A Caroler at Your Door! A Christmas Journal #2

Remembering old friends this season...especially the humorous, four-legged ones who put up with our fashion experiments. 

If Maggie were still here, she would gladly have sung (er, howled) your favorite carols, right at your door.

Wishing you music and good cheer today.......

Meditations About Quitting, and then An Act Of Kindness From a Fellow Blogger and Dog-Lover

Lately I have thought about bringing my blog to a close.  Life has become much more complex since I began in September of 2009.  So many things have occurred, things that I have chosen not to write about here. Just so many competing responsibilities.

I love writing here, and I try to do it well.  It takes a lot of energy.  It's harder to honor my readers with my best writing at 11pm, which seems to be my only chance to produce this web-journal.

And yet there would be a huge hole in my creative life if I stopped now. I have a lot I want to share here, like the upcoming Italian Odyssey, my new adventures with dogs, and of course my fist love, articles and essays about the movies.

It has been a dilemma, trying to turn out good work on topics that interest people, without taking short-cuts, or letting errors go by unnoticed due to simple exhaustion.

Reading my favorite bloggers, and commenting on their work and ideas, has always been a pleasure, one that I am sure I would easily continue.

And then, I received an overwhelming surprise, one that made me reconsider the idea of quitting.

Tom, who writes sharp and witty Short-Short stories on his blog, Sophisticated Lunacy, was the very first "visitor" to my blog, and wrote the first comment.  In the months that followed we have established a fun and mutually encouraging friendship through our sites.  We have never met. We know about each others' lives solely through the blog, and occasional e-mail messages.

Tom and his wife Teresa love dogs, like I do, and have reacted especially emotionally to my stories about our departed Bassett Hound, Maggie. Even though she has been gone for a few years, she still manages to establish a spot squarely in my heart, the way she would establish her place on the bed some nights, while I fought to keep from falling off the edge!

An e-mail from Tom alerted me to a package that they sent in care of The Buddy Foundation, where I volunteer occasionally to walk and feed the homeless dogs.   

When I finally retrieved it, after a comedy of errors in which it was moved around the shelter, I was overwhelmed to find a beautiful letter with a home-made tapestry.

The tapestry included the entire poem called The Rainbow Bridge, which was written as a comfort to pet owners whose beloved animals had passed away.. (You can read more about The Rainbow Bridge here).  Also on the tapestry was an image of a Bassett Hound with the name Maggie stitched underneath.

Mark and I were overwhelmed, and appreciative, of the thought and the beautiful keepsake, which Teresa made herself.

I have received so much from my followers and friends on this blog; from many of you I get kind words and praise about my work; from others I get a friendly challenge to go deeper into my thoughts and improve my persuasive skills. I have received a chocolate treat as a contest prize from my friend Ben in England, who loyally follows my reviews.  I have bonded with Walter over our love of "Nashville" and other movies. Stan and David still check in to pleasantly surprise me with appreciation for my animal stories.  Luke is always complimentary of my lengthy movie essays, even when we don't agree.  So too, is Andrew.

To everyone else who drops by occasionally, to read, even to comment, once again, I do appreciate it!

And Tom still checks once in a while to boost my writer's confidence.  And now he and Teresa have acknowledged the importance to them of what I have written by sending us this surprising and wonderful gift. We can't thank you enough.

I leave for Rome mid-week.  I'll have a few more posts before then.  In Italy, I won't have a laptop, nor a computer or i-Pad, and no way to connect to the web, or the blog.... I will continue with the journal with good old-fashioned pen and paper, take pictures, and post the highlights upon my return to the States.

This was a personal choice, to disconnect for two weeks, and let the experience of being in a different part of the world transform me. 

I hope it will help me find new reserves of creative strength. 

A Commercial Stirs Up Memories of Missed Pets

Every time it comes on TV it makes me want to cry a little.


It's that "Trouble" ad, for an insurance company, featuring that expressive little white dog who wants to protect his prized possession, a rawhide bone.


The soulful theme song, and the effective narrative in which that  rascal is sleepless with worry, stirs up primal feelings in me. 


It reminds me of my belief that dogs must never worry. It reminds me that one of my best purposes in life is to make a comfortable world for our animal companions.


No matter...The world always, always, takes these friends from us.  Canine, feline, avian... they are with us for such a short time...  And they are gone in spite of our love, and our best efforts to keep them with us forever.

