Motley Moose – Archive

To tell you that I look forward to going to work everyday would be an understatement, that this fifty eight year old beat the odds and found work that I love in this economic environment so hostile to anyone older than fifty..let’s just say I’m darn lucky. Being unemployed for two years I was so desperate I would have taken almost anything just to earn a paycheck again, but I stumbled into something special.

More about that in the next diary.

There are numerous benefits attached to this job, some more obvious than others. As an animal lover I’m surrounded, as an outdoor verse cubicle person I’m in my element, all of them. I’m doggedly independant and have been mostly self employed my entire life: I check in, collect keys and I spend the entire day without supervision or anyone looking over my shoulder. I will sometimes walk up to 10-12 miles a day, add to that climbing stairs and riding my bikes during the warm months, I’m very fit and have to purposely eat to maintain weight.

The not so obvious benefit is my exposure to so many dog breeds I was unfamiliar with. In an odd sense it’s akin to a free long term test drive, seeing a dog everyday I pick up quirks and traits that are inherant in certain breeds, invaluable information that a potential dog owner needs to know before choosing a new pet.

My wife, Ms. O and I had a dog when I began working here and after eight months I had no idea this benefit would be so important so soon, but it was. Our 14 year old Black Lab/ Great Dane mix Lexie was suddenly diagnosed with inoperable cancer so we had no choice but to let her go.

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Lexie was Ms. O’s dog before we met, she gladly took her from someone who after less than a year, decided she had no room in her life for this wonderful dog. Ms. O is a lover of Great Danes and this dog fit the bill without all the health issues and short life spans that plague the breed. Lexie lived to be 15 1/2.

They were inseparable. If you knew Lexie, you’d know why.

She was Buddha like, an old soul who never complained and never made a sound. Graceful for a dog her size, at almost a hundred pounds just under 4 feet tall, most times you might not even know she was in the same room. This attribute made Lexie a more than relaxing mainstay in Ms. O’s classroom, she teaches violin and viola to children from 3 years old until they graduate high school.

She founded this Children’s Academy at a major university over 20 years ago and there have been hundreds of kids who have visited with Lexie once or twice a week for most of their lives, including parents. Everyone knew Lexie, she was universally adored.

The prospect of losing her was devastating but Ms. O, true to her dedicated nature did some research on the most humane and most importantly, comfortable way for Lexie to spend her last day with us. She found a vet whose entire practice involved at-home final services because Lexie was never enthused about going to her vets office, it always made her anxious and that just didn’t seem fair if there was another alternative, so that’s what we did.

I will answer any questions and fill in the details but suffice it say, the experience for all of us was as much as you could possibly hope for under the circumstances. Lexie layed in her favorite spot in the bedroom and she slowly, peacefully went to sleep with us right there with her. The difficult part and something I hadn’t considered until the vet began to arrange the stretcher, was for him and I to take Lexie down the 3 flights of stairs to his van which was in our parking lot. I had to absorb this sudden reality and steady myself because I was shaking a bit. It scared me a little, I didn’t want anything to go wrong, didn’t want to tarnish the dignity of the moment.

I have to be honest, taking her down those stairs was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. The vet and I steadied each other, I’m not sure he’d ever done that before either but we brought her down perfectly. All our neighbors and so many of Lexie’s friends were grouped around the van waiting to say goodbye. It was a tearful and emotional scene that I’ll never forget but in the end, as difficult as it was it was the right thing to do. Lexie was family.

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A few months passed and I realized that spending so much time with so many other dogs, was helping me immensely. There was no sudden dog void in my life. Not so for Ms. O, she would still come home and cry herself to sleep and I felt helpless to console her. We would talk a little, mostly I would listen to her memories, sometimes the favorites again and again. There is a point as a grieving pet owner when you maybe allow yourself the thought of having another pet, explore the possibility of opening your heart again. It’s a delicate and precarious place to be, even more so when a partner might need the suggestion at some point.

Is it time now, should I wait a little longer?

That point came one night when Ms. O said definitively that she did not want another large dog, so I took a chance and told her about the 2 Puggles I was walking. I’m also a medium to large dog lover but these Puggles were just bending my heart; they’re cute, managegeably sized and really smart so we went hunting for a rescue Puggle after she met the two I walked.

We are rescue people but Puggles are a very popular and expensive breed. It took us weeks but we finally tracked one down in Indiana, on a farmette just south of Indiannapolis. The couple were rescue volunteers and foster parents and their Puggle was rescued along with hundreds of other dogs, from a huge puppy mill that was raided by the ASPCA and shut down.

This Puggle was cool with cats, we have 2 and he was also cool with geese and ducks too. The story we were told was that twice daily 2 geese, a duck and her ducklings, their cat and the Puggle would take a walk single file on a narrow path through the woods. When we arrived at the house, we saw the tail end of the animal conga line entering the woods.

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My daughter, Little O wanted to meet her first puppy so she took the drive with us. It was a lovefest at first sight and the joy in the car on the drive home between Ms. O and Little O was unbelievable. They named him Scout before we reached Chicago.

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Here’s Scout, his first day at home.

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Incredibly the foster couple asked nothing for Scout so we gave them a sizeable donation for their rescue group and left as friends.

Here’s Gigi, her first day home.

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Fierce Gigi.

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Comedian Gigi.

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Tag.

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Timeout.

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Weary.

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Travelers.

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Inseparable.

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JOY.

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