A Cup of Comfort for Dog Lovers

by Colleen Sell

  I didn't go with them, although I could have. It didn't seem right for me to go. I had never wanted Cosmo, not initially, nor after his return to my house after the divorce. I let him go, just as I had accepted him — from a distance.

  The boys were quiet when they returned home. Nick played a video game on the computer, while Paul lay on his bed staring at the ceiling.

  “How did it go?” I asked.

  Paul stretched and worked his feet against imaginary pedals. Nick took aim at animated aliens and efficiently destroyed them. I waited. Finally Nick said, “It was pretty emotional.”

  At my ex-husband's vineyard, they'd dug a hole on the hill overlooking the lake in a patch of wildflowers where Cosmo liked to roll. They'd laid him in the hole and covered him over with dirt. They'd piled rocks into the shape of a pine tree as a headstone and placed the flowers from my yard on the grave. Then they all, father and sons, had cried together.

  “It's the first time I've cried in years,” Paul said, his wild mop of hair spread out around him on the pillow. “It was hard.”

  The boys were quiet, and I told them that I was proud of them, that Cosmo sure loved them, that he was a good dog. They nodded, because there was nothing more to say and they knew all I'd said was true.

  I don't know that Cosmo prevented my boys' lives from being ruined by our lousy marriage; I think that's too much to ask of a dog, especially one with such a penchant for napping. I don't know if the boys ever whispered their secrets in his ear or whether he was ever a comfort to them in moments of sadness. He was just an ordinary dog who was always happy to see them, a consistent welcome in their inconsistent lives.

  My boys are no longer boys. They have grown into men, and Cosmo, in his final act, let them prove that. A child would have let his father dispose of a dead pet on his own, but a man would stand up and do the right thing, even if it were unpleasant or difficult. Cosmo's surprising final gift was to show me what fine young men my sons have become in spite of the choices their father and I made that might have ruined their lives.

  I don't miss the dog hair that floated like tumbleweeds along the floor, and I won't miss dodging poop in the yard. But I find myself missing Cosmo more than I thought I would. He always had a knowing look in his eyes, but I could never figure out what he was trying to tell me. I think I know now. He was trying to say it would be all right and not to worry so much. Everything, everyone would turn out fine.

  ˜Gretchen Stahlman

  Ginger, Come Home

  My husband, Larry, sat with head in hands, eyes red with unshed tears. Ginger our five-year-old collie, had been spooked when she'd been left outside in the fenced yard during a thunderstorm while we were out of town. Apparently, she had climbed on the roof of her doghouse and bolted over the fence from there.

  The teenage boy whom we had trusted to feed her and let her out in the yard daily for exercise had decided not to call the emergency number we'd left to tell us she was missing. So we didn't find out until a week later, when we returned home. His reasoning was that he didn't want to “ruin our vacation.” That meant a seven-day delay in looking for a scared collie who had never been free to roam the neighborhood and who had been coddled and cared for since she was born. How would she ever find her way home?

  Larry was especially fond of Gingerbread because she was an emotional link to comfort he had found in his less-than-ideal childhood. As a youngster, he had been abandoned by his parents and sent with his two older brothers to another state to live with family friends. Four years later, at age eight, he was separated from his two brothers and shipped off alone to live with complete strangers. He had been frightened and lonely until, at the home he'd shared with his brothers, he'd made friends with a collie named Cookie. Cookie, in turn, gave birth to Crumb. He loved them completely and hated to leave them. When he was permanently adopted at the age of eight, his adoptive parents bought him a collie of his own, which he named Ginger, for the color of her fur. The dogs had each supplied that dose of unconditional love and feeling of belonging Larry needed.

  Shortly after we married, I presented Larry on his birthday with a collie pup we named Gingerbread, after his childhood pet. She instantly became a central part of our family. Naturally, when we'd returned home from vacation to find her missing, we felt shock and sorrow, but we also had hope of finding her.

