Goodbyes Archives • Three Dogs Training

A Sweet Short Life Remembered

Far too soon after Dante we’re forced to say goodbye to another furry friend as Callie is taken by the parvo that infected her litter.

Callilily-Baby-Girl’s-Bagel, our first silly-named dog was in this world for only 11 weeks.

She and her six siblings were born to Ginny, a sweet collie/terrier mix whose family sent her packing to a kill shelter when they discovered she was pregnant. She was on the usual “due to die” lists that circulate between shelters and ARF brought her up from the south to Beacon to have her babies and find them all forever homes.

Ginny was always sweet and soulful with anyone who interacted with her. She passed her striking eyeliner on to her puppies who were born on November 6, 2010. I got to see them when they were just hours old and we started working on their bio sensor early neurologic stimulation on day 3.

I’ve always believed that our dogs find a way back to us – I was struck by Ginny’s eyeliner – and couldn’t help but remember that Dante always had similarly striking eyeliner. I watched her puppies as they grew and we worked with them and one always drew me to her – she was sweet, bright, eager, confident, and had the most beautiful eyeliner.

As they grew we thought it a good idea to give them some home social skills so Lawrence and I brought all seven puppies home for a couple days just before Christmas. They learned all about the sights, sounds and smells of a home. I let them explore a little (with massive supervision) and let Porthos and Boo tell me who they wanted to be their new family member. Porthos and Boo gravitated to Callie and her look-alike sister with shorter fur. The choice was made. I had gravitated to Callie, the boys had gravitated to Callie and Lawrence had, too. We were all in agreement.

All the puppies went back to the shelter for another week before they were ready for adoption and, when I picked them all up again the Thursday before New Year’s Day for some more social skills, something was wrong. The only boy in the litter was lethargic and then started vomiting and began having diarrhea.

Because none of the girls were sick the vets thought it was an obstruction or some infection unique to him. We treated him with fluids, antibiotics, and other meds and watched him carefully. Since Callie was staying with us she was not going back to the shelter that Saturday and because the boy was not well he stayed with us, too. By Monday all the girls were sick and by Wednesday the vets knew it was Parvo – a hugely contagious and deadly disease. All the girls including Callie were much sicker than the boy and were in ICU for a week.

When we were told we could bring Callie back home we were thrilled. She had made it through the worst of it we thought. Pinball – her brother’s new name – went back to the shelter to find a forever home. For nine days after she came home to us Callie was perky, eating, playing, kissing, and running through the snow to catch up to Porthos and frolicking between Boo’s feet. Then she started to slow down a bit and become just a bit clingier on Sunday night. By Monday night she was not eating much at all and by Tuesday morning her vomiting woke me. Her poopies were normal but her demeanor was frighteningly lethargic.

I made an appointment with the vet for that afternoon and watched her carefully that morning and saw she would approach the water bowl but sometimes not be able to drink. She would wobble sometimes and occasionally fall over. Every now and then her right eye would go in the wrong direction and she could seemingly never get comfortable. Her exam was fairly normal except for the lethargy and signs that she was struggling to pee every few minutes. Antibiotics and fluids were prescribed and home we went.

By just after seven Tuesday night Callie was drooling heavily and Boo was whining and pacing around her pen. Porthos suddenly started acting strangely, alerting us that she was having a massive seizure. Rigid post-seizure, we rushed her to the vet who had brought her through her Parvo who was open late and told us to come right in. She seized a few more times at the vets, went into shock and she was lost to us by nine.

Dogs move into our hearts and homes with light speed. We can’t remember a time without them once they are rooted into our souls. And when they are ripped from us so quickly in the midst of such innocence, it is easy to say – “no more.” But then the meaning of our time with these joyous critters would be lost.

Once again and all too soon we find ourselves heartbroken. We and the boys will miss Callilily-Baby-Girl’s-Bagel and we will wait to see what to do next.

Bye Bye, Boo

On September 10, 2014 the final chapter in Boo’s long, courageous story came to a peaceful close surrounded by his loved ones.

On September 10, 2014 the final chapter of Boo’s story came to a close.

It is hard to write of something so painful as the loss of a beloved pet but the loss of Boo is not my own and that requires me to share his passing with all the people his spirit has touched. More than ten years of visiting children, seniors, adults with developmental disabilities and others makes it hard to count how many people loved him, but I know it was probably thousands.

