(This post is way longer than I intended it to be!)
Since I'm trying to get a head start on my (hopefully) apolitical weekend, I thought I'd bore you with the story of my dog and how she came to be mine. Last night, I was sitting in the dark in the bedroom watching TV and Gabby was stretched out on a pile of dirty clothes in my floor. She didn't move when I got up to get ready for bed and she was laying in a sort of awkward position. When I came back, she still hadn't moved and I must admit, my heart began pounding. I nudged her with my foot once and she still didn't move. I did it once more before I let myself panic and she lifted her head to look at me like, "What the hell do you want?" It was at this point I realized, I'm way too attached to that dog!
And I'll be the first to admit it, she is truly my best friend.
When I got Gabby, she was a mere six pounds and about six weeks old. Now she's 60+ pounds and on November 15th (I made that day up) she'll be six years old. Getting her was no easy task, but I do believe the two of us were meant to have each other...here's the story:
I had two dogs growing up: Molly and Benny. They both lived until I was in my early 20's, but Benny (despite being several years younger) didn't last long after Molly died at 15 years old. He died the summer after I turned 21. By that December, I knew I wanted another dog and I knew it'd be hell trying to convince my parents (I was living with them and going to college at the time), but they reluctantly agreed on the condition that when I moved out, it was to go with me. So, one afternoon - December 23rd to be exact - I asked my mom to come along with me to the humane society to pick one out.
The very minute I walked in the door, I saw Gabby. She and her sister (who looked like a Golden Retriever) were in the little pen in the middle of the room and she took one look at me and let out the biggest, deepest bark for such a tiny puppy. "I want that one," I said without hesitation, but my mom encouraged me to check out the others. I walked through the cages of dogs and puppies and of course I wanted all of them. I'd actually been considering getting an adult dog, because I know they don't get adopted as often as the babies do, and when my mom said "absolutely not" to the St. Bernard I'd finally decided on (I love big dogs - the bigger the better!), I was at a loss.
After half an hour of touring the place, I still wanted the little brown and white puppy with the big bark so I found someone who worked there and told her. I didn't like her reaction - she tried to encourage me to pick another one and then she reluctantly told me she'd have to talk to her boss. Another couple walked by and started talking like they wanted her but I discouraged them as I was standing guard at her cage. A few minutes later, the girl and the lady who runs the place came back and told me I couldn't have her. They told me she was sick and they would not adopt out a sick animal. They told me there was only so much medical attention they could provide and this puppy wasn't reacting well to it, so they were more than likely going to put her to sleep. I argued and more or less begged, but they wouldn't budge and I ended up going home with this Beagle/Bassett Hound mix named "Honey."
Honey was a very sweet dog. She was about a year old and her owners couldn't keep her in their apartment anymore, so they'd turned her in (how anyone can do that is beyond me, I'd find a new apartment). To be quite honest, I didn't want her, but I felt like I was doing a good deed and I tried to make up for it with that. I took her to the vet, spent $300 on shots and tests to make sure she was okay to bring home and dropped her off at the house with my parents before heading off to work.
I was working at Borders at the time and being that it was twos days before Christmas, the place was packed. I was stuck behind the register for hours straight, but all I could think about was how much I didn't want that dog, but being the dog lover I am, I would never take her back to the pound...unless I had to. This is where me being a jerk comes in to play. I remember saying a little prayer under my breath, wishing something would happen so I would have no choice but to take Honey back. A few hours later, I was on my lunch break and my mom called me. Unfortunately, my little prayer must have worked. I guess I should stop here and mention "Puppy" my mom's little high-maintenance dog. She's a Westie mix and my mom thinks she's the greatest thing to ever live. Well, as it would turn out, Puppy and Honey did not get along. My parents were careful about introducing them but within half an hour, they got into a fight and Honey ripped Puppy's eye open. Needless to say, Honey ended up back at the pound that night and Puppy ended up at the animal hospital having surgery.
