Ahhhhh! The sound of Goodbye
I was devastated when I got the news that my Freddie had cancer and a slim chance of surviving. He was my heart dog and the thought of losing him was more than I could absorb because life gives you only one heart dog.
But in typical, “I’m going to do everything to save him, myself” fashion, I picked him up from the vet clinic, post surgery and whisked him off to a place where I heard there was a holistic guy with “magic mushrooms” who had success “treating” humans and hounds alike who had this type of cancer. This was a Hail Mary maneuver for sure; unfortunately it was the wrong call because Freddie spiked a high fever, but as fate would have it, I suddenly remembered that I had met an amazing veterinarian a few months earlier, so I gave him a call. He was not only was a senior-dog specialist, but also, knowledgable in modalities and holistic medicine that are beyond the scope of traditional western medicine.
As desperate as I was to have Freddie cured, it was not to be, and less than 4 weeks later he passed away in our home, with the help of this wonderful, compassionate veterinarian who did everything in his power to bring my cherished friend comfort and eventually peace…
I’ve heard many pet parents say that they’d never get another after the death of their dog, and then there are those who, regardless of the shock and pain of losing their treasured pet, they get another one right away.
For me, I’m from the camp of no dog (or cat) can replace the loss of an adored companion, but many of us have the capacity to love again. No, I could never love a dog the way I loved Freddie, because, he was my heart dog, my one and only love. While, I was too paralyzed in grief to even think of getting another dog, but that didn’t stop me from “just looking” a few days later.
How could I find another Freddie? That question had no answer, so I looked at it from another angle when I thought about the qualities that I was looking for. This by the way reminded me of when I was filling out my dating profile, way too many years ago. “Oh, I’m looking for a guy who likes to take long walks on the beach….”
Even though Freddie couldn’t be cloned, at least I could think of the things he had that I loved about him. He was funny, outgoing, fearless, athletic, loved other animals and people and he was smart. And so began my search for THAT dog!
Pet rescue sites are overwhelming because there are WAY too many animals needing homes and there was room for only one dog to join my household which consisted of a Rat Terrier mix and his 2 cat brothers.
I saw Mable on, of all places, a Doberman Pincher Rescue site! She was a 37 pound, 2 year old English Bulldog and Staffordshire cross who had been found wandering the streets. She was safe now, living in a foster home, but separated from the resident Doberman and 5 cats.
After getting approved by the rescue, which by the way, I think was a lot more difficult than the red tape to adopt a human child, I got to meet Mable.
Our meeting was unremarkable. My emotions still raw from Freddie’s death, she was just a Bully mix that, seemed more interested in running around the backyard, full tilt speed on those stumpy legs than meeting a potential pet-mom. I just could not make a decision that quickly because I didn’t have feelings for her. But as fate would have it again, she went into her heat cycle the next day and that gave me a reprieve for several weeks before she would be ready for her spay surgery and new home, wherever that might be.
The good news of her circumstance was that I didn’t have to make a decision right away. This gave me lots of time to frequently check in with the foster mom so I could learn more about Mable. My biggest concern was that she might be too much for my cats. The the foster mom expressed the same concern when she witnessed Mable charging toward her wire enclosure as the cats walked by.
But fate would step in again when the foster mom left for a few hours and this chunky monkey CLIMBED up the very tall playpen wall, and catapulted herself over the top to freedom. When the foster mom came home and saw that Mable was not within the enclosure, she panicked. Fearing the worst when she saw cat littler all over the house, and then relieved when she realized the “carnage” that she came across was only cat poop. Apparently Mable was having a great time ransacking the multiple litter boxes and tossing poop all over the house! Well I got my answer that given the opportunity to do harm to the cats, she was more interested in the “cat treasures”!
So I brought this young Bully mix home to meet the rest of the family in November, just a month after Freddie passed. And in keeping with family tradition, Mable became Fanny May, a name that blended nicely with Fonzie, Felix and Fergus, collectively known as the F-Troop!
