Me with puppy-Ichabod. This was a while before the story I tell here… but this was the days before smart phones and I don’t have many pictures of us together during this period.
My best friend is getting old. It’s been coming on for a while, but this cold weather is confirming this reality like never before. In my heart he’s still a puppy… despite the pills he takes for a heart murmur, and the extra hours he now requires for resting. There are times when I can forget…. when he still goes nuts in the backyard; chases rabbits; catching the occasional bird. A few months back while we were down in the basement, he dragged a garbage bag of insulation from a crawl space. Working on something with my back to him, I didn’t notice right away. I was alerted to the danger when I heard the sound of a beagle rump repeatedly smacking into the dryer. My horror was a living and breathing thing as I turned to see him joyfully shredding the dangerous material….. happily flinging it into the air. (I got it all out of his mouth… freaked out…. called the vet…. but in the end, everything was OK.) I’d thought one of the advantages to having an older dog is that we wouldn’t have to worry about these puppy-antics-inspired dangers anymore. But with Ichabod? Not so.
Over the last few weeks it’s gotten very cold outside, and I’ve been cautious in allowing Ichabod’s favorite activity…going outside 15,000 times per day. I’ve thought of how he’s nearly 12 years old now and wondered whether his stamina was enough to allow for extended backyard adventures. And while I wonder…. I remember…..
Ichabod was born in the spring of 2004. I was in my mid-twenties at the time, but found myself having to move back in with my parents. Luckily they allowed me to bring my new puppy without raising a single objection, though to be sure, he was a handful…. Like that time he started a fire, and that other time that he ate part of the couch, or how he regularly ate my sister’s possessions, which I constantly had to replace, even though i was trying to save money. I could go on and on…. (sigh!)
The winter of 2004-2005 was particularly harsh, and right before Christmas, a winter storm dropped a couple of feet of snow on us. This was Ichabod’s first winter, and to say he was delighted by the white fluffy stuff would be an understatement. My parents had an entire pack of pomeranians, the oldest of which, Missy, was nearly 14. She was frail, nearly deaf and blind, and couldn’t stay outside for more than a few minutes at a stretch. Late one night during this painfully-snowy period, Ichabod wanted to go outside. The temperature was well below freezing, and the wind was ferocious. Resignedly, I opened the door for him, and grimaced as Missy hopped up from her dog bed and trotted out the door. Understanding I’d have to carefully monitor the situation, I closed the door against the swirling cold, and watched from the window.
By the floodlight illuminating the yard, I watched Ichabod prance happily back and forth. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Missy, however, did something confounding. She didn’t pause just beyond the porch to do her business and return to the house, as I’d been hoping. Instead, she marched determinedly to the very end of the yard, and just stopped, staring into the white oblivion. When she didn’t move, I think I uttered an expletive to myself just before I yanked the door open, feeling the stab of cold on my face and screamed, “MISSY!!!!!” before slamming the door closed, once again, and returning to the window.
No movement. No acknowledgement that she’d heard me at all. After a few more unsuccessful attempts, I couldn’t put it off any longer: I’d have to go after her.
I pulled on my winter coat and boots, (a nice complement to my shorts) and steeled myself for the frosty rescue mission. The moment my feet hit the frozen snow, Ichabod was ecstatic. Thinking I’d come outside to play with him, he tried to get his favorite game going: Chase. He feinted left, he feinted right and crouched down, tail wagging, eying me over his paws.
“Ichabod, I didn’t come out to play,” I said, smiling at his cuteness.
His eyes seemed to say, “I don’t believe you!” as he looked around the yard for something, anything to grab hold of. (This was his favorite game… grab something, take off running, and have me chase after him.) Unfortunately for him, all of his toys were frozen under two feet of snow, but he improvised. As his gaze landed on something, I could see the light of triumph on his face. “Surely not,” I thought in horror, even as he lunged for it. Yes, the title was a spoiler alert…. the object he settled on, believing that I would chase him and try to take it from him was, in fact, frozen dog poo!
“ICHABOD!” I shouted in disbelief as he happily threw the thing in the air, caught it in his teeth, and trotted around with an air of intense pride. “DROP IT! YUCK!”
A moment later, he realized I had no intention of playing a game of poop-catch with him, and he began looking sad. As much as I hated feeling responsible for his sadness, I just couldn’t indulge him. All this time, Missy had not moved from her perch at the edge of the yard, staring into the bleak night for reasons only she knew. I rushed to her and pulled her shivering body into my coat, asking, her, “What the heck, Missy?”
She didn’t answer.
The three of us returned to the house, and it was at least three days before I would accept beagle kisses.
****
All of that was just over 11 years ago. Missy is long gone, and Ichabod’s once brown face has turned snowy white. Though more than a decade has passed, and marriage (for me, not Ichabod), another dog, and the birth of a human little brother (for Ichabod, not me) separate that time from now, it seems to have sped by in a relentless dizzying blur.
Today is a cold and snowy day. I peaked out to check on Ichabod, and saw him sitting on the cold hard ground, staring at nothing. And I thought back to that night. All too soon that carefree pup became the old man. Though it all seems to go by too fast, I’m grateful for the time that I have.
Any snake photos are from the internet… We didn’t take the time to photograph our visitor….
Photo credit: ratsnake.org
Steve and I have lived in our house for eight years. I’ve made references before to the odd nature of our neighborhood; what with our suburban subdivision butting up against the country, and some of our adventures that stemmed from these two worlds colliding. But yesterday…. things got a little too real.
*****
On this fateful evening, I had plans to go out with some girlfriends while Steve and Carter worked in the yard. Though Carter loves ‘working’ in the yard, and has an entire array of his own toy implements, he was a little upset that I was going somewhere without him and kept asking if he could come. In an effort to distract him, I reminded him that we’d not checked on our pumpkins, (we’d planted seeds nearly a week ago and have been searching for sprouts every day since) and suggested we head out to the front garden. Agreeing, he headed out the garage door with Steve while I poured some water and headed out behind them.
Less than 30 seconds after Steve and Carter were out the door, I had joined them. My eyes told me right away that we had a problem, but it seemed that the two were oblivious; Steve stood staring into the garden while Carter pretended to weed eat….. LESS THAN 10 FEET AWAY FROM A LARGE SNAKE!
I had trouble processing it. Though Steve is not known for practical jokes, my first instinct was that he’d found a rubber snake somewhere and thrown it in the yard to scare me… nothing else made sense… they were so close to it, I couldn’t understand how they’d not seen it. Joke or not, I couldn’t stop the sharp intake of breath. When Steve looked at me curiously, I merely pointed to the snake. When he jumped five feet, I had confirmation that it was no joke. The snake began slithering and hissing.
Where we first saw the snake…
I shouted for Carter just as Steve asked me to get Carter away and to bring him the shovel. Scooping Carter into my arms, I ran to the garage and retrieved the shovel, quickly passing it to Steve. He stood there, shovel in hand, watching the snake. We were both at a loss for what to do next. At that moment one of our neighbors and his teenage son arrived home, and Steve shouted for them to come over. When the dad learned that we had a large snake (my estimate was 4 feet; Steve’s is 3…. to be fair, he got much closer to the creature than I did) he said he wasn’t coming over, but his son enthusiastically joined us.
“It’s a rat snake,” he said. “Don’t hurt it! It’s not going to hurt you, it’s probably just passing through… he’s scared.”
Even as the boy talked, the snake inched closer and closer to our house, climbing the garden pavers and slithering through our would-be pumpkin patch. Once again he said, “Don’t hurt him, he’s more scared of you than you are of him. If I had an aquarium, I’d take him home.” At this, his dad began shouting protests…. from a safe distance, of course.
As the snake squeezed through a gap in the pavers leading to the side of our house, Steve had a brain wave. As he followed the snake, he asked me to go get our next door neighbor, a police officer who’d told us many stories of responding to 911 calls and removing snakes and other unwanted reptiles from houses. Recalling that they’d jackhammered their front walkway that morning, I returned to the garage to shove my bare feet into shoes before rushing next door, wading through the rubble, climbing their (currently) stepless porch and ringing the bell.
No answer.
I returned to find the snake heading for our backyard with Steve right behind it. The snake stopped, raised it’s head, turning to look at Steve.
“There was no answer….” I began, letting my words hang in the air.
Nodding, Steve asked, “Should I kill it?”
I was torn. On one hand I don’t like the thought of killing animals, even a snake, (though it would be different if it were poisonous or if it were threatening us in some way.) On the other hand, IT WAS A SNAKE! “I don’t know,” I responded.
Lowering it’s head, the snake continued determinedly towards our backyard. “If it goes into the backyard, I’ll have to kill it. I don’t want it getting into that stuff under the porch.” Steve was saying these words as the snake passed through the fence into the yard. We keep our fence locked, and Steve searched his pockets for his keys, coming up with nothing and finally leaping the fence. With Carter still on my hip, I ran for the garage. We have a door with a window looking into our backyard, and I believed this would be a safe place to see what came next. Seeing nothing, I ran back to the fence. “What’s going on?” I shouted.
“He’s heading past the burn pit,” he called back.
I had no idea snakes could move so fast, but knowing I could see the burn pit from the garage, we headed back. By this time Steve and the snake were on the other side of the yard. Once again I ran from the garage, this time appearing on the side of the house closest to where they now stood. Once again Steve asked me, “Should I kill it?”
Again, I couldn’t commit to an answer. “I don’t know.”
As we had this conversation, the choice was taken from our hands as the snake disappeared under the privacy fence. I ran to the neighbor’s fence and watched for the snake to appear on the other side. He didn’t. I returned to Steve. We decided it was time to unleash the secret weapon to scare the snake away once and for all… the wild….the crazy…the one-and-only ICHABOD!
I rushed into the house, shouting, “ICHABOD!!! SNAKE!!! GO!!!” as I wrenched open the backdoor releasing him into the yard. Mildly interested he took to the back porch, casually sniffed the air, then stopped for a cold drink from his water bowl on the back steps. Shaking my head in disbelief I recalled the times Ichabod would lose his mind over hearing the siding rustling in the wind; and now I wanted him to unleash the crazy to scare a snake and he couldn’t be bothered.
Refusing to give up, I jogged down the steps and stood by Steve at the fenceline. Ichabod trotted behind me, before making a sudden turn and heading towards the bird feeder. Exasperated, I once again shouted, “Ichabod!”
Seeming mildly annoyed, he reluctantly joined us, giving the air a few half-hearted sniffs.
“Did you touch the snake with the shovel?” I asked. When Steve nodded I added, “Hold it out to him.” Sniffing the shovel, Ichabod must have found something compelling enough to lead him to also sniff the fence where the snake had disappeared…. but that was it. No howling, bellowing or crying…. no frenzied digging away at the fence…. after a few placating snuffles, he simply walked away and returned to the bird feeder.
What in the world?
Things calmed down after that. I ran inside to grab my phone and ask google some questions about rat snakes. I learned that though they aren’t generally considered a threat to people, they will bite if they feel cornered. Also, they are great climbers and frequently get into houses. (Ick!) When I read that farmers love them because they keep rodent populations under control [1] I experienced a pang. I stopped reading and said, “You know I’ve always wanted to live in the country and have goats and donkeys…. this makes me think I’m not cut out for it.”
“We’d have to get you a pistol,” Steve said. I didn’t respond, but the situation would have to be pretty dire before I’d try to shoot a snake.
Soon the neighbor we’d tried to get for help appeared outside. It seems he’d been asleep when I knocked (he sometimes works nights) and hadn’t heard. He was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing, having removed so many snakes from houses while at work. “Rat snakes are no big deal…. now pythons on the other hand…..” he went on, telling us of an emergency call he’d received after someone had released their pet into the wild…. or so they thought.
Believing our snake adventure to be over, Steve and Carter returned to working on the lawn as I headed inside to get ready to meet my friends. A few minutes later, as I stood trying to decide what to wear, I heard the garage door yanked open followed by “NIC!!!!” then a slam.
“Yeah?” I hollered back…
Nothing.
The sound of the door being pulled open came again, also with “NIC!!! GET DOWN HERE!!!”
I started to panic, fearing that Carter had been hurt somehow. I was in the process of getting dressed when the call came, and was suddenly frozen with horror.
“WHAT’S GOING ON?” I shouted back.
“NIC, GET DOWN HERE!!!”
