by BethAnn Decker
December 10, 1996....our little family of 3, became a family of 4. My husband and I had been married for 4 months and I just coulnd't stand the fact that his 2 year old Dachshund, Alex, didn't like me. Heck he and I had dated 8 years before that and I was the one that picked her out so it wasn't like she didn't know me! We'd been to therapy with her and for her....but she's TRUE Dachshund and SOOOOOOO head-strong!
December 8, 9, 10, 1996.....We found Dolly in the local paper, they have a "Pet Of The Week" that they show a picture and have a small paragraph then encourage everyone to visit the shelter and donate money. I saw that face and KNEW she'd be my new baby. Monday (Dec. 8), I went to the shelter and started the paperwork. Hubby went on Tuesday (Dec. 9) and just couldn't bear it. Wednesday, December 10th....she came home. Other than my wedding, that was the happiest day of my life....along with the absolute most frightning. She'd been SO sevierly abused you really didn't know WHAT she was, and what her health was either. She didn't whine or bark.....she screamed....the most gut and heart wrenching sound I'd ever heard. I had her in isolation until the next morning when she had her first vet visit.....EVER. Alex was very curious about this new "thing" in her house, but wouldn't go near her. I went to 3 book stores and about 100 on-line sites trying to find a name for her. She looked like a "Jill", but hubby didn't like that. I thought, since it's near Christmas then giver her a "Christmas name" like......Holly.....nah, she's not a "holly". NOEL! THAT'S IT! NOEL! Wait! "Noel!! Noel, no-no Noel" That's too hard so we nixed the Noel. She was STILL screaming and becoming hoarse from it. I'd tried to hold her which only made things worse, I tried to just sit near her....no go. I turned on the radio to a "soft-rock" station, they were just inroducing the song coming on. It was "I've Finally Found Someone" from the Barbara Striesand movie "The Mirror Has Two Faces". I LOVE Babs! This poor, sick, terrifed dog sat down....you could see her visably relax and she was quiet! I got excited, then asked her "do you like Barbara?" Her tail wagged! FIRST TIME EVER! That gave me some hope! I thought about it, and my favorite Babs movie is "Funny Girl", so I thought of "Fannie", for Fannie Brice...nope, my brother and his friends would just call her "butt". Then I thought about "Sadie" (Sadie, Sadie, married lady) and didn't like it. HELLO DOLLY! DOLLY! THAT'S IT! The Fay was after a little red-headed friend who was a spit-fire, and we wanted our Dolly to have that same fire and zest.
Mentally, that poor thing was a messed up as a "football-bat", and had so many phobias that we stayed pretty tied to the house with VERY few visitors. She began to get mentally better, but in April of 1999 she was hit by a devistating blow. She had ruptured (a/some) vertibrae in her back and was paralized. This sent us deep into the medical world. I'm thankful that the only vet who would even consider the Adaquan shots in this area was a friend from school, Katie Copp-Zimmerman. She said that since I'd known her over half my life she wouldn't "sugar-coat" things for me, and I was thankful. My office was SUPER to help me accomidate the scheduling of her Adaquan shots. In about 3 weeks she was up and wobbily-mobile again and in 6 weeks you'd never really known anything had been wrong. We kept up the maintainance shots and thing were fine.
July 4th, 1998....my best friend just HAD to go to a local outdoor festival. She was due, literally ANY second with her first son. I was TOTALLY terrified that she'd give birth right there on Main Street! It was a sickningly hot day and I was getting a migraine...and she just HAD to have a candied apple. We walked and walked until we found one.....and this...."thing" tied to some scaffolding. CONGRATULATIONS! It's a boy! He was supposed to be....white? But had very little, if ANY fur and you could just rake the ticks off of him.....poor thing was so sunburned that you couldn't handle him. My best friend picked him up, handed him to me and said "I'm having a baby.....you're getting a new dog." I cried. WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO WITH ANOTHER DOG???? And a MALE at that? With LOTS of fur? And Dolly still being so sick?!?!?!?!? Melissa just said "Hey, I'm pregnant, irrational and hormonal....let your husband deal with ME!" Dolly just LOVED Skooter and treated him like her own. When he FINALLY grew some hair, filled out and got better we realized we had a "Westie" mix in our Dachshund family! Poor Alex....so many changes, but in true Dachshund fashion she took it all in stride....and ignored everyone of them.
