Thank You, Rudy

Our beautiful Golden Retriever, Rudy, died two weeks ago. I didn’t think I’d be able to write about it because of how sad we were, and still are, but I want him to be remembered in writing.

Until you own a pet, you don’t realize how hopelessly intertwined their lives become with yours. Every happy, joyful, thrilling, depressing, sad, dispiriting, and even mundane moment of your family’s life is shared by your pet, who contributes to your responses with joy, compassion, or equal boredom. When that pet is no longer with you, there’s a void in your lives and a gaping hole in your family unit.

My parents had black Labrador Retrievers from my teen years on. I never really noticed them, other than as peripheral beings who would lie around or occasionally swim in our pond. I know that my father considered Sam to be his dog, and my mother considered Chaka to be her dog. I’m not sure who Licorice, our first dog, belonged to. I was a teenager when we got her, and too self-involved to notice what was going on around me.

My husband, son, and I have had only had one dog, Rudy. He had a personality as big as the house. He was so joyful that you couldn’t help but laugh at his big, drooly grin. Right up to the day he died, my young-adult son would say, “I love his face! Look at his smile!”

We really should have named him Joy. But he had other sides, too, and some were uncannily human-like. For instance, when I talked to him, he would cock his head sideways, like he was really considering what I was saying. When he saw me drinking wine, he would bark and bark so that my husband would notice. When my husband would say, “She’s allowed to drink,” Rudy would snort in disgust and walk away.

He disapproved of many things, so there was a lot of huffing and puffing from him. He didn’t like when I told him he couldn’t have what I was eating. He especially didn’t like when I stayed up too late, according to his timetable. He would bark and bark, and then my husband would yell, “Shuuuuut Uuuuup!” Then Rudy would snort and throw himself down on the rug at my feet. He would also be sure to give me the side eye while I continued reading or watching TV.

Rudy was also very conniving. If he was outside and barked to come in, I would open the back door. Then, he’d just stand there. If I didn’t offer him something he wanted to eat, he refused to come in. However, if I closed the door on him, he’d start barking again to come in. Sometimes, if I got too close to him with whatever food I was bribing him with, he’d grab the food and run off like a burglar. We had to admit that he was clever to make us bribe him to do something he wanted to do, like come in.

We had an inkling from the day we got him, when he was barely eight weeks old, that our lives were going to get interesting. Of course he was terrified. We had just taken him from his six siblings and parents. We understood that. So, we tried not to react when he walked into our house and emptied his bowels on our new dining room rug.

Rudy in his homemade “Thundershirt.”

Our patience was sorely tested over the next year, however. He chewed baseboards, ate whole flip flops, and dug up our new carpets like they were dirt. He was terrified of fireworks, thunderstorms, and even rain. We learned that the hard way. One day, we left him alone and when we came home during a thunderstorm, he was happily sitting among endless curls of our new Berber carpet that he had dug up. When he was afraid, he would dig, no matter where he was.

He was also an escape artist. If the front door was open even a sliver, he’d dash out and run all over the neighborhood, behind houses, across busy streets, and onto lawns. I spent many a midnight running behind our neighbors homes, praying that they wouldn’t wake up and call the police. If it had happened to snow, the game level increased. He’d roll and jump and let me get almost close enough to grab him, and then take off.

I remember telling a friend that the first months were exhausting, with all of the chasing and crying. “Why was Rudy crying?” she asked. “He wasn’t,” I said. “I was.” Racing up and down streets in my robe in the middle of the night was harrowing.

Rudy put my son through the same paces on their daytime walks. He learned to slip his collar and take off. No matter what kind of collar we put on him, he’d learn to escape from it. There were so many times that my son came home from walks cursing and sweating and dragging Rudy up the front steps.

But, we were always able to laugh, after the urge to kill wore off. Rudy was just so full of life and joy that it was contagious. We were able to forgive him for anything, even the times he pulled the leash out of our hands and dove into the nearest mud puddle or muddy brook at the park. At least those horrifying incidents made for good pictures. And, he always resignedly accepted his fate of being hauled to the dog-washing place.

