My Little Terrorist RIP

Today is Sunday May 19.

At 10:20 we had a date with the vet.

One week ago, I made the call.

Their voice was thick with an accent I couldn’t place.

What is your phone number? I gave her my phone number.

Maisy Mills?

Strange she has my last name.

Her real name is Miss Maisy McQueen, named by my daughter 16 years ago.

What is the purpose of the visit?

End of life.

Three words.

Like I love you. Simply stated, with suppressed emotion. I could hear Michelle in the other room. I couldn’t hear her crying, but I knew she was.

This past week has been excruciating. Slow motion. We had a week of waiting, of watching her as she further declined. There were moments when she bounced back for a bit. When she ran like a drunk baby goat, crashing head first into the door.

Again this morning, which began at 6. It’s been like clockwork. She was crashing around, walking into things, walking over things, taking a poop in her diaper. Then walking into a door. In the last week, she had collapsed a few times, often in a heap in the kitchen near her water bowl. Her legs splayed, no strength left to stand. Her stomach rising with each breath.

In my song Freedom 85, I sing,” I told my wife, take me to the vet. Put me down like your favourite pet.” That was self referential sarcasm, but this is reality.

Michelle and Tamara and I have had four dogs. Number one was Petey. Petey was a cross between a corgi and a Samoyed. The Hound from Hell, known for his smiling face, and an incredibly annoying high pitched bark. He was a herder. Petey and his siblings were found by my friend Mike by the side of the highway. There was Petey, a brother who was darker, and Kennedy, who was more a doodle Wheaton cross. Mike took Kennedy, and we got Petey. The fourth sibling wandered into the road, ending their short life.

Petey was a pain in the ass. He was stubborn, impossible to train. A beautiful dog, who always had strangers asking us “What kind of dog is that?” I would say God’s Creation. That usually shut them up. He was so stubborn.

I was trying to become a dog person for my wife who loves dogs. I love my wife, she loves dogs, so using the transitive theory of equality (mathematics), I should love dogs, right?

(The transitive property of equality tells us that if a=b, and b=c, then it follows that a=c.)

So I had to take training with Petey. The truth is that neither of us, me or Petey, were trained very well. I tried to assert myself as the alpha dog, but my self assigned authority was never accepted by Petey. Our relationship was not good, me and Petey. I was a lousy doggy daddy.

One night on Davie Street I tied Petey to a table in the sidewalk while I went inside to get a slice of pizza. I kept looking out the window, as Petey was a beautiful dog, looks wise. At one point, I look out and the table was gone. I raced out the door, and discovered Petey had bolted west down Davie.

He was being chased by a table that he was dragging behind him. At some point, he lost the table and was off.

I’m screaming Petey at the top of my lungs down Davie. All the gay guys walking by, looking at me, thinking I was in the middle of a lover’s quarrel. Around Thurlow, I asked someone if they had seen my dog, and they pointed down Thurlow. Petey was obviously running home. I got to the alley, and there he was, sitting about 100 feet away, staring at me.

Fuck you, he said. Petey often told me to fuck off in dog stares. He would snarl, showing one fang, like a canine Elvis.

When we moved to White Rock, Petey had to live with two other dogs, Max and Mitzi, both schnauzers. In the pack, Petey was number three. One night soon after we moved to White Rock to look after Michelle’s Dad, who was dying from cancer, Petey was chasing the other dogs around the backyard. Petey collapsed. Michelle took him to the vet, along with her Dad. Petey had a heart attack, and died just before the vet was to give him the shot. I think his change in status, going from number one dog to just another dog in the pack caused him stress. But what do I know?

This is Max.

#2 was Max, who we inherited from my Father-in-Law. (Mitzi went to his Ex.)

Max was a character dog who had been rescued from an earlier life of abuse. His previous owners tied him up in their yard. Annoyed by his barking, they cut his vocal cords, rendering his bark more of a strangulated honking sound.