  We did what we knew how to do: tacked posters to trees, put an ad in the paper, scoured the neighborhood, and called the animal shelter daily — all to no avail. After exhausting our limited leads and options for finding her, we began to accept her loss and grieved for her. Our nightly prayers of finding her gradually turned to prayers for her safety and protection.

  We talked of buying another dog but decided against it, needing time to heal before investing emotionally in another pet. Secretly, we each took note of every dog running by in the neighborhood and every dog walked on a leash in the park. We couldn't quite stop reading the lost-and-found-pet section of the newspaper. Finally, grieving, but determined to move forward, we resumed our daily routine, but with a hole in hearts where Ginger had been.

  Approximately six months later, Larry had another shock when the company where he'd been employed for a long while suddenly folded. He scoured the papers, but there were few available positions in his field in our immediate area. Discouraged, he finally arranged an interview with a company about thirty miles from our home, in an area we had never been to before. Driving the twisted back roads, he wondered why he had agreed to an interview so far from home and in such a remote location. I might as well turn around and head home, he thought to himself as the road stretched out before him. There is no way I'm working out in this wilderness. Still, he pressed forward, determined to follow through with the interview, since he had made the appointment and it would have been irresponsible not to show up.

  Arriving in front of the small commercial building, Larry got out of his truck and surveyed his surroundings before approaching the door. As he walked, he noticed a movement near the rear of the building. Was it an animal? Woods loomed on all sides. As he watched, a mangy-looking critter approached him slowly, limping as it came. Larry reached into the back of his truck for a length of pipe for protection, thinking it might be a rabid wolf.

  “Easy, boy,” he said soothingly. “Easy there.” The animal, thin, dirty, and straggly, seemed to wiggle a bit as he spoke. Was it wagging its tail? “Come here, boy,” Larry called carefully. “Are you okay?”

  The poor creature approached very slowly, head down in the submissive pose of a frightened animal, belly almost dragging the ground, but it was nonetheless wagging a thin rope of a tail. The foul odor emanating from the animal testified to its long time unattended.

  Larry adjusted his glasses and looked closely as the wretched “wolf” approached. It was no wolf; it was a dog — one that might have been gingerbread brown and white and lovely. Staring with disbelief, Larry called out a name he had not said in months. “Gingerbread?”

  The filthy little bundle lifted her ears and walked faster toward him.

  “Ginger?” he asked again.

  Reaching down, he took hold of her dirty red collar with an expired rabies vaccination tag. He could not believe his eyes. Grabbing the dog on the sides of her face, Larry examined her closely. A smile broke out from ear to ear, and unshed tears came to his eyes. After six months of searching, here in this remote area outside Houston, at an interview for a job he didn't really want, was his beloved friend, Ginger.

  We took Ginger to a vet, who said she had apparently been foraging for herself all that time, that she had probably been struck by a car, given the damage to her leg, but that in spite of everything, she was in remarkably good health.

  We don't know what forces came together to bring Ginger and Larry to that unlikely place at the same time, but we were grateful that our collie, Ginger, like the fabled Lassie, had at last come home.

  ˜Susan Mayer Davis

  The Sweet Days of Autumn


  The wooden handle has lost its shellac, but the timeworn brush and I are partners — both in it for the long haul, for the sake of a graying best friend named Kodie. I could've bought a new brush, but it would have somehow diminished the sacredness of grooming Kodie — like taking the patina off an antique. We're all just too well acquainted by now.

  I groom his shoulders with respect. Kodie is massively built. With such bulk, what stranger would guess he's so infinitely gentle? I trace one shoulder with the faithful brush — or maybe it does the work and simply draws my hand along with it; who can tell? It's a small matter, and the only real issue is the appreciative thud thud thud of Kodie's hind leg, going through the motions of scratching, because it feels good to be groomed where he can't quite reach any more.