Rudy got bathed or hosed down a lot in the summer because, like all Retrievers, he loved to swim. He’d swim until the end of time, if we let him. We would take him to the dock of a nearby river, or to a nearby dog park at a lake, and he’d fetch balls in the water with all of the other dogs. Playing fetch combined with swimming was his idea of the best life had to offer, not counting food, of course.

Rudy had another side, too. He was compassionate to the bone. If any of us were sick, depressed, or upset, he’d be right by that person’s side for as long as it took. He was so loyal that it touched our hearts. When we were sad, he was sad right along with us. If one of us were depressed, he’d lick and lick and lick our faces, letting us know that he loved us.

The day before he died, he was as lively as ever. He had slowed down a little, but not much. He was nine and would be 10 on Halloween. He and I had gone out back and played fetch, and then he dug and ate grass while I weeded my garden. Then, we went back inside and my husband and I left for the movies at 6:30 p.m. Our son was at work. When we came home, around 10, our son was home. I asked him where Rudy was. He said he had just gotten home and he had called Rudy, with no response. That was odd. Rudy was always waiting for us by the front door. As soon as he heard our car pull up, he would bark his head off.

I looked all around the house, and then went to the basement. Rudy was huddled in the dark. He had been sick. We cleaned him and the floor and then tried to get him to come upstairs. He refused, so my son decided to sleep on the basement couch, next to him.

The next morning, we discovered that Rudy had been sick several times. We tried to comfort him and tell him he’d be okay. At one point, he demanded to go out back. We let him out. He never came back in.

Our son had to leave for work in the early afternoon, but before he left, he and I tried to get Rudy to the car to see the emergency vet. It was Sunday, and our regular vet’s office was closed. Rudy was very large and weighed more than 100 lbs. We couldn’t lift him, so we dragged him to a sled and got him on it. We planned to drag the sled to the car. Rudy was very weak, but he mustered his strength, stood up, and went back to where he had been lying. We tried again, with the same results. We decided that he wanted to stay home to recover. Our son left for work.

My husband and I took turns sitting with him. We truly thought Rudy was just sick and would recover. We knew that he was really sick, though. He had such little strength that, when he lifted his head to drink from his bowl, he couldn’t get his head out of the bowl.

I will be forever grateful that we kept a vigil with him during his last hours. After I sat with him, and told him that he’d be fine, that he was the most wonderful dog in the world, and that we loved him, I went inside and my husband sat with him. When my son got home from work and rushed out back to see Rudy, Rudy looked at him, convulsed, and died. He was waiting to see us all before he left us.

The shock was indescribable. The grief was awful. But we had to focus. Flies were landing on him and we had to do something quickly. We wrapped him in his vinyl blow-up pool, and dug his grave. We read that the grave should be at least three feet deep to keep animals from digging him up.

It was late afternoon and the sun would be setting soon. We dug and dug and, about two feet down, hit solid rock. We could dig no further. The sun was now lower in the sky. We could either find another place to dig or use the grave we had dug. Our yard is not an easy place to dig. We had encountered thick tree roots, vines, and rocks, that had to be cut or dug up, after almost every shovelful of dirt was removed. We didn’t know if our digging would be any easier if we started over someplace else.

We decided to use the shallow grave we had dug. We gently lowered him into the hole and covered him with dirt and rose petals from our rose bush. Our son drove to the hardware store and got topsoil and heavy rectangles of sod. We cried and cried as we covered him with more dirt, and then the sod.

When we were finished, I walked across the sod to pat it down and made a horrible discovery. I could feel Rudy’s body under the sod. Oh my God. I was walking on his head.

It was dark by then, though, so we decided to wait until morning to do anything else. We placed the sled on top of him, to deter animals (As if that would work. We obviously weren’t thinking clearly at the time).

The next day, I cautiously approached his burial site. Thank God no animals had moved the sled or tried to dig him up. I lifted the sled. I walked on his grave. I could still feel him. It was a really terrible situation.

