Millie

We were both late for work. I guess a normal, productive time to leave for work for us is usually around 7:40am or so. Any later than that, it’s a race to the desk. Before that and you’re just showing off.

It was 8:15am.

I’m following her towards the front entrance of the neighborhood and I notice her brake lights in front of me flash but didn’t see anything in front of her. She stopped and opened the door. I thought she must need to tell me something but forgot how cell phones worked. I noticed her looking down at a very waggy tail.

The puppy was probably 3 or 4 months old. A boxer brindle. Her first thought was “she has a collar but not a tag.”. My first thought was “Turn around, get and your car and go back home. Now.”. We looked around, trying to see if anyone was out looking for this pup. Not a soul. We decided that we would take her back to the house where at least she’s safe and deal with the flyers and owner search that afternoon.

We magically maneuvered Lyla, our chocolate lab, out of the way without her getting any glimpse whatsoever of this puppy. It was for her own good.

We tried leaving the addition again only to be stopped by a lady looking around outside her house. Court probably thought, “This is probably the owner.”. I thought, “Drive woman, drive!”. The fact is that Court is better than me and she stopped to ask if this “owner” was missing a dog. Of course she was. She said there was a hole in the fence that she’s been “meaning” to fix. At least I know that if I end up fighting her for custody, I’ll know I’ll be fighting an idiot. I know I gave Court the “do we hafta?” look because she responded to me with the “turn back around” look.

We didn’t even try to hide her from Lyla this time. The puppy was waiting patiently at the back door as we picked her up and took her inside. Lyla’s tail was the happiest out of everyone in that house. It was refreshing and kind of sad at the same time.

Before she loaded up the pup in her car, I rubbed her head and gave her a kiss. I then became really upset. This innocent puppy smelled like smoke. Assholes. I proceeded to let my wife know just how mad I was with exclaiming a very harsh, “tell them to fix their fence!” She responded with a quiet “we can’t change the world.”.

We drove off and stopped in front of this broken fenced lady’s house. I found out that her name was Anna. The dog, not the lady. I think the lady was Cruella. Court did the drop off and we left. Late for work.

To tell you the truth, both of us felt kind of heartbroken. It’s weird how losing one can make you jump quickly to another.

We didn’t talk all day. We usually text a few times a day. Not that day. I couldn’t stop thinking about those few minutes. How that puppy made us feel. How she made Lyla feel.

The next day, Court worked from home. Yeah, she’s one of those people. I went to work and pretty much had the same day as the day before, filled with thoughts of a smoky boxer. My actual work day sucked as well so when I got a text from Court asking when I would be home, I was less than enthusiastic. She did say she was excited to see me so that helped the drive home. As I walked in the door,Lyla comes running up to me. She’s always the first one up. It always makes me smile. Then Court walks around the corner and asks how my day was. I guess the look on my face wasn’t the best as she asked if everything was okay. I assured her that it was and then she sat me on the couch and told me to close my eyes. She walks out of the room and a few seconds later returned and I got the green light to open.

I assumed she has found something she had lost. Made me sugar cookies. Got Lyla a new collar. Bought me the movie Flash Gordon that I’ve been trying to find since the 80′s. In those few seconds, my mind thought of many different things but not one of those things ended up being this thing.

 

The night before we had discussed the possibility of getting another dog. We had one issue and it kept us going back and forth on the issue. She wanted a puppy. I wanted a shelter dog. Never did I think those two wants would come together but here’s my wife finding a sheltered puppy. A shelter had a dog that just had a litter. Here’s the bonus: the shelter she found is a no kill shelter and when they place one of their dogs, they go to a kill shelter and take one back. So I look at it that we saved ours from a possible life in a shelter and saved one from a kill shelter.

Instant life changer.

Even after the amazing moment of getting to know this new lab mix of a puppy we named Millie, it’s still difficult not to think that someone is missing. No doubt that Millie will help us heal, especially Lyla. The funny thing is that Lyla has been thrusted into the big sister role. A role that she has been relishing in so far. But it still feels that Bailey is missing. Or simply missed. Definitely missed.

Millie will never take the place of Bailey. One thing is for certain though, the moment I saw Millie, I already knew I loved her like I did Bailey.

Smokey or not.

