Story Time

Oops, I missed a whole month blogging. I didn't mean to. I was thinking it was past time for a new post, but what to say, really? I'm running out of the right words, or the urge to write lately, clearly. Plus, I got distracted with my 50+ draft posts, wondering what I had to say in those and found this one, a throwback from my Livejournal, pre-Blogger days. I honestly didn't even remember that I wrote it.

I know. It's a mystery. But it was 2009, forever ago. And I've been writing stuff down on the internet since 2007, and in my many notebooks since I could write. There's lots I've forgotten that I wrote.


I started blogging to get stories and thoughts out of my head, first with a group of wonderful art and book nerd friends I met at the Ning, the Nerdfighters, then with subgroups and new friends over at LibraryThing and Livejournal. Then I found Blogger, which was more intuitive and user friendly, and easier to incorporate photos and videos and links and all the things I needed to put with my words. Then, for a while, I started cheating with Wordpress, and flitting around the internet on Youtube, Tumblr, Facebook, Flikr, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Instagram, Google +, Project Noah, My Heritage, LinkdIn,  etc, etc. Internet ADHD.  It snowballed, but now I reigned myself in and come back mostly to blogger, facebook and youtube. It's been the best of things and the worst of things, this digital life.

But I'm glad I never stopped writing down things in this vanity/sanity project or scrapbook of stories and thoughts.  Not all of them good ones, in either sense of the word, but they are true, and mostly they are about love and loss and time. Life I guess.

This one's about how Tucker came into my life. It's both happy and sad and I'm glad I wrote all this down, because almost six years later, I forgot so much of this story and I'm glad to have the details back. Also, I am trying to imagine thinking that a 70 pound dog was big, since he's topped out at 90 pounds of furry coated love now.

Too tired to stand, about as big as my son's shoe, Spring, 2008.

TUCKER

3/9/09

The very last time I traveled to the East Coast to see my Dad – I worried each time I saw him for years that it might be the last - I came home and walked into my house exhausted, spent from all day travel with both kids, to discover a tiny dog curled on a towel on my kitchen floor. I didn't get it at first, I didn't even realize it was a puppy. I thought it was any one of my neighbor’s small white dogs. I wondered why my husband would watch a neighbors' dog without telling me. I looked at him to explain. What is this?, I asked.

I got you and the kids a dog, he said.

I didn't want a dog. I didn't want to clean up after a dog. I had dragged myself through infertility, mommyhood, miscarriage, and a second nervous pregnancy and all that parenthood entails late in my 30’s, and I was off kilter and on high alert for almost 15 years. I was battling early menopause, rabid insomnia and exhaustion, chronic neck pain and migraines, pitifully aging parents half a continent away, one with recurrent cancer, the other a repeatedly failing heart and emphysema, plus I had my own bit of depression and midlife madness thrown in – my kids were a mysterious and confounding tween and teen - I was a perfect mess - and the last thing on my to do list was raise a puppy. This puppy.

He was tiny, my unexpected, unnamed little surprise. Sad and a bit sickly looking, with dull, pitiful eyes. Warily, I picked him up, a limp pile, asking the obvious, you got a dog? 

He's ours, my husband said. 

Our puppy. I could barely process this, it was so late and now my daughter was squealing in delight in a pitch and volume that made my eyeballs ache. My feet and my head hurt and I couldn't think straight. Two hours on the road from the edge of nowhere to Baltimore for a long wait for a two hour flight to Chicago, followed by another two hours until home, with not even a clue. My husband had planned this for months, the breeder chosen solely on puppy delivery date, timed to arrive the day before the kids and I came home. He had put great effort into surprising us, had driven halfway down Illinois to meet the breeder, and he swore this one picked him. He said that about both our previous dogs, years ago, and I loved them, they were family, and they died and broke my heart. I wanted to be done with that for a while, heartbreak.

Hubby is very good at surprises. I hate surprises. I am a control freak. He told me on the phone at Mom and Dad’s that things were going to change when I got home, and I thought he was just fed up with our chaos and clutter after a quiet week to ponder in our absence. He was forever irritated by the growing piles of stuff it took to raise two kids. I tried to imagine what he had thrown out, or reorganized in my absence. I could not have imagined a dog. 