Finally I came clean: “I’M NOT DRESSED…. WHAT IS IT?”
“GET DOWN HERE!!!”
Finally understanding that was all I would be getting in the way of an explanation, I grabbed for the first pair of shorts I could lay hands to…. but they weren’t the best choice. They are over a decade old and coming apart… but they are my favorites and I can’t part with them…. but as I ran down the steps while trying to put on the shorts at the same time, my foot got caught in one of the holes and I nearly toppled down the steps. It was a miracle I managed to avoid a front roll!
The shorts that nearly took me down.
“WHAT?” I shouted, as I entered the kitchen.
Still standing in the garage, Steve shoved Carter in towards me while saying, “The snake is back.”
Relief flooded me as I registered that Carter was fine. “OK.” I said, pulling Carter towards me.
“Go out the front door and get (here Steve said our policeman neighbor’s name. For his privacy, I’m leaving it out.)
Nodding, I pulled Carter up into my arms and headed for the front door. Once on our front path, I remembered the busted up walkway. I turned towards the garage to grab a pair of shoes…. if I’d been thinking clearly, I would have registered that it was odd for Steve to ask me to go out the front door, we almost never open it and exclusively use the garage… but I wasn’t thinking. As I entered the garage, Steve began shouting at me to leave the garage. Startled, I froze as he continued yelling, GET OUT!!! GET OUT!!!” Then he pointed to my left, and I looked over to see the snake under Carter’s wagon…. about a yard away from my bare feet!
Screaming at the top of my lungs I ran from the garage, just as another neighbor, the one with the teenage son, came to investigate the screams. “CAN YOU RING THEIR DOORBELL?” I asked, pointing to the police officer’s house. “Their walkway is all torn up and my shoes are in the garage with the snake.”
He didn’t say anything. He stood, frozen, staring at me as I stared at him. Steve, standing right next to the snake shouted, “SOMEBODY GET HIM OR I’LL HAVE TO KILL THE SNAKE!”
Since this man was still frozen to the spot, I kept heading towards the neighbor’s house, deciding to go into their open garage and knock on the door leading into the house. Behind me, I heard the neighbor shouting, “I’LL SHOOT THE SNAKE FOR YOU, BUT I DON’T WANT TO GET NEAR IT!”
Um… Ok.
Rushing into the garage, I pounded on the door, before my neighbor glanced out.
“I’m sorry to come into your garage, but the snake is in ours, and Steve wanted me to see if you could come help him.”
“Oh, sure,” he said casually, grabbing a pair of gloves before heading past me towards our house.
Keeping my distance, I watched as he reached down, picking up the snake, all while the other neighbor kept repeating, “I’ll shoot the snake… but I don’t want to get near it.”
Straightening with the serpent clutched in both gloved hands, he said, “This guy is strong.” Then he headed between our houses and towards the woods, with Steve walking with him.
The fence where the snake disappeared and the woods where he was eventually released.
When they’d disappeared behind the house, I returned to the garage to look out the back window, watching as they headed into the woods to release the snake. As though in a stupor, the other neighbor continued to repeat, “I’ll shoot it for you…. but I don’t want to touch it.”
“What are you talking about?” I quipped. “Your boy said he wanted this thing for his room…. you’ve had time to make it to PetSmart and back with an aquarium by now!”
“Yeah, right,” he said. Apparently the spell had been broken.
In a moment Steve and our neighbor returned. We both thanked him for getting rid of it for us because neither of us wanted Steve to kill the snake. And now everything is back to normal…. or is it? I know it will be a long time before I go anywhere around here, either the garage or the yard, without my radar on.
I still can’t explain Ichabod’s lack of outrage. For a while now he’s been behaving a bit strangely in the backyard; walking and sniffing the fence around the bird feeder and the privacy fence…. seeming interested, but not crazed, though he’s wanted to go out more and more frequently. The other day I posted a picture of him on facebook with the question: “Do you ever look at your dog and think ‘this guy has secrets?’” I’m starting to wonder if Ichabod’s secret is that he has a snake-friend. That would be so very un-beagle-like…..
…But who can say?
Ichabod, having secrets……. and keeping them.Photo credit: srehlerp.uga.edu
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping things that creeps on the earth.”
Genesis 1:26 ESV
“Good people are good to their animals; the ‘good hearted’ bad people kick and abuse them.”
Proverbs 12:10 MSG
******
Sometimes when you are a writer, there comes a day when you pour yourself into a writing project; and when you are finished, you read through it hoping that the passion you feel comes across in the words you’ve crafted…. but you have to be honest with yourself…. what you’ve just put hours into creating is just utter crap. That is where this story is born…. in the ashes of one that came before it (but one you will never see). The problem is that I tried to articulate way too much in one small space, and what I was saying was heavy on emotion and light on facts. I am a person who feels things deeply, but I don’t believe everything I’m told. When I hear something or read something across my Facebook newsfeed that tugs at my heartstrings, my first thought is, “Is this actually true?” Then I find out. Though I’d read and cross-checked facts and knew what I’d written to be true, I’d not put any of the concrete information into the text, and the result was the exact type of sappy-sentiment that I find easy to doubt when I read it elsewhere….and since this is important to me, I knew I had to do something about it. I had to go “old-school-research-paper” style. I haven’t bothered with sources and footnotes in over a decade now, so it’s sort of a novelty.
*****
I love animals….. I always have. As I write this, my beagle Ichabod is 11, and he’s been my constant companion and best friend since he was six weeks old. One day while he was still a teeny-tiny pup, I recall jabbering on about him to a co-worker; I couldn’t help myself…. to me, everything he did was sheer puppy-magic. I’m sure my co-worker meant well and all, (or perhaps he was trying to shut me up,) but as I gushed about my sweet baby beagle, he sort of flatlined the conversation by saying, “You know they primarily use beagles in lab testing, right? It’s sad.”
I made some sort of “Oh, no, I didn’t know that” type of response, and changed the subject. I didn’t want to think about it. That was the way I handled the unpleasant side of life while in my twenties…. if it felt as though the problem was too big, or that it would be impossible for me to make any sort of impact… I chose not to think about it. Though I made a conscious effort to learn as little about it as possible about animal testing, deep down, I never forgot what that guy said to me that day.
The years passed. I grew up. I changed. I began to see that ignoring things I believed to be wrong simply because they made me sad, or I couldn’t envision making an impact was both childish and selfish….not to mention soul-crushing. This inner-shift in me coincided with the dawn of the age of Facebook, and suddenly, the cold hard realities of life became harder to ignore. (If you’ve ever had your day ruined because you were innocently scrolling through your phone when, without warning, you find yourself looking at a photo of someone strangling a Pitbull or electrocuting puppies to make coats, you know what I mean.) It was inevitable that it would happen. One day as I scrolled I came across a suggested post for an organization called “The Beagle Freedom Project”. As I gazed at the photo of a hound dog, (not so different from my old hound dog snoring on the couch) next to the words, “I shouldn’t have to die for your laundry detergent”, I realized the age of denial had come to an end. It was time to learn what this was all about….. and what I could do about it.
Because I feel things so deeply, and have a soft spot for animals, researching this topic was extremely difficult. I began by looking into the suggested post organization, “The Beagle Freedom Project.” Though I quickly became overwhelmed by the plight of the lab animals, I gained an immense respect for the work done by the rescue; they were everywhere trying to make lasting changes… introducing legislation, educating the public, asking for the release of animals once companies are done testing on them (usually they are killed), and placing the rescues with fosters before finding forever homes for them, as well as promoting cruelty-free products.
After reading the facts, and considering my own pampered hound dogs, I couldn’t justify my mindless consumerism… How could I love and protect these dogs while thoughtlessly supporting companies that kept similar animals caged up; subjecting them to torturous experiments, clipping their vocal cords if they found their cries annoying, denying them fresh air, love, or even the dignity of a name (their ears are tattooed with numbers)…. all for the sake of making money.
Here some of you are probably thinking, “It’s not just about making money…. these experiments keep us safe.” But are they really? Would it surprise you to know that 106,000 people die every year from drugs tested safe on animals? [1]
I don’t pretend to be a scientist….but I like to believe that I have some common sense. As I was researching this project, one evening I felt sickened while looking at a photograph of a lab monkey…. the poor creature had the top of his skull removed and had wires attached to what was left. I decided I’d seen enough for one evening and went to talk to Steve. With that thought still fresh in my mind I said, “I don’t know how people can do that. How they can be so barbaric to animals…. then simply go home and go about their lives.”
“I guess it takes all kinds,” he began. Until he went on, I didn’t understand that he was disagreeing with me. “I guess they figure for all the good they do that it’s worth it.”
Unsure what good could come from a monkey with part of it’s head removed, but not wanting to be closed-minded, I invited him to go on. But he didn’t really have a point…. just assuming that since it was a common practice that there must be a good reason he said, “They do learn stuff that helps us.”
“So you believe that what is safe for them is safe for us?” I asked.
“Yeah, there must be a reason they do it.”
“OK,” I began. “We’ve seen what Ichabod gets up to in the backyard…. so I’m assuming that it is safe for a beagle to eat dog poop. From what you are saying, that means you believe it must be safe for us as well…. would you like to do a little ‘human testing’ on that theory?”
This was a low blow, and I knew it. Steve has a vivid imagination and a sensitive gag reflex. He stared at me, betrayal shining in his eyes and said, “On taco night? How could you?” But I’d made my point. I include this story not to make my husband sound bad… or to make myself sound like a know-it-all, (though to be honest, I believe I would have been fabulous if I’d done debate team in high school) but I mention it in order to clarify something: Steve is a smart guy…. but when we don’t use our intelligence to investigate troubling realities…. those realities remain troubling… and unchanged.
I think my admission to my dog poop argument confirms what I said earlier…. I’m not a scientist. But I can read (and sort of understand) science written by those much smarter than me. When I began delving into this world, I was mostly concerned with the consumer-products side of animal testing. I was surprised to learn that even in relation to medical research, animal testing is largely antiquated and irrelevant. Here are a few credible arguments I’ve found against the necessity of animal testing:
“While the public supports the idea of animal testing because they believe it necessary to find cures for human diseases, about two thirds or higher of all animal research has little or nothing to do with curing human diseases or advancing human medicine. The majority of animal testing is done on cosmetics and household cleaners for the purpose of protecting corporations from liability.
Even research that purports to advance human treatment of diseases has been shown to be irrelevant to human health. Animals behave differently than humans, so much of the results end up being inaccurate, inconclusive, or unreliable. The Food & Drug Administration recently reported that of all the drugs that tested safe and effective in animal testing, 92 percent are found to be either unsafe or ineffective in humans.” [2]
“The public often consider it [self-evident] that animal research has contributed to the treatment of human disease, yet little evidence is available to support this view… Despite the lack of systematic evidence for its effectiveness, basic animal research in the United Kingdom receives much more funding than clinical research.” [3]
As I’ve said, I am an emotional person, and now that I’ve presented some hard facts, I’m going to hit the ‘heart’ side of animal testing. I was especially moved by Barney’s story found on the Beagle Freedom Project’s website:
I’m sad to say that Barney didn’t make it. After a lifetime of being used and discarded by people, he made it to his forever home; a home filled with love…. but sadly, the ‘forever’ didn’t last very long.
Looking into animal testing has raised so many questions for me concerning our ‘legitimate’ economy. I’ve come to question everything from the food we eat, to the clothes we wear and even the toys my son plays with…. but those are stories for another day. I will add, however, that I’ve come to the conclusion that we ‘look the other way’ a lot when it comes to morals and money, but at what ultimate cost?
I’ve had well-meaning Christians tell me to my face that they didn’t think this animal stuff was all that important…. that there were other things to be more concerned about. In a way they are right… there are many things wrong in our society, and it’s not just limited to the way we exploit animals. But I disagree in that I DO believe that God cares about the plight of these animals. He’s made it clear through His word that we people are responsible for the animals he so lovingly created, and we are meant to treat them with kindness. Further, He’s put it on my heart to speak up for them, and to live what I believe. (Next I plan to write about my journey towards cruelty-free living. Our household is not totally cruelty-free yet, but we are in process. I would like to throw special shout outs here to my husband Steve, for converting without complaint to recycled toilet paper, and my sister Amanda who was with me on two separate hot and sweaty days when my cruelty-free deodorant failed me completely.)