So many animals have been a part of my life.  The ad causes me to think of those times when I helped my beloved animals out of their troubles: my St Bernards, Tippy and Cassie; my cockatiel Cookie;  and all of the other dogs and cats I cared for, past and present.

I mourn for for the creatures that we have all loved, and inevitably lost.


I miss our basset hound Maggie, and how she would dig a hole in the garden with her front paws, drop in her bone, and cover it  by pushing the dirt back over it with her snout.  She would always dig it back up a few minutes later.


I laugh thinking about how she would lay in front of the couch and whine, until we moved the couch to find a little piece of kibble, which she must have flung across the room weeks ago until it lodged there.


Her comfort and safety always came first.


When she ran away once, Mark was frantic, until he found her across the street, sitting with a bunch of kids as they all watched a soccer game. 


When she was bothered by her digestion, or itchy ears, or allergies, or arthritis in her bent little legs, we were consumed by healing her. When July 4th fireworks frightened her, we tried all kinds of comforting remedies, from tranquilizers to distracting play, until we discovered that her beef bone kept her pleasantly oblivious.


She was never mean, never snapped at us, but if we came too close to her bone, she only picked it up and ran from us a short distance.


No matter how much we loved her, it still came down to her last day, and the impossible task of saying goodbye.


And when I see the little white dog in the ad, with "Trouble" on the soundtrack, and his profound little worries, I regret all the trouble Maggie had in her life.


She would not see it that way, of course.  In spite of her having forgiven us (I am convinced), the ad still makes me a bit melancholy.

Maggie Left Us One Groundhog Day....

I tried to put it all behind me but the pain and emptiness seized up in me today.


I don't expect anyone will read this; so I'll just write down my personal recollection, and hope the act of writing it down helps me to let it go.


This morning, as Mark and I were starting what would become a 4-hour task, clearing off the 2- and 3-foot snowdrifts from our driveway and patio, I remembered the extra shoveling I did for  the sake of Maggie, our Basset Hound.  

I used to create a path and a clearing in the lawn, so she could "find her spot" without having to trudge through the heavy snow on her small bent forelegs.

I thought to myself this morning how glad I was that I didn't have to shovel the backyard today.


And then I became angry at myself for thinking this. I wished I had a reason to shovel that clearing again.  Right there in the bitter snowy wind, I felt like crying.


It was on Groundhog Day.  Three years ago, it fell on a Saturday.


Maggie was having terrible seizures, and had been to the vet, a terrific doctor who she loved as much as he loved Maggie.  There was little he could do.  Most likely it was an inoperable brain tumor.


I got the call from Mark that morning.  We were not yet living together.  Mark was exhausted, having stayed up all night witnessing an endless series of epileptic episodes.  I hurried to drive to the house.


Maggie for the first time did not come to the door to greet me.  I approached her where she was laying down and she absently wagged her tail.  She had not eaten, and had slightly wet herself.  Mark and I both knew what had to be done, and the look she gave me from the floor was like a plea for rest.


I got down on the floor next to her and held her.  Mark got a breakfast plate that still had traces of maple syrup.  She licked it slowly, then gave up.  We called the vet. They were busy and asked us to schedule an appointment on Sunday. My words of desperation moved them.  We could bring her right in.


It had snowed the night before. The roads were slippery.  When we arrived we were taken right away to the treatment room.  I leaned over an examination table and sobbed quietly.


We were treated with compassion, and had time alone with Maggie before the injection.  She fell asleep right away, and it was a few seconds before I realized that she would never wake up and that I lost my dog who I loved and who loved me innocently.  Mark and I held each other up. I reached in front of me, as though I had to grab something that would not be there. 


I felt cold.  It felt cold today, and I was grateful for Mark's quiet understanding, and the memories, and even for the storm that kept me home so I could allow myself to miss her...

October, and Thoughts of Maggie and Dog Adoption--A Friday Morning Journal

~


It was October when we saw her for the first time.

October 4, 1998.  We had been debating the way a dog would change our life.  Were we ready to sacrifice our independence in order to provide attention and care to an animal?  Could we give up trips to the city, vacations to Phoenix?  Did we want to spend the money on food, veterinary care, cleaning supplies?  Were we patient enough to accept the accidents on the carpet, the long early February mornings outside in the wind and snow? 