You’re either going to love it or hate it, he had warned. I visualized a new washer and dryer perhaps, or my garage purged and reorganized. He had a week to work with and could build or do anything, so I couldn't imagine what he had done. He had clearly not shopped for appliances. Later I asked him why, really, did you do this? 

You needed something, he said.

So. There lay the something, so tiny, limp and uninvited in my arms, a baby boy, just carsick, and tired from the trip, he said. 

Great. I was not pleased. I kept looking at my husband, then the dog, but my husband smiled and said he will be fine. His spine poked bony and vulnerable through his thin furry skin, just like Dads back through his thin shirt as I hugged him goodbye that morning, a lifetime ago. 

My future, loving this animal flashed before my eyes, already set, but I tried not to let him into my heart, which was tired and achy. 

My husband explained that this dog would be great for kids, would not shed, was the perfect dog for our family, he'd done the research. Male (Male? I am a female dog person)  F1b (What? Genetic cross breed designer dog?) Creamy white golden doodle, and expensive, too.. (What? Not from the humane society? The Animal Shelter? Animal Control?)  He'll only be about 50 pounds (50? I was thinking if I ever had another dog, it would be the size of a big cat - 20 pounds max, a portable purse dog) This was every kind of wrong.

I tried to smile, I did, but my first thought, after the shock of accepting a dog in my house for the first time in 8 years subsided, was how could you? We had picked our first and last dog together, had spent 13 great years with a charming mutt, Speedy, a female springer lab mix. I missed her terribly still, and the memories of her last sick days with us are impossible to erase. I had been watching the rescue listings now and then, mostly curious, imagining a clone of the last dog that broke my heart. I was going to rescue her when I was ready, and she was going to pick me, when I was ready. 

I was not ready. 

My dad was dying, my kids were growing up and away and out of my control at an alarming rate and I was falling apart physically and mentally at an even more disarming rate. I was going to get a dog, I was - someday, just not yet. 

You were never going to do it, he said. It’s time. Kids need to have a dog. 

I knew that, I was working on it, figuring it out. I am a mutt girl, my best pets were mutts, my best mutt ever my family’s death-row rescued labradoodle. But. I wanted a small mutt. A smart, obedient, low maintenance mutt, once my kids learned how to clean a cat box or put food in a bowl. It had been three years, with the cats, and there were glimmers of progress. My next dog was not supposed to be now, or a boy, or a sickly surprise. I don’t do surprises.

This surprise was sick, that much my mother's instinct told me. Too little to be completely weaned yet, in my opinion, and I was to learn, once he regained some strength, a crybaby of epic proportions.

I looked down at him. I refuse to love you, I decided in feeble defiance. You're a sick little baby and I will not love you. I can't. I just can’t, not right now. I will care for you, but I will not love you. I said these words to him out loud, alone, late at night.

We were cat people now, cats were easier and trouble enough. I still mourned the cat taken by coyotes last year, but cats didn't break my heart quite like dogs when they died. Cats kept a little more distance, and ours were forever taking silly risks, running off, visiting with other families behind our backs. Once a stray, always a stray, I guess. They knew they could always come home until they didn't.

I knew it was time, though, for a dog. I knew I was running out of excuses, I knew that a dog was next in the progression of creatures I would care-take amid earnest, broken promises both kids would make, repeatedly. I knew the guilt and frustration of finding dirty fish bowls, smelly guinea pig and fire belly toad cages, horrid cat boxes, the resignation of taking over because I am a mother and a nurturer and a weak woman. Once I'm in, I’m in, no matter what threats I make. And I can't really blame the kids - I'd been looking for things to take care of my whole life, even caterpillars and butterflies, and my family knows this about me. 

Fluffy. The classroom guinea pig my son won in the lottery at the end of the year had me crying for a week when she died, the house was so empty without her morning squeals and happy grunts. I loved that critter. But I did not miss the smelly cage and rodent poop she’d fling when running about her cage. 

I knew a dog would need to go outside day and night, and it would rain and snow, and the carpets would be filthy with mud, and I have never been a fan of housework, and the only good to come of Speedy breaking my heart was the house not being so dirty. 