Our son went back to the store and bought more dirt and more sod. We piled sod on top of sod, on top of sod. This is not the recommended method for sodding a lawn. We didn’t care. We reasoned that, eventually, the first one or two layers would settle around him and then the top layers would lie flat.

That’s what we’re hoping. Meanwhile, there’s an unexpected mound in the middle of the grass. At least he’s safe.

We love you, Rudy. Thank you for nine wonderful years.

 

A Lesson From My Dog

Dog Days

Our Golden Retriever, Rudy, got his summer shave today, and he is pissed. Because I am an American and speak American English, when I say “pissed,” I mean “angry.” I almost said “mad,” but he’s not a mad dog, as in crazy/rabid; he’s merely a livid dog.

If I were in the U.K. and spoke English English, then when I said that he was “pissed,” I would have meant that he was drunk. But I’m not, and he isn’t. If he were, it would be perplexing because the only dog bar in town, called “BarDog” to confuse PETA, is closed. While it took them awhile, PETA finally caught on (when one of their dogs tried to duck in for a cold one during his walk) and took action.

At BarDog’s subsequent auction, I was fortunate enough to win the “Dogs Playing Poker” photograph that had been blown up and hung waist-high, above the bar, which was very low, for obvious reasons. Dogs don’t sit on stools. This “Dogs Playing Poker” was original in that it was a photo of actual patrons playing poker, but again, they don’t sit on stools or on chairs, so it showed them the way they really play: by sprawling on the floor with cards in their mouths.

But, back to Rudy. This is his seventh year of being shaved, but he never gets used to it. He always comes home in a foul mood. Eventually he forgets that he had a haircut and everything goes back to normal. But in the meantime, he’s very unpleasant to be around. I would slip him a nip to cheer him up, since his watering hole is shuttered, but I’m afraid he’d tell his dog friends and one of them would have an owner who would object and then we’d be back to square one, except my square would be a cell.

So, until then, I guess he’ll live under the dining room table. His plan is to not come out until his hair grows back, but we all know how well that plan works. 

Rudy the Bad-Bad Golden

Rudy, our Golden Retriever, has spent the day lying low. If he could become invisible, he would; in the absence of an invisibility cloak, he attempted to blend in with the furniture (see photo below). As well he might. They say that you have to reprimand dogs immediately when they break the rules, because they won’t remember their transgressions the next day, or even the next hour. They are wrong. Rudy knows he’s in big trouble. Maybe he doesn’t remember why (he does), but he knows better than to ask for any special favors today … or even breathe too loudly.

Rudy’s disgrace occurred yesterday, Christmas Day. My sister, Valencia,* her husband, Mike, and their children, Lana and Jack, invited our family to Christmas dinner at their house in New Jersey. Valencia insisted that we bring Rudy. They have a two-year-old yellow Labrador Retriever named Ozzie. Valencia assured me that the two dogs would get along wonderfully, even though they had never met.

At first, it appeared that my worries were for nothing and that Valencia was right. The dogs were initially wary of each other, but then they sniffed each others’ hind quarters and settled down. I had brought two enormous rawhide bones for them; one was pure white and one was a darker tan. I gave the lighter one to Rudy and the darker one to Ozzie. The kids and I took the dogs into the yard and tossed a ball around for them to fetch. After awhile, we went back into the house. In the kitchen, the dogs were just standing around the kitchen table when Ozzie decided that he needed to demonstrate who the alpha dog was in their house. So he started to mount Rudy. It happened in an instant and if you missed it, like my sister and brother-in-law did, you wouldn’t have known what set off the ensuing dog fight in the kitchen. Rudy, who is generally too lazy to bark for more than attention or food, bared his teeth and snarled. His snarling turned into angry barking at Ozzie. Ozzie barked back in equal anger. We were able to separate them before limbs were torn off. Poor Ozzie was at loose ends. It was his house and he deserved to call the shots, but this seven-year-old Golden seemed to think that he was the boss.