Developmentally disabled with poor eyesight and an awkward gait, Boo was a trooper who was always game for a visit with anyone even in later years with his eyesight completely gone and arthritis making his bearing even more ungainly. Having overcome remarkable odds to be a therapy dog, Boo won the hearts of the people who knew him personally and those who read his story in A Dog Named Boo here and around the world. His fan club ranges from Russia, to South America, to Britain and back home. Boo was the clumsy black and white rescue dog who never wanted anything other than to say hello to and be loved by everyone he met (with some great butt scratches along the way) while reaching across physical limitations and political boundaries.

In both life and in death he teaches us that we are all better when we move through our days with patience, persistence and the understanding that perfect is not all it is cracked up to be—because sometimes it is in our imperfections where our greatest strengths lie.

In his work he brought joy to thousands, speech to Marc and Sister Jean, an understanding to my husband and me that we could be a family, and on the morning he left us he brought us one more gift. As our two-year-old son (who still only has only two or three reliable words and has yet to refer to anyone by name) brought all the pepperonis from his pizza-puzzle toy to Boo, who was resting on his big comfy chair, he pointed to Boo and said, “Boo” each time he tried to encourage Boo to eat the wooden pepperoni.

With this final act we knew Boo had made his mark on the little boy he had waited so long to have in his life and his job was done—he could rest without pain for the first time in a long time.

Goodbye Dante

Today we say goodbye to our friend and family member Dante. Our hearts are absolutely broken.

It is with great sadness that we mark the passing of our oldest boy, Dante. Surrounded by myself and Lawrence, his brothers, and friends who came to say goodbye, he died peacefully at home and left the pain of his arthritis, wasting and cancer behind.

He came to us shortly after we got married and he was the first dog that was “ours” together. We were living in Greenwich Village and it was an unusually warm Spring evening – so warm, in fact, that we decided that it was just too nice for a regular walk for Atticus so we decided to head over to the dog run in Tompkins Square Park.

We were going into the “airlock” gates of the dog run when a young woman came over to us and asked us if we wanted a dog. Our apartment was too small for the two of us, Atticus, and our two cats, so the idea of a second dog was out of the question.

She, however, was persistent. Just say hi to Goofy, she pleaded. (Goofy was the original name she gave to Dante.) Lawrence was insistent that we didn’t have the room and we wished her luck and walked past the woman, into the dog run, and over to one of the benches to sit down.

At one point while we were watching Atticus play Lawrence stooped down to tie his shoe. Suddenly a large Shepherd mix bolted out of the group of dogs, bee-lined toward Lawrence, and stopped only to lick his face in a line of slobber that stretched from his chin to his forehead. This strange dog then turned to Atticus and gave him a play bark that could have set off car alarms before licking me on the face, too, and darting back off into the play group.

We laughed about it, but then the dog kept coming back to us to check in before darting back out to play. We noticed that Atticus was unusually friendly with our new visitor, which was very unlike him at the time.

After a while, the young woman we met at the entrance came over to us and asked what we thought of Goofy. She told us that he had been wandering the streets of Brooklyn by a junkyard near to where she lived and had followed her husband home during a jog through the area.

She pleaded with us again to take Goofy as she didn’t have the room for him at her apartment and her own dog didn’t like the new visitor. I was shocked when it was Lawrence who was talking me into taking him, but he insisted to the woman that it was only going to be for the weekend to give her some time to find a permanent home for him and to give her own dogs a break.

That weekend lasted from April of 1997 to today, as we both couldn’t bring ourselves to send him away by the end of our first weekend together. The cats couldn’t make heads or tails of their new brother but Atticus was like a puppy again and blossomed by having a second dog in the apartment. For us, Atticus sealed the deal but the name Goofy would have to go.

It took us a surprisingly long time to come up with a name, but it was Lawrence who came up with Dante. From the looks of Dante at the time – severely malnourished, caked with dirt, and crawling with worms – it looked like he had been through Hell and back, hence the name.

For all the unpleasantness that Dante suffered before he came to us, we were amazed by just how none of it ever seemed to dampen his outgoing personality. He seemed to fill whatever room he was in, going from person to person like a seasoned politician, and it quickly became obvious that he was born to be a therapy dog.

If dogs could have vocations, Dante’s was visiting as a therapy dog. No matter how exhausting the visits were for us, he would always bounce up and down whenever he saw this Delta Society vest – even when it became clear to me he was past his prime. His spirit was willing but his body had begun to wear out, and when he retired from therapy work he did so with well over 500 visits to his credit.

