Have you ever opened yourself to a new possibility? As if with feet set in cement and rabidly defending your position, have you ever considered there might be another alternative? Would you choose a slice of humble pie for breakfast and be open to a change of heart? It can happen, you know, even when you are past forty; let me tell you my story.
As far back as I can remember, I have only had feelings for felines; my heart was cold toward the canine world. Other than being chased by the neighbor's tiny dog and smashing my five year old head into a large oak, because I was watching the dog and not where I was going, I don't know why this was true. My family had many pets: dogs, cats, birds, a chipmunk, a guinea pig, a friend's monkey, but I always favored the furry felines.
I did have a favorite cat: Katie was a Seal Point Siamese who was given to us by the Overholt family, now my sister Sharon's in-laws. We acquired a very reclusive male Siamese, Tom, and nine weeks later, we were the proud owners of a litter of Siamese kittens.
Siamese kittens start out white, with dark tips on their ears and tails and paws; maturation brings a darkening into the adult shades of mahogany brown with blackish ears, paws and tails. Their eyes are often startlingly blue and their verbalizations have an almost human quality to them, like a baby's cry. We all loved Katie and her subsequent litters of kittens, but none as much as my sister, Trish. Her room was their home and she was their devoted caregiver. Katie was such a stellar mother; when the kittens were 4-5 weeks of age, she would litter box train them. Picking them up one by one, using her mouth at the nape of their little necks, she would drop them into the litter box. They would protest loudly in their high pitched kitten voices, but within a few days, they would be wobbling over to the litter box on their own legs, when nature called.
When Larry and I were at a place in our lives where we could own a pet, you can imagine it wasn't a dashing dalmatian that was top on my list. Rather it was Sheba, a sweet Siamese kitten who grew to adulthood and birthed a litter of her own kittens. She brought us such joy, but sadly, we had to give her away when we moved from Ohio to Tennessee, since we were moving into a non-pet friendly apartment.
And then there was Teddy. The first year we were in our newly built house, Larry found a Siamese kitten for my birthday by putting an ad in the local newspaper; someone saw the ad and directed him to a breeder near Nashville. When he went to pick up the kitten with three year old Lauren, Larry questioned the gender (it is quite difficult to tell on small kittens), but the breeder assured him that yes, it was indeed a female. We named her "Tessa", and she was the absolute delight of the whole family. One year old Derek would pick her up, upside down, give her a hard squeeze, and sling her into Lauren's little doll stroller and speed around the house, with the kitten hanging on for dear life. We are convinced that the credit for being such a fabulous cat, really goes to her early tutelage at toddler Derek's chubby paws.
As the months went by and she matured, we became more suspicious of the true nature of Tessa's gender. What always threw us off, however, was that she had such pronounced nipples. One evening, our friend, Mark Kessel, was visiting and playing with the cat. He turned to Larry and said, "I know that you went to med school and that you grew up on a farm, but this is a male cat!" And so she was. She became "Teddy" and we quickly had him neutralized before he started spraying the furniture, in the territorial manner of mature, male felines.
I'm sure you have heard the stereotypes of cats vs. dogs. Cats are temperamental and finicky, only wanting your affection and attention on their terms. Dogs are easy to please, always happy to see you, and are nondiscriminatory dumpster divers. Some (certainly not me!) have even made the comparison that cats are like women and dogs resemble men. Teddy had not gotten this memo, and acted more like a dog in feline fur. When the doorbell rang, he was the first one there, pawing on the repairman's pants' leg or conversing loudly with whoever it was, until he was noticed and greeted affectionately. He loved to be held like an infant, over your shoulder. He would wrap his paws around your neck and give you a hug; you have not lived until you have been properly hugged by a purring cat, while he buries his nose in the hair at the nape of your neck. When the kids were young, he was always in the midst of their rambunctious play, no matter how close he came to being jumped on. He truly lived all nine of his lives to the fullest. How I loved that cat; he's been gone five years already, but I still get a lump in my throat thinking about him. He died at the ripe old age of fourteen.
Meanwhile, Larry and the kiddos were pining for a puppy. They wanted a large dog, one that would frolic with them outdoors. My personal pet needs were totally sated by my beloved Siamese. I had a hidden, mental list as long as my arm, of reasons why I would never own a dog. Dogs are destructive: they dig up your freshly planted flowers, they chew on your shoes and the furniture, they slobber and leave hair everywhere, and they poop all over the yard. And they are just so needy: a dog always wants your attention, needs daily walks, demands elaborate arrangements when you go out of town, needs to be trained. Having a puppy is like living with a toddler; they become cute, cuddly, tyrants of your life. I would opine to my family that I would love for them to have a dog, but sadly, we just didn't have a large, fenced in yard for a puppy. A bit disingenuous, I would agree.
