This thread is going to the dogs...

[settledseas]

 

[settledseas]

 

[settledseas]

 

[settledseas]

 

[settledseas]

 

[settledseas]

 

[Shankara20]

 

[settledseas]

 

[Shankara20]

 

[Shankara20]

 

[Shankara20]

 

[Shankara20]

 

[yukonnights]

Hmmm, that looks like a delivery truck...would I be a good employee and make sure that package made it on time? Yeah, like that's a hard one to answer

 

[yukonnights]

Wants one ~

 

[PuckIt]

When my sister was born, Mom, being the genius she was, decided I really needed a dog to help me deal with the usual bullshit a kid goes through when they aren't the only one any more. Of course, three years later I was evaluated for allergies, and found to be allergic to dogs as well as just about everything else except myself. But, by then, it was too late. They could have my dog when I was dead and cold.

"Where the Red Fern Grows" still makes me tear up.

Any road, about a week after Mom died, so did the last dog she ever gave me.

The wife and I were in a bad way. Out of work due to disability, but hadn't been able to qualify for disability yet. Savings were eaten up by medical bills and all the usual bullshit. Some friends came by to check on us and found us huddled under a blanket with no electricity, no heat, and no food and took us home with them.

Two weeks after rescuing us (three weeks after Little Bit died in our arms and a month after Mom died), Tom opens the door and calls out, "Hey, guys! Look what I found!"

Now Tom is infamous for an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time (or "wrong" if you ask his wife) to rescue animals. Seriously ridiculous stuff that could only happen to him or in the cheesiest plot you've ever heard of. Like seeing Mama Cat get hit while trying to get her kittens across a busy road while he is out riding his motorcycle. Pulls over and finds one baby kitten alive. Puts it in his jacket and brings it home. Like that, but consistently. Like at least once every four months or so.

Mostly they had placed them, but two dogs and four cats stuck. Yet, still he was consistently bringing home more rescued animals to tend, resocialize, and place.

Now, at the time, I was actually going through a rougher time even than my wife who was still able to get up and move around a little. I was mostly a couch worm riddled with pain and muscle spasms until it was just safer for me to lay there, or to crawl on the floor if I had to go to the bathroom rather than walk.

And in walks this puppy like she knew just what the hell she was looking for and made a beeline straight for me, jumped up, and curled up next to my head.

In my misspent youth, I'd done my fair share of animal rescues too. At one point, our backyard looked like the overflow from a vets office with animals Mom and I were tending for farmers or whomever that didn't have the time to fool with it. Baby calves, baby pigs, baby sheep. Of course pups and kittens. Probably the strangest was a brown bat with a torn wing who had a baby. Well, you get the picture. But, what I knew most about, what I was most attached to, was dogs.

And I knew dogs.

I knew dogs well enough to know THIS mutt was only about four weeks old and not ready to be away from Mama. And a pretty fair idea of just how huge this tiny little puppy that could already struggle just to get her face in a boot was going to get.

However, I was not, not, not going to get sucked into a) the shitstorm when his wife came home and found out he'd brought another animal home or b) get suckered into becoming this dog's person.

I don't know just how hard Tom looked, but he claimed the hour he was gone, he was looking for where it came from. When his wife came home, she was every bit as pissed as I'd known she would be, and I think she really did look.

Now, as I say, the wife and I were in pretty bad shape. We'd both been told they couldn't do anything for us and our life expectancy wasn't great. And we were so broke we had to rely on those friends to feed us and our four cats or we wouldn't have eaten. Besides still hurting from holding Little Bit as she died, no way, no how was I going to take another mouth to feed.

And I tried to have as little to do with the thing as I could. Which should have been easy since his wife borrowed a crate from their neighbors who kept Great Danes.

But, every single fucking time I would doze off (which was pretty frequent), one or the other of those three would let that damn pup out of it's crate. And it would come squirm up on my pillow and curl up next to my head.

And, since they were both working, I somehow got to be the one who would feed it and make sure it ate and took it outside to potty. (Although I categorically refused to play with it or encourage it in any way.)

Since their efforts for finding where it came from in the first place fell flat, and since I was adamant that I did not want it, they started trying to find someone who did (they claim).

