Shared grief

(Winnie rests his chin on my foot. He is not to be ignored. He knows if I am sad...)

Today, I disassembled the memorial to my little girl doggie friend, Caliente. The 'shrine' had previously been moved from the downstairs family room (where her little bed had always been) to the side of my bed upstairs. Filled with her toys, her warm winter sweaters, the sympathy cards from her vet and her many family loved ones, it was a last sweet reminder of a decade filled with love, laughter, tenderness, and goofy behavior.

When I moved it upstairs, five months ago, it upset Winston the Wonder Dog, my granddog. He repeatedly brought her toys back downstairs to their previous spot, where Cali had kept them. Faced with a closed door, he eventually gave up his efforts to put Cali's space back to her liking. Today, I upset his (and my) world. I disassembled her shrine.

'Okay', he must have thought, 'time to my renew efforts to put things right.' He pushed my hands aside, pawed through her toys and sweaters, and began to carry everything back to their original spot that I had changed over five months ago. He even went way outside normal character and climbed up onto the dining room table (!), where her favorite toys had been placed recently, her two alligators, Lally Gator and the Big Green Thing. Winston took them firmly in mouth and returned them to Cali's corner.

Well, I just broke down. And that damn Pug jumped up and licked my tears. I couldn't even push him off my lap. He was relentless in his comfort and his commiseration. No escape. So, I gave myself over to our mutual grief and we just cried. And missed our friend and loved one, Caliente.

I don't know when the time is right to move on. After the loss of both parents, I only know that it always hurts. And, you know, right now, it hurts. It hurts me, and it hurts the the Wonder Dog. For that, I am so sorry.

Tonight, it was with tears and gratitude that I bid him good night. I hope he gets as much from our relationship as he has given me. What must his life be like, to look at this big blonde gramma who cries so easily, and feel the urge and responsibility to comfort her? Wherever my sweet Cali is, I know she must be as grateful as I to see his careful ministrations to my broken heart.

Sleep well, little hero, silly little Winnie the Wonder Dog.

Winston loves watermelon

I gave my granddog a bite of watermelon. He loved it. I gave him a couple more small pieces, which disappeared as quickly as the first.

My family and I had slices of watermelon, and I took the rinds to the chickens. Winston found them, stole them from the chickens, and ate every one of them.

To me, he looks like a bully old Englishman with a cigar. Living up to his name, doing a great imitation of Sir Winston Churchill.

Winston, my grand-dog

I have written about Winston the Wonder Dog.  He was my dog-smell connection during my first few days after Cali's death.  He worried about me, cuddled me and drew me out.  He absorbed my tears and cast long looks into my eyes as if to ask, 'What can I do?' and 'Are you okay?'. 

He is a Pug, a black-black Pug with 75% cacoa eyes.  He is long legged and athletic with a tongue-lolling joie de vivre that gives him the confidence to know he is welcome anywhere and on any lap.  He follows conversations with direct eye contact and a great deal of head tipping. He gets excited to watch animals on the television and often runs up to watch while standing on hind legs under the tv, looking up.  He runs flat out in the wheat field, ears and tongue flapping back in the wind.  He snores, wheezes and snorts.  He gives kisses and hogs the bed.  He sometimes forgets himself and crowds through legs to get outside.  He is a wonder.

Well, yesterday, I wrote about a dog bed in the living room.  I thought the reader deserves an explanation since we went through my loss of Cali and my grief together.  Winston has come to live with us, as often as I can 'borrow' him. In a kind of 'custody arrangement', my son's girlfriend has agreed to let him stay as often as we want!  I am soooo thrilled, kind of like a non-custodial parent with a benevolent ex.

With a spirit too big to be confined to one part of the house, he has the run of the place.  He greets me in the morning, hangs with me on my day off when I am at home, and wanders the yard at will.  He is good with the chickens, only occasionally showing a little too much curiosity, which is curbed by a soft sh-h-h sound, Cesar Milan-style.  ('Dear Cesar, I love you.  If I wasn't 50 something, I would have your children... Meanwhile, we could try'... wait, okay, back on track).  Winston.

Back on the farm, Winnie is running amok, checking everything out.  He gets a little hinky at night, though. He often sees or hears danger, emitting small little 'wuff' noises.  Pugs don't really bark.  They have a Rod Stuart/Bonnie Tyler breathy gruffness to their voices that results in a 'wuff', not a 'woof'.  I hope he can get used to the night sounds of the country.  If not, his little breathy exhalations are cute and tickle me and George.

Meanwhile, I again have a canine companion after not having after one Cali died for the first time in nineteen years.  George is self proclaimed as 'not a dog person', though he is loving with and tolerant of them.  We have discussed the pro's and con's of getting another dog, and I understand that they restrict freedom to travel and travel nurse.  But, for now, I don't have to make that decision.  I again have a dog in the house.  And it feels good.

Therapy dog

For the past couple days, my home has been the latest playground for a goofy, loose jointed mess of a dog named Winston.  He is my 'granddog', which sounds nobler than Winston acts.  He belongs to my son's girlfriend, a puppy selected together when they began to date nearly three years ago.  He is a Pug.  A Pug that snores, hogs the bed, weighs three hundred pounds when he sleeps, and dribbles water in a 80 square foot area when he drinks.

The kids thought he would help me cope with having Cali so sick and in the hospital so far away.  They were right; I have been able to laugh through my tears when he flings toys so high they bounce off the ceiling or when he tips his head from side to side as I talk to him, lower teeth showing in a pearly line set in his black black face.  

But, as importantly, he perks up when I begin to cry, lands in my lap, places his front paws on my shoulders, looks straight into my eyes, and licks the tears off my cheeks.  He stays there until I give up and pretend to be okay, after which he jumps down and prances off smartly, as if  proud of a job well done.  Then, he comes back every three to five minutes to check on me until he is satisfied that I won't fall apart again.  

 

For all his silliness and joie de vivre, he takes his role as my therapy dog seriously.  And he is very, very good at it.