Before my awareness was raised to the heartbreaking stories of puppy mills, we walked into a pet store in a local shopping center, and in a cage across the room, she was there.  A perfectly miniaturized basset hound puppy.  Her twin brother, also three months old and in the same cage, was twice her size; she was the definite runt of the litter.  Her ears dragged on the cage floor.  Her little legs carried a tiny sausage body with a plump smooth belly.

It was love. 


We took her home, not knowing how sick she was.  The veterinarian diagnosed pneumonia; and said she had a big heart.  That last point I could personally confirm.  We consulted many experts to find the right treatment for our poor little girl. We finally took the road trip to Madison Wisconsin, where the staff of the veterinary college had the expertise and equipment to diagnose and treat her.  One shaved throat and transtracheal wash later, we were on our way home to begin ten wonderful years with this loving animal.

When she got better, she found her voice.  She howled for the first time, to my great amusement.  I laughed loudly and, thinking it was praise, or an invitation to the hunt, she howled some more.  It was a symphony of comical sounds.


So now, October again, and my thoughts go back to those early days of Maggie, and my instinct is calling me to save another creature and take her home.


It looks like we will be ready to adopt another puppy in the spring.  That will give us time to train and housebreak a dog with better weather conditions; it was nearly impossible to train Maggie during the bitter winter months.


In the past year I bonded with many special dogs at the Buddy Foundation shelter. Several times I was sure I had met the perfect companion, and that Maggie would have approved.  But due to doubts in our minds as to our readiness to adopt, the dogs all found different homes.  A blessing actually, but hard to let them all go.


Now as we begin the descent into long, cold dark winter, we have something to look toward.  When March arrives, I hope we find a face as sweet as this one!

(Doyle, a 4-year-old Greyhound Shepherd mix.)

A Dog-Shelter Story--Wednesday Journal

Taking a break from Oscars, and the movies.  In a few days, I'll come back to weigh in on the nominations for 2009, back from my 40-year sentimental journey.


But tonight, here's a story of what occurred yesterday, a fitting commemoration of a difficult anniversary.  I want to preserve this in my journal here and share it with the rest of you.  What happened was moving, and necessary.

Yesterday (February 2) was a snowy, dreary Groundhog Day.  It was just like Groundhog Day exactly two years ago, the day we put to rest our Bassett Hound, Maggie.  She was having seizures continuously, and the light was gone from her eyes.  The veterinary team was exceedingly kind to us, as we spent our last moments very close to her, reassuring her it that was all right for her to leave us, to feel better at last.    Two years later, the pain of losing her is manageable, but has not gone away completely. It's a feeling that reminds me that she was once a very important part of my life.  As Joni Mitchell wrote in her song Hejira, "There's comfort in melancholy...."


A couple of weeks ago, while cleaning kitchen cabinets, I found the last can of dog food we had purchased for her. We never had the heart to get rid of it, and I had forgottten it was there.  I checked and the expiration date was still good.


As it turned out, I was scheduled for a shift at the Buddy Foundation yesterday, on this wistful aniversary.  I somehow knew that the time spent there would be emotionally healing.  I took the can of food with me to the shelter, because  my shift on Tuesdays is always feeding time., and I got permission to use it to feed the dogs in our care. 


Other than  the souveniers we have in safekeeping (her bandanas, collar and leash, fleece coat, old toys, and of course, armloads of photographs), this was the last item we had that was related to Maggie's care.  It felt like she was there with me at the shelter, wagging her tail at the prospect of sharing a meal with my new friends, all of them jumping and making happy noises.

I opened the can, and wept silently, internally... there were no tears.  I was happy in my work with these creatures, all of them characters, all of them depending for their very lives on the care provoded by us volunteers.  I was joyful that I was sharing the last of Maggie's food to sustain the lives of these homeless, hapless animals.  Some of them would never find a home, I knew.  This was all they would ever have. 

Maggie, in her own way, just wanted to help me out.

So Cassie the sweet little beagle, Zoe the dalmatian mix, Abel the Golden Retriever, Danny the pit bull,  Starsky the Boxer/Basset Hound...they and others received the benefit of Maggie's "generosity".   I was able to let go a little more...not for good, not completely, but happily, knowing that one life was flowing into so many others.

