Gotcha Days

Another Weekend at BiteyTime Play Center and Arcade and

my husband still has his opposable thumbs

Sunny D (dog) is adapting to her new home well, considering she spent 10 months penned up in a barn. Spending her days in a too-small crate and likely malnourishment left her with bowed front legs, abandoned by the "breeder" because no one would buy her because as a purebred Lab she "wasn't perfect".

I'm thankful she was given up to a shelter rather than just killed, but it breaks my heart what she went through.  She'll never be a "working" dog, but she's happy and runs and plays with abandon; the Vet said there's no fixing it, but it doesn't cause her any pain (and if she needs it for arthritis in those joints as she ages we still have a doggie escalator).  She is our third rescue since Barkley, after Abby and Lorelei. He'd be pleased we didn't get  "perfect" dogs, but rather, ones that needed some tender hearts that knew of hurt themselves.  

The first night home after the "freedom ride," we woke a little after five a.m. to a plaintive whine from her crate.  It was a barely audible sound as if she had learned that there was no need to raise her voice, the brooding silence of her former world insensitive to her cries in the night.  The only voice she would hear would be her own. At night, that singular sound had to echo alone in the rafters.  But not that first night home - my husband EJ was sleeping on the futon beside her crate and talking to her until she fell asleep again.

The first few weeks were rough. EJ was on an extended travel schedule, and I had my hands full, to say the least, as Lorelei needed palliative care at home.  At one point, I went three days without a shower, promising never to roll my eyes again at someone complaining about losing sleep with a baby. But with the help of some boxed hippie granola, Greek yogurt (OK, I'll share), and coffee, Sunny and I survived.  

Even terminally ill with an aggressive sarcoma, Lorelei doted on her like one of her own pups. She was forgiving and patient, and the short weeks they spent together were full of comfort. Still, one couch is worse for wear, and one area rug threw itself on the pyre which is the flaming energy of a puppy.  

I wonder if Sunny remembers her past life.  We discovered that she didn't like telephones, sudden bright lights, or the sounds of cars and only reacted to commands in German, which gave us some history of what community her "breeder' came from. So I gently eased her into city life, sitting out in a lawn chair in the backyard on my lunch break and after work as she sat beside me, taking in the sounds of the city, realizing she was safe.  The words she knew from us at the time were few, but they stirred something in her heart on their hearing that quelled her fears and made her realize she was finally home.

A dog's perception of memory is not like ours. We tend to make painful things loom large because strong emotions stand out, isolated from the mundane daily thoughts that naturally diminish over time in one's mind. So, just as I can vividly recall, as if yesterday, moments of heartbreak, abandonment, and loss  - to Sunny, they are just shadows that haunt the edges of what she knows now, soon to be forgotten.

The brief expressions of loneliness and fear you see when you first bring a "rescue" home are hard to bear. But they were so short, soon to turn to looks of "I'm not sorry at all" when caught with a slipper, looks delivered with a goofy grin and the wag of the tail that even the hardest of hearts is not immune to.  Even after being neglected by others, they look at us with love, and whether that's simply the temper of a dog's soul or their eternally forgiving nature, I wonder how we are even worthy of their undying regard.

She knows only joy now, afraid of nothing except the bread machine, which she still will bark at. The backyard is her kingdom, to be defended against squirrels, rogue tomatoes from the neighbor's garden, and the cat that lives down the alley.  She doesn't understand why the people who walk past in the morning on their way to the train at the end of our block, burdened by life and propelled only by a timetable, don't want to stop and pet the dog.  She embraces the power of a slice of cheese.

She greets the morning yard joyfully, the grass covered with dew, like jewels strewn under her feet.  You don't notice anything wrong with her legs unless you are looking at her head-on when she comes at you slowly with a gait like Festus from Gunsmoke, taking your measure slowly, then doing a zoomie around you, a dust devil of motion, fueled by a complete lack of fear.  

She'd stay out there all day if she could, coming in only to nap beside me by my desk as I work.  Nights, she goes out one last time before bed since I don't walk her after dark in Chicago, as my husband will do.  After doing her business, we'll just lay in the grass in the center of the yard as above, the stars fill the skies, flickering down on us like eyes, as alive and enigmatic as the hearts of men.  

Training is ongoing, but she learns quickly when she wants to, having the doggie equivalent of a teenager's brain right now. She still will play a version of "Bite Mom's butt!" (no tooth pressure, but it will get your attention if you're not expecting it), and we've had to hide the smaller throw rugs.  But I can't get angry at her for enjoying being free to be a puppy, if only for these short months as she emerges into adulthood. (Though I'm still finding sticky spots in the kitchen where she bit into a can of Sprite and sprayed it around the room like a Nascar driver after winning a race).

This will be her sixth-month "Gotcha Day" and though she has had her "puppy moments," she's grown into a barrel-chested, muscular 84-pound English Lab of high intelligence. I told my husband that if I ever mention adopting another puppy, please talk me off the ledge. Still, I wouldn't trade these initial memories for anything, all the times we laughed at her antics through the tears as we said goodbye to her big "sis" Lorelei.  As I look at my remaining years, however long the Lord sees fit, I can't imagine not having a dog in them.

She's the 4th dog we've had in the 14 years we've been together.  But like any relationship of abiding love, there are always moments of trepidation, the fears of the unknown, the learning and the knowing, and, eventually, the loss, as we are all mortal.  Yet we embrace it, holding up that love like a match held aloft, grasping it until the flame burns our fingers, never wanting to let it go. - Brigid