Bailey

This will probably be the hardest thing to write about for the simple fact that I’m waiting for it to get easier. Week after week, it’s not getting easier yet week after week, I feel the need to write the post. Here it is without a second thought or edits. I think it’s just easier that way.

Putting down a dog is the hardest thing to do.

Dang it. Okay, I might need to edit that one just a bit. I am in the right mind when I say that no one should ever outlive their children so no, I don’t think putting a dog to sleep is worse than the heartbreak of losing a child. I’m also not in the category of those that view pets as children. That involves dressing up your pets and putting the small ones in strollers. Not cool. Here’s where I might get most disagreement: Dogs are better and kinder than most humans. There is no doubt in my mind.

Bailey was my wife’s chocolate lab that turned 8 a few months ago. I was lucky to get to spend that last year and a half getting to know her. Before I came along and ruined everything, Bailey got the best spot on the couch, the premium spot in the bed and most importantly, total attention from Court. I did however bring Bailey my year old chocolate lab Lyla, who took to Bailey like they were long-lost friends. They both now had someone to run around the backyard with while we weren’t home. The both now had someone to show where the newest scent was and where to dig the best hole. Lyla showed Bailey that it would be in the middle of the backyard. Bailey never showed dirt under the fingernails so we think she may have told Lyla to do the digging and she would be the lookout. Sneaky. Lyla got Bailey to run up and down the yard for no reason other than to simply run.

Bailey was the best hugger. I know that sounds weird but what do you call it when you are sitting on the couch and she jumps up next to you and buries her nose into your armpit? There was nothing to do but put your arms around her. She loved letting us know that it’s breakfast time around 5:30am each morning and if we were, I don’t know, asleep, she would bang her tail against the dresser that at 5:30 in the morning sounded like shotgun.

I would give anything to hear that shotgun tail.

This past December, Court had to leave for the week for work so I had the dogs by myself for the first time. She was coming home on a Friday and that morning, Bailey decided that she wasn’t going to eat her food. This dog usually inhales her food. She barks at you before you get to the food tub because you aren’t getting the food fast enough. She didn’t take one bite. She was very lethargic and barely ate anything that weekend so we took her to the vet that next Monday. Her platelets were extremely low causing her appetite to drop plus her liver enzymes were extremely high. As I type this, I’m not sure what all that really means. We got her some injections and some pills to give her to get everything back to normal and it did. Within that next week she was back to eating like a nutjob and running up and down the backyard with her partner. It’s easy to think everything is back to normal.

She stopped eating again around the end of February. All she wanted to do was sleep and by looking at her, you could just tell that something wasn’t right. We got her in and her platelets were even worse than before. Liver enzymes were back to normal but her white cell count was registering off the charts. Her healthy cells decided to attack her. She also developed a mass by her tail that was causing issues with her walking. This mass was checked earlier and was found not to be cancer. Just a dumb mass. At this point she was too weak to stay home and with her still not eating, she stayed at the vet for a week. She did show some progress as she would fight and eat her food. And she would fight and drink water. The vet told us that he had seen a lot of dogs that give up. Bailey was fighting to get back home. We had hope. We still didn’t know what to pinpoint the problem to, but we had hope. Court would go see her everyday, just so Bailey would see someone familiar at that place. Bailey needed it. Court needed it more.

After a week at the vet and some tests, we found out that her pancreas was enlarged and her intestines were inflamed. She had a lot of fluid built up in her abdomen that was tough to see. We did however get a big blessing. We never got pictures of us with the dogs that we had wanted for a long time. Our good friend Sheradee stopped her routine and came out to the vet office to give us a mini-shoot with the dogs. We can’t thank her enough with what she was able to give us that day.

The vet then contacted Court and I’m thankful I was with her when we got the call. They called to let us know that what they are doing isn’t going to work anymore.

They couldn’t pin it on cancer without exploratory surgery and we were both in agreement that we didn’t want to put her through that. Court has a great relationship with the vet and she asked him what she should do. I still don’t know how she was able to ask that question, knowing what the answer would be.

The vet, who I’ve only been using since I met Court, is an amazing vet with the best manner when it comes to pets and from what I was about to find out, how to answer this question.

He said without surgery to go in and try to find something that we may not find, therefore unnecessary, you have to think about letting her go.