As a result of this abuse, Max was an angry dog, almost autistic by nature. He bit the Jehovah’s Witnesses who came to the door. He bit my brother-in-law. He bit the paper boy, who later came by with his Mother. I welcomed them into the foyer. Max was in a closed room next to us. As I was apologizing profusely, explaining how Max had been abused, Max was ramming his head against the door, ferociously barking and trying to get out and bite everyone.

Fortunately, the paperboy’s Mom was understanding.

The love of my wife and daughter mellowed Max, but so did his age, and his many cancer battles. When Michelle’s Dad went to the hospice, Max waited at the top of the stairs.

We had a big pool in the backyard, and one night Max fell in the deep end. I grabbed his leg and pulled him out. He was shivering, stunned. We called the country vet, Dr. Om, who counselled us to dip our finger in some brandy. We put towels in the dryer, and gave him brandy, warm towels and love. Lots of love, and he was ok. Other nights we would comfort him when the thunder and lightning happened.

One night, Max got into the Christmas brandy filled chocolates, and my daughter’s fancy hot chocolate while we were out of the house. He was drunk, and delirious. After much puking and barking at the walls, he wanted to go outside. He kept wanted to go outside. I followed him and found that he had puked but kept returning to eat it up. Gross, I know, but dogs can be very gross.

Max went a bit kooky after the brandy chocolate incident.

To keep Max company, we got Toodles. Toodles was a standard black poodle. She was a puppy that we got so Max would have company. Toodles was only a 4 lb handful of puppy when we got her. She was the runt of the litter (she was very underweight at 8 weeks). I could literally hold her in one hand. Unfortunately Max was already on the decline, and had no interest in this puppy. As Toodles grew, Max would crawl under our bed, and stay there all day, only coming out to eat, or Pooh walk, as we called it.

ButToodles was a growing puppy with lots of energy. Poodles are intense in their needs for attention. Inexhaustible. So we got Maisy to keep Toodles company.

That was 16 years ago when we got Maisy. My friend Yuana had a dog rescue society, and had posted pictures of some puppies she had. Maisy was about eight weeks old.

I said, we should go, just “for a look”. They laughed, because I’m not supposed to be the “dog” guy, but here I was asking to go look at a new dog. Here is me with Maisy when we came home.

Off we went to look at this new puppy, the one who would become Maisy. She was wandering on a deck of a Vancouver Special. It was a sunny day. There were a few puppies there to choose from, but Maisy wandered over and chose me. We didn’t choose her. Well, we did choose her, but it seemed like destiny. There was much debate over what breed she was. Scotty? Definitely a terrier of sorts.

Now that she is well over sixteen, we came to the conclusion that she was part black miniature schnauzer and part mystery long lower dog. When we got her, she was the size of her present head. She grew into her long body over time.

In the early days, she was more than a handful. My little monster terrier. My terrorist. She and Toodles soon became quite the pair, especially as Toodles was growing. One time a little girl came up to us on our walk. She said, pointing at Toodles, is that one the Mommy, and pointing at Maisy, is that one the baby?

Dr. Toodles and Nurse Maisy, as my brother-in-law said. Toodles was a big scaredy cat, and would whine at the dog park. Maisy was the one who walked into a dog fight and started barking “Hey! Break it up guys, break it up.”

She was fearless. I imagined her as the dog they sent into bear caves. She would try to attack pit bulls. Crazy Maisy.

She had many special talents. She would put her head inside Toodles mouth, and act as Toodles’ dental hygienist, carefully licking away all the food that Toodles had missed.

We swore that Toodles would stand and walk around the apartment on two legs when we left the apartment. Hey Maisy! Did you want some bread? There is loaf on the counter. What? You want a piece of pie? Ok. And Toodles would extract that piece, leaving the rest, as if she were a surgeon. But make no mistake, Maisy was the brains in this duo.

They were like Pinky and the Brain. Toodles was Pinky. Maisy was The Brain.

So what do we do tonight Brain?

Same thing we do every night. Try to take over the world.

