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| Dog Days |
| 06.10.05 (9:45 pm) [edit] |
Currently, I'm babytsitting a house in which lives a very large and dumb dog. Grover is a Yellow Lab and he is one of thte slowest moving, most easily confused pups I've ever met. Yeah, yeah, Labs are easy to train, but that's because they're incredibly loyal to the pack. This guy has smoke coming out of his ears if you give him more than one command per hour. He reminds me of Lou.
Lou was a mutt who came to me one night at about 11 pm. My friend called me and told me that while she was at the park walking her dogs she saw an SUV drive by and a dog was thrown from its window. She said that since she already had two kids two dogs and an epileptic unemployed husband, she would be relieved if I took the pooch off her hands, at least to find a permanent home for him. The next day I took him to my vet.
He was pronounced healthy and I named him Lou because I already had a Thelma and I was very much the "Louise" of the group. He wieghed eleven pounds and had a birthmark on his head from being smashed against the uterine wall of his mother. It looked like he had had botched highlights that came up orange, otherwise, he was black. His hair was silky fine and wavy. This hair/fur, in reality it was really fur, because he shed like no other, was about 5 inches long and very thick. Lou was a chow mostly and mixed with who knows what.
I love Chow-Chow dogs because of how independant they are. They are loyal but tend to smoke the hair out of their ears when they think about simple commands such as, "come". "Sit" was never a problem for Lou, in fact, I used it as a base for the rest of his training. When Lou was confused he would sit. I would command, "sit", he would and then I'd reward him. In the same tone of voice I would command, "potty" while he was peeing and he'd look at me like I was being disolved by a laser and I'd give him a treat. After a few weeks that command stuck. I potty trained him in one afternoon when I busted him shitting behind my couch when I happened to have a plastic bag in my hand. I was taking him out every twenty minutes when I was home and he wasn't in the crate. At minute 19 he was pooping behind my couch and I caught all 12 pounds of him in my left hand all the shit in my right hand and screamed, "NO POTTY INSIDE! POTTY OUTSIDE! POTTY OUTSIDE!", and throwing him on the ground outiside next to where I had thrown his shit, I said, "good boy, potty outside, potty outside." For Lou, potty meant shitting and "do it" meant peeing. I've trained all of my dogs to go potty on command this way. He never pooped in the house again.
Then he grew to be a 65 pound dog with a very slow metabolism. I engaged him in many conversations about how unfair it is to be big and not be able to eat anything for fear of gaining weight. He would look at me and tilt his head, waiting for a word he understood. His IQ didn't gain with his weight.
Thelma weighing a whopping 38 pounds ate two cups of food each day and made the biggest poops I've ever seen come out of a short legged creature. (Thelma is half Basset Hound-half Labrador) Lou was mostly Chow, but ate a cup and a half of food each day and was overweight at 65 pounds. I couldn't feed him less because I was worried he would lack nutrition so I exercised him. His square, compact, and solid frame let him go for walks for hours with me. Thelma would run and sniff, pause, sniff some more, and then run away. Lou would keep pace with me for a one and a half hour hike five days a week. He stayed stocky even as I lost weight. Thelma ate more trash to subsidise her starving body. She liked to vomit on my couch.
Thelma now lives with my parents and doesn't vomit very often. They have a fenced yard. Lou lives with the doggy angels because he was a dumb beast. This is the sad part of the tale, but I have to warn you; some might think it's funny. I have learned to love the humor of this sadness because I can't do anything else. Like the show M*A*S*H* made light of war, Lou's life made light of his death. I enjoyed some great times in the 2 1/2 years of dumb Chow.
Lou had incredibly long fur and an undercoat that needed to be raked out bi-monthly with a grooming rake. The force needed to pull out the dead hair was enough to break the rake after one year's use. Three days before the rake broke, I had guests for dinner and made one of my signature dishes and had Tostitos with a Hint of Lime available for dipping in the mushrooms sauteed in wine and broiled with Chihuahua cheese. This particular type of chips has MSG in it and I didn't eat any of the leftover chips. I carefully stored the chips on my fridge because I knew that Lou would eat the garbage when I left. When, on grooming day, I had put the chips in the trash, I was intending to take the bag of trash out when I took Lou out for his 'post groom spin' in the parking lot behind my apartment. Because the rake broke in the middle of the grooming session, I forgot about the chip bag and left for a 20 minute errand to get another rake. When I came home, Lou was dead.
