dog

The Last Wagon Ride

Posted on by SomatiCat

Occasionally I see people pulling a utility wagon with a large dog on it in a park.   It is a lovely sight.  It shows how much the human loves the dog.  Walking is our most important time together.  Many of us become very attuned to our dog.  We are like two energy body tethered to each other and eventually become one.  When a large dog loses mobility due to age, some of us would do anything to make up for it.

However, I rarely see the same wagon with a dog again.  I had been wondering what happened to the wagon.

Now I know.

My 80+lb dog started to refuse walking more than a block.  He wanted to go out and walked several yards to finish his business.  Then he turned around and went home.  Sometime I could entice him to walk around the block, but not to the dog park he used to love to go.  The weather was great and I wanted him to spend some time in the dog park, where he was loved by senior humans.  I thought for a while and decided to buy a utility wagon.

Every morning for a couple of weeks, I put him on the wagon and pulled it to the park.  He walked around, got treats from his friends and lay down. Then I put him back on the wagon and pulled it back to home.  It was a physical work.  People loved to see him on the wagon looking around.  “My dog has a chauffeur,” I told them.  He looked happy and content.

Then my dog suddenly collapsed in my apartment.  He defecated unusual amount of poop.  He lost control of his lower body and rolled on his feces.  I didn’t think any taxi would take a poop covered dog, so I put him on the wagon and pulled him to the ER for 20 some blocks.  On the way to the ER, I promised him I wouldn’t let him suffer.

Long story short, I took him home and spent a night with him.  The next day I took him for his last wagon ride.  It broke my heart but I knew it when I ordered the wagon.

He didn’t suffer and he passed in my arm.

With my last dog and cat, I let them suffer because I couldn’t let them go in time.  Not this time.  It was the gift only I could give him.

Then I realized that it was how I wished I would go.   Unfortunately being human, only I can give the gift to myself.

German Shepherd Next to Me

Posted on by SomatiCat

“Imagine you wake up in the morning and find somebody lying next to you.  What do you want to see?” my therapist asked.

“A German Shepherd” I said.

My therapist looked as if he were suspended in the mid air.  He didn’t expect the answer.  We were working on my relationship issue and he was trying to prime me for a new relationship.

“What do you expect from a German Shepherd?” he asked.

“He sees me as I am.  No more, no less,” I said.

My therapist seemed to be searching for words, and then said, “I was touched by your strong desire to be seen.”

Almost 10 years has passed since, and now I wake up every morning to find a 12 year old 80lb mutt lying next to me.  I adopted him about 2 years ago.  He is no German Shepherd and not a particularly affectionate type.  He does have a physical presence.  Warmth radiates from his body and I can touch his warmth without actually touching him.  Sometime I wake up in the middle of night and quietly listen to his steady breathing, hear him talk in his dream, feel his paws moving when he runs in his dream, and smell his stinky fart!  His whole physical presence make me feel safe and comforted.

Have you ever felt alone when your loved one is lying next to you?  I have.  That was one of the worst loneliness I had ever felt.  With my dog, I am safe.

Lifeline

Posted on by SomatiCat

I have never been prescribed meds for anxiety.  I have had severe anxiety but it was always a precursor or aura of major depression.  When I experienced anxiety attacks, I was already on the way to major depression and almost immobile.

I am one of the lucky few.  After years of psychotherapy, a straightforward generic SSRI and Crossfit have been working for me and I haven’t experienced a major depression for several years.

Still every night for a couple of seconds before I fall asleep, I feel anxiety.  It’s about nothing and everything.  It’s about being.  Suddenly I have a hole in my chest and I feel like I am being sucked into the hole in my chest into a heavy black mass of nothingness.  I know if I allow it happen, I will lose my sleep and fall straight down to the bottomless depression.

So I reach out and hold the tail of my dog sleeping next to me, as if it were a lifeline.  My 80lb 12 year old mutt’s tail is thick and feels substantial, warm and alive.  I feel tethered to his life.   And I fall asleep.

 

A Fat Collie

Posted on by SomatiCat

When and where I grew up, dogs were just dogs: brown dogs, white dogs, black dogs, black and tan dogs, etc.  The smallest were Shiba; the largest were Akita and in between there were just ordinary dogs.  Only affluent westernized families had fancy pure breeds.  There were no designer dogs, just mutts.   Some belonged to families, others just roamed around.

I adopted a large senior dog from a local Humane Society a year ago.  He had a funny face with a long muzzle.  The humane Society people told me he was a Collie mix.  All the official papers said he was a Collie mix, so I registered him as a Collie mix.

Weighing nearly 90lb he was a super obese Collie.  He was slow and low-key and walked like a sumo wrestler.  He chewed things obsessive compulsively.  He was stubborn as hell and didn’t act like Lassie at all.

“What kind of dog is he?” Since I got him  I was asked numerous times by strangers.  I say, “Mutt,” and “Do you know what kind of mix he is?” people asks.

