I’ve long wished for a job working with animals. Never expected it could come true while still employed at the paper. 

I suppose manning the new gazettemailpets.com website doesn’t technically put me with animals, but at least I’m surrounded by animal lovers, which is one of the only crowds where I’ve always belonged. 

Visitors to the site began emailing pictures of their pets for our online gallery, often with notes attached. 

“We had a dog named Angel,” wrote Franco of his family’s white Eskimo Spitz. “She had the kindest spirit you’d ever find in a pet. We had the pleasure of her company for 14 years, until she succumbed to lung cancer and we had to put her to sleep. That was the toughest day of our lives.” 

The pain from losing Angel was so great that it took them two years before they could get another dog, rescuing a pup that was about to be taken to the shelter. 

“She has the same kind spirit and personality as our previous dog. Her curly tail never stops wagging, and she’s become just as much a member of the family as Angel. She’s 14 years old now and still going strong.” 

The pain from losing a pet can be overwhelming, causing many to swear they’ll never put themselves through it again. While I suppose you can avoid the eventual pain, you’re also avoiding years of love and happiness–not just for you and your family, but also for the animal. 

Cleveland Amory once wrote, “There are too many animals in need of homes to take the self-indulgent road of saying the heartbreak of the loss of an animal was too much to go through it again. To me, such an admission brings up the far more powerful admission that all the wonderful times you had with your animal were not worth the unhappiness at the end.” 

Another emailer, Renee, said that while she mourns the loss of a pet, she usually waits no more than a few days before adopting another, knowing that the antics of the newcomer will help her not dwell on her grief. 

“Providing an unwanted cat or dog with a loving home is the best therapy any human could ask for. I feel like the short, joyful time that our animals are with us makes up for the heartbreak of their death,” wrote Renee. “And unlike humans, none of my animal friends ever broke my heart while they were living.” 

I remember too well how it felt to lose Jade, a long-haired German shepherd I got when I was 19. Although I’ve been crazy in love with dogs before her and since, it was different with her, and I can’t really say why. All I know is she got into a place in my heart that no dog has gone since. 

I knew the end was getting close for Jade for over a year, and it made me darn near insane worrying about what was to come and wondering how I would know when it was time. When that time came, there was no question. She was in pain, suffering terribly. I can’t say it was easy to have her put down, but I knew it was right. 

Sadly, though, some pet owners choose to avoid the responsibility of dealing with their animals when they grow old by dropping off their gray-muzzled dogs and rheumy-eyed cats at the shelter. But even worse are those who dump the animal by the side of the road, expecting some kind person to come to its rescue. 

Such was the case in Elkview recently when an old gray and white dog, still wearing her red collar (and no tags), was dumped on Sheba Lane, discarded like trash. Concerned neighbors left food out for the stiff-legged dog, and when the temperatures dropped low, they went searching with flashlights for her, but without any luck. 

Five days passed before a neighbor spotted dogs chasing and attacking something. When he intervened, he found the old dog, traumatized and bleeding. After running off the other dogs, he rushed her to the humane association for treatment.

I wish I could say there’s a happy ending to this story, but there’s not. While being treated for frostbite and puncture wounds to her neck, throat, and back, the old girl went into shock and died on February 23.  

It never should’ve happened that way, but it does. All the time. 

One of the reasons I always wanted to work with animals is because I’m so charmed by their innocence and so in awe of their ability to love those who, in my eyes, don’t deserve such devotion. 

I never knew this old dog, but I’d bet my last dollar that had the person who dumped her arrived as she lay there, bloody and scared, she’d have used her last ounce of strength to wag her tail.

 

It was a clever marketing approach. Perhaps one of the cleverest I’ve ever encountered.

While all the other dogs at the shelter were pressed close to the wire fencing, ears at full attention, tails wagging fiercely as people walked by, one named Angel turned the other direction. Her head was hung low, ears drooping, as she faced the corner, trembling. 

As Celeste and our friend, Patty, continued walking, looking into other pens, I stopped and tried to coax the little dog over. She wouldn’t budge. Perhaps it was just my overactive imagination, but as that shaggy dog looked at me with those doleful eyes, I could feel her shame, embarrassment, and fear. 

It was Patty who was considering getting a dog. Celeste and I had simply accompanied her to the shelter with the understanding that we’d already met our quota of animals (three cats, two dogs). My dog-loving daughter and I steeled our spines and declared ourselves impervious to the charms of the sad-eyed furry creatures we knew we’d encounter.

When I approached the shelter’s staff to inquire about the dog, they knew little about her beyond that she was about three years old and had been surrendered by her owner.

Even hours after we left, I couldn’t get Angel out of my mind. Celeste and I returned to the shelter and asked if we could take her out for a walk. When the kennel attendant brought her to us, Angel’s head was so low that her bottom lip was practically dragging the ground.

But the instant she stepped through the door, a new dog magically appeared at the end of the leash. A high-stepping, tail-wagging fool of a dog, grinning ear-to-floppy-ear .

I bet some of you are getting ahead of yourselves, smugly thinking you know how this is going to turn out. Well, ha! You’re wrong. We don’t have a new dog. 

My parents do.

Like with Patty, it had only been a little over a month since the last of my parent’s dogs had died. My folks have always had dogs, often more than one. But after losing three dogs in just a little over a year, they wanted some time to recover and to perhaps do a bit of traveling without worrying about their pets.  

Funny how there’s no age limit to a kid asking their parents a question even though they already know what the answer will be.

“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ll just foster the dog.” There was no way I could leave Angel at the shelter. I’d become obsessed with finding her a home. There was something special about her that got to me in a way I’ve seldom experienced.

So we filled out the paperwork and paid the fees and took Angel home, where our two male dogs treated her like manna from heaven.