The way we treat animals matters. As I come to the close (for now) I ask that you watch this video. As you watch this, ask yourself…. “Is there anything that I buy…. make-up, cleaning products… anything that is worth this price?”
If you answered “Yes,” then I have another question. Do you honestly believe that a company who is willing to do this in order to make money is all that concerned with your health and safety, and that of your family?
“…many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.”
-J.K. Rowling
When Rowling spoke of imagining our way into….. and therefore sympathizing with…..the suffering of others, she was speaking of human suffering…. but her words are quite apt here as well. Whatever we may turn out to be…. let’s not be as those she so wisely warns us about.
Pandora Pound, Shah Ebrahim, Peter Sandercock, Michael B Bracken, Ian Roberts; “Where is the evidence that animal research benefits humans?” British Medical Journal, 2004; 328:514-517, http://www.bmj.com/content/328/7438/514
Slick Ichabod… Believing himself to be invisible, he was waiting for me to leave so he could ‘liberate’ the chicken I’d just thrown away.
Enjoying a nice afternoon of legos.
During the autumn of 2009, right before Lucy came to live with us, I took 5 years old Ichabod to the vet for his annual visit. After the exam had been completed, I asked the vet whether it was time to schedule Ichabod for a dental cleaning. In response to my query, Dr. Rich pulled Ichabod’s lips apart and surveyed his teeth before pronouncing the surgery unnecessary.
“These are dirty teeth, but not bad teeth,” he explained. I was more than happy to go along with his recommendation.
Four months later we adopted Lucy – a formerly homeless basset hound. Though the rescue organization assured us that Lucy was a maximum of two years old, it was clear that those two years had been hard ones. She’d come to the rescue as a stray….terribly sick with kennel cough, painfully skinny with the look of a mother whose milk had recently dried up. In addition to these challenges, Lucy had horrible teeth. As the rescue worker pulled back her mouth to show us, she explained that it was rare for such a young dog to have so much tartar and damage.
“You’re going to need to have her checked out by your vet right away, and schedule a dental cleaning,” she ordered.
Though we promptly followed the first recommendation, making an appointment to visit our family’s vet, we put off the cleaning for a few months. By the time I scheduled the procedure for Lucy, nearly 7 months had passed since I originally inquired about Ichabod’s teeth, and I decided to go ahead and have both animals taken care of at the same time.
In April, 2010 on the morning of the surgery, I couldn’t help but fret. In the short months that Lucy had been part of our family, she’d suffered extreme anxiety at any separation. I dreaded taking her to the vet and dropping her off; fearing she would see this as just another abandonment. But for her own good, it had to be done.
As it turns out, I wasn’t wrong to be concerned about Lucy. By all accounts, she was a maniac the entire time. I was told that once she regained consciousness, she barked incessantly. Eventually the vet techs took their breaks so they could hold her and keep her somewhat appeased. I wasn’t surprised by this. Early in the afternoon, however, I received a shocking and upsetting phone call. There’d been a serious problem with Ichabod. It seems he hadn’t responded well to the anesthesia and they’d had trouble waking him.
With my thoughts focused on Lucy, I’d never considered there being a problem with Ichabod. Five years before he’d been neutered and there’d been no indication that he’d had any trouble. Though by the time I was informed, he’d already been revived and the danger had passed, I couldn’t help but feel the squeeze of panic in my chest. What was more.. Ichabod had required several extractions. I was informed that two were so bad they simply fell out during the initial polishing. So much for Dr. Rich’s assessment that his teeth were in good condition. (I would like to note that although I was told that two of the teeth fell out on their own… I was still charged the extraction fee.)
As soon as they were through their observation period, I rushed to collect the dogs, only feeling relief when I could see for myself that they were fine. I loaded them into the car and headed home for a difficult few days.
Lucy recovered immediately, but Ichabod struggled. He was out of sorts and temporarily lost control of his bowels, especially while asleep. When he finally recovered, I resolved to take good care of his teeth so that this would need never happen again. I would like to say that I made good on my vow, but that isn’t true. As it turns out, it’s harder than you may think to brush a wild beagle’s teeth… and before we knew it, Carter came along. With all of my tasks as a mother to a little one, doggie-dental-hygiene fell to the bottom of my mental to-do list.
For years I told myself that we could get by without cleaning his teeth again. The denial held until an unwelcome development with Lucy. One day as I was sat on the edge of the bed putting on socks, Lucy approached me for some attention. As I absently stroked her head, I noticed a bulge in her cheek. Lucy is an enthusiastic eater, and in her haste, she routinely gets food stuck in her cheeks. With years of experience, she’s learned that when this happens she can come to me and I will set her to rights. As I attempted to force the trapped food from her face, I had no reason to think this was different than any other time…. until her squeal of anguish, that is. Turns out, there was no food lodged in her face…. she was very swollen!
My initial thought as I surveyed her was ‘insect sing’. Turning to the internet, I learned that this type of facial swelling is common with a tooth abscess. Interestingly, this occurred the day before Lucy’s annual vet appointment. The following morning when the vet examined her, (a different office from the one mentioned before…. we decided to find a new vet after the events described in ‘The Tale of the Headless Rabbit’ ) he discovered an abscessed molar. Prescribing a round of antibiotics to clear the infection, he explained we would need to give them time to do their work and then schedule her for a cleaning and extraction.
Driving home that day with Lucy, my thoughts turned to Ichabod. It suddenly dawned on me that I was kidding myself if I believed he wouldn’t wind up with something similar one day. That night I talked to Steve, and he agreed that we should have Ichabod’s teeth cleaned… and though I believed it to be necessary, I couldn’t shake the memory of what had happened before. I reasoned that If Ichabod had trouble when he was six and extremely healthy, I was concerned what over what may happen now that he was 11 and overweight withh a heart murmur. I decided to make a regular appointment for him prior to scheduling the cleaning…. just so they could check on his heart and I could thoroughly explain my concerns about the anesthesia.
Sad and confused the morning Lucy was gone for her surgery.
When we arrived for our appointment, we saw a vet we’d never met before. She looked through Ichabod’s records stored on her computer and expressed concern because the previous vet had recommended heart meds, but she saw no record that I had a prescription. I assured her that I did have a prescription that was being filled through a local store. She was dubious since it wasn’t in her records, but I assured her that he was taking his pills every day. (Interestingly, when the doctor wrote the script, he didn’t indicate that it was for a dog. This led the pharmacy staff to believe that I had a 10 year old child named Ichabod who suffered from heart problems.) Almost as though she didn’t believe me, she began pounding away at the keyboard, telling me she was updating the record to reflect that Ichabod was taking his medicine.
After she listened to his heart, I explained my concerns about the surgery. She downplayed my concerns and said they would run some blood tests that would indicate if he was healthy enough for anesthesia. She further stating that without knowing the specific drugs the other vet used she couldn’t say for sure what the problem could have been, but she assured me they had other drugs to use for dogs who’d shown previous reactions to anesthesia. Somewhat relieved, I gathered Ichabod and took him home. The following morning I received a phone call assuring me that his blood work came back fine and that he was cleared for surgery. Forcing down my misgivings, I scheduled the appointment.
Two weeks passed quickly and suddenly it was the night before the surgery. I had such a bad feeling about it, but kept trying to reassure myself that everything would be fine…. In the meantime I’d obtained the record from his old vet, detailing the medicine they’d used on him last time. When the office called to confirm the appointment, I explained that I had some information about Ichabod’s medical history that I would be bringing with me. I asked my small group to pray for him. (I’m not sure whether or not they believed this to be over-the-top, but they were nice about it.) I had trouble sleeping, and suddenly, it was morning.
As I corralled Ichabod and Carter for the trip to the vet, I had no time to linger on forebodings. On the rare occasion that we take Ichabod somewhere while leaving Lucy at home, trickery and cunning are required. We once made the mistake of blatantly leaving the house with him, and it was an incident I’ll never forget. When she realized what was happening, a sound that I don’t have the words to properly explain, burst from Lucy. I’ve never heard such a sound from any dog or human. It was as though she somehow managed to channel all the pain of a thousand lost souls and verbalize it. Frightening stuff. But this morning we managed to fool her, and, sneaking Ichabod into the garage, we were soon on our way.
At the vet last September… Ichabod was so wild we had to wait outside.
Due to his wild nature, taking Ichabod to the vet is always stressful. Due to his 3 year old nature, taking Carter places where he needs to be quiet and behave is always stressful. Taking Ichabod and Carter to the vet together is sort of beyond words. While I checked Ichabod in and reminded the receptionist that I had a paper for the doctor, Ichabod tried to break free so as to attack a cat in a carrier while Carter laughed maniacally and jumped up and down on the scale as I tried to talk business and get the two of them under control. Soon it was our turn with the doctor. When we were ushered into the exam room, things quickly took an upsetting turn.
(I’m going to detail this conversation simply with the words that passed between the doctor and me. This doesn’t adequately paint the picture, however. As this conversation took place, Ichabod was howling and trying to escape. Carter, delighted with Ichabod’s loud noises and frenzied movements egged him on by squealing, jumping up and down, and trying to open the door to release him, and the conversation was frequently halted by my ineffectual attempts to bring order to my wayward children. Please bear all that in mind as you read the following words.)
“I see a note here that there is some concern about anesthesia,” the doctor began. This is the vet we usually saw, not the lady from a couple weeks before.
“Yes,” I began. “That’s why I made the appointment a few weeks ago. I wanted to make sure this was understood and also to check on his heart murmur. I have an e-mail from the other vet which explains the meds used on him last time.”
Without looking at it, he took the paper from me and went on. “Before we get into that, I see that we recommended heart pills back in September, but I see no record that we ever wrote a prescription. I’m really concerned that he hasn’t been taking this medicine.”
I was shocked. What kind of a scattered place was this? “When we were here two weeks ago I had the same conversation with the other vet. I assured her that I do have a prescription and he’s been taking his meds. He took them this morning. She said she was going to update his file to indicate this.”
“Well, she didn’t. It’s upsetting to me that we seemed to have dropped the ball here. If you think about it, maybe check the label and call to let us know which doctor prescribed the medicine. It should have been noted in this chart but wasn’t. (When i arrived home, out of curiosity I checked the medicine label. THE SAME DOCTOR WHO MADE THESE HEAVY-HANDED STATEMENTS WAS THE ONE LISTED ON THE LABEL. I never called back.)
Finally he turned his attention to the e-mail I’d given him. “This is pretty standard; this is what we use.” Glancing up from his paper; looking me in the eye he said, “I didn’t know until this morning that there was a previous reaction to anesthesia. If that happened five years ago when he was younger, thinner and healthier…to be honest, I’m not sure he would survive being put under as he is today.”
Shock and anger raged through me. Finding my voice I said, “I had the same concerns. This is exactly why I made the appointment two weeks ago, and on that day, my concerns were belittled as trivial. And now you’re telling me that if I’d not arrived with this paper this and called your attention to this AGAIN……or if someone else had checked us in that Ichabod wouldn’t have survived the operation?!”
Sidestepping the concerns I’d raised over the competency of his clinic, he got down on his haunches and inspected Ichabod’s teeth, confirming that the cleaning was necessary. He prescribed a dental enzyme cleaner, suggested Ichabod lose 20 pounds (which would make him thinner than he’s been since his days as a puppy) before scheduling the surgery at the end of summer at an office with more sophisticated surgical methods. All the while, Ichabod was crying piteously and trying to burrow out of the room. Glancing down at him I said, “Ichabod, you’re getting your wish. You’re coming home with us.”
I was so angry. I walked to the desk to pick up the medicine and the receptionist began to ask for payment for the consultation. I gave myself a moment to ensure I wasn’t about to lose my temper. As I stood collecting myself to politely inform her that I’d paid for a useless consultation visit two weeks ago and had no intention of paying for one today, the vet rushed over and whispered that there would be no charge. That was for the best because I’m fairly certain that situation was headed for an ugly turn.
The three of us left the office, and I buckled Carter into his seat before settling behind the wheel with Ichabod at my side. In the privacy of my car, looking over at the dog who’d been my best friend for more than a decade, the realization of what I’d almost lost hit me like a punch to the gut. Sometimes I think I focus too much on details, but the truth was, that if I’d simply taken the vet at her word, and not taken it upon myself to keep digging into this, I would have most likely lost him that morning.