I had already become a terrible housekeeper, an overwhelmed stay at home mom. I thought I had learned what it meant to let things go, or to be a mess. I had no idea. I was not ready.  I was a terrible combination of tired and worn out, yet oddly anxious about what next, as I no longer had an elementary school child to tend, and it was time to do something again. I was already eyeing classes, the job market, my cluttered and complicated house, pondering my options. I knew if I did nothing else in my life it would be more cooking, dishes and laundry. I was going to get organized and simplify, ironic and hilarious in hindsight.

We were in the vet’s office within 24 hours. He was listless, barely eating, loose watery stools, fever, infected, unwell. Everything you might expect from a puppy mill, or a puppy taken too soon from his litter. I took him home with medicine and very specific eating instructions - a gruel of rice and rinsed cooked chicken or hamburger. Great. Among my least favorite things in life are cooking, dishes and laundry. Now, as a gift, I have a sick puppy requiring home made food, and every spare towel and blanket called into service for potty or barf or mud cleanup. More laundry and dishes, thanks!

He was so lethargic, frightful, still barely eating, and he was worrying me sick. I flashed back to the terrible respiratory infections of both my children when they were very small, how tenuous and frightening. So I tended a sick puppy all night that first night back from the vet.

I celebrated each lap of water, each nibble of food, searched for any sign of wellness. I sat up late, deliriously tired, sleep deprived like I was post partum, in that haze of round the clock care, weepy, and on the third night, holding him, I began negotiating, and I said fine. You win. Don't die. You have to get better. I can't take it if you get any sicker and weaker, please don't die on my watch. You win, I promise to love you with my whole heart for the rest of your life, if you just get better, just please don't die.  My Dad was dying, and I just couldn't deal with the idea of any more death. So I bargained with love.

I could be wrong, but a year later, I remember it as he got better the very next day.

We gave up on the crate and gave up our bedroom the first week, our leg room on the bed the first month. Crating was the miracle cure for our previous dog. But not this one. No one slept through the howling, the kids and I tried everything, but the only thing that worked was my arm dangling to touch him in the laundry basket next to the bed while we tried to nap between whimpers and wails. Between the puppy and the night sweats, I haven't really slept in years.

We named him Tucker, because he was so tired at first, and I was tuckered as well. We discovered that Tucker had 2 speeds: Rambunctious and Tuckered. Full tilt, full speed, full need, or thunk and down for a while.

My friend with dogs and teens warned me, sweetie, no matter what anyone says, that is your dog. You are the one that will be there with him, you are his mom now. Get used to it. It’s going to be great, don’t worry. 

We just celebrated his first birthday, and I still don't know what hit me or what comes next, but my friend was right. I am a mommy again, he is my boy. I have a change of life doodle, and things are as out of control as ever. I can't believe how much refuse and yard waste and dirt and mud 70 pounds of wooly, curly haired mop-hound can drag into a home. He's a chewer, sticks and stuffed animals, mostly, and I’m amazed at what he sneaks into the house in his fur, which grows incessantly. He is a submissive-excited pee-greeter. I’ve never seen anything like it. He wobbles back and forth with his entire back end, spraying doggy urine in a swath and pattern that turned my driveway into a Jackson Pollack piece, hence the nick-name him Jackson-pees-a-lot. The excited pee dance happens every time he sees us, no matter how long we've been apart. Every day the bus comes home, once per kid, then Dad from work, every day, without fail. Pee. Anywhere and everywhere. Some mornings, I can go upstairs and come back down and get the greeting. No one meets the dog in the house, outside only, and watch your shoes, he will pee on them. There’s no point getting mad, or trying to stop it, since he can’t help himself and it only makes it worse. I try to boost his confidence and hope he grows out of it, but I’m not optimistic any longer.

