I just finished a book about one of my favorite subjects, dogs! Entitled “The Best Dog in the World”, it is a collection of essays compiled by Alice Hoffman. They are stories about how dogs can change a person’s life. They are about all sorts of dogs, big, small, show dogs and rescue dogs and the ways they influenced their owner’s lives. Granted, not all of them are happy stories because sadly, their masters usually outlive their charges. There is lots of humor in the book also because any time you have a dog in your life; it usually brings happiness along with it!
I am the type of guy who moves across the street when he sees a dog approaching. Not to get away from it but to get closer to it and hopefully, to pet it. I have always believed that to get a little dog slobber on me in the morning will help make my day a little bit better. Big, small, it doesn’t matter, as long as they will let me pet them!
There haven’t been a lot of dogs in my personal life but each one of them has left a bit of themselves with me. They have all loved me without question. The first dog my family got was Villi. (Villi Von Veenersnitzal) He was a black Dachshund. I think he came from a shelter and he wasn’t trained. He and I got along great. I was probably in first grade when we got him. We’d wrestle, run around chasing each other and play tug-a-war. We became great friends. Since he wasn’t trained he didn’t think there was anything wrong with grabbing my hand or arm with his mouth. He never bit down or broke the skin. Some of my friends took this to be aggressiveness rather than playfulness and a couple got scratched, their parents were not happy!
After a couple times dealing with frantic mothers and neighbors, Villi went to live somewhere else. I came home from school one day and he was gone. I was devastated, my heart was broken.
Our next dog was a Basset Hound. Romeo was a rescue dog. On a Sunday near Saint Patrick’s Day there was a picture of him in the Pittsburgh Press. He was wearing a plastic hat with a shamrock on it. Even though it was a black and white picture, we knew it was a green hat! His right paw was cocked off to the side as if he was posing and his sad looking eyes and droopy skin made it look as if he needed to be saved. He needed someone to love him. After a lot of begging, we went down to see him and surprisingly, we came home with him.
While Basset Hounds are quite lovable, they are also quite loud and they love to bark. Wow do they love to bark! They also drool a lot. Strings of saliva started appearing on the floors, furniture and even us. Showing him a dog treat could cause this and whenever he drank some water, not only did his jowls get filled with water, his long ears often hung in the bowl and soaked it up also. We learned from experience to stand back whenever he shook his head.
He quickly became a part of the family. He loved to be petted and to have his loose skin pulled and rubbed. His eyes always looked so sad but I knew he wasn’t. When we were together he and I were both happy. He lay beside me on the floor while I watched TV, my hand rubbing his soft ears, both of us obliviously in the comfort zone.
My mother had raised cats, and I had grown up with cats sleeping on the bed with me. When Romeo came along, the cat quickly lost her spot!
Being a Basset Hound, a hunter by nature and by being blessed with a very sensitive nose, we quickly discovered that his nose was more in control of him than we were. When he smelled something, he let us know it. Loudly! He also loved to run, we had to be careful letting him outside, if he slipped out of our hands before we got him on his run…he was gone. Perhaps that is why he was named Romeo, because he loved to roam.
I don’t remember how Romeo left my life or maybe I’m just blocking it out. I’m pretty sure he is buried in my backyard along with other pets, cats and dogs, mine and others. It is never easy when you lose a loved pet.
I didn’t get another dog until the late 80’s. My daughter was just over a year old. I can remember watching her hold onto a small fence looking at a bunch of running, jumping, squealing Weimaraner puppies. One of them, Axel, (Axel Gutterzig Grauhunt) soon became a part of our family and Chelsey’s best friend. A beautiful grey color, he looked regal, he was a great dog. Watching him in the backyard, we could see how he loved to move, his lean body stretching out as he ran. He filled our lives with love and joy.
As time passes by, we as humans tend to forget the bad things and remember mostly the fun stuff, at least I do. I believe it’s human nature. I tend to forget about the times we went to the vets because of illnesses or accidents and remember more of the good times, such as when he got a small pumpkin stuck in his mouth, his teeth sinking into the rind and wasn't able to spit it out. Or the time he walked off the back deck, not realizing he was 6 feet off the ground. Oh, he made us laugh… He, like Romeo, loved to run and explore, when he got out, it was tough getting him back before he wanted to.
As he grew older he started encountering some medical problems. At the vets one day I was told that it might be best for him if he was put out of his misery. I made a decision that I quickly came to regret. I brought his body back home to be buried in the back yard. Like a fool, I hadn’t given any thought to how my daughter would take this. It was just like what happened to me, she came home from school to find out her pet, her friend had gone and she never had the chance to say good-bye. I had lost a pet, but even worse, I had let my daughter down. This was a bad day all around!
It is very hard to get over the loss of a pet. I found myself saying, “Never again, I just can’t do it! It just hurts too much!"
It took a while but eventually another hound entered my life. I was simply going to go to the shelter and help walk the dogs, that was the plan. There was a class that needed to be taken before this could be done. Not a problem. Whenever I would go there, before I’d walk them, I’d visit the dogs in the kennel and give them treats while I talked with them. The more I visited the more the idea of another dog grew.
Not long after I started, Red entered my family. Red was a Redbone Coon Hound. His coat matched his name. He was named by a class of school children, the name fit and so it was never changed.
Red was a big dog, bigger than he thought. He considered himself a lap dog and that could hurt at times! He quickly claimed a spot on my bed and if I didn’t exert my dominance, he’d claim the larger portion of it. He had a loud howl and wasn’t afraid to use it.
We went on many adventures. He even came along with us to chase trains! Ann Marie and I endured hours of howling as we drove to hikes or vacations. We even tried ear plugs to tone down the noise. Luckily, we always managed to tire him out and he’d sleep on the way home. Those drives home were so nice and quiet!
Like the others, the good memories remain. The time he stole a sandwich out of Ann Marie’s hand on a hike or the time he thought that water lilies were solid ground and disappeared into the water after running onto them. I don’t need to remember the bad memories; it’s the good ones that are important!
Time finally caught up with Red, I took him to his final visit with the vet and another tough decision was made. He didn’t like visiting the vet and often gave them trouble. This time he was too sick and tired to fight or even howl. This time he slowly walked away. I was asked if I wanted to go into the back with him while they prepared him but I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t see him go. I was a coward, I couldn’t watch it happen. I already felt terrible bringing him there and agreeing to that terrible decision.
To this day I regret not going in with him and comforting him as he was put to sleep. It has been over 5 years since he left and I still miss him. I still have that “never again” attitude, I find it extremely hard to overcome. The pain of losing a pet can be disabling. There is so much that you lose; friendship, companionship and love to name just a few. We have to remember, there is also a lot we can learn from our four-legged friends, trust, the idea of unequivocal love, devotion and how to share these things without saying a word.
Thank heavens for memories. And also, thank heavens for the dogs I meet that are being walked around the block and for the owners who so happily share their pets with me, helping me overcome the sorrows that buried themselves so deep into my psyche.
This book has helped me remember the joys of dog ownership and the benefits of having a four legged friend in your life. Perhaps someday, there might be another visit to a shelter in my future...