He had snaked the bag out of the trash can, fended off Thelma, (Lou was a big food guarder) and got his static-y head stuffed into a bag of chips and was munching away like mad when he suffocated. I found him with the bag up past his neck and his body splayed like he had collapsed. He died in a good state of mind.
I have never understood death in such severity before. Most of my losses have been the result of HIV related death or Parkinson's or cancers that allow a bit of "pre-grieving" to take place. Lou was my favorite idiot and he was dead as soon as I learned to love him unconditionally. My body went completely out of my control and my arms and head thrashed in a way I could never duplicate without such loss. I had to run to my neighbor's to ask for help because I didn't know what to do with a dead body in my house. This neighbor is one of my oldest friends and he grew up on a farm. He calmed me down and we got a blanket out and lifted Lou to my car and I called the vet and told them I needed to bring her in. Thankfully, my friend can drive a stick and drove me there so I could say my last good-bye.
Dead dogs pee and poop for an hour after they die and Lou made a mess of my hatchback. "Bad dog, potty outside! potty outside!" didn't seem so relevant anymore. I'd give anything to clean up after that beast again....except for the hair. Thelma now lives in the Detroit area with my parents and is having a wonderful time in her retirement.
I never understood what my mother was saying when she talked about how awful it would be to outlive your children. Now I know. As Thelma lives with my parents and they are so attached to her, I don't wan't to imagine what it would be like for them to have to deal with losing her. I want to go back and prevent them from falling in love with her even as I know this is impossible. I have already done my pre-grieve with Thelma. It's likely she'll live for another five years, but I won't be there in the end as I was with Lou. Chances are it won't be a freak accident that causes Thelma's death, either.
As selfish as it seems, I hope I outlive both of my parents. I never want to see either of them grieve over me.
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posted by: lynne (reply)
post date: 06.11.05 (3:59 am)
I would never wish the death of a child on anyone. My mother had a brother who died in his 20's and it really messed up my grandmother.
I know what you mean about the pre-grieving. I dont know what I would do if I can home and found one of my dogs dead although even if that were to happen, it would most likely be Crissy and I have done a lot of pre-grieving for her since I thought she was so old as to be on death's door ever since I got her seven years ago.
She does this thing now that she is deaf where she falls asleep against the front door so that she will know when I come home from work. The thing is that she sleeps a very deep sleep and so, when I come home sometimes and go to open my door, there is a 65 lb dog keeping me from opening the door. She doesnt hear the other dogs' welcome home barks and she doesnt wake up, even when I have to push her out of the way with the door in order to open it. I always think...well, this is the time
Lou was a very nice dog. Not many would have taken such good care of him as you did. You never would have flung him out of an SUV
posted by: lynne (reply)
post date: 06.11.05 (4:02 am)
Somehow, this seems to fit the mood of your post. It is a poem by John Updike
Dog's Death
She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog!
Good dog!"
We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.
Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried
To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.
Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.
posted by: anditos (reply)
post date: 06.11.05 (5:20 am)
Reply to: verlaine
Lou was such a sweet puppy (he'll always be a pup in my mind - I love the pics of him and Gustav).
I think I know what you are saying about growing to love the "second dog". I will always have a closer bond w/ Gustav but I am slowly growing close to Klaus. I guess it's not fair to compare the two but that's been my major hurdle to date.
posted by: Verlaine (reply)
post date: 06.11.05 (10:04 am)
Reply to: anditos
It's true that it takes a while to become attached to the second. Thelma isn't good at hiding her jealousy and Lou's grooming required so much attention.
Grover cut his mouth today while running with a tree in his mouth. He got stuck between two other trees and was abruptly halted.
posted by: Verlaine (reply)
post date: 06.11.05 (10:07 am)
Reply to: lynne
That's hilarious! Crissy sleeping against the front door and not moving, I mean. When I get home from work to Grover, it takes him a few minutes to get up and come to the door to go outside. I don't know what he's thinking....it's not like he doesn't have to pee or anything!
I like the poem.
posted by: themarina (reply)
post date: 06.13.05 (9:06 am)
Thanks for sharing that. Lou sounded like a fabulous friend! :)
posted by: Verlaine (reply)
post date: 06.13.05 (10:06 pm)
Reply to: themarina
He was a stud. The babe magnet to get all. He would have done me no good in San Francisco....
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