Tears; tears of anger, frustration, and relief burst from me. I leaned over and hugged my old friend. Then, together, we headed for home.
Ichabod did not know what to make of us leaving the vet’s office with this new dog. He made a pest of himself the entire ride home, circling the cage, sniffing inside, and howling intermittently. At one point, I glanced over my shoulder to see him standing on top of the cage, trying to bite his way through the plastic. From the inside of the cage, Lucy barked constantly, with a shockingly deep, booming bark. It was a loooong ride!
An eternity later we arrived home, and the first order of business was to take Lucy straight to the backyard. To my relief, she seemed to understand, quickly finding a spot to do her business. She must be housebroken after all. With that out of the way, we opened the door, and allowed her to explore her new home. She ran around, sniffing everything, with Ichabod hot on her heels. After a short time, she leapt onto the armchair, cozying herself in for a nap. Before falling asleep, she raised her head, and her eyes seemed to warn us: “This is my chair, now!”
Lucy claiming her chair.Looking annoyed that someone had the nerve to sit in the chair she’d claimed as her own.
Steve and I both laughed at her antics. It was just unreal that she’d been a stray. She’d obviously had a home; she was familiar with the way everything worked. Again we wondered to each other…. What happened?
After a brief nap, Lucy was ready to explore, once again. While searching through Ichabod’s toy box she seemed delighted to find an assortment of rawhides buried in the depths. Though I’d gotten him many different bones through the years, he’d never shown much interest.
Chuckling as Lucy methodically removed the rawhides from the box before hiding them in some pretty obvious places, I briefly touched on Nanci’s warning; but quickly brushed it aside. “Lucy isn’t a bassety-basset,” I told myself. Actually, it was doubtful that she was even full-basset hound. Reasoning, it must be because of the thick, trunk-y necks of the basset hounds that they weren’t allowed to have rawhides, and gazing at Lucy with her slender, long neck, I discounted the warning. I hated to spoil her fun, so I told myself all was well.
Not a very bassety-basset
As the day wore on, Lucy became my shadow. During the afternoon, I decided to take advantage of the mild temperatures and scoop some dog poop from the backyard. She walked every step with me as I combed through the grass in quadrants so as to not miss anything. It was like I’d predicted: This was a Mama’s girl.
I finished up and we headed back inside, where Lucy continued to hide rawhides. Eventually, Ichabod got close to one of her hiding places, and she bared her teeth and growled at him. Caught off-guard by her reaction, and suddenly sensing the danger, Steve and I walked around the house, gathering up all the rawhides and getting rid of them.
Because of all the fun and excitement with our new girl, I’d put off a necessary errand. Though I’d thought we already had everything we needed, there were a few things I wanted from the pet store. Gathering up an unopened bag of dog food I wished to exchange, I left Steve in charge of the two content dogs The last sight I saw before shutting the door leading to the garage was Lucy, trying to follow me and wagging her tail.
I felt very happy as I drove to Petsmart. We’d saved a life! Lucy was wonderful! It was a great day.
When I arrived at the store, I parked, walked to the back of my SUV, and hefted out the large bag of dog food. As I prepared to walk through the door, still precariously balancing the bulky bag, my phone began to ring. Awkwardly, I retrieved it from my pocket and saw that Steve was calling. In light of the burden I held, I was a bit annoyed as I snapped the phone open. (This was back in the days when phones still snapped open.) Steve sounded panicky. “This dog… I don’t know what we’re going to do about this dog….” He said, trailing off.
I felt the first stabs of panic in my gut. “What happened?” I asked.
“That dog” (he wasn’t calling her Lucy, he’d demoted her to ‘that dog’) bit Ichabod! When we threw away the rawhides, we must have missed one. Ichabod got too close to it, and she ran over and grabbed his ear in her teeth. Blood sprayed out and got all over the wall. And Ichabod cried. He didn’t do anything!”
My heart sank, and all the happy pleasure I’d felt only moments before evaporated. I’d thought we’d done a good thing here, and now this! “I’ll be right home,” I promised, snapping the phone shut.
Already inside the store, I hefted the bag of food to the counter. Not wanting to take the time to make the exchange, I just asked for my money back. As I waited, I thought of Ichabod’s bite. I decided to see if there was some sort of doggie-antibiotic cream I could get. I found the first aid section, spotted what I was looking for, paid for it and headed towards the car.
Feeling helpless, I called Nanci. As basset hounds sang their usual songs in the background, I explained the little bit I knew about what happened, and, very upset, she said, “I TOLD YOU THAT BASSETS WEREN’T ALLOWED TO HAVE RAWHIDES.”
I gave her my weak justification; how I’d thought that since Lucy wasn’t a bassety-basset that there wouldn’t be any danger. She cut me off: “That’s not why they can’t have rawhides. It’s because they can get mean defending them!” I suddenly remembered the rumbling freight-train noises from the morning I’d talked to her while she fried bacon. Things were starting to make sense.
With an edge in her voice she said, “Call me when you get home and have seen for yourself what is going on.” Feeling defeated, I snapped the phone closed.
I arrived home expecting mayhem. I parked the car, and took a deep breath as I opened the door leading from the garage to the house. Instead of mayhem, I walked into a brightly lit kitchen. Lucy, who’d been standing at the food bowl, ambled towards me, tail wagging, with a “Mommy’s home!” swagger to her steps. Ichabod was also in the kitchen, and he wagged his tail as well, making his way towards me. All appeared normal. There was no visible animosity between the dogs. “Steve?” I called out.
Steve appeared in the doorway. I couldn’t even form my question. I suppose my face contorted as though I was asking a question, and perhaps there were some questioning hand gestures, but I couldn’t find the words. What in the world was going on here? ‘Cause it seemed that the answer was “nothing”.
“Look at Ichabod’s right ear,” he instructed.
I sat down on the floor in front of Ichabod and began examining his ear. I saw nothing. I squinted and looked very close. Under intense scrutiny, I saw a slight, pink puncture. “You mean this?” I asked, indicating the miniscule abrasion.
“Yeah,” Steve said, and also pointed at a loose flap of skin running along the edge of the ear. I took Ichabod’s left ear in my hand; indicating an identical flap, showing Steve that this was not a cut… it was the way a beagle’s ears are formed.
“Seriously?” I asked. My facial expressions continued to ask silent questions.
Steve became agitated. “You weren’t here. It bled! Blood sprayed out all over the wall,” he added, pointing at the wall.
No blood spatter was present on the wall.
“I wiped it up,” he said.
“It doesn’t seem like this was that big of a deal. She shouldn’t have nipped him, but I don’t think she was really trying to get him. She must have hit a vein,” I surmised.
Suddenly, I remembered with embarrassment that I’d called Nanci. I really didn’t want to call her back now that I’d assessed the situation. Opting for the cop-out, I told Steve that I’d called Nanci, that we were supposed to call back, and that I was going to have him explain all of this to her. He tried to argue, but I was already dialing, and shoving the phone into his hands.
As he awkwardly explained what happened, I could hear Nanci haranguing him in the background, bassets growling in apparent agreement. After allowing him to flail for a few minutes, I took the phone back from him. “It doesn’t sound like it’s that bad…. Why don’t you see how it goes for the rest of the night… try to keep them separated, and then call me in the morning to let me know how it went?” she asked.
I agreed.
This entire time, Lucy had been watching me carefully, her tail slowly waving back and forth. I bent down to pet her. “What are we going to do with you, Lucy?” I asked. She head-butted my hand; her method of asking for more petting.
Steve and I headed upstairs, discussing the sleeping arrangements. As we talked, Lucy jumped onto the bed, made herself at home, and was quickly snoring. Loudly. I couldn’t help but be charmed. Despite the hiccup with Ichabod, she was taking to her new life with gusto. Steve was a bit more reserved, but I reasoned with him. “Look at her, I don’t think she’s really much of a danger.”
And she wasn’t.
The next morning I called Nanci, letting her know that all was well. She wheezed out relief as bassets snarled out their endless arguments on her end. “Oh, thank God! Last night, I was afraid you were going to give her back.”
Were we thinking of that? I wondered. I recalled Lucy, laying in the bed, peacefully snoring, seeming very secure for a dog who’d been through what she’d just endured. I supposed that for a moment… just a moment, I’d thought of that. But it had been wrong of me, so very wrong. This dog needed my love. “No, we’re not giving her back,” I said, finally.
And that was the end of my contact with Nanci and her wacky basset entourage. I wish them the best.
And so our new life as a family of four began. It wasn’t entirely smooth, there were actually many problems and frustrations as we moved forward. But also, there was love, and learning. As we would soon discover, Lucy was action-packed with issues. I believe God sent her into our lives with a purpose. I have no doubt I am the one meant to love and care for her, but in her brokenness, she’s also been a mirror to my own. She’s taught me that love = patience. In that, she’s been one of my greatest teachers. I’ll never know what happened in Lucy’s life leading up to her stint of homelessness, and my heart breaks for that poor, abandoned dog. But I’ll forever be grateful that she came to us. I hope the feeling is mutual.
(In time, there will be more of Lucy’s story to share. I promise, it’s a good one.)
When Steve and I had been married about 2 years, we began talking about getting a second dog. I’d gotten Ichabod from my sister when he was a puppy, and though he got along with Steve well enough, he was devoted to me. Steve longed for a dog whose first loyalty was to him, and though I knew that would never happen, (I’m too much of a dog person, and Steve is too little of a dog person,) I wanted a second dog, so I allowed him to believe it was a possibility.
Right after Christmas 2009, the two of us were walking around the mall one day, and decided to have a peek in the pet store. Staring wistfully at a basset hound, sprawled on his back without a care in the world, Steve said, “That’s what I want; a big, sloppy basset that I can carry around… like Flash.”
Though I had no problem getting a basset hound, I refused to buy a puppy from a store. I am passionate about homeless animals, and going through a rescue was important to me. But one of my major flaws is procrastination. Even when I’ve made up my mind about something, I am notoriously slow when it comes to acting on the decision. It didn’t’ help that I secretly dreaded beginning this particular task. Yes, adopting a homeless animal was important to me, but I hesitated to make a move. I knew that once I found myself confronted with the stories of these needy animals, my natural inclination would be to have a meltdown and try to adopt them all. I’m not sure how long I would have put this off if I’d not mentioned this to my sister Amanda. She took it upon herself to hop on the internet and find some local basset rescues; sending me links. On my next day off, I decided to stop putting it off, and delved into the first site on this list she’d sent me.
I spent a tearful afternoon looking at basset pictures and reading their biographies. All of their stories were so sad. I’ve always found some people’s carelessness and ill-treatment of animals to be shockingly heartbreaking, so browsing through all these pictures of animals in need was overwhelming.
As I went through this painful exercise, Ichabod lay loyally by my side. I’d been wondering how he would react to having a new dog in the house. I dropped down onto the floor next to him, putting my arms around him. In a faux-serious tone, I said, “Ichabod, you are going to be getting a new brother or sister. This isn’t because we love you any less, it’s because we love you so much, that there’s more than enough love to go around to a dog in need.” Not understanding that his time as the “Only Dog” was drawing to a close, he simply licked my face.
When Steve came home from work, I eagerly showed him the site. Together, we narrowed our list down to a few dogs we were seriously considering. I filled out the online adoption application, and a few days later I received a phone call from the rescue. Though we’d been approved for adoption, the dogs we were interested in had already found homes. Before I had the chance to feel the disappointment, the lady on the phone said, “We have a girl who is just now ready to adopt. Her name is Hope. Why don’t you take a look at her and then give me a call back and let me know what you think.”
Hanging up the phone, I quickly logged on to the computer, pulled up the site, and scrolled through the alphabetical listing of homeless bassets until I found Hope. As I looked at her photo for the first time, my heart leapt into my throat. This was the saddest hound dog I’d ever seen. Though she was a basset, she was skinny as a rail, her eyes radiated sadness; and yet there was something in her features that reminded me of Ichabod.
Reading through Hope’s story I learned that she was picked up by the Dog Warden as a stray and taken to the pound. She was very sick with kennel cough, and someone in the shelter called the Basset Rescue and asked them to come and get her.
When I read this, I was shocked. I’d always heard that if a dog with a contagious illness came into a shelter, they were quickly put-down, to avoid spreading the disease to the other animals. It was a miracle that this isn’t what happened with Hope!
