Dog years

It was 4:45. I could hear her pacing. One thing about laminate floors is that you hear your dog clattering about at all hours. With carpeting, you would not hear a thing. One of the advantages of laminate floors is that you can see the dust, and as such, your home will be much cleaner than one with carpets. Plus laminates are easier to clean, which is important because the two other issues with dogs is that they pee and poo, just like we do. Except when they do their business, it doesn’t flush away. Hence the beauty of laminate.

My dog is almost 15 years old in human years. In dog years, she is somewhere between 73 and 84. So 4:45 is about 10 am, a perfectly reasonable hour. But like humans, when you gotta go, you gotta go. So she paces. As she is getting on, we have had to put her in a diaper to control the leakage. Huggies with a hole for her tail work great. The yellow stripe turns blue when wet. But the challenge with a dog in diapers is number twos. Cleaning up a senior dog is a far more challenging task than changing a babies diaper.

The pacing is an indication of two things generally. One, she has to go out, or number two, she has to out. Actually there is a third reason. Water. We fill her bowl but as she has aged, her thirst has increased. So the clattering can also mean that the bowl is empty. My dog’s name is Maisy. My daughter named her, as she named the other dogs we have had in our family. I was going to say “ owned”. But a pet is more than an object, much more than a transaction. They are a commitment, ‘til death do us part. They are a part of the family. Not like when your boss says your work team is family, until the day you or someone else gets fired. People don’t often fire their family. A lot of people got dogs and cats during the pandemic. They help with the loneliness. They are the perfect companion, giving love and not advice.

I never planned on being a “ dog person.” My wife had always had dogs, and was allergic to cats, so a dog it was. Our first dog was Petey.

What kind of dog was Petey you may ask? I called him God’s creation on a good day. On a bad day, he was a stubborn pain in the ass. We had a stormy relationship, me and Petey. I was a lousy dog owner, and made many errors, like trying to train him by becoming the alpha dog. Anger is a lousy teacher.

But we also had about 10 good years, until one day, when running with the two their dogs we inherited after moving into my father-in-law’s house, he stopped. My wife and her Dad took him to the vet, and were there when they had to say goodbye to the little brat. Tears were shed. I was officially a dog person in training.

As I said, we inherited two other dogs, Max and Mitzy. My father in law had partial custody of Mitzy, who went home with his ex. So then we had Max.

Max was a schnauzer, so he had to inspect the perimeter. Petey had been a cross between a Corgi and a Samoyed. When he was young he looked like a fox. As he grew older he got longer, but never taller. He was a big dog with tiny legs. God’s creation.

But Max was special. He had been rescued by my father in law’s ex. His previous owners had chained him up in their yard, and cut out his vocal chords to reduce his barking. Seriously. He still barked, but it was a strange bark, more like a truncated honk. Not like Petey, who had an extremely high bark, often startling me when I was driving. One more Petey story. As one with corgi blood, he was a herder. Many a day we marveled at the circles he would run around us. But he would also run off, and rarely listened to any “ command” I gave him. More like a plea.

One evening late, I went up the street to get a slice of pizza. Bad habit, late night pizza, but those were my advanced stupid years. I tied Petey up to a table outside. I went in the restaurant, ordered my slice, watching Petey through the window. Until I didn’t see him. So I left the slice behind, and ran out the door. Petey was gone. And so was the table. He dragged that table a block. I was running down the street, Davie Street, a Mecca for gay men, shouting Petey!!! One gentleman said he went that way, pointing toward an intersection. At the intersection I did not know where to go, someone said your dog went that way, pointing to the right, and down the hill. I ran another three blocks until I got to the alley behind our apartment building. There he was. Right by the gate. Staring at me. Challenging me. What are you going to do about it? That was Petey.

But Max was different. Due to the abuse he had suffered, he was locked up inside himself. He barked at everything and everyone. He bit people, including my brother in law, two Jehovah Witnesses, and our paper boy. But with the love of my wife and daughter, and father-in-law, and I guess me, he softened. He had many operations for cancers. But he endured. When my father-in-law when to the hospital because of the cancer he had, Max waited at the top of the stairs until he came home. And when he went to the hospice, Max waited a long time.

We got a black poodle puppy which my daughter named Toodles to keep Max company. But puppy energy and old dog energy do not mix. So we got Maisy to keep Toodles company. And Max would hide under the bed. The two puppies would run all over our big yard, and Max would toddle out and go around our pool, check out the perimeter. He fell in the pool one night. I grabbed by the leg and pulled him out. It was winter and the water was freezing. We wrapped him in warm blankets and called the vet. He advised to dip our finger in brandy and give it to him.

One night my wife went to bed before my daughter and I, and we thought Max was with her under the bed. My wife thought he was with us.

In the morning we couldn’t find him. Then I saw the leaves around his body at the bottom of the pool.

I cried biblical tears. Like an Italian mother. I had never known such grief.

Until about ten years after that when Toodles died with us at the vet’s, Maisy looking on.

So I guess I am a dog person now.

So when I heard Maisy this morning at 4:45, I got up. We went out. She is pretty smart, what I call a “character” dog. Just what kind of a character? Every dog has a personality. I call her my terrorist. But at 5 in the morning, I call her Count Dogula, because she is sucking the life of me. Kidding. Kind of.

My sleep cycle is short at best. But getting up in the 4’s will not prolong my life. So after her walk, I made coffee and breakfast, and started to write this post. She is still pacing about. What does she want now? To go out? To go back in the bedroom, thereby waking my wife? If there is one thing I have learned in over 40 years of living with someone- do not wake her. That is the cardinal rule. When I was young and stupid, no really, I do mean stupid, I got the idea of waking her to have sex. Let me advise, this is a rookie mistake. Do not wake the beast.

But here I am, up and at it, because I was awakened by my little beast. My little terrorist. Part Scotty, part Al Qaeda. Now she lies at my feet sleeping. Her black colour melds with the brown flooring. I can’t see her eyes so I really don’t know if she is really sleeping or just resting. Or planning her next adventure. Thinking of her next meal. Remembering that pork bone under the leaves a block away.