It felt, like nothing else I have experienced, like a true communion.  

Animals at Christmas Time--Tuesday Journal

Whenever I need to recapture some of the natural and pure joy I felt as a child around this time of year, I recall the animals around me. They don’t know Christmas is coming; they don’t care about the family visits and the shopping and the cards and decorations, the cooking and the wrapping and the carols. They don’t expect anything, and most of them can't reciprocate in material ways..but they all give something back in their pure and innocent fashion!


Giving something to an innocent creature reminds me why I loved the Christmas season in the first place. The satisfactions of making others happy, or providing for even small needs, satisfactions which were meant to be the unique focus of this season, go beyond how any of us celebrate a holiday, or whether we celebrate it at all.


I dedicate this Christmas, and this post, to animals. Enjoy these small, true anecdotes from my archives, and consider giving to an animal, wild or domestic, this Christmas season. I give many thanks to those of you who help creatures in your homes, in shelters, or in the wild, all year. And I wish special happiness to those of you who bond with your domestic animal companions, and who know the terrific joys and sorrows attached to that bond. You are the best example of what it means to be human!
~ ~ ~


Maggie our Bassett Hound made Christmas her special domain. She used to help us open our gifts by completely shredding the wrapping as soon as it was torn off a package.


When the tree was up at last, she would lay under it and look at us contentedly, with an air of calm, of safety, a look that said that all was right in her world, the way good children feel when they know Santa is coming.


She loved the snow, burying her nose deep within it to catch the many scents still trapped in the frozen ground below. Her little legs made it hard to transport her sausage-body through any more than 3 inches of snow. We would actually shovel a path for her in the yard.

