Girl's Best Friend

We've had four dogs since we were married, all of them Schipperkes. They've brought us varying degrees of joy and sadness over the years, including one of the toughest decisions I ever had to make.

Sabot, our first dog, our pre-children baby, was a cute little puppy that we bought at the local pet store. We took her to puppy school and, later, obedience training; we read all of the books; we socialized her; and, yet, at about a year old, when she matured, she started developing aggressive tendencies (translation: she bit people). Since then, we've learned all about the negative side of buying a pet store dog--she was loving to us, and we loved her, but she had fear aggression, the worst kind, as it's psychological as opposed to habitual or territorial, and, ultimately, we had to have Sabot put to sleep when she was seven years old. I still miss that dog and feel an overwhelming sense of failure when I think about her.

During the time we had Sabot, before her problems became obvious and STILL pre-children, we adopted our second dog, Laars. Laars was a rescue who had been abandoned outside a vet's office. He shared our lives for four very short years, when he slammed his 22 lb bulk against the screen door in our new/old home ("The 1900 House") in Connecticut, popped the latch, and was hit by a car moments later. We still miss that dog, too, but for different reasons--he was truly one of the sweetest, gentlest, and most loving dogs I've ever had the pleasure to share my life with, and he was taken from us far too soon.

Our third dog came to us by chance. We were consulting with Schipperke Rescue when we were deciding what to do about Sabot. Maverick was a nine year old dog who'd already been returned to rescue by the first family who adopted him. Unfortunately, the husband abused him, and the wife had to return him. His injured leg developed arthritis, which was really his only health issue up until old age caught up with him. He was our dog for 6-1/2 years, when on a cold January morning, shortly after his sixteenth birthday, he took off (yes, a dog who had to be carried down the steps to go outdoors somehow managed to pick up and mosey off in the sunset in the 30 seconds my husband got distracted by a screaming child). My last vivid memory of him was the week before. I took him for a walk out to the mailbox on a brisk, grey, wintry afternoon. His legs were stiff and, as he limped back up the driveway, he stopped, turned his nose into the wind, and closed his eyes, almost like he was imagining himself running into it. Maverick's first owners gave him up to rescue when they had a baby. Well, he made it through TWO babies with us, and I think he did just fine, don't you? We were happy to have shared our lives with him, and he clearly enjoyed living with us and "his" cats.


And that brings me to my current dog. I say "my" because, oddly enough, this is the first dog to have totally latched onto me. Sabot gave fairly equivalent affection to both my husband and me; Laars just plain loved everyone with two legs (he chased cats, though, and took great pleasure in it); Maverick liked us all, two-legged and four-legged alike, in his big-hearted way, but worshipped the ground my husband walked on. So, now, out of the blue, I have a dog. We adopted Berry right after Maverick died. We'd been working with the rescue organization for over a month to adopt a senior dog as a companion to Maverick. Black Bear was a 10 year old Schipperke with Addison's disease, placed into rescue by her owners because they moved and could only keep two dogs (I note that they appear to have kept the two that didn't have the expensive medical condition). As my husband says every month when we go to the drug store and pay $100 for her medication, "What price, love?" We redubbed her "Blackberry," a much more feminine name, but not different enough to confuse her Senior Dogginess, and, really, do you know how many Schipperkes there are named "Bear"? Berry has been with us for almost two years now. While it took her a while to get used to kids and to make friends with our cat, she's now a much-loved member of the family. She's even decided that it's probably not a good use of her time to sit by the door pining for me when I go out--after all, she might miss some errant crumb of food dropped by some other member of the family. During the day, the cat follows her around, and she follows me. Sometimes I feel like a drum major leading a parade--I have to be careful not to turn around too quickly, or I'll trip over a pile of black animals.


(This photo is as bad as it is because every time I backed up to take the shot, they followed me! But, it gives you a good idea of the view from where I am.)

And that's my silver lining for today.