped raise that kid; actually, she did raise him -- his mother Karen, sister Jessica and I assisted.
OK, I exaggerate, she didn't quite raise him but she taught him things a dog can teach and they were important things. She taught him boundless tolerance. She taught him that when you are mean to someone you love, it hurts you too. She showed him that when a parent sends you to your room for misbehaving, there is someone who will go with you even though she's innocent of your crime. She raised Elliot's levels of compassion, sensitivity and responsibility for the rest of his life.
We all loved that dog as families do. She was family.
But labs age too fast and die too early. She was 13 and Elliot had just turned 20 the day that her age and arthritis won out. She finally couldn't get up the few steps to the back deck and she was tired of trying. Her eyes spoke pain as she looked at me for relief -- one paw on the bottom step, the others refusing to climb. "Get me out of this" they said.
It was time.
I waited until Elliot arrived for the weekend. Pained and reluctant as he was, he saw it too. Together, we took her to the vet. We were two guys walking into the lobby carrying an old brown dog and we were too choked up to answer the receptionist's simple query, "Can I help you?"
"Oh...." she said as she looked more attentively, "I'll get the vet."
We asked the vet if there was an alternative to the inevitable. "No," he said "it's the end of the road."
After the euthanasia, Elliot wrapped Mocha's body in the old blanket that he'd had since he was five and we took her home. We buried her in it in a corner of the backyard. It is hard to dig through clay and mud with tears in your eyes but we respectfully did it, passing the shovel back and forth and wiping aside tears. This was the first time I truly experienced my son as a man, sharing a painful problem of love the way adults share such things: hurting but baring up and doing what needed to be done.
After all, she was only a dog.....
Anyone who let that last dismissive sentence go by without dismay, has never been owned by a pooch. One of the rules of love is, it hurts. Another is that, at some point, the relationship ends and there is grief. Pets help teach us those facts.
Like many aged family dogs, Mocha had been left behind with Mom and Dad when the kids moved out. Now our home was both childless and dogless. But I knew I would eventually need a dog for myself and Karen (mostly for myself.) I knew I would want a rescue dog when the time finally came.
I expected it to take months or longer for me to grieve Mocha and then be ready but in just three short days after burying Mocha, I found myself compelled to go to the pound. Life without a dog was just not life enough.
I don't know much about other dog pounds in other cities, but Akron, Ohio's dog pound is a civic shame, a hell on earth. Dog hell. Hell to walk into. Hell to smell. Hell on the ears, with some pups whining as others bark in - legitimate - rage and fear. "Man's Best Friend" betrayed daily. Locked behind bars in cages a few feet square. Waiting to be killed.
And it is hell to pick out one dog knowing you are leaving the others to die. Which would I choose? Which would I condemn: All the others....
Sparing you further detail, I noticed a plain looking, black mongrel sitting very lady-like -- sort of side saddle -- on her haunches in the back of her cage looking at me with quiet anticipation.
I also noted that my human escort -- the guard? warden? executioner? whatever -- had become distracted so I opened her cage and let her out. She looked ragged and smelled worse than eight wet dogs. The tips of her ears looked like they'd been chewed raw by horse flies. Her fur was dirty and greasy. She was a grungy, neglected and abandoned street mutt whose only elegance lay in her demeanor.
She was clearly not a candidate for the "prestigious" Westminster Dog Show and clearly not AKC registered, but when I told and signaled her to sit, she sat. As I bent down she gently licked my nose (is that dog talk for "thanks for getting me out if only for a moment?")
I thought maybe this was the one but she had to go back into her cage while I checked with the guards. When I told her to go back in and pointed, she reluctantly did just that.
OK, done deal. This nondescript black mutt would assume the genuinely prestigious title of "My Dog." To the staff's credit, when I enquired how I might adopt her, they seemed thrilled. I think killing dogs and cats all day must wear on the soul. They don't get many "rescues." Less than 3%.
Rachael, a thirteen year old friend of ours asked if she could name my new dog and I said she could. Her name would be "Sadie."
We have a half acre backyard of mostly open grass lined by trees and bushes. When I brought Sadie home for the first time she jumped from the car and looked at me in apparent anticipation so I waved my hand and said "OK!" She took off in such wild exuberance that I momentarily feared she was running off. But she just circled the yard several times at full speed. I was stunned by her speed. She's one of the fastest dogs I have ever seen; I suppose street mongrels have to run for their lives. But she didn't take off, somehow she knew that this was now her space to celebrate.
In an hour she had gone from a tiny cage for discarded, unloved and condemned dogs to freedom, security, relationship and home.
After about three loops of the yard she slowed to do a little sniffing and then settled across the yard and looked back at me. Of all the places, she was laying right next to Mocha's still fresh grave. Defying logic I knew then that our old dog had guided me to my new dog.
Dogs can be very spiritual teachers.
