It's My Dog's World: I Just Live In It

Goodbye, Dear Faith. Hello, Queen Mavis: On Rushing in Again Like a Fool

So, this happened a little faster than either I  or my husband expected.

Faith died on February 10, 2013.  (One of Faith's fans, another dog owner, said: "You never forget the date.") 

Jeff and I had planned to have a few months to ourselves.  To grieve, to travel, to write. We had expected to have our old girl for one more summer, one more plunge into the lake. But cancer had other ideas. 

I missed Faith a lot.

I missed her so much I couldn't write about it. Here, or elsewhere. Except for Facebook.  By the digital waters of Babylon, I lay down and wept. Mark Zuckerberg, you may be an evil supergenius, but you certainly have provided us with a place to grieve almost anything. 

I also missed the routine of being a dog owner: the walks, the conversation on those walks. The friendships that came out of owning and/or loving dogs.  It felt positively weird to talk down the street, day after day, without a creature at the end of the leash. Without the connection to other people that came from walking Faith.  

I got to know Hoboken through walking Faith. I met our city's mayor when she was first running for council--because Faith wanted the donuts she was giving out.  I met the mayor's kids with Faith and was mightily impressed with how they handled dogs.  And when Faith was still a work in progress, one of the few dogs she got along with was the soon-to-be-mayor's dog. 

And this had been even more precious to me and Jeff because Faith started out as such a difficult, unpredictable dog. After we adopted her, we discovered that she hated most other dogs. So much so that once, when she thought she heard a dog on the other side of the street,  she tried  to climb over a car to menace it. It gave me no peace to realize that all Faith had heard was some guy's wallet chain jingling. 

But she changed, because she felt safer, because we all--Faith, Jeff and I--worked very hard. Four trainers-worth hard. And because Faith was the kind of dog who, when she got older, she got sweeter.  So the walks at the beginning of our time with Faith were fraught with anxiety and terror. And the walks at the end of her life were lovely and magical.

Don't get me wrong. I hated losing Faith, but I liked, very much, no longer having to rush home to walk our dog. To wander. To make dog-less vacation plans. To stay put when the weather was crummy because nobody in our house had to go to the bathroom outside. 

We had the canine equivalent of an empty nest. 

And it lasted all of a month and a half. 

Dogs happen, baby.  In the next installment, I will talk a little bit more about our pocket pit, Mavis the Strumpet.

 

 

How to fix a play: add dogs

I realize that I have finally gone from tough-minded dramaturg/literary manager to crazed dog person. Saw a good play yesterday with some serious plot holes. First thought: "Well, why don't we get the lead character a puppy?"

Actor Cheyenne Jackson with his adopted dog Zora. 

 

 

 

Was she really alone? On not seeing the dogs right in front of you

So...I'm catching up with podcasts of This American Life, and this one, titled "Home Alone," is so wrenching I haven't finished it yet.   I can tell you that what I have heard so far isn't all that cheerful: a 79-year-old woman who dies alone in a hospital, seemingly with no one to claim her, a 15-year-old boy who hides from the world when his mother is hospitalized for several months, in fear that he'll be put in foster care.  It's more Dickens and Beckett than Hallmark, I'll tell you that.

The first story, about Mary Ann, a 79-year-old woman who died in a hospital, continues to bug me.  This American Life actually sent an academic who has written a book about people who die alone to track Emily, an  LA county employee whose job it is to deal with "what's left behind." Together, they discover two dogs in the yard at the dead woman's home.   Previously, when Mary Ann was still alive, we learn that she frantically  called the woman who delivered her drugs to beg her to collect the mail so that animal control wouldn't take the dogs away while she was in the hospital.  They were the only thing that she had left, Mary Ann said to the woman.

So..guess what happens?  Animal control takes the dogs away soon after Emily finds them. 

Later, we learn that other than being something of a hoarder, Mary Ann did talk to her neighbors, pay her bills, and...microchipped both her dogs.  Which suggests to me that she wasn't quite the hermit the story portrays her as.  Ant-human?  Yes. But anti-social? Not completely.   If she cared enough about her dogs to have them microchipped, it means she probably had contact with a shelter, a vet, or both.  She had reached out at some point.  

But oddly enough, the story doesn't pursue this line of questioning.  Emily does, through diligence, uncover a distant relative and remote family.  Meanwhile, I wonder if I'm the only listener who wondered--what were the names of Mary Ann's dogs? 

What happened to them?

Is that a liver in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?

Bringing Faith to the vet for ultrasound: weird.  Explaining to colleagues that I would be later because I had to accompany her for ultrasound: weirder.  Being fascinated by the whole process: weirdest.

Saying Goodbye to a Pet: A Potter's Story

I went to the Etsy Lab last night to create cupcake inspired art...but that's going to turn out to be another post.  When I went on the website to grab some facts, I found this extraordinary story by Kristin, known as urns, a gifted potter and writer, who relates the story of two funeral urns she made for companion animals. Serious Kleenex alert. 

She says:

Pet urns are my favorite to create because I usually hear so much about the pet. In most cases, “pet” just doesn't seem like the right word. "Soul mate" — those are the words I hear most often to describe this little life that has been right at their sides through good times and bad.

Her gorgeous work is here..

And here...

Things I Never Did Before I Had A Dog

Had her model this t-shirt.  They're chess pieces on the shirt, by the way.  And Faith is sulking. It's not her size.  Or her color.  But in her mind, she's wishing you a happy 4th.  Celebrate your freedom to love a dog.

Things I Never Would Have Said Before I Had A Dog

(Right after her bath:)

"Gee, you know what? Faith smells just like a coconut sundae...with fur."

That's her swimming at Dog Beach, Brooklyn.

Things That Would Never Have Happened This Week Without My Dog

I would never have met a retired Army colonel who was walking a chihuahua who liked Faith. The colonel turned out to have worked BOTH for Enrico Fermi on the Manhattan Project and for Robert McNamara on a doomsday scenario.

I would never have ended up having a philosophical discussion about Buddhism, quantum physics, and infinity with a dentist from Beirut (because Faith coveted his pastry).

And finally, without Faith's friendly sniffing, I would not  have noticed that the last guy out of the elevator at our hotel...was presidential candidate and former Senator John Edwards.

Oh, the places you'll go with a pitbull mix.