I read further that Hope refused to sit quietly in her cage. Instead, she cried pitifully and unrelentingly until a volunteer from the shelter removed her from her cage and held her. She craved, (or perhaps a better word would be demanded) a touch from a person. And in demanding, she got it.
That same night, a volunteer from the rescue came to pick up her up. She was so ill that she was taken directly to a vet for treatment, and at the time I was reading this, (a month later) she was still there. After recovering from kennel cough, she was given time to regain her strength before being spayed. Now she was all ready for a home of her own!
In my heart, I knew that this was the one. But, I didn’t want to make a move until Steve had a chance to weigh in. I called him at work and left a message. By the time he made it home, I would already be at work, so I explained I was leaving a printout with a picture and bio for him to check out. I left for work, antsy to get his word on it, so I could get this moving.
When he called me later, he agreed that she seemed like a great choice, but he was a bit reticent. He wanted to meet her before we got too excited. I let him say these responsible things without putting up any difficulties. But, I knew she was the one. And he knew that, responsible words or no, I was already carried away.
The following day, I called the basset rescue, expressing our interest in Hope. The lady on the other end flipped through files, locating the contact information for Hope’s foster, which she passed along. I was also given a secret password to share with this foster, proving that I’d passed the background check and had been cleared to adopt. Our password? “Snowman”.
Eagerly, I tried to reach the foster by phone, but was forced to leave a message. It was all very clandestine. I had to leave the password in the message, and when she called me back, I had to give it again.
(At some point in my life, I’d like to start a program requiring the use of codenames and passwords. It was too much fun!)
Before meeting Hope, I would speak to the foster, Nanci, many times. She was scattered, and every single time I talked to her, she had trouble placing me and remembering which dog I wanted to adopt. And always, without exception, barking and baying basset hounds could be heard in the background. One morning as I was having a particularly difficult time hearing Nanci over the din, I finally asked her if everything was OK. She explained that she was frying bacon; and the seven (seven!) bassets she had at her house were getting a little nutty.
Nanci was only able to provide limited information concerning Hope. She was the one who’d picked her up from the shelter, but, due to the circumstances, she’d taken Hope (the name she picked) directly to the vet. She’d regularly gone to visit her, but because she sheltered so many dogs in her home, she wasn’t able risk bringing an infected dog near the others. She explained that Hope was very sweet, but very sad. Because she’d not had her in her home, she wasn’t sure whether or not she was housebroken, and she couldn’t say how well she got along with other dogs in a relaxed environment.
I wrinkled my nose a bit at this information… not so much for me, but for Steve’s sake. Still, I plowed on with the adoption process. Nanci explained that we would have to come to the vet’s office to meet Hope, and at that time we were required to bring any animals or children that lived in our house, to ensure compatibility. I checked our schedules against Nanci’s, and we fixed a time. I was so excited!
Steve kept cautioning me to keep my enthusiasm tempered. Still telling himself there was a chance this may not work out, he felt it was best not to get our hopes up. In words, I agreed with him, but I knew this was it… the missing member of our little family. In my mind I pictured the skinny and sad basset; only I saw her as fattened-up and happy. I wanted to call her ‘Lily’. I thought it would be a hilarious name… so delicate, for what I assumed would be a galumphing, stumpy creature. I even went so far as to get an engraved tag made for her with this name when I picked out her pink leash, collar, harness, and XL dog snuggie.
I proudly showed the new tag to Steve, and was a bit deflated when he quietly told me he’d thought she looked like a Lucy, and he was hoping we could name her that. It hadn’t occurred to me that Steve would have an opinion on naming the dog, but since I named Ichabod before I met Steve, I agreed.
As it turned out, Lucy wasn’t the galumphing’ creature I’d imagined, in any case.
The morning we were scheduled to meet Hope (or Lucy) I was elated. We would be driving nearly an hour to meet her, and were required to bring Ichabod. Generally, due to his natural excitement level, Ichabod rode in the cage while traveling in the car. We set off with him caged in the back of the SUV, with the understanding that he would have run of the car, should we be needing the cage for Lucy during the return trip.
We arrived at the vet’s office to find it jam packed with Saturday business! Not only was the waiting area filled with dogs and cats waiting to see the doctor, but a Labrador Rescue adoption event was also in full-swing.
A few years back, Ichabod and I had flunked out of obedience school. And on this morning, he wasn’t shy about showing everyone why. His obedience-school-dropout nature was on full display as he pulled at his leash and howled incessantly at all of the excitement. Minutes ticked by, and Nanci was late. I became increasingly tense as Ichabod continued to carry on like a wild animal. I was getting to the breaking point, and nearly asked Steve to take Ichabod and wait in the car, when finally, a scattered looking woman, covered in basset hair burst through the door. This could only be Nanci. She picked us out of the crowd, hustling over to greet us before heading off in search of someone to retrieve Hope from her kennel.
As Nanci disappeared through a door, we peered through the glass wall, gazing after her. In a moment she returned, struggling to keep steady hold of the leash in her hand. Without further warning, there was a sudden explosion of activity. On the other end of the leash she led a fireball of a creature; skinny, clumsy, and somewhat inhibited by a cone. In seconds, Nanci and Hope burst through the door. Much as I suspected it would be, it was love at first sight.
We would later learn that Lucy had spent most of the last month in a kennel cage, and she’d worn the cone for two weeks (!) after being spayed. Her stitches could have come out a week before, and she could have been released from her cone at that time, but she’d been left in this state. Nanci was annoyed, but explained that she wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it because this vet helped them out so much, and at a much reduced cost. I didn’t know any of this the moment we met Lucy, but looking back, I suppose that was why she was so boisterous at her moment of freedom. She burst through the door, ramming people, animals, and furniture with her cone. In her excitement, she dribbled a steady stream of pee. She attempted to jump onto a bench, only to find herself thwarted by her cone. Not letting this stop her; she backed up, tried again, this time managing to leap onto the lap of a lady waiting to adopt a Labrador. I watched in silence as she gained momentum, running across the laps of the people on the bench before jumping down from the other side.
Ichabod was beside himself trying to keep up with this latest development. I tried to get Lucy’s attention, and ran my hand over her back. I could feel her ribs, just under the loose skin. I wondered what had happened in her life prior to being picked up by the Dog Warden. After a moment, Lucy calmed down, and after removing her cone, and promising to go find some scissors to remove the stitches from her belly, Nanci suggested we take her outside for a walk and try to get acquainted.
For me, this was all a formality. I knew this dog was coming home with us. There was, however, still hesitation in Steve’s eyes.
The four of us headed outside. In the days prior, the weather had been cold and snowy; but this morning, we were treated to some sunshine and relatively balmy weather. Lucy was happy to stretch her legs and run. I couldn’t believe how skinny she was. Curiously, I put my hands around her waist. My fingers touched! And this was a basset hound!
Lucy barely held still during our initial meeting, so we have few pictures of her face. We were shocked by her emaciated frame, considering her status as a basset hound.
I tried to stay quiet; to let Steve be the first to offer his opinion, but he remained silent, and I couldn’t contain myself. “What do you think?” I asked.
“I think you’ve already made up your mind,” he replied.
“Are you OK with that?” I pressed.
He stared at Lucy for a while. Ichabod hadn’t tried to attack her, and it seemed that, in time, they could be buddies. Uncertainly he said, “Yeah.”
I didn’t delve farther into the matter. I said, “Let’s go find Nanci!”
We re-entered the office and were directed to an empty examination room. Nanci joined us, and expertly removed Lucy’s stitches. This couldn’t have been easy considering that, though she’d calmed down considerably; Lucy was a ball of energy.
Ichabod and Lucy, teamed up together for the first time, bellowing at dogs coming up the walkway toward’s the vet’s office.
Now that we were in such close proximity, something became uncomfortably obvious. Lucy was ferociously stinky! Over the next few days I gave her multiple baths, and lovingly called her ‘kennel stink’. In that moment, however, I couldn’t believe that such a relatively small dog could produce so much odor. It didn’t stop her from believing she should be held and snuggled like a baby, however. She willingly and wriggling-ly jumped into my arms. Nanci grabbed a camera to snap an adoption picture of the two of us. Lucy pressed the side of her face to mine, attempting to lick me from the corner of her mouth. I couldn’t believe this was the same dog whose picture had cried out to me with such sad and haunted eyes. I couldn’t believe that after all she’d been through that she would trust people so easily, but she did. Perhaps she recognized that she was meant to be part of our family. I like to think so.
Holding Lucy in my arms for the first time.
We finalized the formalities, paid the adoption fee, and were handed Lucy’s medical record. Through all this time, Nanci was giving us an endless list of instructions. I was only half listening. Lucy was leaping all over me, and it wasn’t like I didn’t already have a dog…. I pretty much understood what to do. I remember, however, her saying that bassets couldn’t have rawhides. This memory would resurface later that evening.
Finally, we were ready to go. Nanci stood, leaning over the dog she still called “Hope”. She looked into Lucy / Hope’s eyes, scratched her ears and said, “Hope, you are a very special girl today….” That’s all she said. She got a little choked up, and seemed to be fighting to hold back tears. During my time working with Nanci, I’d been a little annoyed by her scattered nature. I was suddenly very ashamed of myself. This woman volunteered her time, and opened her home and her heart out of love for these dogs. For goodness sake, she even had seven of them living in her house at one time! She saw a need, and she was doing the best she could do to help. Of course this would make her a bit scattered! And I’m glad she was.
We walked out of the vet’s office that day, a family of four. Placing Lucy in the cage, we let Ichabod roam the car, and headed for home.
I once worked with a girl whose mother was a seasoned ER nurse. One day she received a phone call that her daughter, my former co-worker, had been involved in a car accident; that it was minor, but she would be transported to the hospital for evaluation. Being well-versed in hospital protocol she knew that sometimes parents were given vague, downplayed facts, even when injuries were critical, so as to avoid panic and perhaps another accident as the parent rushed to get to their child. Not at all reassured by the call, she rushed not to the hospital but to the accident site, where she, thankfully, found her fully-intact and barely-injured daughter.
Steve, with his background as a soldier-turned-meat-cutter-turned-factory-employee did not have the same training as the hospital personnel. His call sent me into a blind panic. I tried to call him back, but the connection was still sketchy, though this time I learned that Ichabod and Lucy had gotten into a scuffle over the area in the backyard where the dead rabbit had lain. I grabbed my keys, and literally ran out of the store and towards my car. At this point, I hadn’t learned the nature of Lucy’s injuries, and my mind pictured the worst. All I could think was, “I HAVE TO GET HOME!”
I jumped into my car, throwing it into reverse as I clicked on my seatbelt, backing out of my space without looking, and nearly hitting a car in the process. As I sped out of the parking lot, I suddenly thought of the friend I’d been there to meet. I didn’t have her number saved in my phone’s memory, so as I drove, I scrolled through my e-mail searching for the number. (This was in the days before smartphones. This was even more dangerous and ill-advised then as it is now.) Finding the number, I placed the call and let her know that I couldn’t meet her. By the time all of this was settled I was nearly to the highway. As I surged up the ramp, I dialed Steve for an update. Finally I could hear him! I learned that Lucy’s ear was slashed. This was a relief. From his words earlier, I’d feared that Ichabod had ripped her throat out.
It seems what happened was this: Steve was in the front yard, and the dogs were both out back. Hearing a scuffle, (which is unusual between my good natured hound dogs), Steve came to investigate and found the two dogs squaring off; fighting over the spot where the rabbit corpse had lay the previous day. He says he ran and leapt over the fence and separated the two. (The fence is 4 feet tall.) At first he didn’t realize Lucy had been bitten, and he went into the house.
A few minutes passed, and Steve heard whimpering at the backdoor. He glanced out to see Lucy holding her head at an odd angle, covered in blood.
As of that moment, Steve had Ichabod in his cage and Lucy blocked in the kitchen. I asked him to hold her ear together and hung up, deciding I could best concentrate on my offensive-driving if I wasn’t talking on the phone.
As I drove towards home, I tried to picture what I would see when I arrived. My mind traveled back nearly a year, to Lucy’s first night in our house; another night when I was not at home and received an emergency call to come home. https://faithoverunderstanding.wordpress.com/2015/01/23/lucys-new-home/ That evening there really hadn’t been a problem. Telling myself I would probably find something similar this time, I continued on; comforted.