His senior years were happy and quiet for him, but in the last year the dog that had spent his life helping others needed more and more help from us. When he was diagnosed with cancer we knew that his story was coming to a close but, being the dog that he was, we also knew that he would not ever leave willingly no matter the pain he was in.

Today we made the decision for him, and our hearts are broken.

All told, dogs ask very little of us. They ask us for love, they ask us for patience and understanding, and for our mercy and bravery when their time comes. And once they’re gone, they part with one final request: to not let the pain of their loss stop us from someday filling the dog-shaped hole they leave in our lives with another canine soul.

Dante was a great friend and a hell of a dog, and while we will certainly honor his final request – for now the three dogs will be two until the time is right.

Goodbye Sweet Shelby

On September 2nd Shelby passed from complications of kidney failure. When we grieve we process and ponder. It is there that we can see the lessons Shelby brought for us.

Every dog that comes into our lives arrives with a syllabus for us. It is our job to decipher what lessons they are teaching.

On September 2nd Shelby passed from complications of kidney failure and her household of three Mini Schnauzers, a gaggle of cats, and of course her humans Jill and Linda, too, was left with a vacant spot.

When we grieve we process and ponder. It is there that we can see the lessons Shelby brought for us.

She was even tempered, smart and lived her life in the balance. Always up for the walk, she wore the silly hats in class, leapt from the couch for the outside adventures, and happily joined in for the barking at the passing bikes or pedestrians. And, if she were human, she’d always be the first to hold the door for a stranger, or give a hug exactly when it was needed.

Illness plagued Shelby in her last years. Mamas Linda and Jill managed Shelby’s fluids and meds like pros. Coordinating her care was complicated at times – we should all have a medical advocate like Linda. Shelby withstood every prod, poke, new medicine, prescription food, limited diets, and multiple trips to the vet’s with her usual good nature while never getting cranky or snarky with her house mates.

I can see three lessons that Shelby brought for us, perhaps others can see more.

The first was balance – play hard, bark loud, and always be kind to everyone you meet.

The second was all about taking things in stride, from illnesses, to losses, to changes in the home, Shelby was always good with it all. I know for some, this one doesn’t seem like much. But from my own perspective, this is an almost saint-like quality that alludes me on most days.

The third one was about the connections the Universe often shows us that we dismiss or doubt because there are no double-blind studies to confirm what we see.

Shelby arrived at Jill and Linda’s home on September 4th 2004 – her big sister Kinsey’s birthday.
She left us on September 2, 2016 – missing her anniversary by two days, and missing Kinsey’s birthday by two days.
And, when Kinsey passed away, it was a day before Shelby’s birthday.

IMG_20020101_000409 — Shelby and Kinsey – Party Animals

Remember, in astrological terms, birthdays are not always on the same date on our calendar, but follow the alignment of the planets as they were at our birth. So, who knows…perhaps there’s an even tighter link between Shelby and Kinsey than our calendar shows.

These are the things that make us scratch our heads because we have no good answers for the nature of these connections. However, we can say without doubt, that Shelby and Kinsey had a bond that transcends our mortal understanding.

Shelby will be very missed by her family and all of us who knew her as the sweet, easy-going, gentle soul that she was.

However, she and Kinsey will no longer be missing each other.

Goodbye, Riley

Riley, a good friend and great dog, was taken from us far too soon.

There were hundreds of fireflies serenely flying all around the yard Riley loved the night she left her family. There was no question that it was little Miss Riley telling everyone she loved them and everything was going to be OK.

The adorable, fuzzy, petite Ewok had come to Linda and her family only three years before. A cuddly, sweet, gentle soul who loved doing her “bang, bang” trick Riley was more than happy to snuggle up in everyone’s lap one minute and work very hard for Linda to try to become a therapy dog the next. Riley ultimately told Linda she was more happy just being Linda’s personal therapy dog—and she was.

While Riley’s life was short it was filled with love from her human family, her canine family and her extended family in which I was happy to be included.

Sometimes the Universe deals us a raw hand and sometimes when it does it softens the blow just a little in ways we do not even expect. Riley was around long enough to welcome and begin teaching Maggie, the puppy golden, how to be a comfort to the whole family and carry on Riley’s love of mischief while she softened the blow of Riley’s early departure.

I know that every night Linda and Maggie will look for the fireflies; to try touch Riley’s spirit one more time.