MOCHA & SADIE
We'd adopted Mocha, our Chocolate Labrador Retriever for our younger child, Elliot in about 1990. He was age six then; she was about twelve weeks. She helped raise that kid; actually, she did raise him -- his mother Karen, sister Jessica and I assisted.
OK, I exaggerate, she didn't quite raise him but she taught him things a dog can teach and they were important things. She taught him boundless tolerance. She taught him that when you are mean to someone you love, it hurts you too. She showed him that when a parent sends you to your room for misbehaving, there is someone who will go with you even though she's innocent of your crime. She raised Elliot's levels of compassion, sensitivity and responsibility for the rest of his life.
We all loved that dog as families do. She was family.
But labs age too fast and die too early. She was 13 and Elliot had just turned 20 the day that her age and arthritis won out. She finally couldn't get up the few steps to the back deck and she was tired of trying. Her eyes spoke pain as she looked at me for relief -- one paw on the bottom step, the others refusing to climb. "Get me out of this" they said.
It was time.
I waited until Elliot arrived for the weekend. Pained and reluctant as he was, he saw it too. Together, we took her to the vet. We were two guys walking into the lobby carrying an old brown dog and we were too choked up to answer the receptionist's simple query, "Can I help you?"
"Oh...." she said as she looked more attentively, "I'll get the vet."
We asked the vet if there was an alternative to the inevitable. "No," he said "it's the end of the road."
After the euthanasia, Elliot wrapped Mocha's body in the old blanket that he'd had since he was five and we took her home. We buried her in it in a corner of the backyard. It is hard to dig through clay and mud with tears in your eyes but we respectfully did it, passing the shovel back and forth and wiping aside tears. This was the first time I truly experienced my son as a man, sharing a painful problem of love the way adults share such things: hurting but baring up and doing what needed to be done.
After all, she was only a dog.....
Anyone who let that last dismissive sentence go by without dismay, has never been owned by a pooch. One of the rules of love is, it hurts. Another is that, at some point, the relationship ends and there is grief. Pets help teach us those facts.
Like many aged family dogs, Mocha had been left behind with Mom and Dad when the kids moved out. Now our home was both childless and dogless. But I knew I would eventually need a dog for myself and Karen (mostly for myself.) I knew I would want a rescue dog when the time finally came.
I expected it to take months or longer for me to grieve Mocha and then be ready but in just three short days after burying Mocha, I found myself compelled to go to the pound. Life without a dog was just not life enough.
I don't know much about other dog pounds in other cities, but Akron, Ohio's dog pound is a civic shame, a hell on earth. Dog hell. Hell to walk into. Hell to smell. Hell on the ears, with some pups whining as others bark in - legitimate - rage and fear. "Man's Best Friend" betrayed daily. Locked behind bars in cages a few feet square. Waiting to be killed.
And it is hell to pick out one dog knowing you are leaving the others to die. Which would I choose? Which would I condemn: All the others....
Sparing you further detail, I noticed a plain looking, black mongrel sitting very lady-like -- sort of side saddle -- on her haunches in the back of her cage looking at me with quiet anticipation.
I also noted that my human escort -- the guard? warden? executioner? whatever -- had become distracted so I opened her cage and let her out. She looked ragged and smelled worse than eight wet dogs. The tips of her ears looked like they'd been chewed raw by horse flies. Her fur was dirty and greasy. She was a grungy, neglected and abandoned street mutt whose only elegance lay in her demeanor.
She was clearly not a candidate for the "prestigious" Westminster Dog Show and clearly not AKC registered, but when I told and signaled her to sit, she sat. As I bent down she gently licked my nose (is that dog talk for "thanks for getting me out if only for a moment?")
I thought maybe this was the one but she had to go back into her cage while I checked with the guards. When I told her to go back in and pointed, she reluctantly did just that.
OK, done deal. This nondescript black mutt would assume the genuinely prestigious title of "My Dog." To the staff's credit, when I enquired how I might adopt her, they seemed thrilled. I think killing dogs and cats all day must wear on the soul. They don't get many "rescues." Less than 3%.
Rachael, a thirteen year old friend of ours asked if she could name my new dog and I said she could. Her name would be "Sadie."
We have a half acre backyard of mostly open grass lined by trees and bushes. When I brought Sadie home for the first time she jumped from the car and looked at me in apparent anticipation so I waved my hand and said "OK!" She took off in such wild exuberance that I momentarily feared she was running off. But she just circled the yard several times at full speed. I was stunned by her speed. She's one of the fastest dogs I have ever seen; I suppose street mongrels have to run for their lives. But she didn't take off, somehow she knew that this was now her space to celebrate.
In an hour she had gone from a tiny cage for discarded, unloved and condemned dogs to freedom, security, relationship and home.
After about three loops of the yard she slowed to do a little sniffing and then settled across the yard and looked back at me. Of all the places, she was laying right next to Mocha's still fresh grave. Defying logic I knew then that our old dog had guided me to my new dog.
Dogs can be very spiritual teachers.
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