That was the most miserable Christmas I've ever had. I felt bad for Honey, I felt bad for Puppy, I felt bad for Gabby, and to be honest, I felt bad for myself. I wanted a dog so bad...I wanted Gabby so bad, but now I wasn't going to have any dog at all. I'll admit, I moped around like a three year old until the day after Christmas when my mom finally gave in and let me in on a little secret. As it would turn out, when they took Honey back to the pound, the lady who runs the place was so upset, she promised my mom two things: 1) Honey would not be put to sleep and they'd be sure to advertise she was more than up to date on her medical care and 2) I could come get Gabby but I have to sign a waiver saying if anything happened to her (being that she was really sickly), I would not hold them responsible. Why my mom waited until after Christmas to fill me in on this, I don't know.
On December 27, my mom, the GC, his little brother, and I went back to the humane society and picked her up. I held her while my mom filled out the paperwork and I held her during the whole drive to the vet's office where he put her on medication and informed me I'd have to bring her back several times for follow ups. I took her (and my little cousins) with me to PetSmart where I spent about $100 on toys and treats and when I got home, I held her for two hours while she slept on my shoulder. I even canceled a trip to Florida I'd had planned (sorry, B) so I could stay home and take care of her and see to it that she got better.
I'd picked out the names "Gabby" and "Sadie" and I couldn't decide between the two but I found out the people at the humane society were calling her "Abby" so Gabby seemed like the logical choice.
Little did I know, life with Gabby would not be easy. Let's just say, she and I are two of a kind. My family likes to joke about how neurotic she is and I'll admit, she is a little on the odd side. She's not a social animal - there are only five people on earth she'll let touch her, I kid you not, and she panics when I'm not around. She doesn't like other animals...as a matter of fact she came running to me, crying and growling, a little while ago, as though something awful was after her - Mac the kitten was chasing her.
She likes to go in the car as do most dogs, and unless I'm going to work (or somewhere I'm going to be for any length of time) or it's too hot outside, I usually take here everywhere I go. One night, last fall, I drove up here in my parents' driveway and let her out of the car instead of putting her on her leash (a big no-no), but I really had to go to the bathroom. I searched the house but I couldn't find her and my mom told me she hadn't seen her, so I checked outside and she was nowhere to be found. My mom and I spent the next couple of hours looking for her. I was frantically trapping through the woods in the dark (it was midnight at this point) and my mom was driving up and down their road. My dad finally woke up and asked what we were doing and when my mom told him, he went to get dressed and joined the search. A few minutes later I heard them calling me from the house - and I ran up (it's a long run in the dark, up hill) to the house (I swear I was covered in mud and blood). I expected the worse, instead I got a dirty look from each of my parents as they told me to go check out the bedroom. Somehow Gabby had snuck in there, probably when we first got home, and was sound asleep, oblivious to the frantic search going on outside. My dad said when he got to work that morning, everyone asked him why he was so tired. He told them and he said one guy piped up and asked if this was the same daughter who's locked the same dog in her car with both sets of of her keys in the middle of the night, a few months before. There's no need to get into that story.
Gabby's also pretty stubborn, something else we have in common, I guess. Despite trying everything, even seeking professional help, it took over a year to housetrain her and to this day, there are still things she won't do (come when she' called). Because my family has so much land ("the compound"), we've never kept our dogs on leashes. They get their run of the place and they do not get in the road, so I didn't know any different. I've never "walked the dog." I've never had to. Unfortunately, I had to learn the hard way, this was not the case with Gabby.
One evening, when she was little over a year old, I woke up from a nap and let her and Puppy out. They stayed outside for a long time and Puppy kept barking. I opened the door to yell at her to be quiet, but she didn't, and just as I was about to step out on the porch to yell louder, I heard a man's voice coming from the dark. He startled me, but before I could say so, he immediately asked me if I had a brown and white dog. I confirmed that I did as my heart sank. The guy appeared on the porch - a Domino's pizza delivery guy - and he told me how he'd just watched a car hit her and drive off. Apparently, he got out to check on her and she was still alive, but laying in the middle of the street. (I tried to contact this guy later - my dad was going to buy him a tank of gas or something but we never could find him.)