The name Fanny, came from the actress Fanny Brice, the main character that the movie Funny Girl was based on, and May because she was found in Maywood, IL.
Fanny was a bit “extra” as they say, and my numb feelings didn’t allow me to experience much joy with her. All I knew was that I needed to establish a good routine so she would adapt to her new home, and that meant, among other things, crating her at night because for one, I didn’t trust her to wander all over the house unsupervised, and two, I didn’t really want her lying in my bed where Freddie once had been.
But once again, fate had other plans. It was one of those extremely COLD November, Chicago nights and I awoke to put another blanket on the bed so Fonzie and the two cats would be comfy. Suddenly it occurred to me that this little Bully dog was freezing, and not a peep out of her. I jumped out of bed, picked her up and placed her in our bed. There she was lying on her back like a human with her big head on the pillow, when suddenly she let out a huge feel-good sound… Ahhhhh! It was at that moment, I fell in love with her and I knew that one day, long after she left the earth, that would be the cherished sound I would remember for my lifetime.
Fanny lived on for many years and all the Freddie traits I had selected for in a new dog, so long ago, I realized she had in spades.
She was an athlete who took second place in a weight-pulling contest with no previous experience. She went from Fanny the Bulldog to Fanny the “pulldog!”
Other evidence of her athleticism was something that still defies physics. One day she was having a great time harassing the cats, so I tapped the credenza, trying to redirect the cats so they could jump up to get away from her, however, instead of the cats, Fanny did a straight up vertical jump from the floor to the table. Seriously it was like watching in slow motion, The Bionic Woman! And even at her tender old age, while she could no longer leap, she still used her strong shoulders and arms to easily hoist herself onto the sofa.
Years ago there was a sitcom called Drop Dead Dive where a runway model died and came back to life in a sumo wrestler’s body type. That was Fanny’s persona!
She loved other animals and people. When I brought home my cat, Fauci a few years ago, they became instant friends. You could often see them together with him snuggling up to her and she licking his head as though she was giving him a “Spaw-treatment”.
When I first adopted her, she had a terrible fear of garbage trucks, which I immediately crossed off “Fearless” from my list of Freddie’s traits, however I came to realize that her reaction was to chase, not cower, and if I had let her, I’m guessing, based on her determination and speed, she just might have caught a truck! And while, I’m glad she was never put to the test, I suspect that no intruder had a chance against her. Always a quiet one, but not when she was guarding the house.
As a trainer, it’s fun to teach dogs to do fundamental behaviors which makes living with their humans much easier. And yes, dogs are smart as they can be taught to do a variety of behaviors, however, the real geniuses, are the ones that without any prompting, can do things by inferring what you are asking. As an example both my dogs had many toys, and because of the dogs’ weight differences, the toys were the same but one large and one small. One day while holding the large toy, I asked Fonzie where the identical smaller toy was, as he had responded to the request many times in the past. But this time, while asking him, big Fanny came prancing from around the corner with the small toy in her mouth. SMART, hell yes!
She was funny with capital “F”. Everything she did made me laugh whether it was carrying around a toy and shaking it in the cat’s face, sliding down the bed-ramp like a kid on the playground, instead of jumping off when she wanted to exit, playfully nipping our wonderful veterinarian when he made house calls, because she wanted him to give her the frozen cup of baby food that he made just for her, or my favorite behavior when she would run from the hallway to the living room, drop a shoulder and roll around on the carpet scratching her back while letting out that familiar feel good sound, Ahhhhh!
Fanny had been slowly declining over the last year, and when my vet arrived that night, he assessed and gave her some IV fluids and we discussed him coming back in the morning to see how she was feeling. As I was petting her head, I noticed that she was unresponsive, so he listened to her slowly beating heart, then looked at me and said, “She’s gone…”
As he was preparing to place her in his car, I hugged her tightly for the last time and she let out a faint, ahhhhh! This was the last bit of air leaving her lifeless body. It was the sound of goodbye.
I said that Freddie was my one and only heart dog, but that’s not true they all are heart dogs when they leave because they break your heart…