My dog seems to have a distinct feature, which is somewhat familiar but not distinct enough for many people to put a finger on.  That makes people wonder what he is.  Eventually a consensus view emerged.

Spuds MacKengie a.k.a. Budweiser Dog on steroid.

I finally succumbed to the temptation and ordered a DNA text kit on-line.  I mailed it out expecting a “happy family”- like result: a little bit of Collie, a little bit of Pitty, maybe a German Shepard or two.

The result blew my mind.   His (probably) dad was a pure bull terrier.  His grandparents were bull terriers; his great grandparents were bull terriers.  He was half bull terrier.  The other half was ambiguous, with a miniature bull terrier and a hound in his ancestry.  There was not a drop of Collie in his gene pool!

He wasn’t an obese Collie mix.  He was a supersized bull terrier mix.   He was not fat.   He was muscular.

One day I noticed a lady staring at him.  She came up to me and asked, “Bull terrier mix?”  I said, “Yes.”  “Stubborn?” she asked.  “Yes, very” I said.  She nodded knowingly.

That made me think:

What is he?  Is he a fat lazy Collie or a muscular bull terrier?  If I didn’t know his DNA makeup, he would be still a fat Collie.  I might have put him on a weight loss program to keep him healthy.  Actually he had spent his entire life as a Collie mix with his former owner.  Or maybe he is just a heavy stubborn dog with a long muzzle.

Then what am I?  I could be fat or muscular.  I could be feminine or masculine, depending on the model the society/individual applies.  Or maybe I am just a human being with olive skin.

 

 

Teacher

Posted on by SomatiCat

We don’t have to go and look for teachers.  Open your heart and you will find yours walking with you.

 

Snow

An old dog and his old human, supporting each other.

Our footsteps have merged on the snow-covered path,

In the winter of our life.

He still teaches me how to walk the life,

As he has been doing so since he greeted me in his full youth

With his shiny black muzzle, now gray.

He loves snow, and this could be his last.

It’s important to have teachers when you are searching for your path, just as it’s handy to have a trail map when you are trekking an unfamiliar territory.   Some people look for THE teacher.  I don’t have THE teacher.  Many teachers guided me to be here and now.   Anybody who teaches me what I didn’t even know I needed to learn is my teacher and I appreciate and respect them.  My teachers include my martial art instructor, my therapists, my acting teacher, my dog, my trainer, my yoga teacher, and go on and on and on.  Yes, you could be my teacher one day and I’m looking forward to learning from you. A teacher does not necessarily give me an answer. My teacher said, “I learn in order to ask better questions.”

I learn in order to ask better questions. ~Gil Hedley

 

Zen of Cherry Blossom

Posted on by SomatiCat

The falling cherry blossoms,

The remaining cherry blossoms are also

The cherry blossoms to fall.

 Haiku by Ryokan Osho

Every year I think this might be the last time to see the cherry blossoms fall.  This particular type of cherry trees only blossom for a week in the spring.  They open and will be gone in a week. If you miss it, you won’t see it till the next year.  And who could be sure that you will be there to see the cherry blossom fall next year.

So I breathe in the almost colorless color of petals, listen to the sound of silently falling petals, and watch the air tinted with millions of white grey pink petals.

This could be the last time.

It’s about

Mortality.

impermanence.

The transient nature of our existence.

That’s exactly why it’s precious.

Love and appreciate your life now.  It could be the last time you see it.

The dog enjoyed the spring day with his full existence.  He is not with us anymore.

Dogs Keep a Promise

Posted on by SomatiCat

DogskeepaPromise

Last night I talked a woman through putting her unconscious dog to sleep.  She is somebody I constantly bumped into in Central Park when I took my dog for a weekend morning off leash walk, a doggy friend, not a human friend.  We never saw each other without dogs.  My dog passed about a year ago.  Since then, I haven’t seen her.   That’s how it works.  People with dogs and people without dogs occupy separate worlds in the city.

She was one of those people who lived for their dogs, who won’t leave their dog alone more than a couple of hours.  One of us who don’t trust people, but trust dogs.  One of us who learn what love feels like for the first time through our dogs.

Her dog had a cancer surgery and came back home O.K.  Then suddenly the dog collapsed and lost consciousness.

I’ve been there.  My dog had a brain tumor and one day suddenly collapsed at the ripe age of 14.

She knew there are no options but one.  She just needed confirmation from somebody else.  She had already spent 10 hours in the hospital waiting for her dog to regain consciousness.

Most of time, we know what we should do, and still sometimes we need to convince ourselves to do.  We get  trapped in the fear of should have, could have, might have.  What we need is somebody who hear what we can’t say and mirror it back.

She said she wanted to follow her dog.  I told her I felt the same way. But then after one year I still feel my dog’s love saturating my life on a nice spring day.

Dogs keep a promise a person can’t.
–Dr. Bloom.
A quote from Hannibal by Bryan Fuller