Pet Spotlight

A very good bad dog and the lives he touched

By: Bambi Kuhl
   In May of 1989, no thought whatsoever had been given to bringing a dog into our household.
   None at all.
   Katie was in preschool, I was working full-time, we had just moved into a new house, and my husband, Paul, believed the work week only started at 60 hours.
   So a dog? Not a chance.
   That is until one afternoon around Memorial Day.
   As I was walking through town with Katie, she spotted a "free puppies" sign in the window of a framing shop — damn those early reading programs!
   After five minutes of "Please, mommy, please, can we look at thePuppies? I love you so much. You are the best mother in the universe. Please, mommy, please," I agreed to a five-minute visit, figuring she’d have had her fill by then.
   Boy was I wrong. One look into that box of curly-haired black cockapoo puppies, particularly the one trying to hide in the corner, and my heart was stolen. I picked him up and held him next to my face. He yawned, snuggled into my neck and fell asleep. That was when I knew he was coming home with us.
   And after several calls to my husband, so did he. Life as it was would never be the same.
   Randy’s introduction to the household was pretty smooth. I loved him, Katie loved him, Paul worked a lot, our neighbors loved him, our friends loved him, our relatives loved him, except those with serious character flaws; they know who they are.
   Cora, our 1½-year-old cat, hated him at first sight — just hated him — and spent the next three months scratching and biting him whenever the opportunity arose after which a yelping Randy would come running to me while Cora would retire to the sofa and leisurely lick her paws.
   Until the evening she provided for his dining pleasure a three-month supply of fluoride tablets, necessitating an after-hours trip to the vet during which vomiting was induced.
   Though none too perky, the first thing Randy did upon returning home was to locate Cora, sleeping peacefully in her bed. He studied her for a moment, then nipped off an ever-so-slight piece of her ear. Cora screamed and howled. Randy quietly padded into the living room, laid down on the rug and fell asleep.
   After that day, while they were never what one might call buddies, they had a respect for one another. Or at least their capabilities.
   No child likes sharing. OK, maybe vegetables or chores, but little else. Being an only child, except for those rare times Paul was in the car, the front seat was Katie’s. Until Randy started going for rides.
   At first, she didn’t mind. He was tiny and could sit on her lap. The trouble began when he started to grow.
   The scenario was a constant. While I secured the household, the two of them charged to the car. Katie would open the passenger door and in would jump Randy.
   Katie would tell Randy to get out of the seat. Randy would growl. Katie would yell at Randy to get out of the seat. Randy would growl more.
   Katie would scream at Randy to get out of the seat. Randy would bark and growl.
   It usually ended with both of them strapped into the same seatbelt, Katie scowling, Randy looking straight ahead with his mouth opened in what sure looked like a smile.
   It wasn’t until after Randy was neutered he began to live up to his name. Besides the lifelong side effect of revolting breath, his indiscriminate libido was awakened. No one was safe. No thing was safe. Not visiting toddlers, not the idly crossed leg, not our cats (now two), not the concrete pig in our backyard.
   All were recipients of Randy’s newly awakened amore until I was able to extricate him. At this point I thought obedience training might be worth a try so I signed him up for a class.
   It wasn’t his exemplary behavior that earned him the diploma that lives in my files. He earned his pretty much the same way I passed geometry when my mother informed my teacher if I didn’t pass, I’d be back with him for another round.
   Math for me was like the Westminster Dog Show for him — not happening for either of us.
   So it came to be Randy not only settled into our home, but our home settled around him. He became our sentry, meal sharer, sofa sharer, chair sharer, bed sharer. No one seemed to mind except for Paul, never a candidate for the St. Francis of Assisi Society.
   But eventually he, too, acquiesced to the charm that was Randy as I learned one cold February night shortly after Paul had gone to bed. I thought I heard him calling so I went to the bottom of the staircase. It was Paul all right, only it wasn’t me he was calling; it was Randy, who tore up the stairs.
   After about five minutes, I quietly took myself upstairs to assess the situation. There lay my snoring Prince Charming, his arm encircling a very happy Randy.
   Randy loved our daily walks, especially being off leash on the towpath, where he would terrorize the little forest creatures hiding in the underbrush and gleefully sign each and every bit of greenery by lifting his leg. It was on one of these walks last winter I noticed a change in him. Instead of wildly charging ahead, he stayed back with me, seeming afraid of what should have been commonplace.
   And he began panting quite a bit, odd for a dog that could and frequently did jump 6 feet in the air, nonstop, for five to 10 minutes.
   A trip to the vet yielded the diagnosis — the beginning stages of renal failure. Our route became once around the block slowly, always on the leash.
   One morning, Randy couldn’t stand up. I carried him to the phone and called the vet, who told me to bring him in immediately. So I wrapped him up in his blanket, placed him carefully in the car and spent the ride over telling him what a great dog he was.
   I truly thought this was it. But it wasn’t. He had had a pretty severe stroke, yet through the wonders of cortisone, he was home two days later — wobbly, but home.
   The vet gave me 10 more pills and told me to call him the day before they ran out.
   The night before the day the cortisone ran out, Randy had another stroke. This one was a lot more serious. Sitting next to Paul on the sofa, I held Randy in my arms. When his thrashing eventually stopped, he curled his face into my neck and slept.
   Thank God (for me) Katie was home on spring break, for the next morning, I wrapped Randy in a blanket and placed him on her lap in the car, taking care to pull the seatbelt over both of them.
   Though there wasn’t much traffic, it felt as though some force was pushing against us — 20 minutes felt like 20 years. We were ushered into an examination room where I placed a very still Randy on the table. This time, there was no suggestion of cortisone.
   I signed the necessary paperwork while the doctor prepared the shot and assured me I was doing the right thing. It sure didn’t feel like it.
   I placed my hand on Randy’s back to steady him, but he wasn’t the one who needed steadying. He barked five times, sighed and was gone, and Katie and I brought his blanket home.