He is afraid of his own shadow, barks in incessant high alert at any stranger, or his reflection in any window, or a piece of trash hung up in a shrub. He was trained for the electric fence in a day, and stays well away from the boundary, whether he wears the collar or not. He is not interested in pain. He has a phenomenal adrenaline rush when a stranger comes near or crosses the boundary, or to the door; the power surge of fight or flight is amazing. I try to run it out of him afterward with a game of catch, for he is his most amazing when excited, beautiful and powerful in full gallop. He is a magnificent animal. Holding him in a sit until it passes is excruciating for us both, but we've managed it a time or two. His best performance was for the UPS man, quivering with high voltage as I held on to his collar for dear life with one hand, and signed for the overnight envelope with the other, Tucker squealing and peeing, but magically sitting all the while. As the truck pulled out, I smiled, waved to the delivery man and gave Tucker a proud good boy pat and let go of his collar. He leapt up and snatched the envelope out of my hand, and ran circles like a madman around me in insanely frenzied game of keep away. The UPS man stopped in the road, laughed loud and shouted that that was the funniest thing he had ever seen! I was not as amused. It took me a frustrating 10 minutes to get the envelope back, torn and soggy, but contents luckily intact.

He cries like a stuck pig at any parting, whenever crated, or gated. He needs his people. He needs to play, and run and gets overexcited and uncontrollable if not exercised properly. He is so often more poodle than retriever, but he is smart, obedient and loving. And adorable. And oddly, the polar opposite of my kids, who are perfect to the world and high maintenance at home, while Tucker is a perfect gentleman when it's just us, and unmanageable and almost embarrassing in his barking, squealing and excitement meeting people, out of his mind around other dogs out in the world. I’m forever making excuses in public for him. He’s just a baby, he’s scared, so sorry. He is a big baby, but huge and strong and doesn't know his own strength, often scratching or scraping in play. He is oblivious to many things, and will never catch a ball thrown to him, no matter how hard we try. They bounce off his nose and surprise him every time. He is clumsy, whacking his head on walls, furniture, knees - knocking down children and adults in his glee. He will never be the dog that steps gingerly around his master, he will trample you, crush your toes, push you half off the bed, lay atop you when he's lonely, lean into you or on you at every chance. He knocked me down the stairs last month, an accident of manners we have since corrected, but the bruise on my left ass cheek was colors I had never seen, and the muscles and shoulder on the arm that caught the banister halfway down will likely never heal. It took a few months to diagnose the torn rotator cuff and an few more months of therapy and injections to get my mobility back. He meant no harm, he was just excited, but I refer to that day as the day Tucker tried to kill me.

He is sweet and gentle, and has fallen asleep with his head in my lap, slumping slowly to the floor with his head halfway down my leg. He never misses a sound, though, and the slightest sudden bump or noise sends him on a bark fest. He has overturned chairs jumping up from a nap. He has food allergies and sensitive skin, and his food smells of fish and costs twice the price it should. But he has the most amazing face, the gentlest food habits, the funniest games, and I laugh every day at his antics. We play hide and seek, and peek a boo or catch the flying rooster toy every day, and every day I am amused beyond belief.

He is visually striking, gorgeous, his fur hanging in ringlets over 4 inches long when we first started cutting them back, quite the attention getter in public. I take pictures of him constantly, he has replaced my kids as wallpaper on my cell phone screen, he has videos on youtube, photos on flicker, posts on blogs. He is adorable and infinitely amusing, and a huge mess. He may not shed much, but he mats worse than any dog I have ever known. His chin beard can hold a quart of water, which he drinks frequently. He likes to get a drink, then walk around dribbling terribly to find a hug, plopping his chin on any unsuspecting leg. I run around after him with towels like a madwoman. No matter how much fur I snip from his immense paws, I am destined to live with towels piled at any door, muddy paw prints, leaves and twigs and detritus strung about amid the chew toys and bones and faceless stuffed animal stuffing. I thought winter snow would never thaw. I began to assess each snowfall for its clump factor, as our worst snow dog melt required 7 towels, one particularly wet snowy day requiring three loads of doggy towels and rags. Despite the misery of the coldest nights this winter playing catch, or urging a potty break, I stayed warm enough in my mother in law's vintage, crumbling raccoon coat, and I began to appreciate the crispness of clear skies and frozen snow at 20 below, especially knowing that our wet snow cleanup routine at the door for mop up could be skipped once it got this cold. 