We tried to get the dogs to make up, which was just plain ridiculous. They don’t exactly kiss or shake hands. But, in time, they were able to co-exist in the same space, although they kept their distance from each other. In any event, they seemed peaceful, so we went back to preparing the dinner. Rudy went to the door to go out. Valencia let him out and noticed that he had Ozzie’s bone. He went out and hid it somewhere and came back in. Ozzie then had to go out with Rudy’s bone. Then the fun really started. Rudy went to Ozzie’s pile of Christmas presents and grabbed his stuffed animals and slobbered all over them. Then he went outside, found a big mud puddle and rolled in it. Before I was able to drag him into the house, he grabbed Ozzie’s bone from where he had hidden it. Back in the house, he headed for the living room, where he plopped his filthy body onto the floor. I cleaned him and the floor up while he gnawed on Ozzie’s bone, with Ozzie observing the proceedings from a safe distance. Then I went back into the kitchen.

My nephew, Jack, who had a fever and was resting on the couch, called me back into the living room. He thought that I should know that Rudy had vomited on their rug. Back to the kitchen I went to get cleaning supplies. As I cleaned up the pile, it became obvious that this wasn’t real vomit. It wasn’t slimy or anything. This looked like Rudy had filled his mouth with chewed up rawhide and water and spit it out.

Then it was dinner time. I filled Rudy’s bowl and Valencia filled Ozzie’s. Ozzie decided that Rudy’s dry kibble was far superior to his, so he bogarted Rudy’s dinner. Rudy sniffed at Ozzie’s bowl and rejected it, even though it had his favorite wet food mixed in with the dry kibble. Instead, he took a big gulp of water and disappeared from the room. Moments later, Jack called me back into the living room to point out another pile of rawhide bits sitting in water.

You have to realize that dinner preparations were in the works, and appetizers and drinks had been put out for us and their neighbors, so this subplot was evolving in the midst of revelry. Not everyone was aware of it, just the kids, and the mothers, who had to subdue the dog-induced mayhem.

After awhile, we all sat down to dinner and had a wonderful time. My brother-in-law is a wonderful cook and my sister is a marvelous hostess. We decided to ignore Rudy, who periodically turned up with Ozzie’s stuffed animals, Lana’s stuffed animals, and anything he could stuff into his mouth and contaminate. Ozzie was always in the same room as Rudy, but never too close, as if he were saying, “Look, I’m a good dog. I’m nothing like that horrible Rudy.” All in all, it was a great day. I don’t think Rudy will be invited back again, but I’m hoping we will.

* Valencia isn’t her real name. My mother never would have named her after a type of orange. The other names were changed, as well, but not as creatively.

Jumping for Joy

Anyone who has ever had a dog knows how hard it is to change a dog’s regular food. So, when you find yourself out of it one night, and don’t feel like going out  to get more, you’re often forced to offer human food to your four-legger, or a bag of doggie biscuits. Dogs are always willing to eat any kind of human food or canine treat, but just try to give them a new kibble. They’d rather starve than do more than give it a dismissive sniff.

So, the other day when I was in Walgreen’s, I remembered that we were out of dry dog food for our golden retriever, Rudy. Walgreen’s carries his particular brand, but only in small bags which cost three times as much per pound as the large bags that I usually buy elsewhere. Looking for something to tide him over until I could get to a grocery store or Walmart, I spotted Kibbles ‘n Bits, and they were on sale, so I bought a bag.

I was a little nervous when I got home and poured it into Rudy’s bowl. I suspected that he’d take one look at it and walk away. I couldn’t have been more wrong. He watched me with great interest as I put out his food and water bowls. Then he went over to sniff his new food. Rather than ignore it, he started jumping up and down with glee. He literally leapt for joy before scarfing down every morsel. When he was finished, he jumped up and down some more.

I should have been relieved that I didn’t have to go out again to get his normal food. And I was. But I also suspected that I had just fed him a big bowl of cookies.

Rudy the Devil Dog

Rudy with his summer cut 2013

Rudy, our Golden Retriever, won’t come in.