We quickly realized the differences between Angel and our two went far beyond their equipment. Namely, Angel is intelligent, dignified, and has impeccable manners. She’s quiet; she does not hog the bed; and she rides nicely in the car without honking the horn, unrolling the windows, or attacking the windshield wipers. She doesn’t eat shoes or decapitate stuffed animals, and she stays so close to your side she doesn’t require a leash.

In a nutshell, I guess what I’m saying is WE GAVE AWAY THE WRONG DOG!

At least we gave her to the right people.

I’m grateful beyond words that my parents changed their minds and decided to take her. I don’t know how I could’ve handed her over to anyone else.

But what I also don’t know is how someone could’ve surrendered such an angel of a dog-a perfectly behaved, sweet-faced pooch-to such an uncertain fate.

Last week, I was talking to my friend, V100 radio personality Ric Cochran, about Valentine’s Day.

“I got my favorite Valentine a couple years ago,” said Ric. His wife, Jeanne K (also on the air at V100), had decorated a shoebox with foil and construction paper hearts. “She had my name written on it, and had cut a rectangular hole in the top and put my valentine inside. She made it look just like the boxes we’d talked about having when we were in grade school.”

It was the one of those gift ideas I wish I’d come up with myself, since my husband is one who’d have been touched by that, too. 

I remember what a big deal those Valentine boxes were, how we’d cover them with lace and paper doilies held on by way too much glue, carefully writing our names on the top, dotting our i’s with little hearts (and believing we were the first to think of doing such a thing).

I remember spending ages selecting which valentine would go to each of my classmates, fearful of how a simple “Be Mine” might be misinterpreted by the wrong person. And then, after school on the day we passed out our cards, I’d carefully sift through the Valentines I’d received, trying to determine if that certain someone had sent me a message with the card he’d chosen for me.

At my daughter’s previous grade school, they decorated bags instead of boxes. The bags didn’t seem to hold the same magic. At least, not for her. But selecting who would get which valentine was still a big deal. She’d separate her cards into piles and agonize over her list, being careful to save the best cards for her closest friends. 

But unlike me, she didn’t pore over the cards she received looking for hidden meanings, although she did check the handwriting to find the ones where the parents obviously wrote in the names.

They don’t exchange valentines at her new school, although they do have a party. It’s sad to think of the children missing out on the fun of decorating shoeboxes (or bags) but I expect there was a legitimate reason for ending the practice. I can see too many possibilities for heartbreak. 

I’m not a big fan of consumerist holidays, don’t like that people are pressured into expressing their feelings with store-bought tokens and sentiments. To me, a handpicked bouquet of wildflowers feels so much better than one that’s store bought. But since a bouquet of icicles isn’t quite as romantic (not to mention how hard they are to arrange in a vase), calling a florist makes sense.

Not everyone appreciates homemade gifts, but it seems that having someone put thought and time and effort into making a gift would be far more romantic than one of the heart-shaped holiday standards.  

I expect there are more socially acceptable techniques for meeting our neighbors, but doubt few would be as effective-or as exhaustive-as what we’ve experienced with my daughter’s dog, Chewie.

In years past, I’ve had nothing but German shepherds or shepherd mixes or mongrels that were intellectually equivalent to shepherds. Now, we have terriers.

Going from a teacup poodle to a Great Dane would’ve been a less jarring transition.

Translation from German shepherd to English: “Sir, what can I do that might please you, sir?” 

Translation from terrier to English: “Huh?”

That’s not to say that terriers aren’t intelligent. They are. Impressively so. It’s just that mine have apparently taken an oath never to use their intelligence for anything but entertainment or extrication purposes. 

Such is the case with Chewie, who I would like to reiterate is my daughter’s dog. She paid for him with her own money. He loves her the most. Adores her unabashedly. Eats fewer of her belongings than those of other family members.  

But he apparently doesn’t love her–or the rest of us–enough to not attempt an escape every chance that he can.  

At our old house, when our dogs went outdoors, they were either on leashes or hooked to lead lines. It was a miserable arrangement, one that often had them tangled and tripping, unable to play. At our new house, we recently made Read the rest of this entry »

It was close to closing time when I pushed my cart into the checkout lane at Kmart Sunday night. The store was nearly empty, and the two young employees at the register were involved in a lively conversation.  I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but they were tossing around all these curiosity-tweaking words like “too young” and “wedding” and “nervous” and “love.” It was too much for my weak ears to resist. I quietly unloaded my cart, lest my interruption cause them to stop talking.

It was one of those conversations I wanted to immediately insinuate myself into, but as I wouldn’t want to shame my momma, I held back. Until-God bless her-one of the two turned to me, looked at my wedding ring, and asked, “How old were you when you got married?”

“Which time?” I asked.

She laughed and smacked her coworker on the arm, pleased that the ideal bad example had arrived to help illustrate her point.

“I was 18 the first time,” I said. “Trust me, 18’s too young. It is SO totally too young. Absolutely, completely, undeniably too young.”

In a different generation, 18 was probably fine, but while our society has managed to shorten childhoods, it has extended the amount of time it takes our young to mature into adults capable of making a commitment for life.

“So how old were you before you finally found the right man?” the clerk asked.

“Thirty-eight,” I said-an age her expression suggested she equated with coffin-shopping.  I considered telling her we’d fallen in love at the nursing home after he kindly shared his dentures with me on corn-on-the-cob night, but resisted.

“Look, if you Google ‘bad decisions’ and click on ‘images,’ I think my picture is there,” I said. “I thought I knew what I was doing, but I ended up going through a lot of grief before I finally got it right.”

There was more I wish I had said, but I’m not a good on-the-spot thinker. Any halfway decent advice I might’ve come up with would be hours away. But the encounter got me to thinking about how well most of us believe we know ourselves at Read the rest of this entry »