We graduated from dog obedience class, he did very well, and I am amazed at his skills, his ability to place and hold dirty paws for cleaning, to hop up or down, sit or stand, turn about and sometimes stay, to fetch, find and give, all for a treat or a hug or a belly rub. He is perfect on a gentle leader across the nose leash, unmanageable on a standard leash. He is huge, 70 pounds last trip to the vet, although the estimate for his litter was 45-50 pounds. He was amazingly easy to potty train, one poop accident ever, not counting the ones that were caused by dangles caught in fur. After the first month, he would pee outside, but a year later he pees on the floor in dribbles, everywhere, everyday, when greeting his pack or their guests. He can go forever without peeing if no one comes or goes. He can't stand to be left behind, and we can hardly stand to leave him. When we return and open the door after even the slightest separation, he is there, holding everything he can cram into his mouth, tail wagging, pee squirting in every direction, whimpers of joy mixed in with the dance. The more we touch or speak to him, the harder he pees. He's so cute we always forgive him. All my kid’s friends know they have to greet the dog outside first, then come in. If they try to hide from him he gets frantic until he has everyone accounted for and properly greeted.

My front door and walkway are a cacophony of sticks, tree limbs, firewood, toys, balls, bones, shoes, stray socks, water bottles and bowls – constantly appearing no matter how often I pick them up. He grabs whatever he can find to take outside every day – he will drag towels, blankets, socks, shoes, gloves, boots, decorative pillows outside. We have discovered shoes in the woods, sticks in our bed. Our new décor is retro dog clutter, every room sports a dog toy and towel basket or bin. It looks like a three year old rents this house. It looks like the maid quit or gave up.  The furniture, appliances, walls and windows bear his nose prints, the floor his paw prints and claw marks. No amount of cleaning keeps up, new messes replace old almost simultaneously. I no longer see the point, unless I expect company. 

When we go for walks, which I need and love, he stays close enough for my hand to brush the top of his head. He almost always stays close, and loves to go on adventures. At home, when seated, his nose is taller than the kitchen table. He could eat off the counters if he were inclined, or if he thought I wouldn't catch him, I suppose, but he's never been that rude.

I talk to him constantly, and have turned once again into a baby-talker, using voices and words that should embarrass me, but do not.

He loves to travel anywhere, anytime, anyhow. He will hop in any car, ride for minutes, hours or days, leap down any trail, up any hill, he will go anywhere. He will fly happily in a small plane, jump gleefully aboard a sailboat, always ready for anything, as long as he goes with us. He will eat anything, especially if it’s what we are having. He is a shameless and highly effective beggar. He particularly likes ice cream and peanut butter and apples and can smell them from anywhere. His begging bark is sudden and ear piercing, his begging stare impossible to ignore. He is horribly, completely spoiled. He reluctantly eats his dry kibbles only when all other options are gone.

He has a joy for living and a simple approach to his days that I’d only encountered with my kids when they were little, and had long forgotten amid the crush of our modern lives. He is the new baby and I worry about him constantly: how long can I leave him on my errands, or can I bring him with me? Is he bored or lonely? Will he get enough exercise? I bring spare biscuits to the bank when I drive through with him; he wails like a baby the minute we pull in the lane, poking his head up front to be sure the teller sees him and sends a treat. Once they forgot, or were out, and I’ll always remember the sad confused look he gave. I felt terrible. Ridiculous, I know. I am reliving the toddler mommy years, anxious and enamored beyond explanation, exhausted and amazed daily. Only this time, it's a dog.

It’s been a year since I last saw my Dad, he died 3 months after that last hug, 3 days before I was to fly back see him again. I gained a dog and lost a Dad, not a fair trade at all. It’s been a year since Tucker came into my life and I can’t imagine what the months since losing Dad might have been without the distraction, the love and the joy that is Tucker in my life, regardless of the added craziness and chaos and mess.

I saved him and he saved me. I love him like I love my husband and my kids, he’s part of the family now.  I kept my promise, and he kept his end of the bargain, and here we are, wherever that is, and wherever we go next. No regrets.

I’ve almost forgiven my husband, too.

I told you that you needed a dog, he said, smiling.

I guess I did need a dog.

xo