I was late to work a few mornings ago because he wouldn’t come in then, either. I’ve also missed many hours of sleep when I’ve let him out after 11 p.m. and he refused to come in until 4 a.m. Fearful that his barking at the door would wake the neighbors, I huddled under a blanket on the couch, waiting for him to determine when was a good time to come inside.

After every trip out back, it’s the same story: eventually, he barks urgently to be let in. We open the door and say, “Come in.” He, in turn, stands just-close-enough outside the door so that we can’t grab him. Then he turns his head to one side, then the other, refusing to meet our eyes. Entreaties to come into the house fall on deaf ears. We command, cajole, beg, and bribe—to no avail. He’s in charge and wants us to know it.

He’s always been this way, despite having gone through puppy training. He was probably enrolled at too early an age, but I was pressured by my peers from the dog park to get him trained right away.

At about 12 weeks of age, maybe earlier, I enrolled him in a puppy training class at a local chain pet store. The trainer, Dwayne, who was about 20, said that he had been training dogs since he was 5. I figured that Dwayne was exaggerating, but after seeing his methods, I realized that he was still training dogs like a 5-year-old would. He would say, “Sit.” The dog would either sit or not. In Dwayne’s eyes, the dog had obeyed him.

When Dwayne was teaching the dogs in the group to “Drop the Ball,” they all obeyed. Rudy, who was sprawled on the tile floor with a ball in his mouth did nothing. Dwayne patted him and said, “Good boy, Rudy.” I countered that Rudy had not dropped the ball. Dwayne replied that he had indeed, but Rudy’s mouth was so close to the floor that it was hard to see that he had released it. That was a bald-faced lie, but there was no arguing with Dwayne who had, by this time, moved on to teaching us another of his no-fail training tactics.

There were many mishaps each Saturday morning during the training sessions, but the last session lowered the bar for all future trainees. It was the day that the dogs had to demonstrate that they had learned everything that they had been taught. All of the dogs were tested on obeying basic commands, and they were all deemed proficient—even Rudy, who was lying on his back, oblivious to Dwayne and his orders. Finally, we dog owners were instructed to take the leashes off of our pets and walk them through the store. This was the final test. If the dog walked calmly up and down aisles filled with colorful, plush toys and delectable treats without veering off course, that would earn him or her a “Fully Trained” certificate.

My son was with me that day. He leaned down and unclipped Rudy’s leash. The other dogs calmly walked toward the aisles. Rudy took off like the proverbial bat out of Hell. He ran up and down every aisle like a demon. He skitted, he rolled, he jumped, he raced, he howled, he defecated on the floor. And then he ran again. While my son took off to find paper towels and disinfectant, I chased Rudy. Soon after my son had returned to begin his task of removing the evidence, I managed to back Rudy into a corner. Once Rudy had evaluated his chances of escape, he gave up and sat down.

Dwayne appeared right as I trapped Rudy. After a glance at my son, who was scrubbing the floor, he looked at Rudy. “Look at you sitting down!” he said. “Good boy! You passed!” Dwayne turned to me with a big smile, handed me Rudy’s “Fully Trained” certificate, and walked off. My son and I looked at each other in amazement.

Rudy, on the other hand, looked smug. He considers that certificate to be his license to act just like he did at the pet store. And he’s acted that way ever since.

Rudy in his homemade Thunder Shirt 2013

Red or White with your Kibble?

Our Golden Retriever, Rudy, likes wine.

Initially, I was worried about his newfound sophisticated taste because grapes are said to kill dogs, or at least make them sick. It turns out, though, that wine agrees with him. He even came back for seconds.

Before you call the ASPCA or the National Association of Vineyard Police, I’ll tell you what happened. The other day, red wine was accidentally spilled onto the kitchen floor and he lapped it up. Then he sat in front of me, very politely, on his haunches, which told me that wanted more.

He is a very nice, albeit very rude, dog who only uses manners when he wants cheese — and now, apparently, wine. He’ll also behave for a hunk of crusty bread.

Oh my God! My dog is French.