While they never took over the world, they stole our hearts. Miss Maisy would try to jump into the TV screen when we were watching shows. Her favourite movie was Avatar. She hated horses and all westerns. And Game of Thrones- don’t get her started on dragons! There were many shows we would just have to stop watching, as they upset her too much.

In the past year, she hasn’t paid any attention to the TV.

My daughter, my favourite daughter, made me a t-shirt with a drawing of Maisy. At the top, it said, “60 Percent Poop”. Below the drawing, it said, “40% Anger.”

When we lived in the big White House, she and Toodles would bark at the doodle next door. I would turn around and there she was, in the doodles yard. How did she get there? She was an escape artist in those days. She would dig under the fence. We swore that she could fly through a hole in the middle of the fence. Anything to canoodle with a doodle!

She would crawl into a culvert and go exploring the neighborhood. Toodles would try to follow her. One day Maisy visited a neighbour. I found her in their kitchen. We would go to a dog park in South Surrey, and Maisy would have to protect Toodles, who was three times her size. Fearless. This dogpark had a forest that you could walk in where the dogs went off-leash. Maisy would see a squirrel and BAM, she was gone. Sometimes Toodles would go after her, but often she would bark from the sidelines. One time in our backyard, I saw Toodles flipping a squirrel, who she had by the tail, back and forth, hitting their head on the ground. I stopped her, but the poor squirrel was so concussed, it didn’t know where to go. Later that night I let them out into the back yard. They were out there a very long time, so I went out with a flashlight, only to find the two of them feasting on pieces of a bloody squirrel. Circle of life!

One night Tam and I were watching tv. We thought Max was sleeping upstairs under the bed. But in the morning, we couldn’t find Max. We looked everywhere. I went out into the backyard and looked at the pool. There on the floor of the pool, covered in leaves, was the shape of a dog. Max. Poor Max. I cried like an Italian mother. I had to fish his lifeless body out if the pool, his body stiff, wet and cold.

Maisy was a very patient hunter. She would wait many hours, staring at a point in the fence where she had seen, ever so briefly, a rat. She never did catch that rat, but in Olympic Village, she would wait near the edge of our little sun deck, and there was an opening to the apartment below, which had a bird feeder. My daughter woke one morning to a present of a dead bird that Maisy had killed for her. Shade of the the scene in the Godfather. Maisy was the Dogfather. Except she was a girl. A bitch apparently. She wore that proudly, just like the t-shirt my daughter made me, with her drawing if Maisy, and the slogan 60% Poop, 40% Anger.

Then there was the time she waded into Trout Lake and swam after the ducks. For over thirty minutes! We were afraid she would drown out there. Here she was in the middle of the lake, switching direction as the ducks led her on a wild goose chase.

This past week, I would go to work, thinking about Maisy during the day. After work I would come home, walking down the hallway to our door, not knowing what I would find. I would open the door in hesitation. I can’t hear her. She is lying on her side in the kitchen, not sleeping, but not moving. I see she still has her diaper on, which is a good sign- for a few reasons. But then I see a pool of urine. Her diaper is filled to beyond capacity. These are the 12 hour, sleep through the night, kid’s diapers, with a hole we cut for her tail. We are beyond the old lady leaks; this is full on empty the bladder and damn the torpedos.

Lucky for me that time, there were no torpedos.

We had to buy more diapers a few days ago, as we ran out. For some reason, the diapers made me think of my Mother. Not because of diapers, but the economies of scarcity, supply and demand. My mother would be eating a scone, and would say, “Well, I need a bit more butter and jam to go with the scone that’s left.”

And then, “Oh, now I need a bit more scone for all the butter and jam that I put on my plate.”

So many memories of Maisy. Up in doggy heaven, Petey is catching raw chicken mid air, burning his nose on the oven door, looking at me with that one Elvis fang. Max is hiding under the bed. Toodles is forever running big circles in the park, leaping in the air, catching snowballs in her mouth.

Maisy is joining them, in a place where she can endlessly jump into the tv, fighting dragons, and bears, and pit bulls.

She picked me. I picked her. She was my little terrorist. And now she is gone.

Maisy McQueen 2008-2024. RIP.