Her ears and belly were sensitive to the cold, and so we dressed her up in the most fashionable Bassett garments, a fleece coat and babushka made from a bandana…so that she looked like an extra in “Fiddler on the Roof.”

~~~

Squirrels are plentiful in our neighborhood. In a large knot-hole in the maple tree in our front yard, a mother squirrel annually builds her nest within. One would not think that her plump, furry body would fit comfortably in there, but she manages to glide in gracefully. Once in a while if she hears us nearby, she will come out to chatter at us, often running away for a while, and always returning. She had babies in there once. I just learned that baby squirrels are properly known as “kittens”.


You can buy “squirrel food” at many pet-feed stores. Basically, it is a bag of raw corn. We use Maggie’s old food dish (she would have approved) to fill with this “squirrel chow” and set it near the back patio, where from the bedroom window facing the back yard we can observe sometimes five critters, sitting up on their haunches as at a trough, happily munching, or stuffing their cheeks with kernels, and running to the back fence to bury their treasures.

Some of these squirrels are good farmers, as we have found forgotten kernels sprouting into full-fledged cornstalks in our garden.

~ ~ ~
Birds are particularly needy in the winter.  Even a small seed cup filled with bird food is a real gift to small non-migratory birds.  Here, I want to pay tribute to an English teacher who taught me poetry in grade school.  One of the poems we analyzed was the lyirc to Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sparrow".  This was a powerful influence on me, and set me on the road to paying more attention to my non-human friends.  Read the lyrics here.

~ ~ ~
Mark had the great idea to use only animal-related decorations on our little Christmas tree this year.  We have a collection of ornaments that goes way back:  among them lots of dogs, (hounds mostly), cats,  a Russian polar bear, and several cardinals (Mark is from St. Louis, and the cardinal is Illinois' state bird).  A couple of our ornaments were purchased to raise funds at our new local animal shelter, The Buddy Foundation.  With the purchase of the ornaments, a pet could be remembered on their tree.  We are remembering one sweet dog, and one loving cat. You may recall I will soon attend orientation here to prepare myself to volunteer as a caregiver to the sheltered dogs and cats.

~ ~ ~
Most animal shelters could use your donations.  If not money, many items are needed, from dog and cat foods, paper towels, stainless steel bowls,  blankets, office supplies, and cleaning supplies.  Call your local shelters to find out what they need the most.

~ ~ ~
Take care of your domestic companions.  Be sure their paws are clean after trudging through salt and sharp ice.  Avoid anti-freeze (it tastes sweet and dogs like it)... keep poinsettia plants far away from your canine friends...  Be strong and resist their begging for extra holiday treats, for the sake of their health.... Don't leave your animals out in extreme cold, because the fur on most dogs can't protect them for very long in near-zero-or-below temperatures.  And wait until after the holidays before considering a pet adoption, unless you are committed to making this animal a part of your home for good.   Have a great holiday season, and thanks for reading!!

Journal November 9--Maggie: Modeling Happiness

I often boast about needing very little to be happy.  I can content myself with a book, a cup of tea, and a friend, and that usually suffices.  Then I think I'm only kidding myself.

Really, I have MORE  than what I need to be truly happy...my laptop computer, my hundreds of books, my Video and DVD collection, and the machines and the TV to play them on, the radio with the public stations, the music CD's, the cabinets and refrigerator filled with food, the health club, my cell phone, my e-mail address.....

Sure, I don't drive a fancy car, or live in a McMansion (or any kind of mansion), but I am comfortable, and am luckier than many.  I am working, I can travel, and I have family near me.  Best of all I have my patient and loving partner, and my tremendous friends, old and new, who sustain me and support me.

If I am going to be serious about acquiring the discipline needed to live a writer's life, I will need to be content with less on a daily basis.

When Maggie was with us, I learned just how very little is required for happiness.  All she needed was the company of her loved ones, some time outside, her food and water, and her only "vice":  a rawhide bone every day, which she ate proudly and voraciously, feeling that she was pleasing us as much as she enjoyed it herself.  (The funniest thing is that the bones she liked the best did not come from a pet shop, but from a home repair and decorating store in the area called Menards! )  We were also careful to supply her with American-made bones that had no toxic "flavorings" or coloring. (Click here for tips on buying the best rawhides for your dog.)

Maggie especially loved it when we laid on the floor with her while she relished her treat.  It looked something like this, to me:

Maggie--Playing Nice With Others

Maggie was an ambassador in our neighborhood.  We walked her every day, usually twice a day, so she became well-known to our neighbors for blocks.  She always elicited smiles, and because we socialized her in early puppyhood*, she learned to be comfortable with people, and greeted everyone with a tail wag and a smile...and for those she liked most, she pinned her ears back.

*..."A properly socialized puppy is well adjusted and makes a good companion. It is neither frightened by nor aggressive towards anyone or anything it would normally meet in day to day living. An un-socialized dog is untrustworthy and an unwanted liability. They often become fear-biters. Often they like to fight with other dogs. They are difficult to train and are generally unpleasant to be around...."  (from Perfectpaws.com)