  His age makes the reach tougher. Being nearly fourteen years old puts him on the verge of ancient for a dog classified as a giant breed. The magic of puppy breath has given way to maturity and then to advancing age. It happened one magical day at a time, so gently and seamlessly it was hard to notice at first.

  While Kodie was growing up, his world expanded with each new adventurous day. Now, in his twilight years, his world grows smaller.

  The ever-watchful sentinel has discovered the pleasure of naps on a sheepskin in the living room. Now it's only his dreams that carry him to the ridge top, where once he kept watch over his domain. If the sleep is deep enough, he may or may not notice the UPS truck in the driveway or footsteps on the porch.

  There is a certain amount of fair wear and tear to being a 140-pound canine. A toll is taken, and joints break down. Pain has become a part of life, and medication to ease it is a daily ritual. Kodie has the wisdom to know when it's hidden in his breakfast — and the grace to eat it anyway, especially when there's a hot dog in the bargain.

  Perhaps it's the canine equivalent of retirement. He's napping, he's pausing, and he's found pleasure in quieter things he used to rush headlong past. Aloof in his prime, Kodie now enjoys every scratch behind his ears. It's taken the tinge of silver on his cheeks for him to slow down enough to let me cradle his massive, graying face in my hands.

  His eyes, though, have changed little. I search their gentle depths. Some days I see age and pain, some days youthful joy. Every day I see love. The same love of the puppy who chose me. In the midst of a tumble of chubby puppies, I stood confused — they were all wonderful for different reasons. But Kodie already knew. He wagged his whole chunky self up to me, looked into my eyes, and resolutely plopped his not-so-little fanny onto my foot and sat there, his broad puppy face smiling up at me. His puppy-sized attention span was short, and soon he was off to romp with his littermates. He kept coming back to perch on my foot, though, because he knew. He'd chosen me and made himself mine.

  And for approaching fourteen years, I have been his.

  Kodie has loped endless miles alongside my horse, my constant companion on trail rides. I love the deep woods, with the lighter stretches of dappled sunlight. But when it became hard for him to go along, I came to love those distant rides less. Though his joints were disintegrating, he wouldn't let the pain keep him from scaling the ridge. He did it to be with me, to watch over me. I tried tying him to the porch post at home to save him from himself. When his eyes searched mine for reasons, I didn't have any good enough. So, instead, I stayed with him and rode on familiar turf. And he watched over me. And I watched over him.

  I watch over him because Kodie and I have reached that season in our lives. When the time comes for our loving pets to face the final leg of their race, it is up to us to help them finish well.

  How do we do that? …

  We sense the unspoken needs of the companions we know so well. If they seem confused for no reason, we reassure them with a loving touch. We groom them faithfully, but more gently, because the aged, arthritic bones aren't so well padded now. We slow down for their sake, let them enjoy a scent on the wind and to follow a visitor's trail across the yard.

  We expect inconveniences, and we don't get angry when they come. We don't let new aches and pains go untreated; we ease what we can. We watch for changes in vision and hearing, and protect those precious senses as long as possible. We care for their teeth, and make food easy to chew. We take them for potty walks before they ask, as it gets easier for them to forget.

  We scratch those soft graying ears and go for some of the best car rides ever. If our companions need comfort, we give it freely. If age and infirmity bring a sense of vulnerability, then we step in to protect our old guardians. We watch over them in their deepest slumbers, when dreams take them running across long forgotten fields, and we remember those fields too.

  If they are not able to stand alone, we lift them. If their steps become uncertain, we steady them. If their health fails profoundly, it falls on us to ease them to their final rest.

  But until that difficult choice is the only course left to us, we savor the moments we have with our companions. We see their old age as a passage, not as a disease or a burden. We accept it as merely another stage of life and welcome the changes it brings.

  We let the autumn sun warm our old friend's bones, and ours. We realize that autumn is not a bad time of year at all. It is a beautiful season, the season of harvest. And sometimes the harvest is love.