I own one pair of expensive shoes; a pair of Coach boots, and I’d worn them this day. Though I’d managed to convince myself that Steve’s report had been an emotionally-charged exaggeration, I couldn’t shake the memory of his words: “THERE’S BLOOD EVERYWHERE!” Choosing caution, I yanked them off in the garage before entering the house.
The scene before me as I opened the door to the kitchen was straight out of a low-budget horror movie. Ichabod was locked in the cage, baying mournfully at regular intervals. Steve was pacing. Lucy was trembling, and shaking her head. Oh, and lest I forget, EVERY SURFACE IN THE KITCHEN WAS COVERED IN BLOOD! The entire floor was saturated, the walls, the cabinets, and the appliances. In a flash, I understood… Steve was too upset to hold Lucy, and prevent her from shaking her bleeding ear, so she wandered through the kitchen like a lost soul, spraying her blood onto every surface. I sat down on the floor and gathered my poor basset into my arms, fighting back tears. I fought down the emotion; gathered my wits and tried to decide what to do.
It was still late afternoon, so I asked Steve to bring me my phone so I could call our vet. I was informed that they wouldn’t be able to help us; the vet had a party to go to. He suggested I call the emergency vet, but they wouldn’t be open for another two hours.
I was taken aback. They were open, we had an emergency, and they were unwilling to see us. I decided that it was time to find a new vet. But that was a trouble for another time. Now I needed to concentrate on what was best for Lucy. I passed the phone to Steve so he could copy down the information for the emergency vet.
Pressing Lucy’s ear together, I grabbed a paper towel to clear away some of the blood so that I could assess the damage: Ripped in half! I felt we couldn’t wait hours for the emergency vet to open. “THINK!” I commanded myself. Suddenly, I had a flash of memory: Recently, the local Petsmart had added an onsite clinic. They were new, but I was hopeful that they would accommodate an emergency. I remained on the floor, cradling Lucy’s shaky body as Steve searched for their contact information. I explained our predicament and they agreed to see us. Yes!
Hating to break the connection, I sat Lucy down so I could find another pair of shoes and gather some towels for the car ride. She seemed a bit woozy, but thankfully her trembling had slowed. I carried her to Steve’s truck, and settled awkwardly with her in my lap as Steve set out with some offensive driving of his own.
I hate to speak ill of my beloved Lucy, but she suffers from a cardinal sin: vanity. It’s obvious that Lucy fancies herself to be quite the beauty, and one thing she loves to do is flirt with other cars, especially semi-truck drivers, when we are on the road. It was both sad and funny when we merged onto the highway, and Lucy spotted an upcoming semi-truck. She attempted to rouse herself, and gazed out the window, still trembling slightly, but weakly preening and wagging her tail. I gave her a kiss and told her, “Luc, you’re covered in blood and your ear is ripped in half. I doubt he finds you attractive!”
When we arrived at the clinic, Steve dropped us at the door and I hustled Lucy towards the building. We checked in with the desk, and were shown to an examination room. I tried to keep Lucy still, but a few times she got away from me. Each time this happened, she sprayed the room with blood.
When the vet joined us, she assessed the ear, and inexplicably launched into a sales pitch for a dental cleaning. Steve and I locked eyes, not sure how to react. After informing her that we were more concerned with the emergency at the moment, she explained that she would be leaving the room to prepare our estimate and that she would return shortly.
As the door closed, Steve and I continued to stare at each other. We both had the same incredulous question: estimate? The dog’s ear was ripped in half and she was bleeding everywhere! Whatever it cost, we really didn’t have a choice.
In a moment, she returned with the estimate… $300. I nodded my agreement. She explained that she was going to prep the operating room, and would return for Lucy when everything was ready. We would need to leave her there for a few hours.
I looked at my sweet girl, and finally, broke into tears. Lucy was our sweet rescue. She’d had a bad time before she came to us, and I wanted the rest of her life to be nothing but love and happiness. And here she was, broken and bleeding, and about to be left (though only temporarily) by her parents. But Lucy feared any separation, and I ached for the anxiety she would no doubt feel when they took her away from us. I hugged her close. “I’m sorry, Lucy.”
They came for her, and Steve and I watched as they took her to prepare for surgery. Feeling defeated, we left.
When we arrived at home I threw myself whole-heartedly into the task of cleaning up the kitchen. Wanting to keep Ichabod out of the blood I left him in the cage, but his howling began to grate on me. I took him upstairs and shut him into our bedroom and returned to my task.
First, I wiped down the soiled surfaces. Then I began mopping the floor. I have one of those steam mops with re-usable, washable pads. Before I’d made any headway at all, I had destroyed one of the pads. It was so saturated in blood that it wouldn’t absorb anymore. I threw it away, grabbing another pad. I finished mopping up all the visible blood, yet the floor was sticky and the unmistakable, metallic scent of blood hung in the air. I grabbed another pad, and cleaned the entire floor again. With the floor finally clean, I went upstairs to collect Ichabod.
Since the howling had stopped when I’d carried him upstairs, I assumed that meant Ichabod had calmed down. I was wrong. I discovered upon opening the door to release Ichabod that the reason for his silence was that he was using his mouth for another purpose: to chew through the door!
“WHAT ELSE COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN?” I shouted inside my head. I was reluctant to share this newest problem with Steve. Ichabod was my dog before I met Steve, and Steve didn’t have quite the patient and forgiving nature towards Ichabod as me. I knew this would send him through the roof. I wasn’t wrong. But I didn’t have time to deal with this. It was nearly time to go retrieve Lucy.
I set out by myself, leaving Steve at home.
When I arrived, I quickly parked and hustled into the store. I was assured that the surgery had went fine, that Lucy was waking up, and if I looked through the doors behind the receptionist, I could see her. My poor Lucy appeared to be in a daze. Her head was completely wrapped in yellow bandages and she was wearing a cone!
When I met Lucy for the first time she was wearing a cone. And here we were, less than a year later, and she was coned up again!
I paid for the operation, listened to the instructions on how to care for her for the next few days, collected medications, and then turned to head towards the door. Lucy swayed on her feet. I thought it would be best to carry her, so I bent down and picked her up. I quickly realized this was a mistake. She was woozy, and began flailing around, battering me in the face with her cone as she tried to struggle free. I was just going to have to let her walk. I sat her, once again, on her feet.
Our journey towards the car was slow and arduous. I took my eyes away from Lucy for a moment to make sure we were headed in the right direction. It was in this moment that Lucy plowed; cone first, into a wire rack display, knocking several items to the floor and entangling herself in the wires. I dropped to my knees, freed my drugged dog, and replaced the dropped items. I continued leading us towards the door, this time never taking my eyes from Lucy.
When we arrived at the car, we faced another dilemma. Per the instructions, I was supposed to prevent Lucy from jumping until her stitches healed a bit. I opened the car door, dumped my stuff on the seat, and quickly bent to gather Lucy into my arms. At the exact moment I bent down, she made a mighty upward surge, meaning to catapult herself into my SUV. I’d not been expecting this, and the momentum nearly knocked me backwards. As I struggled to right myself, with Lucy wriggling in my arms, her cone became trapped under the steering wheel, and I had to gather her close to me with one arm, while grappling with my other hand to release the tilt-wheel in order to free her head. In this moment, I really regretted choosing to do this alone.
I wanted Lucy to sit on the seat next to me, but she refused. She lined her awkward body up on the console and leapt onto the backseat as I held my breath. Then she lay down. All the way down on her back, legs spread wide, with her head tilted back at an impossible angle. And she didn’t move. Realizing this is how she meant to travel; I clicked my seatbelt, started the car and headed for home.
When it was safe to do so, I would glance back to check on Lucy. She didn’t move the entire ride home. As we pulled into the garage, I was still finalizing my strategy for getting her inside. I was ready for anything after her previous antics. After cutting the engine, I quickly hopped out, slammed the door, jerked open the back door, and gathered her in my arms before she had a chance to gather her wits. I carried my injured girl into the house and lay her on the couch. She couldn’t get comfortable, so, against the instructions of the vet, I removed the cone. Finally, she slept.
The next few days were rough. Lucy’s ear couldn’t be contained in the bandages and there was a fair amount of bleeding, but she was young and healthy and recovered quickly. Thankfully the incident left no animosity between Ichabod and Lucy.
BFF once again.
Steve asked around and was advised to take some pepper and liberally cover the area with the rabbit smell. This did the trick to keep the dogs away from the area until the scent faded. With much grumbling, Steve replaced the door frame which Ichabod had attempted to eat his way through.
And that was that. Over the years, Steve and I have wondered what in the world did that to the rabbit. The poor creature was clearly killed in our front yard and dropped into the back. Our best theories are either a cat or a hawk….
But we’ll never know for sure.
Nearly 5 years later, unless you look very, very closely at the inside of Lucy’s ear… you’d never know it even happened.
There are no actual photos of the incidents described in this story. Scenes were recreated with this stuffed bunny and cleverly concealed treats.
(Warning: Yup…. As the title implies, this one is graphic)
Late November, 2010
As Thanksgiving, 2010 approached, Lucy had been with our family for nearly a year. Though there’d been ups and downs, by this time she’d managed to shed many of her stray-dog survival instincts, and she and Ichabod had settled into a comfortable co-existence. Though my fantasy had never happened…. coming upon the two of them piled together sleeping, (this still has not happened) they got alone fine. All memories of her first night in our house (when she’d nipped Ichabod’s ear) were tucked away and considered irrelevant. We frequently left the dogs alone together, with no concern about their interaction.
***
This tale begins on a Thursday morning; the first of two days in a row that I was scheduled off work. Steve had already left for the day and wouldn’t return home until after 7pm. After getting out of bed, I was busying myself by making breakfast and going about my morning routines while Ichabod was in the backyard. Something in the back of my mind plagued me, but I couldn’t place the feeling of unease. As I finished up my breakfast the truth dawned on me: Ichabod had been outside for a long time, and I’d not heard a peep out of him. Don’t get me wrong…. We don’t leave our dogs outside to go nuts and enrage the neighborhood, but to be honest, Ichabod is a beagle, and it’s highly unusual for him to stay outside for an extended period of time without finding at least one occasion that calls for bellowing.
Curious, I walked to the backdoor and stepped onto the porch. My gaze scanned the yard and soon landed on Ichabod. Unfortunately, my hunch had not been wrong. Something strange was, indeed, afoot. Ichabod sat hunched near the fence, quietly and deliberately licking something. From the distance I couldn’t make out what he had, so, as soundlessly as is possible with my clumsiness and creaky knees, I eased down the porch steps and crept closer. With each step, I became filled with increasing horror. Whatever he was licking had obviously been alive at some point, though the absence of a head indicated that it was clearly not alive now!
I stopped short. After finding my voice I shouted, “ICHABOD!!!! GET IN THE HOUSE!!!!” Without a backward glance, he hopped up and trotted towards the steps. It’s rare for Ichabod to obey the first command, being an obedience-school-dropout and all, however, there is a certain tone in my voice he will obey, and in my disgust, I’d found that tone. (Unfortunately, I can’t trot that tone out without an emergency to gain compliance. There must be a real cause to bring it out of me. But I digress.)
I ran back towards the house, pushing the door open for Ichabod, who rushed past me and into the kitchen. I slammed the door shut behind him, pacing around the back porch, unsure of what to do. Here were the facts as I knew them: There was a headless creature in the backyard; it was late morning, and Steve wouldn’t be home until 7pm. This meant that I would have to do something with this animal, or keep the dogs inside all day. And the most perplexing question: “WHERE WAS THE HEAD?”
I ran back inside for my phone, snatching it off the counter, before returning to the porch. Ichabod stood watching me carefully through the glass door. There was a fear rising inside me concerning Ichabod, and I’d not yet allowed the thought to fully form. I wasn’t ready. As I turned my back on him, the thought I’d been trying to suppress fought its way to the surface. “DID HE EAT THE MISSING HEAD?”
Highly agitated, I called my mom. I explained what happened, finally giving voice to my panic. I blurted the words: “IF HE PUKES OUT A HEAD, I’M GOING TO DIE!”