People in our rather staid and conservative community warmed to Mark and me by observing us around Maggie's antics, and our obvious love and care of her.  We patiently let her go at her own pace, as she followed her nose, sniffing almost every blade of grass and tree along the way.  She would suddenly lay down on someone's lawn, and the only way I could get her back on her feet was to gently slide my hands under her belly, and she would stand up automatically. Sometimes I would carry her home like a Yearling deer.  She was popular, even winning a 4th of July festival cutest dog contest (second place).  She would let very young children explore her ears and soft fur, and she always sat patiently. The only time she walked quickly was when she found a treasure (an apple, a paper plate, etc.) and would proudly parade her new find while making an effort to get home quickly with it.

No one complained when she howled in the yard....

....and she believed that everyone was her friend. 

One neighbor couple was particularly close to Maggie.  After losing their Chocolate Lab to illness, they would board in their home the dogs of friends who were traveling.  On one occasion, they agreed to watch two sibling Golden Retriever puppies. Maggie was invited for a play date.  It's hard to add words to the story these pictures tell (especially the last two).

Maggie: Digging, and the Kibble-Toss

When Maggie was a puppy she used to dig a little in the back yard. She would have part of an uneaten rawhide bone, find a loamy spot in the garden,  scratch the soil back with her paws, drop in her treasure, and cover it with her nose.  After only a few minutes of surveying the yard, she would dig it up again. 

She outgrew this behavior after a while, because she knew she could always count on us for treats, and so she never needed to develop that instinct for hoarding and hiding.

Once in a while she would take a piece of kibble from her bowl and toss it around the room, often following it as it scuttled down the hall, or into the living room, or another nearby part of the house.

One night, she lay in front of the couch, sniffing under it and whining urgently.  Not knowing what else to do, we heaved the couch away, and found a piece of kibble she must have lost...maybe WEEKS before.  This would occur every so often...in front of the refrigerator, or the clothes washer.... I am still trying to learn if it was the scent of the food that attracted her...or if she actually remembered losing it there.

Maggie: Coming Home---a Prologue

"...How can I make you know her the way we did?  She was a simple creature, yet I am afraid I won't do her justice....  These stories allow me me to forget that I can no longer place my hand on her head...feel her warm breath on my neck as she jumps on me in play... spoil her with treats...watch her tail spin like a propellor when Mark lets go of the leash and she happily barrels into me when I come home... Almost two years later, and I still refuse to accept her absence..........  I understand why mankind created the concept of heaven.....  It's not possible that one so loving just stops being ......"

Sorry for the somber stream of consciousness...in fact, if she had the ability to read, she would never apporve....She would say....."just tell me the way I was...and I will come through"....then she would daintily squat and pee on her throw rug, and I would gladly launder it again, for the fifth time in a week.....

(More later on the hilarious challenges presented by her training....)

It was in October when Maggie and we first encountered each other.  I hate to say it but we purchased her from a pet store......but then, I like to think of it as a resuce...Yes, we did rescue her, from a horrific infancy, from a dirty birthing area, born one of many offspring to an exhausted hound whose fate it was to breed,  rescued from the memory of a trip to Illinois on a truck (we believe), with cages stacked above and below her, so frightening to her tiny sensibility that for a year she would cower whenever a truck went by....

All of that occurred to me soon, as my awareness was raised about puppy mills, and it produced in me a fierce protectiveness I had not known before, and have not felt since....

But that Saturday, we walked into the pet store in a suburban strip mall "just to look"...Mark and I, among our other similarities, shared a love for dogs, especially bassett hounds.  The minute we saw, in a cage across the store, a pair of large ears comically flapping as she romped with a cage-mate who was twice her size, we looked no more.

First there were the ears...So soft!...they came full-sized at birth, I think, attached to a tiny head and sly sad eyes that seemed always to be thinking of her next round of mischief, but still managed to be convincingly innocent, and alert, and melancholy even in her most frolicking moments.   

Then there was her belly, smooth, pink and round, which Mark said smelled like a newborn baby; he loved to gently press his face into that soft flesh and inhale. She responded with a tail wag and a delighted jerk of her small twisted legs.

The legs, especially the front ones, caused concern at first....Bassets typically have turned-out front paws, with stocky legs. Maggie's legs were spindly and twisted in a dramatic way...almost everyone who met her asked if she was crippled...until they saw her run.....Maggie loved when I massaged her tired legs, sighing as she lay on her side next to me on the living room carpet...or on the bed. 

I honestly don't remember how we named her...the shop tagged her as "Droopy"....somehow, Maggie just fit....

That first night  I didn't attend to anything else.....I could not believe we had this creature in our care.  I fell in love hearing the first sounds of her tongue dipping in her water bowl, seeing the white tip of her tail that spun whenever she saw us, watching her stumble in the back yard for the first time as she sniffed and searched and made it her world, praising her for "finding her spot" (code word for doing her duty) and settling on the corner of the lawn that we would forever dub "her corner".

Her first night, she unleashed a repertoire of sounds---howls, yips, barks, whines, hums, hymns---intended to break our wills and get her out of the laundry room (where we had set up a warm comfortable bed crate).  Her intended destination was wherever we were---specifically the bed.  We lasted one night....just to get some sleep!

