It's Just a Puppy

We have a new puppy in our house.  Her name is Sammie Marie and she is a yellow lab.  A beautiful yellow lab and 100% puppy.  She trips over her paws and falls down a lot.  And she knocks over her water dish daily and eats like it’s her first meal in years.  She makes me smile.

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  Ashland was not the warmest place to grow up and certainly wasn’t the kind of place you would want to walk a dog in the middle of winter.

When I was very little we had a Dalmatian dog named Pepper.  I was about 3 years old and I was running around in the back yard while my Mom hung up the laundry on the clothes lines.  Pepper was running around too.  He didn’t hurt me or jump on me, but his chain wrapped around my little leg and when he heard a car go by, he ran across the yard dragging me by my leg.  That was the beginning of my fear and dislike of dogs.

All my adult years I disliked of dogs.  I was afraid of them, all shapes and sizes.  I avoided them at all costs.

When Jerry and I bought our first home eleven years ago, Kelly (Jerry’s daughter) had a dog named Dallis and she didn’t have anywhere to keep her.  We told her to bring the dog to our house and we would find a home for her, a good home. 

Dallis was half black lab and half rottweiller.  She was a big dog, she eventually grew to 95 pounds.  I asked around at work if anyone was interested in adopting a big black dog.  I didn’t get any takers. 

And then one night, I was home alone with Dallis.  She was an outside dog, but the weather had turned bad, we had freezing rain and she wasn’t going in her dog house.  I was worried about her so I let her in the part of our house that was a wood shop.  It was dry and we had blankets down and it was a bit warmer than outside.  I gave her water and shut the door.  Then I heard her crying on the other side of the door.

I didn’t know what to do, so I opened the door.  She came in and put her front paws down and her butt in the air and she wiggled and barked.  I was terrified. You should have heard her bark.  It could make the windows rattle.  I didn’t know what she wanted or what to do and then she pushed one of her tennis balls towards me with her nose.  So I pushed it back to her.  She seemed happy doing this for a while, I guess this was ok.  Playing a game with her made her happy and it made me less nervous around her.

We didn’t have Dallis for more than a few months and we emptied our savings account to fence in the entire back yard.  The biggest dog run in the neighborhood.  It was the length of the yard and went behind the house and garage.  I’ll never forget that first day we took off her chain and let her run.  She was so happy, I swear she was smiling with her whole body.  Wiggling, jumping and running.  Happy to be alive.

It didn’t take me long to fall in love with Dallis.  I took her to doggie daycare and just like a nervous Mom on the first day of kindergarten, I shed a few tears and I to called a few times to see if she was ok.  My husband was so nervous, he drove over to watch her and make sure she was ok with dogs she didn’t know and people she didn’t know. 

A year later I adopted an abused doberman.  I loved Austin with all my heart and we tried to make up for her bad start in life.  We had a lot of good years with both dogs.  Austin made great strides in her behavior , she also benefited from doggy daycare.  I loved her more than I thought was possible.

Nothing lasts forever.  We had to put Austin down in May of 2006.  We  knew Dallis had a tumor in her lung, but it she still looked good, played, ran  and jumped like normal and still ate like it was a race.

Then in September of 2006, Dallis was limping a lot after playing soccer at doggy daycare.  She normally limped for a few days after daycare every week, but this time I was worried she might have hurt her leg so I took her in for x-rays and our vet K.C. said he would call me at noon and let me know what is going on.

I’ll never, ever forget that phone call.  “Anne, I’m so very, sorry.” is how K.C. started the conversation.  “Dallis’ biggest problem is no longer her lung cancer.  She’s not going to die from that.  She has osteosarcoma, bone cancer and it’s a very aggressive disease.  Her front leg bones are already eaten up, the bone is all porous, I can’t believe she can still jump and run.”

I managed to ask if she was in pain and he said yes.  Dallis never yelped, or whined or anything.  We never knew she was hurting.  As you can imagine, the outlook was grim.  . 

In the 10 days following that call, she stopped eating, she lost 11 pounds , she couldn’t stop vomiting.  K.C. said that we would know when it was time to let her go because she would turn away from us.  And so, 10 days later, she did.

I took her back to the vet and that evening, Jerry and Kelly and K.C.(our vet) and I, we all talked about it and we all decided it was time to say goodbye to our dear girl.  And with our hearts breaking, we all said goodbye.  We held her as she died and told her we loved her.  It was one of the dearest moments of my life.  Holding my girl, while we let her go, just like we held Austin only a few months before.

I had planned on getting a new puppy for months before Dallis died.   The breeder finally called and said that our puppy was ready to go home with us.   A few days after we lost Dallis, we drove to Minocqua and picked him up.  Dino is a Cavalier, King Charles Spaniel.   Dallis had weighed 95 pounds, Dino weighed 5 pounds.  This was going to be interesting.

Dino never cried, whined or barked.  He was a good dog from the minute we got him in the car and he is very lovable.  I’m so glad we got him and I show him pictures of Dallis and Austin.  He could smell those dogs and spent time looking for them.  I had to measure his food by the 1/4 cup.  Dallis ate 5 cups of food and 2 peanut butter sandwiches each day.  I couldn’t believe how little Dino was, I was so afraid of hurting him.  But we all adjusted and in time, it seemed like he had been with us for years.

And then on Christmas Eve morning this year, I was in the backyard with Dino and our neighbor came over and leaned on the fence and said he had something to show me.  He handed me a picture of his lab Ivy and her pups.  She gave birth to 10 puppies on December 8th.  Ten yellow labs right next door.  I told him to wait right there and I ran and got my husband and said, go talk to Andy, he has something to show you.

My husband was gone for a long time, I saw him talking to Andy and then he went over to Andy’s door.  A little while later, Dino and I were in the house and Jerry came in.  He just looked at me and said, “well we’re going to have to take one of them.”

I was in shock.  Jerry had taken Dallis’ death so hard, I couldn’t believe it when he said we were getting a dog. Sammie came home with us in mid-February.  Since she was just next door, it wasn’t too long of a trip. And how this puppy has helped us, we can’t even begin to list the ways.

Sammie’s feet are very big, she trips over them.  And oh how Sammie has changed our house.  We have a noisy house again.  This ball of energy is excited and happy about everything.  A walk to the mailbox, just across the street from home is an adventure.  So many new smells over there thanks to the 3 dogs and 2 cats across the street.

Somewhere in her exploration of our backyard, she came across a basketball. A basketball I hadn’t seen since Dallis died.  It was Dallis ball.  We thought that we had thrown out all of Dallis and Austin’s toys. Dino found one of Austin’s chew toys his first week in our home.  And now Sammie found one of Dallis’ in the backyard.

Just a puppy?  No.  No puppy is just a puppy.  Sammie Marie and Dino are so much more than that.  Sammie's a big, wiggly, clumsy bundle of love. Dino is a feisty, long haired lap dog.  Sammie and Dino have helped turn our house back into a home.  I loved Dallis and Austin very much.  I still do.  But thanks to them,  I love Dino and Sammie.  I will have many happy memories of all of my dogs.  And when I’m very old and it’s time for me to take my final journey, I know that they will be waiting there to greet me, with wagging tails and sloppy kisses.

Thanks for listening.

Anne