She tried to calm me down, assuring me that he wasn’t going to vomit up a head. My dad could be heard in the background, and mom began filling him in. (This is what always happens. If I try to talk to my dad on the phone he has little to say….but if he catches something my mom says that gains his interest, he’s full of questions.) He seemed a little exasperated that this should bother me so much, and said that I just needed to get a shovel and pitch the poor carcass over the fence. This would get the creature out of the yard so the dogs could go outside, and then Steve could deal with it when he got home from work. I really, really (REALLY!) didn’t want to, but I couldn’t see another way. After a few minutes, I closed my phone; resigned to do what needed to be done.
I returned to the kitchen, carefully averting my eyes from Ichabod. Stomping across the room, I headed straight to the garage door, yanking it open. As I tried to get the plan straight in my mind, I decided that before grabbing the shovel, I should go around from the front yard and peek over the fence, just to get a better idea of what I was dealing with. Confident in the wisdom of my plan, I marched back towards the door, pressing the button for the automatic opener.
Even with what I’d already seen, I was unprepared for what awaited me as the garage door slowly rose. Turns out that I was wrong to assume the animal had been killed in our backyard. This error in my thinking became clear as the door continued to rise, and as I began to notice something (snow?) float through the air.
Turns out,it wasn’t snow.
I stepped through the raised door, glancing around cautiously; trying to bring the floating matter into focus: Definitely not snow. Animal fur. I clapped my hand over my mouth to cover the silent scream bubbling within me. True, I was horrified and terribly shaken, but I held onto my resolve as I began walking to the side of the house.
Then I saw the shredded leg.
I continued towards the backyard, following a path formed of nightmares.
Next stop: Disemboweled intestines.
I believe that at this point, I was protected (at least somewhat) by a bubble of shock. I continued towards the fence, peering across at the poor, dismembered creature. The best I could tell, it had been a rabbit. I had no idea what could have done this, or how it wound up in my backyard. But I knew one thing… the confidence I’d felt that I could shovel the animal out was gone. I just couldn’t.
I ran back inside the house and once again dialed my parents, explaining about the trail of death beginning in my driveway. Though my parents live more than half an hour away, my works close to my house, and he would be leaving soon for his shift. I told him I just couldn’t get rid of the bunny and begged him to come do it for me. Lucky for me, he agreed.
***
With the rabbit gone, I assumed the incident was behind us, and we got on with life. The following day I had an appointment to get the dogs’ nails trimmed, followed by a coffee-date with a former co-worker. As I herded the dogs into the garage to load them into my SUV for their appointment, something strange happened. (When I looked back later, I wished I’d paid more attention at the time.) The very moment we entered the garage, Ichabod’s nose went straight into the air. Snuffling intensely, he ran to the wall; his attention affixed to one of the shovels. As Lucy ambled casually in his direction, he snapped to attention; with the hair on his back raised; his teeth bared as he growled at her. Reasoning that this must be the shovel dad used to dispose of the rabbit, I clapped my hands, breaking the tension, and called Ichabod to the car.
Ichabod inspecting the shovel.
As I backed out of the driveway, I felt a brief shiver of unease. True, enough time had passed so I no longer feared he would vomit a head, and most of me believed he wasn’t the creature who’d eaten it in the first place. Even so, there still lurked the dark fear that he could still poop out a head. But that was the extent of my uneasy feelings. I failed to lock-in on the important clue Ichabod had given me… that this rabbit, though gone, could cause some problems between him and Lucy.
By the time we returned from our appointment, Steve was home from work. I didn’t have much time before I was due at the Barnes and Noble café, so I hustled the dogs into the house, and had a quick word with Steve before heading back out.
I arrived at the store, glanced around for my friend, and after realizing she hadn’t yet arrived, headed to the restroom. On the way to the back of the store, I noticed a display of glossy-looking Christmas books, and I planned to check them out when I had a moment. This was not meant to be. As I was washing my hands, my cell phone began to ring.
Drying my hands, I grabbed my phone to see Steve’s number on the readout. I was in the back of the store, and the phone connection was poor. I couldn’t make out what Steve was saying, and then the line went dead. When he called a second time, at first I still couldn’t understand what he was saying, but finally his words broke through. Before the line went dead for the second time, this is what I heard: “LUCY IS HURT! THERE’S BLOOD EVERYWHERE!!! YOU HAVE TO COME HOME!”
Towards the end of January, 2013, I awoke one Saturday morning to find an alarming message on my phone. Cody was gone. There were no details, other than to say that he’d been put to sleep to end his suffering. Then I learned that not only was Cody gone, but Colton was in the hospital suffering from meningitis.
I was shocked. All of this was out of the blue. I didn’t really know anything about meningitis, only that whenever it was mentioned, it was in tones of extreme dread. I was stunned that Cody was gone. We still had his dog hair in our carpet, (it had been a while since his last visit, but it had traveled down on Colton’s hand-me-downs). How could he be gone? But it wasn’t the time to get these answers. It was time to pray for Colton.
Wanting to understand meningitis, I searched the internet. There’s not a lot of comforting information out there concerning this illness. I saw photos of people in excruciating pain; read depressing statistics; and was disheartened to learn that even in cases where a patient recovers, the illness routinely leaves a lasting imprint on the person’s life.
While Colton was in the hospital I got a few updates by text, but not many details. I was so relieved when I got the message that he’d been released, though, I was still largely in the dark about what exactly happened. Tammy wanted to explain all the details in person, and after Colton was well enough that she felt comfortable making plans, the winter weather got in our way. Finally all of the obstacles were cleared, and we made plans to meet and have dinner at The Greene.
We got through eating most of our dinner before Tammy began sharing the story. Finally, with a sigh, the words began to come. It seems that one day she noticed some blood near Cody’s mouth. Soon there was more and she took him to the vet. Cody loved going to the vet, (Cody was pretty much happy anywhere) and other than the bleeding, he was behaving normally.
Though the vet was unable to provide any definitive answers, she surmised that it may be autoimmune disease, or perhaps that he’d even gotten into some poison. She administered a treatment, but made it clear that she was far from certain that it would be effective.
Tammy was very surprised by this news, but followed the vet’s recommendations and returned home with him. Over the course of a few days his condition deteriorated quickly. Further consultations with the vet offered very little hope. She explained that there were some tests that could be performed, but they would be very expensive and even with those results, there was very little chance that his life could be saved.
Finally, the day came when Tammy knew in her gut: He wasn’t going to make it. She hated that he was suffering, and, with her husband, made the painful decision to have him put to sleep.
On the last day of Cody’s life, two beautifully unexpected things happened. First, it suddenly began snowing. Cody loved snow, and Tammy felt blessed that even though he couldn’t go out in play, that he had the opportunity to see the magical white stuff one last time.
The second involved Colton. Colton was sick as well, and the two were at Colton’s grandparents’ house, resting. Though he was most likely in agony himself, Cody hated to see his little brother suffering, and moved in to comfort him; to snuggle close, just once more.
Love.
Later that evening, Tammy and Greg took Cody to the vet one last time. They remained with him until the very end.
During Cody’s sudden illness and rapid decline, Colton was spending more time than usual with his grandparents. Though he’d been ill, he’d been to the doctor, and there was no reason to believe he was suffering from anything serious. As soon as Cody was gone, however, it became clear that something was very wrong. Another trip to the doctor confirmed this, and Colton was quickly admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with meningitis.
During his stay in the hospital, he had to endure tests and treatments that would be scary for any young child, and difficult for any parent to watch. While I was home learning the difficult facts about meningitis via the internet, Tammy was learning from firsthand experience. Though a diagnosis of meningitis is usually bleak, Colton’s case was atypical in virtually every way. (In a good way.) He made a full recovery; physically and mentally, and suffered no lasting damage. It was a miracle.
When Colton returned home, and was no longer in danger, Tammy found the space she needed to begin grieving the loss of Cody. It wasn’t easy. He was such a special dog, and he was her most loyal friend. And now he was gone. He was so very loved, and when a love like that is gone, the pain can be a real and breathing thing.
One day at work Tammy’s thoughts lingered on Cody. The song “If I Die Young’ kept coming to mind, but she couldn’t remember all of the words. Though she intended to look up the lyrics, she became busy, and then took her lunch break. During lunch she went for a walk, and she looked up at the sky wondering where he was…. was he alright…. did he know how much he was loved? She asked for a sign; something that would remove all doubt and let her know that he was fine, though she was skeptical that such a sign would come.
At the end of the work day, Tammy walked to her car and prepared to head for home. When the radio came on, the song she’d been trying to recall was just beginning. She immediately felt that this was the sign she’d asked for; especially after hearing the words “I’ve had just enough time”, because she’d felt that he’d not had enough time.
Throughout the telling of her story, I sat, listening. But now she threw a question at me: “You know that song, right?
“No,” I said. I didn’t know it.
Because I wasn’t familiar with the song, I couldn’t totally comprehend this part of the story. Seemingly unable to believe that I’d not heard it, she recited some of the lyrics while watching my face for recognition….
“If I die young, bury me in satin
Lay me down on a bed of roses
Sink me in a river at dawn
Send me away with the words of a love song”
None of it rang a bell.
She went on to explain another portion of the song; a passage that would soon gain great significance:
“Lord make me a rainbow, I’ll shine down on my mother
She’ll know I’m safe with you when she stands under my colors, oh,
And life ain’t always what you think it ought to be, no
Ain’t even grey, but she buries her baby
The sharp knife of a short life, oh well
I’ve had just enough time”
-The Band Perry
I can’t remember when the crying started. I think I held it together pretty well through most of this heartbreaking story, but when she got to this next part, I know my tears flowed freely.
After her experience when she’d gone for the walk, coupled with the song in the car, she felt more at peace than she had since losing Cody. Then she arrived home. Greg presented a picture to her… one that Colton had drawn himself. The picture showed the whole family, including Cody. And they were standing under a rainbow.
I drove home that night in silence. No music. No distractions. Just remembering.
*****
Time moved on. Secretly I hoped she would get another dog, but I knew she needed more time to heal. You can’t replace the love you had for an old dog simply by subbing in a new one…. and yet, she and Greg….. they were dog people; I knew it. They’d rescued Cody, and there were many other dogs that needed the love they had to offer. After some time had passed, we began talking about it.
To my surprise, she’d already begun researching rescues. This time she was interested in Pit Bulls… a largely misunderstood breed. Having heard many stories of Pit Bull violence, I was a little surprised, but knew she would make a smart decision. I told her how happy I was that she was ready to adopt, and she confessed that she hadn’t believed she could get another dog… until she came across a certain poem….
“Before humans die, they write their last will and testament, give their home and all they have to those they leave behind. If, with my paws, I could do the same, this is what I’d ask…
To a poor and lonely stray I’d give my happy home; my bowl and cozy bed, soft pillow and all my toys; the lap, which I loved so much; the hand that stroked my fur; and the sweet voice that spoke my name.
I’d will to the sad, scared shelter dog the place I had in my human’s loving heart, of which there seemed no bounds.
So, when I die, please do not say, “I will never have a pet again, for the loss and pain is more than I can stand.”
Instead, go find an unloved dog, one whose life has held no joy or hope, and give my place to him.
This is the only thing I can give…
The love I left behind.”
-Author Unknown
And so, in spite of the fact that Cody is gone, and can never be replaced, Tammy, Greg and Colton moved past their grief, and opened their home to Alice; a rescue named for the wayward daughter of Teddy Roosevelt. Alice is 60 pounds of muscle and relentless enthusiasm. Before finding her forever home, Alice was taken in as a foster with a ‘Pit Crew” rescue while suffering from the mange. Any scars she may carry from her troubled past are invisible as she is attacking you with love. She’s not Cody. She’s her own dog. And she’s beautiful.
Alice, looking like a professional dog model in her 3-years old birthday photo.
A few months after Cody passed away, I found myself at Applebee’s with Steve and Carter. It was Good Friday, and I’d gone to the noon communion service at church. I’d not taken the time to eat beforehand, so when our entrees appeared before us I was ravenous. I’d not been listening to the music playing in the background, but as I went to raise the first bite to my mouth, my attention was caught by these words:
“The sharp knife of a short life”
It was the song Tammy had spoken of. I put my food down and sat staring up into the corner… staring at nothing… trying to hear the song. She was right…. sure there were parts that definitely couldn’t be applied to losing a pet…. but the spirit of the words? Perfect.
Years later, while looking back on all that happened, Tammy said: “It’s moments like that (referring specifically to God answering her prayer for a sign) which do restore your trust in God. I came out of that nightmare week of death and illness feeling so grateful to have had Cody for the time I did and lucky that Colton was OK. Then I got the sign I asked for which started the healing process….. It’s all God’s work, I truly believe it.”