And then we moved to a large house with an equally large yard; the canine talks commenced in earnest. I was afraid that Larry would just bring home a puppy one day and I would be stuck. I like to view myself as reasonable, accommodating, and flexible. The dirty little secret is that while I work hard to appear that way, it is very difficult for me to change, when my mind is made up. A dear friend reminded me once, regarding my aversion to owning a dog, "you know that you are being selfish with this issue." Ouch. Could I change, recalibrate my thinking, actually accept a dog into the household, knowing that of course, it would be my primary responsibility? It all sounds trite, but for me, it was no trivial matter.
With dogged determination, I threw myself into canine research. I brought home books from the library on various breeds of dogs, combing the pages to see if there were any possible candidates, ones that I could actually live with. Looking back now, with less critical eyes, I realize that I was hoping to be able to say, after voluminous research ventures, that there truly was no breed of dog that I could open my heart, much less my home, to. And then I read a story about a dog breeder in Australia in the 1970's. A handicapped person, who also had a bad case of allergies, needed an assistance dog; the breeder tailored a hypoallergenic dog by breeding a retriever with a standard poodle. Labradoodles and Goldendoodles have now become all the rage, since they combine the best qualities of two great dog breeds: family friendly, easy to train, athletic, high energy, smart, and non-shedding. Like the grinch, my heart opened just a crack. Maybe this was a dog I wouldn't be too annoyed with.
I developed a plan for this faceless, yet unknown puppy. I would build a spacious kennel in our back yard for THE dog. We would install an underground fence encompassing the yard, the deck, and the garage door entrance into our basement. THE dog would be allowed into the basement to interact with us, but would never set foot in the main part of the house. Of course we would play with THE dog outdoors, where it would live the majority of the time. Yes, I do realize how rigid this sounds, now that I am looking in from the other side of the fence. Here is the kennel that I had built on the edge of our property.
I found a breeder in a small town two hours away, and several months later, I was driving home with a little, white, labradoodle puppy in the back seat. What had I done?! My family was overjoyed. That first night, we put baby Hewitt in a dog crate, in the garage. He cried and cried for his furry family. I could hear the pitiful yelps all the way in my upstairs bedroom. Around 3 am, I crept out to the garage to comfort him; Hewitt and I spent the rest of the night curled up together on the hardwood kitchen floor. Something inside of me had changed. I had moved over to the bark side. His dog crate migrated into the kitchen, so he could be near the family. He was the center, the focus, dominating the family conversation. We tagged teamed with his care, although just as I had feared, he was mainly my responsibility. Somehow that wasn't the sentence that I had assumed it would be.
Teddy took some convincing, but eventually, he and Hewitt became BFFs, and would snuggle up together to nap.
Hewitt is now nearly ten years old and I am over-the-moon crazy about him! He is living proof that a stubborn, middle-aged woman is capable of change. I have unabashedly become a dog lover. I seek out the canines now, and look into their trusting eyes and scratch that golden spot around their ears that makes them moan with delight. I read their body language and fancy that I know what they are thinking. I have read most of Ceasar Mllan's books. I am a changed person; I know some of my friends who knew the old me, are still in shock.
Hewitt was so effective at rewiring my heart, we added a second dog to the house! Dogs are pack animals and love to be with other dogs. So as not to deprive him of that experience, we added baby Wilson, another labradoodle, when Hewitt was two years old.
Despite his cute exterior, Wilson proved to be more of a challenge; he is nervous and hard to train, but once you welcome them into your home, you love them no matter what. The two dogs are a constant source of entertainment for us.
Our boys (as we unashamedly refer to them, in our adult-children, pre-grandchildren, stage of life) provide us with something to dote on and they keep us active. Labradoodles are high energy dogs and need to be walked at least an hour a day. How can you expect a dog to be well behaved and obedient (not that ours are model citizens of those qualities!) if their energy has not been drained? We love to walk them downtown on the weekends, we take them hiking, they swim, and they smile all the while.
Dogs are creatures of habit; they study us and anticipate our every movement. As simplistic as it sounds, it is comforting to have them underfoot. One of my favorite times of the day is first thing in the morning. When the alarm sounds, I slip out of bed, don my robe, and head to the kitchen to make the coffee. As soon as the grinder starts working on the coffee beans, Hewitt and Wilson sleepily appear in the kitchen, stretching in that familiar downward dog position. We head out the long driveway in the silent darkness so that I can retrieve the paper, and they can do their business of sniffing and peeing and checking. Back indoors, we all trudge upstairs, with me balancing two cups of coffee, two bowls of dog food, and the newspaper. They eat their food while Larry and I savor that first coffee and scan the paper. This routine has been repeated hundreds of times at our home, but it never fails to warm my heart. Fifteen years ago, I would have laughed in your face if you would have describe this scene to me. I understand if you think we are eccentric and unbalanced for how we love our dogs; I once would have had the same reaction. I am living proof that a change of heart is possible. And on a side note, Hewitt spent half an hour once in the dog kennel, but I apologized to him afterward.
