Some times you plan for something and before you finish the thought, you already know it is not going to happen. Anyway, you still pretend that you believe it will happen. It is the usual debate between good and bad, practical and unpractical, serious and not that serious, realistic and unrealistic….That’s what was happening in my mind…as a matter of fact I had always believed it was happening in my husband’s mind too. The only person at home that had her mind set since the very beginning was my daughter. She did not wasted any time, making a point that she wanted the big yellow dog to stay.
Since the beginning, I was concerned between what was reasonable to do and what my heart was asking me to do. We had three other dogs. Big dogs. Noisy dogs. Dogs that ate a lot and dogs that made us incur in costly vet bills. Dogs that spent a lot of time by themselves because our jobs kept us away during the day. Plus we were kind of in charge of the strayed black puppy. Four dogs to care for. Another dog was out of discussion. Specially, another big dog. So, there was no point to even consider keeping the yellow dog. Was it…?
He was already at our house… and my husband just agreed to take him to the vet. Before getting the dog inside of a car, with human beings (us!!!), we needed to take out the smell and the dirt. Step One - bathe the dog.
No big deal…we were used to bathe our own dogs. We knew what to do, how to do it. So we did it. Two minor details that we forgot: his coat was all matted and he seemed to have an injury in his hindquarters.
We started front to back. Water, shampoo, brush, comb, scissors, water again, more shampoo, more water… The dog was not moving or pulling…he just let us do our way trying to lie down in every opportunity. Everything was OK till we got to his hips. The hair knots were awful, but the worst part was that he seriously disliked being touched in that area. He kept moving around, moaning and groaning and snapping. In order to finish the grooming, both my husband and daughter had to hold his face and body to prevent him to bite me.
Lesson learned - no matter how pleasant a dog may look and behave, be careful…he may have some issues that you do not know of!!! Dog cleaned and smelling good.
Next step - the vet. Will it be a problem to get the dog in the car? Sorry to disappoint you but no adventure here. No running, no snapping, no anything. Just open the door and he got inside the car.
At the vet, he behaved like an angel… up to the moment when the assistant tried to get the body temperature, you know…from behind. That was interesting! I had always wondered how my dogs allowed a thermometer to be inserted on them without complaining. That must be an awful sensation. Well, apparently the yellow dog thoughts were aligned with mine and he made a point of it.
Lesson learned - forget about measuring body temperature via the backdoor, unless strictly required.
The vet did a complete check including the canine shots, checked for heart worms putting him in preventive treatment, prescribed vitamins and so on. He examined the hips and recommended to X-ray him. We couldn’t afford the x-ray at the moment, so he prescribed some painkillers making a point that the x-ray was required for a good diagnostic.
Following the plan, I explained that we just found the dog and were not planning to keep him, requested permission to put a flyer with a photo to try to find the owner or a new home and, of course, since we were just doing some charity, requested a discount . The doctor, being an understanding person who actually loved animals, gave the permission for the flyer and the discount. Even with the discount, the total bill was almost $100. Forcing myself not to look at my husband’s face, I continued chit chatting with the doctor.
“He (the dog) is a Golden Retriever. I bet he is a runaway since this particular breed love to go around. Without the x-ray we will not know if he has something broken or if he has some kind of condition. So far he is using both legs, so I guess whatever happened is healing. When you find the owner or somebody adopt him, remember to mention this. ”
Lesson learned - if you want to do charity, keep a money reserve.
Back at home, the next step was to decide where he will be kept. We decided to let him stay in the front yard, running free. He immediately made himself comfortable and chose to be most of the time in the garage, head resting in the doorstep.
Days passed and for some reason I was always too busy and never got the opportunity to prepare the flyer, even when my husband kept reminding me to do so. I mentioned the dog to family, friends and co-workers, specially to explain how well-behaved he was, how he loved to be petted, how my daughter took over the responsibility to keep him clean, how intelligent he was, the way he loved to play tug-of-war, the first meeting with our dogs, how he got along so well with the youngest of them… but somehow I never mentioned that a new home needed to be identified.
For a couple of months we kept calling him ‘the dog’. I did not want to gave him a name thinking it will make it more difficult to give him away later. My daughter always persevering in her position to keep the golden dog (aha, not ‘yellow’ anymore), tried new names everyday, checking his reaction. “If he answer to a name, that means that IS his name”, she used to say. I noticed that he was more alert with names ending with the sound “ee”.
One day, I just noticed that Alanis was calling him ‘Tobbie’ all the time (from the Twister movie’s dog - ‘Toby’). And he was actually responding to the name. Inadvertently, I started to call him Tobbie too. In no time, my husband was using the name too. So the dog that was not suppose to stay, got a name.
Alanis campaign was heavy loaded. She kept taking the golden inside of the house, showing off that he did not got on the furniture, that he did not chewed-up anything, that he did not “make any of his business” inside of the house, that he was so useful warming her feet and keeping her company…
One cold and windy night she even managed to get my approval to let him spend the night in her bedroom. From that night on, there was always a good reason to let him stay inside of the house. In the mornings, he always came to our room and rested his face over the blankets waiting to be petted. It became a family routine.
On January, I had a conversation with my husband…it was more like a monologue, since I did not stop to let him say anything.
‘Tobbie has been with us for five months. He is getting along with the other dogs so well. Nobody had claimed him at all. He already respond to his name. Alanis is learning to have responsibilities taking care of him. She has become very attached to him. Her only company is Tobbie since the other dogs do not know how to behave inside the house. She is so attached to the golden that it will break my heart to ask her to say good bye….”. I continued like this for awhile till I got to my last sentence: ‘What do you think about keeping the dog?”.
‘Was ever a doubt about that?” was my husband answer.
And on Three Kings Day, Tobbie was Alanis’ present.
That was how Tobbie end up staying at our home…
Copyright © 2009 by Alina de la Torre
All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form prohibited without the prior written permission of the author.
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