I got shouted down in a hurry for my first offering, "Shit for Brains." And they didn't like my fallback, "Knucklehead," much either. One of the gals that worked with his wife came up with "Daisy," and his wife came home with a pink collar with flowers on it and that name.

I was not, however, going to fall for that shit. And I told them so. Which they found just hilarious for some reason.

I knew I was fucked, however, when I was getting onto her and, without thinking, tacked on a middle name. "Daisy Mae"

Realizing just what I had done, I ripped open their back door and found his wife lying on the floor, holding her stomach, with tears streaming down her face, cackling like a mad woman. At least Tom and my wife had the decency to keep it to a smile, although their faces were awful red and shiny. I flipped them all the bird and slammed the door and left them to their hilarity.

And went back to the little idiot that was grinning just as big as she could and wagging that tail, happy I'd finally figured it out.

The next day, a tag with "Daddy's Girl" on the front and "Daisy Mae" on the back "miraculously" appeared dangling from that stupid pink collar.

Here's where things get weird.

I have always been infamous for being a heavy sleeper. Seriously. My sister once banged pots and pans above my head for five minutes and I didn't respond. Never heard her. I've had marbles straight out of the freezer dumped in bed (a waterbed) with me and just kept snoring.

The only thing that ever worked was Mom pulling the blankets off me and spritzing me in the face with a water bottle over and over.

That damn dog decided I should be awake one day when I wasn't. Got up from being curled next to my head. Peeled the covers off me by grabbing the edge under my chin and peeling them back over themselves.

Then she went to her water dish. Got a mouthful of water. Came back to jump up on my chest.

And let that mouthful of water go right in my face.

Any road. I could keep going, but I figure everyone is probably tired of this crap.

I'll just say my pretty little girl is going to turn eight in a little over a month. And that cute little puppy who would curl up on my pillow next to my head now stretches out on the queen sized bed next to me with her front paws on the headboard and her rear paws hanging off the foot while she stretches.

Of course, these days, she doesn't bother with the water trick. She just jumps up and sits on my chest and I usually get the hint immediately.

And the white jacketed assholes with stethoscopes around their necks like rap star wannabes pretty well agree that she did more for me than the fistfuls of pills they had me swallowing three times a day. My "discount therapy puppy."

And yeah, her halter and the chain around her neck, her leash, and her food bowls and just about all of her toys are still pink.

And more of my neighbors know her name than know mine. Like her more too. Those that don't run screaming "Dogzilla" anyway.

 

[Shankara20]

 

[yukonnights]

Puck, so now we know the story about that "bad dog" you said likes to wake you up with a wop of her tail in your face...seems like that "bad dog" is pretty special

 

[cascadiabound]

 

[cascadiabound]

Puck, so now we know the story about that "bad dog" you said likes to wake you up with a wop of her tail in your face...seems like that "bad dog" is pretty special

I love the story you shared too, PuckIt. Thank you so much. Dogs are a wonder, aren't they?

 

[Farawyn]

There there... there there...I’m right here.

 

[PuckIt]

Puck, so now we know the story about that "bad dog" you said likes to wake you up with a wop of her tail in your face...seems like that "bad dog" is pretty special

I love the story you shared too, PuckIt. Thank you so much. Dogs are a wonder, aren't they?

Thank you. If my current semi-literate effort pending, "A Final Valentine" makes it past Mistress Laurel, I admit I used quite a bit of Daisy Mae for Bitty's personality (although she isn't even half so well trained).

She even got some billing, sort of, since the tag I slapped on after the title was "Love lost. Love Found. And a bit with a dog." Only fair since without Bitty/Daisy there wouldn't have been a story.

Truthfully, I most likely would have folded up tents a few times, last October for sure if not before, without her. Although, she does make writing a contact sport since she can rest her chin on my keyboard or mouse hand without straining except to press down. Hard.

 

[Shankara20]

 

[Bramblethorn]

https://www.livescience.com/61717-oldest-dog-burial.html

Humans and puppers go way back.

 

[Shankara20]

https://www.livescience.com/61717-oldest-dog-burial.html

Humans and puppers go way back.

Lovely - Thanks

 

[ToPleaseHim]

Said goodbye to a great dog on Friday.

Trying not to hate the service guy who left our gate open. Ours is too busy of a street for a dog to go out roaming the neighborhood. I hope the driver stopped, although we'll never know. We found our boy suffering on the side of the road.