She liked the warmth of the laundry room most days.  One time soon after she came home, all was quiet...did we forget to bring her inside?  We walked into the laundry room...and she managed to climb inside the dirty-clothes basket, curl up, and sleep as silently as a church mouse.....

Readers....I'm happy to introduce you to the ambassador of my "neighorhood",  Maggie Johnson......and I hope you enjoy her stories in the days ahead, and share some of your own.

A New Dog--Daydreaming

Yes, perhaps I am on the verge of significant changes, ones of my own making and choosing, not the result of failing health or getting old.  Sometimes, I do think about putting it all on hold for the chance to bring another dog into my life. 


I have resisted the temptation to visit shelters and adoption events at local pet stores.  I know that one look into the sad eyes of a loving hound (especially a hound), while placing my hand on her smooth and vulnerable head, will change the course of my life in a big way.....  And halt me in my tracks.


Mark and I have discussed this...We want to travel...prepare for a change in residence....and not create an unstable and unfair environment for a new animal....


But we cannot deny that our caregiving instincts, and our great love for dogs, is a strong temptation.


I guess it's time to write some anecdotes about our ten crazy years with our unforgettable Basset Hound....

"Maggie Johnson"

Journal for Tuesday: My colleague's new dog

Over a week ago, I reported about the unfortunate death of my co-worker's dog, Molly.  I met this beagle mix only a week before her demise, just outside of the building where my colleague and I worked.  This past weekend, less than two weeks after Molly succumbed to seizures, my friend and her family applied to foster a new dog, an active Jack Russell Terrier-Chihuahua mix they named Roxie.  Well, happy to say that after one night, this family decided to adopt the dog.
(I think fostering a dog is an artificial construct....how can a real dog-lover hand over to another owner the creature for which they cared and showed love?  Fostering is step one in true adoption...)
Today, I met Roxie.  She wiggled inside the car when she saw me outside the window, and was barely on the sidewalk before she happily assaulted me with her little paws and tongue, knocking my glasses off my head.  The looks on the faces of my co-worker and her husband were as glowing as I have ever seen on a proud and hopeful canine caregiver, and I knew they had made the right decision.
Some time soon, Mark and I will take the plunge, and let another creature into our hearts and home.  Maggie, I think, would approve. 
(Here's a photo of Maggie that I hope will become world-famous, as the icon on my Comments profile on the Huffington Post.)

Dog Story--September 15

I posted on Saturday that a co-worker adopted a dog three weeks ago, and that the dog became very ill.
I'm sad to report that the dog didn't survive her ordeal with seizures, and distemper. My friend said she never saw her husband cry as hard as he did that morning.
What is it about the death of a canine companion that causes us to grieve so deeply?   I've reflected on this many times in the year and a half since Maggie our basset hound left us.
Maggie lived in the present. She didn't reminisce...and she could make no plans for the future beyond her next meal, walk, or treat.  She knew how to manipulate us to get what she wanted, but did so with such goofy sincerity and eagerness, that it made me laugh, and I usually gave in.  What did it hurt, really, as long as she was safe and healthy?    Her dependence on us aroused in me an instinct for protection and love so free of ulterior motives, that I felt a child-like, innocent exuberance with her.  I could not bear the idea of her being hurt.  I fiercely  protected her from bad weather (in her coat and head scarf, she looked like an extra in "Fiddler on the Roof"), kept her away from threatening neighborhood dogs, and did what I could to avoid seeing loneliness in her already droopy eyes..  And she rewarded us with good humor, playfulness, and a willingness to keep us warm in bed. 
What doesn't go away is the pain of not being able to explain to her why she had to leave us (she was being destroyed by seizures)....I have felt that I could never forgive myself for that ultimate betrayal.....But Mark and I remind each other that in her own way she never questioned us (except to try to escape from a bath or nail-clipping) and would hold nothing against us. 
The veterinary staff was extremely kind, and did nothing to exploit our grief. 
The daily pain has subsided, but there's an emptiness ....And anyone who knew her (she was sort of a neighborhood ambassador) understands....
We sprinkled her ashes in a small corner rose garden..the roses are flourishing...and the rabbits and squirrels still play there...they miss her too.
And so, I've dispensed with the sad story right away....and from now on, all of my Maggie anecdotes will be happier ones. 

Daily Journal September 10----Dogs in my World

I guess you might say that there are few people who love dogs more than I do.  This is the first of many stories I will publish about the dogs I have known......and Maggie, the basset hound Mark and I raised for ten years, was the most significant one: most humorous, most challenging, most lovable, most heartbreaking.

A woman I work with adopted a beagle-mix three weeks ago, and now, the dog is having seizures, the same thing which afflicted Maggie until we made the agonizing decision to show her one final act of kindness.  My co-worker's dog, named Molly, has already found a place deep in the affections of her entire family.  I have a feeling it will be a very emotional recovery; providing the dog recovers, and I hope she will.

Maggie left us on Groundhog Day, February 2, 2008.  But it is as though she still controls our home....her presence is still felt....we have little reminders everywhere.  Friends ask us all the time if we are getting a new dog.  I think we will someday.  For now, I am happy to share my stories of Maggie with you.  Hope that all of you will tell me about your favorite canine companions.