  ˜Christy Caballero

  Big Ole' Mix-Up Dog

  We have a big dog. A big, stupid dog. To be precise, we have a big, clumsy, operating-on-only-a-brainstem kind of dog. His name is Copper.

  Cop is a mix-up dog. The pet shop said he was a Lab mixed with something. They couldn't determine what he was mixed with. Many others have tried to identify him since then. Some vets have said he was chow, due to the black spots on his big ole' tongue. Others have said that, with his barrel chest and big ole' head, he must have rottweiler in him. One person even agreed with my husband, saying he was definitely half African lion dog. He's got a mix-up look to him, that's for sure. He's big with a huge, square head, a tongue that lolls out when he's happy, a ridge of hair that stands up funny on his backbone, and a Barney-the-dinosaur smile. Whatever he is, he's undeniably special.

  Some of Copper's specialness might better be described as strangeness. It all started with Cop's love affair with rocks. He digs them up and carries them around on our three-mile hikes. He lays his tongue across them when he lounges in the backyard. He has redesigned my folks' rock walkway by dragging huge rocks from one spot to another. He even chews up lava rocks like bubble gum! Not the smartest thing to do, but it seems to be his hobby.

  Oh, we often joke that Copper's all brawn and very little brain. He has done many mixed-up things that would make most people want to get rid of him. For starters, he created his own doggy door by crashing through the bottom of the storm door that shut just a fraction of a second too soon. He's eaten whole loaves of bread that were left on the counter. He's even eaten whole Lego creations without our knowledge. (We only found out when we scooped up the remains in the backyard.) He's knocked over tables, chewed through lamp cords that luckily weren't plugged in, and worn a racetrack in the backyard lawn. He's even attacked a huge cement raccoon lawn ornament that he thought was real! Nothing seems to slow him down.

  One day we were playing fetch with him in the field behind our house. We didn't know it then, but there was a barbed-wire fence covered by tall field grass running through a part of the area and Copper found it. He was running full speed to get the tennis ball and suddenly seemed to slam into something. He bounced backward and then tilted his head a bit, as though inspecting something in the grass. He then darted off in pursuit of the ball, bringing it back to us all wags and doggy-drool smiles. We continued the game for a few more tosses before we noticed that his right front leg was wet. It was bloody. I leaned down close to him and could see the gash in his leg, a flap of fur exposing muscle underneath. And Copper still wanted to play!

  We laugh now and say that his having no pain receptors made it easy for the vet to administer the four staples that da
y. Cop just laid there and watched the vet work. He didn't even flinch! He didn't follow the vet's post-op orders very closely, either. He wanted to play the minute he got off the operating table. You gotta love a mix-up dog like that.

  What really makes us love him, though, is his steadfast loyalty. Oh, we joke a ton that he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. But we know there's no other dog we'd rather have by our side than this mix-up dog.

  My sister agrees. She was on a hike in the hills near our family's old homestead. With her was “the pack” — her cockapoo, our folks' German shepherd, our other much smaller dog, and Copper. Well, to make a long story short, my sister fell. She landed on her back in the gravel amidst the pine trees far from the house. All the dogs kept walking. That is, all of them except Cop. He alone turned around when he realized she wasn't with them any longer. He walked back to her and lay down beside her. He licked her face. She put her hand across his broad back and used him to pull herself up to her feet again. When she was steady and brushed off, Copper stood up beside her. Then they walked back to the house together. He stopped only momentarily to pick up a big rock, which he carried with him.

  That's it in a nutshell, really: He walked her. He walks us all. We don't walk him. Oh, we think we do. We carry the leash and all. We pet him and feel like we're doing him a favor by taking him out. But that's not it. Copper takes us. He takes us by the heartstrings and leads us through the walk. And not just one walk. Every walk, every single day, Copper takes us and protects us and makes sure we get home safely.