*****
I’d wanted to tell this story for some time. When Tammy said that it would be fine, I arranged an evening to come to her house; gathering pictures and hearing some of the old stories again. The following morning I was ready to get to work. The song kept pushing to the front of my mind, but I didn’t really know it. I bought the MP3, and though it was snowy, I went out to sit on my back porch and listen. And remember. Memories washed over me; Ichabod and Cody wrestling in the grass while Lucy stood over them, barking disapprovingly; my neighbor appearing on her porch at the sound of the racket, trying unsuccessfully to feign enthusiasm as she surveyed our yard and said, “Oh! You got a new dog….” And her poorly concealed relief when she learned he was only visiting; Fitting the dogs into Halloween costumes and taking them for a walk when Trick-or-Treat was finished; and the bird feeder. We didn’t get the bird feeder until after Cody had gone, but I’ve always thought of it as “The Cody M. Memorial Birdfeeder”. Had he survived long enough to see it, I’m sure it would have created an entire new chapter on mayhem.
As is true when someone truly special is gone; the memories that are left taste bittersweet. I’ve tried to think what would be the best words to end this: To stand as a memorial to Cody, and what he meant to those who loved him. So once again, I’m going to borrow from the words of the song:
“Send me away with the words of a love song….
The sharp knife of a short life, oh well
I’ve had just enough time.”
For the record… Tammy and Cody were doing selfies before selfies were cool.
I am sharing some of Cody’s stories with the permission of my good friend Tammy. His story is rich; fun and hilarious, but also sad and beautiful. I wanted to tell his story for a few reasons, the first of which is simply that I loved him. He felt like part of my extended family. But I also want to honor his legacy. Cody was adopted as a shelter dog. He was beautiful…. A gentle giant…. But I learned, to my surprise, that if he’d wound up in a high-kill facility, he wouldn’t have lasted long. According to the shelter that helped him find a home, some of his physical characteristics could give potential adopters the false-notion that he was unfriendly. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Every animal deserves the chance to find a loving family. This is a glimpse into what Cody did with his chance…..
My friend Tammy and I met in college and she’s my oldest friend (not in terms of age…. If I want our friendship to continue, I probably should make that distinction clear). As young women we had crazy adventures, (at least in our own estimation; by the world’s standards, they’re probably a bit tame… not that we care.) When we first met we lived fairly close to each other, and for a time even worked in buildings that were side-by-side; me at a movie theatre and her at a hotel reception desk. (Once I donned a Michael Meyers mask and snuck up on her while she was working. Another time I accidently started a fire with her then-boyfriend in the room behind the hotel’s reception desk. Good times.)
Through the years, Tammy and I slowly drifted farther and farther apart, geographically speaking, but still we make the effort to get together as much as possible. I guess you could say we are like one of those internet clichés that are always popping up on my Facebook newsfeed. We are the type of friends who can go for long periods without seeing each other, but when we are together, it’s always as though nothing has changed.
I don’t think anyone could have been more surprised than Tammy and me when we realized we were not only growing older, but also growing up. We started out as single girls… then she got married…. then I got a dog…. then she got a dog…. then I got married…. then she had a child…. then I got a second dog….then I had a child….then she got a second dog….and that pretty much sums up our lives to this point. I think it’s pretty common when women have been friends for a long time that they expect their children to be friends as well. And that’s where this story begins: With the friendship of our canine “children”.
Ichabod is not really the type of dog you can take to the dog park and expect him to play nicely with the other animals. He’s wild and excitable and barky. When Ichabod was young we lived with my family and he was surrounded by a gaggle of Pomeranians, though he never seemed overly attached to them. I took Ichabod on a few playdates during this period, but they were usually a bit stressful. Once we were invited to visit a co-worker who had a Beagle and a Labrador, in addition to two goats in her back yard. He was fascinated by the goats (by fascinated, I mean that he would pause from chasing the dogs to howl incessantly at the mysterious creatures). As I drove home from that adventure, Ichabod was so tired that he crawled across my lap and started snoring. Then he peed on me in his sleep.
In 2006, when Ichabod was 2, I was delighted to hear that Tammy had adopted a dog of her own. She’d gone to a Humane Society charity walk called ‘The Furry Skurry’, and it was here that she met the dog who would become Cody. He was a large black puppy who’d been abandoned and had found his way to the Humane Society. It was love at first sight. The next day, Tammy and her husband Greg adopted Cody and took him away to his new home.
Ichabod’s first meeting with Cody was memorable. I drove him to Tammy’s house not knowing what to expect. It was summertime, and Cody loved summertime. He seemed delighted to meet Ichabod, though Ichabod was much more reserved. Cody loved water had a little pool of his own. Graciously Cody tried to include Ichabod in the water-fun. When Ichabod resisted, Cody went as far as to try to nose him into the pool. Ichabod didn’t appreciate this and he chose to voice his displeasure with a series of loud bellows before moving to the fence line, choosing to sniff and bellow at the unseen dogs on the other side of the privacy fence.
Cody, smug because he’s about to go swimming.
Cody was much more interested in being friends, and didn’t give up on including Ichabod in his games. Several times as Ichabod was sitting in the yard, Cody (who was much larger) would come charging at him, ramming into him at full speed, rolling him over. Each time this happened, Ichabod immediately popped back up like a weighted inflatable toy before treating everyone within earshot to a loud, long and exasperated bellow. Though Cody was getting the best of Ichabod, it was hard to hold that against him. He was just so happy! And he meant no harm.
Ichabod and Cody… the early days.
Ichabod sat in the seat next to me on the ride home, exhausted, but fighting sleep. I think he believed that if he let his guard down, even while cruising down the highway, that Cody would appear mysteriously out of thin air and roll him again. Eventually he lost the fight and fell asleep while sitting up. (I’ve never seen him do this before or since.) For the duration of this odd nap, he just sat there. Twitching.
Though he had his moments…. such as the time he ate his couch…. and his parents’ engagement picture, Cody was a great dog. He attended the Gem City Dog Training Academy, and it was because of his success; that he was so well-trained; that I chose to send Ichabod there the following year. (Didn’t work out so well for us.) Cody was living the good-life. He regularly attended doggie daycare, and because of his great behavior, he went to many walks and events. He was calm…not rowdy like Ichabod, and he had many dog friends.
Cody seemed to really care for his family, but he also had another love: birds. But he loved them in such a way that I’m sure the birds would have preferred that he didn’t. Allow me to elaborate. (Warning: If you are squeamish about reading details concerning the graphic demise of a baby bird… you may want to go ahead and skip to the next section.)
On the days that Cody wasn’t in daycare Tammy would frequently come home to hang out with him on her lunch break. On the day before the 2007 Furry Skurry, the event where she’d adopted him the previous year, she came home during her break and opened the backdoor, letting him outside. Looking outside to check on him she noticed something strange. Though she couldn’t exactly tell what was happening, it was clear that he had gotten hold of something, and she rushed out to investigate.
As she approached, she became more and more convinced that he had something in his mouth. Since he wouldn’t open up and let her see what it was, she grabbed his mouth, opening his jaws.
I can’t imagine how she must have felt; standing there, holding her dog’s mouth open and seeing a live bird towards the back of his throat, chirping and struggling to get free. Acting on instinct, she continued to hold his jaws with one hand while using the other to do a sweep of his mouth, trying to release the bird. But Cody wasn’t having it. Sensing that if he didn’t act fast he would lose his prize, he made a decisive move, and though his mouth was held open…. he swallowed the bird.
In defeat, Tammy pulled her hands away, staring at him. This is the moment he exhaled sharply, snorting out feathers in the process.
Oh, Cody.
After the drama of the moment ended, she became concerned about what would come next. First, she was concerned that the bird would do internal damage by trying to peck its way free.
Thank goodness that didn’t happen.
Next her thoughts turned to the following day. They’d planned to attend this charity walk, and she filled with dread while imagining that Cody may poop out a whole bird at the event…. and that she’d have to clean it up.
Thank goodness that didn’t happen, either.
In the end, other than for the poor baby bird that had been at the wrong place at the wrong time, there were no hard consequences to Cody’s bird-swallowing-feather-snorting adventure.
Though they got off to a rough start, at least as far as Ichabod was concerned, Tammy and I continued to get the dogs together for playtime, and they became friends. It was a guaranteed wild time when Cody came to visit. He was just so big! Though he was classified as a Labrador, it seemed as though there was something else at play there; but since he was a rescue, his origins were unknown. Tammy spoke a few times of getting one of those doggie DNA analysis tests, but she never did, and we were left to speculate concerning what the rest of Cody’s genetic makeup may be…. our best guess was American Black Bear.
I think Cody’s favorite thing about visiting our house was the backyard. The bottom section tends to get pretty swampy, so with his love of water, it was only natural that he would one day find his way down there after a storm and discover the spongy terrain. And celebrate it. I was watching him from the porch the moment he stepped onto that part of the grass and realized that if he put his weight down that water would rise up. It was perhaps a split-second later that he’d thrust his entire body down into the mud, pressing hard so that water would rise around him. Tammy called out to him in exasperation, but his expression was jubilant. If he could speak, I think he would have said, “Mom! Look what I found! Secret, hidden water!” And he remained where he was. Celebrating it.
Later when we got him onto the porch and we worked to de-mud him, he stood still to allow us to clean him up, but he was clearly unrepentant. The gleam in his eye told the truth…. It had been worth it. So there he stood….celebrating it.
Cody inside the house was as memorable as Cody in the yard. He was HUGE and seemed to fill any space he occupied, though, like so many awesomely-huge dogs before him, he seemed to have no concept of his size. One night as I sat on the couch watching a movie, he casually climbed onto my lap and sat down. Cody weighed well over 100 pounds! Another time he followed me into my bathroom, carefully wedging himself into the small space while gazing longingly at my bathtub. His eyes seemed to beg, “Go ahead, put me in there and hose me down…. my mom won’t mind.” But my favorite memory of Cody in the house (other than him running around in a too-small hot dog bun costume) was of Ichabod trying to get the upper hand (paw?) on him. Though they were friends, Ichabod wanted to be the alpha, and refused to accept beta status simply because he was roughly one-fourth of Cody’s size. Coming up with what I believe to be a brilliant plan, he climbed onto our coffee table (which he isn’t allowed to do) and attempted to launch himself onto Cody’s back. It worked for a second, and his face glowed with triumph…. he was finally showing Cody who was boss! But then he fell off. It was sad, but inevitable.
I couldn’t find the photo taken of Cody in his costume at my house… but Tammy had one of him at her own.
Perhaps the funniest thing about this power struggle between Ichabod and Cody was the fact that it was only a struggle in Ichabod’s mind. Cody was just there for a good time. Always.
Time moved on. It wasn’t long before Cody got a little brother…. A human brother named Colton, and Cody was a good and loving big brother. While Colton was very small, Tammy continued to bring Cody when they visited our house, but the visits tapered after Carter was born. By this time we had Lucy, and it just got beyond crazy with the three dogs and two small children. I always assumed that when Carter got a little older that we would resume more frequent Cody-visits.
Cody with Baby Brother and Grandma.
As Colton grew out of baby-hood, a great intelligence became obvious in him. From an astonishingly young age, he’s been interested in learning, and he knew all of the numbers, letters and shapes far ahead of when was expected; and since then, he’s continued to learn at an advanced rate. He loves brain teasers!
When Carter was just past his first birthday, Colton was nearing his fifth. Tammy and I got together with our boys to celebrate Christmas and exchange gifts. As I handed Colton his present I was excited. I’d planted a brain teaser in the gift I had for him. In addition to his main present, I’d included a Christmas ornament of the letter “C”, and also a classy necktie I’d found for Cody. (I bought a matching tie for Ichabod.) Before he opened the present, I explained that there were three gifts…. one for him, one for Cody; and one that was meant for him and Cody to share. I challenged him to figure out what was what.
Not surprisingly, I wasn’t able to stump him.
Ichabod in his matching tie.
Carter wasn’t feeling well that evening so we kept our visit short. I had no way of knowing at the time, but before I would see Tammy and Colton again, they would pass through some very rough waters. That evening as they packed up the presents to head for home, I hoped I’d get to see Cody in his tie soon. But as it turned out, that was never going to happen.