Our little family of 5 was now COMPLETE and happy. We settled into a routine that centered around Dolly and her treatments. I felt bad that we couldn't give Alex and Skooter the time and attention they needed, and I thought about giving Skooter to my mother-in-law because she grieved so after Alex "moved out" when hubby and I got married. Well, come to find out, she's allergic to him, then he saved my life one afternoon during an intense migriane attack, and I saved his later that week during one of his seziures. I just coulndn't do it after that. Our (now ex) neighbor's German Shepard, Rocky, always was off leash, but NEVER left the yard. He was VERY well trained....Skooter, on the other hand.....he failed obedience school. I had opened the door one day to take a piece of furnature outside to air....Skooter slipped out and ZOOM he was gone! Guess where he ran? Yup! Right into Rocky's yard. I chased Skoot up there and tried to get Rocky's attention long enough for Skooter to come to me. WRONG! Rocky attacked and all I could do was watch this 100 pound giant treat my 15 pound baby like he was a wet rag. I knew better, but I was panicked so I grabbed Skoot out of Rocky's mouth (Skooter attacked me!) and was SCREAMING. Hubby got up there just in time to see me cupping Skoot in my arms and COVERED in blood. He thought that Rocky had attacked ME and he already had his knife out to slit the dog's throat! I just kept screaming "GET HIM TO THE HOSPITAL!!!!! SAVE MY BABY!!!!! GET HIM TO THE HOSPITAL!!!! SAVE MY BABY!!!!!" The neighbor had the nerve to say "Aw, it ain't that bad....s**t, I've seen dogs hurt worse than that, just take him home....he'll be fine." JERK! WE did take Skoot to the (animal) ER and they found 4 BIG puncture wounds in Skoots back....one was just 2 mm. from his spine! Since he has seziures they coudn't "knock him out" so (we) he had to endure treatment "cold trukey", heck I could've used a heavy narcotic too! When we got him home I laid him on the bed and Dolly came and laid ON him....even Alex stayed right by his side only pretending to ignore him. Whenever he would try to move, or whimper in pain Dolly would cry out too. That was his "momma".
August 30, 2000.....just two weeks after Skotoer's attack I came home to find that Dolly had "been sick" all over the floor. She NEVER vomited! NEVER EVER! I called Katie (at home) and she said to withold food and water until Dolly's Adaquan shot the next morning at 7AM. We did, but she only got worse and worse as the night wore on. Hubby got one of his sleeping bags and slept in the floor next to her all night. I'm glad he did because that was our last night as a family. By 4:00 August 31.....my baby girl was gone. After MANY tests and an autopsy the 5 labortories that had her blood said that they'd never seen anything like it, they only found 5 white blood cells total! They said it was a RARE form of Leukemia and she never knew she was sick. Dolly went to sleep around noon and never woke up. Her "Aunt Katie" and several of the nurses that are also my friends were there with her. I had a 35 minute drive to make (that I made in 15) to get up to the clinic. I didn't get to see my baby leave this world...........but in a way I'm glad that I didn't. Like when they were working on Skooter after his attack, I had to walk out of the room. But now, my baby was gone. I didn't have to drive 70 minutes 3 times a week to get her shots....I didn't have to pick her up and carry her up and down the stairs and worry if I was doing more harm than good. I didn't have to "towel walk" her anymore. I didn't have to.....I didn't have to....I didn't have to. We grieved for DAYS. Thankfully everyone we know has pets so our bosses gave us a week off. I went to work, so did hubby..........we don't remember anything. I'd stand and cry, I'd go to the back and cry, they'd tell me "go home, rest" and I cried. My other 2 concerns were Alex and Skooter.............what about them now? Alex STOPPED eating and got down to 15 pounds (she's a standard Doxie, not a mini and usually weighs about 25 pounds). She would swipe at her dish and "throw" it at us! Skooter couldn't take much more illness after his ordeal and he went from 15 pounds to 8! Our behaviourist told us to go ahead and prepair because they'd go next, just from grief. We couldn't handle that so we began to hike....A LOT. We took them EVERYWHERE, I mean to the bank, to the hairdressers, to WORK... absolutely EVERYWHERE that we could think of. Now, 4 years later they EXPECT to go everywhere. The trip schedule has clamed down, but they still get to jump in the car whenever they want.
We had Dolly cremated, so when we got the call to go "pick her up" at Katie's office.....we had SEVERAL friends go with us. Yes, we'd racked up LOTS of debt, but in the end it was all worth it. We're now 4 years past it, and I've come out the other side with MUCH more patience than I EVER had before. When you have a SEVIERLY abused dog (whe was thrown up against the wall and used as a basketball and worse!) who then has a MAJOR health crisis to top things off, you LEARN to be quiet and still and LISTEN to what she's telling you about her needs and the speed that she can go. We've started to do some special needs rescues, but they are so emotionally hard for us that we only take about 1 a year. I'm thankful that around here we don't have many special needs Doxies, but then again....we'll take (almost) any dog!
Spring ,2002. We have friends that are well known, published artists. Hubby did some computer work for them and wouldn't take anything in payment. He was at their house one day when his briefcase spilled, and out came about 30 pictures of Dolly. He was doing test shots and lighting tests (he's a photographer) and Dolly was such a willing subject. When Michelle saw them she teared up "OH! Is that......(whispering) her?" Brian siad yes and how much he missed her every day. Michelle is an animal lover ehrself, she has 3 or 4 cats, and then about 6 to 12 dogs at any given time, mini-goats and then her horses. She took about a dozen pictues of Dolly and asked Brian if she could "hold on to" them for a while. He was puzzled but said "sure". Christmas 2002...Brian let me open a HUGE, semi-flat gift early..............it was my baby girl, in full size and color..........looking at me with those huge, sad brown eyes. You could see every hair....every "rosette" where her red swirled into the white flame on her chest. I sat for about 2 hours just stroking the painting and crying. I had her urn in my lap too. She was home...........my baby was home for Christmas.
Nothing is the same anymore...........nothing ever will be.......and I'm dreading the day that Alex and Skooter leave us. Alex just turned 10 in June, and thankfully she's always been in WONDERUFL health! We celebrated Skooter's 7th birthday on the 4th of July this year. He's been with me 6 years and every day I'm paralized with the fear someone will come up to me and say "Hey! That's MY dog! What are you doing with him?" After loosing one so quickly I can't do it again!

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