We brought her home on a Monday, knowing that it would probably need to be done that week. Also, it gave Lyla some time with Bailey. A few friends stopped by to see her and it was nice to see so much support from amazing friends. I was at work on Tuesday when Court called me. Long story short, she was ready. We wanted to make it to Thursday, maybe even Friday but when you think about it, that kind of Thursday or Friday could very easily be turned into a Monday or Tuesday.

You will never be okay with the day you drive your pet to the vet for the last time.

I don’t really want to share that ride and that afternoon here simply because given the circumstances, I don’t know if it could have gone any better. We had time with her as we drove to the vet. We got to spend some amazing time with her in the room. She was even given two pieces of chocolate cake that she inhaled in two bites. I think that will be the memory I will hold onto for the rest of my life. How happy that chocolate cake made her for a few minutes.

She had the hands of those that loved her the most on her. She did glance back once at the vet as he initially stuck her hind leg, but after that she never took her eyes off of Court. It believe it was her way of reminding us that she’s okay. After a little less than a minute she laid her head down on the blanket.

We were given some time after to simply sit with her. We ended up sharing stories and laughing. The shotgun tail of course got the most laughter from us both. When it was time for us to leave, I could see the panic in Court’s eyes. We got past the hard part, right? Well, maybe that wasn’t the hard part. Maybe driving away minus one was going to be the hard part. I knelt down and kissed Bailey on the forehead and whispered in her ear, “Thank you for the best spot on the couch and I will love Court for the rest of my life”. I know Bailey didn’t hear it, but I also know that she already knew it.

I hugged Court and we managed to get back home. It has been a few weeks of tears and healing. There are moments that stop you and make you think that it’s not real, that Bailey is still at the vet getting better. There are days that you laugh at all the things she would do and you are reminded at just how blessed and lucky a person can be.

Bailey loved Courtney with everything. And she trusted me not to screw that up. She even taught Lyla a thing or two. She taught Lyla that breakfast started at 5:30am too.

You win, sweet Bailey girl. You win.

Left: Lyla Right: Bailey – I think this was them laughing after Bailey told her about the 5:30 breakfast time.

If My Identity Is Stolen, There’s A Dog To Blame

Have you ever had your wallet stolen?  Have you ever had your wallet stolen at PetSmart?

The crime doesn’t begin until the afternoon but that morning the dogs were brought to PetSmart to be groomed and cleaned.  8:30 am on a Saturday.  It’s a crazy time to be up on a Saturday and even worse being up on a Saturday is trying to get two dogs to an appointment they have no intention of wanting to keep.  That being said, it was pretty painless.  They did really well and after they were carried off behind the big swinging door, we left thankful for a few hours of peace and quiet.

Here is where the fun starts.  We picked them up and as they are running toward the counter to jump or maul us, the 7-year-old lab seems to tweak one of her front paws.  After settling them down, she would not put any weight on that paw whatsoever.  This made Girl worried.  Luckily there is the vet inside PetSmart.  They take her in to find out what might be causing the paw issue.   I’m waiting outside with my lab puppy and all she wants to do is find out where the other one went off to and how she can get to her.  They have become inseparable in the last 6 months. 

After 15 minutes or so, Girl peeks her head out and tells me to go ahead and pay and get my dog in the car since she was getting restless and whiny. 

I grab my keys and my wallet.

I’m at the register paying for the baths and I’m holding onto a leash.  I’m swiping my debit card and putting it back in the wallet and set the wallet on the counter.  I’m making sure she isn’t tangled with the leash and I’m handed the receipt.  I’m walking outside and I squeeze my hand and all I felt was receipt paper.  No wallet.  I put the dog in the car and walk back into PetSmart expecting to see it either on the ground, on the counter or tucked away by the cashier.

Nope.  No.  Not a chance.

me – Did you see my wallet I just left here?

cashier – (Glances around)  Nope, don’t see it.

I was gone for maybe 2 minutes and that’s being pretty liberal with the timeframe.

There was  only a mother and two young children behind me and I could see one of the kids picking it up.  I can see the cashier picking it up, she had shady eyes.

You would think that I would have had pockets of some sort but that really is beside the point.  You would also think that a guy my age would know not to carry his social security card in his wallet.  All I’m saying is that my identity has been compromised due to a paw. 

And probably not having pockets.