I basically slammed the door in his face as I ran to put some pants on (I was in just a t-shirt) and told my dad on the way. My mom happened to be on the phone with my aunt and my aunt told her she'd call the 24/7 emergency care place and tell them we were on the way. My mom went out to the street and Gabby (somehow) got up and ran to the house. She tried to get up under it, in the crawl space, where she most likely would have died, but my dad caught her just in time. He scooped her up and I ran out and took her from him and we all piled in their truck and drove to the 24/7 animal hospital. I held her in the back seat and I will never forget the way she looked. Half of her face was missing, there was blood all over both of us. She kept looking at me with this bright-eyed hopeful look on her face and I didn't know what to do, but I kept my calm as I always do in emergency situations (something my last set of co-workers found kind of odd for a newbie and a trait I felt made me a great candidate for that job). My parents on the other hand were flipping out - my mom was driving and chattering, my dad was was wreck.
(Not that it matters, but I found this odd. I was wearing a solid white t-shirt, a very nice, expensive one I often wore to work under another shirt and I'd pretty much decided it was ruined, literally covered in blood and other stuff), but I went home and washed that shirt like normal and there was not so much s stain on it.)
Long story short, she was transported to the regular vet's office and I went up there daily to sit with her. Luckily for me, I had a new, young vet, who thrived on challenges and mending up that face, she says, was something she'd never seen anyone do and even asked if she could take pictures for a textbook she hoped to work on in the near future. They let her sleep in the floor of the operating room, but day after day, she didn't seem to get any better. I remember asking the vet, flat out, if she thought she would live. She told me she really couldn't say because she still wasn't sure of what kind of internal damage she had and she wasn't showing any signs of improvement. I remember going home that day and trying to think of something I could do. I am very impatient and I couldn't sit around playing this game, I needed her to be better. I thought of her laying up there in that cold room and how much she lit up when we went to see her and suddenly it occurred to me, she needed to remember home. I called the office and asked if I could bring her some things and right before they closed that evening, I took some of her toys and her bear rug. The bear rug. I bought her the bear rug at a neighbor's garage sale for $2. It's a little child-size rug, shaped like a bear, that growls when you squeeze it's head (or was, it's not longer with us - death by washing machine). She loved it more than anything. You should have seen the look on the faces of the girls at the office when I came in with that thing, but one of them help me set her up on it and the next day she was a different dog. A week and $4,000 later, I was finally able to bring her home.
Today, she's 95% of the dog she was before the accident. She still limps on occasion and her face is sort of crooked. I often joke she lost her modeling career that day. She also lost a few teeth and her freedom to go where she wants whenever she wants.
But even without that, she's never been 100% healthy. She has a skin condition so bad she mutilates herself. Her eyes and ears stay infected. She gets natural medication, dog medication, and even human medication. She has to have special baths, I have to keep her teeth brushed because of the accident, and her claws grow in a weird direction, so I have to pay careful attention to them. I honestly don't think the couple who was looking at her that day at the pound or most people for that matter would have given her the care she's needed over the years. And really do think the story of how I got her proves it was all meant to be.
And I wouldn't take back any minute of it. She has been with me through so much over the years. She's helped me through hard times just as I have her. She keeps me safe - people are scared of her size and her bark, they have no idea she's just as scared of them - and she keeps me happy. She comes first in all I do. She may be a little on the spoiled side, but I don't have any problem with that. She's lost without me - so much so, that I have to bring her to my parents' house when I go to work! But I have to admit, I'm just as lost without her.
I have no idea what I'll do when she's gone. I know I could never live without having a dog - it's the greatest thing in the world, but I just don't know that I could ever love another dog as much as I do her.
By the way, I have no idea exactly what sort of dog she is. She looks very much like a Brittany Spaniel, but she's shaped like a bigger breed - maybe a Golden Retriever. As I mentioned, her sister looked like a Golden Retriever puppy as did her mother who was also there at the pound (if I had my own house at the time, I probably would have taken all three of them). Her sister ended up being taken by a Golden Retriever rescue group, I have no idea what became of the mother which breaks my heart.
As for Honey, she did get adopted by a very sweet woman and as far as I know, lived happily ever after and Puppy and Gabby ended up being pretty close. Puppy still puts her in her place at times (even though she's a third of her size) but Gabby lets her, and when Gabby and I did move out, they really missed each other.
Linus: Tonight the Great Pumpkin will rise out of the pumpkin patch. He flies through the air and brings toys to all the children of the world.
