We're Home/Thank You/Figuring Things Out - part 4

(Carolyn's Early doesn't know he's missing a hind leg. He's a whippet.)

Swede William got in the van on Tuesday and we headed for Atlanta. Sort of. Sam I Am was not happy at being left home, and I sure wasn't happy about leaving him; he figured if ever there was a human in need of his special gifts, I was it. I worried that William would freak being the only canine occupant of the Warburton Whippet Wagon.

I should not have worried. Swede William was a s.t.a.r. No, he was a S.T.A.R. And the trip was longer than the seven hours it should have been. I drove the 2.5 hours to Nashville, and headed east on route 40, like I always do. Kind, dear friends kept me company on the phone, talking about everything and nothing. They talked, I croaked. I had done some serious harm to my vocal chords.

And then Heather called from Paducah.

"How's the trip going?" she asked.

"Great," I croaked. "I'm almost to Knoxville already."

[pause] "... Knoxville?"

As soon as she said it, I knew.

"Oh NOOOOOO," I groaned. "Oh, Heather, I'm on the whole wrong road, aren't I? I'm on I-40 and I should be on I-24. I'm heading home to Maryland instead of down to Atlanta."

Thank goodness she had called. I had gone about 150 miles out of my way. I got off, and studied my atlas and found a perfectly nice route south to reconnect me with I-24. It was snowing. Bill called. I told him what had happened, but tried to put a good spin on it. "Great blog material. And the sun has come out. It's a beautiful drive."

Susan called. I explained my navigational error which would significantly delay my arrival. I would miss seeing her and Early, to my bitter disappointment. She made my heart sing. She and Early had bonded magically. Jenna, her Queen-Whippet-Who-Never-Let-Another-Lowly-Dog-Touch-Her-Person was curling up with her head draped over Early's middle and sharing the hotel bed happily. Early seemed to know that Susan was his person. "If my friend held him for a minute and I went somewhere, his eyes never left me. Right away! It was amazing. I adore him. I feel like he's been a part of my life forever. It's a perfect fit, Patience!"

(Susan and Early at the hotel in Atlanta)

Ah, now these were welcome happy tears.

Swede William had ridden the whole way, including the extra hours in lost land, without a squeak. He also hadn't closed his eyes. He had been lying down, either flat on his side, or sphinx-like, but every time I snuck a glance, his eyes were open. Strange doings, this business of being the only whippet in the whippet wagon. But he wagged and danced at the potty stops, and happily jumped back in the number one crate, right behind the driver's seat. And he was so polite. He never even mentioned the duh detour we had taken.

Bill called when we were only about ten minutes from the hotel. "Honey, I hate to even mention this... Um... There are some clothes hanging on the bedroom door. Did you forget... ?"

"Oh my GAWD..." I croaked. Those were all my good clothes. My show outfit for showing William. A decent outfit for the Board meeting. A suit to wear to the hospital. I felt like turning around and going home. Seriously.

When we first arrived at the National I thought, "This was a big mistake." Everyone was missing Carolyn, and each kind expression from friends who understood, who knew about Giacomino, was just the spark to get a bonfire of screams burning in my throat. Couldn't you just see me walking my beige whippet through the Atlanta Hilton, with my eyes bugging out all mystified, and instead of saying hi how have you been, man your puppy is beautiful, opening my mouth and screaming AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA like the shower scene in Psycho??? I kept my mouth SHUT and nodded silent hellos. The booths - Carolyn and I had set up next to each other every year since 1997. It was coming a big whopper of a scream.... Not cool, Patience. Not cool! I went back outside and walked William around the grounds.

It all worked out. I managed not to scream, not once. And surrounded by dog people, dogs, friends, knowing that Early was doing so well, and comforted by Swede William who was just being SUCH a good boy, and staying in a room with the most generous kind people in the WORLD, the screams went away. For good.

I left Atlanta and pointed the Whippet Wagon with one little saintly beige whippet toward Toledo.

hug your hounds and your sisters

We're Home/Thank You/Figuring Things Out - part 2

Carolyn's will offered no surprises. She had left the dogs to her three friends, and each of the three of us had numerous concurring independent conversations with her about her wishes. [I would encourage all of you, Dear Readers, whether you have one dog or ten, whether you are twenty years old or seventy, to clearly spell out your wishes for your dog(s) in your will. TODAY. It makes one less thing for people who are grieving to deal with, and it is the last gift you can give your dogs.] I told the other two friends of the miracle home that had materialized for Early, and they agreed: it was perfect.

Friend One would be driving from western Pennsylvania to the National in Atlanta on Saturday and could take Early along. Susan (Early's angel) would arrive in Atlanta on Sunday. Friend One would leave Atlanta on Tuesday, and I would arrive. Susan and Early would go home on Tuesday. Early would get to meet Susan's other two whippets in the neutral territory of the Atlanta hotel. If for any reason things didn't work, Earl could go back with Friend One or with me. I had then the privilege of calling Susan and telling her all systems were go. We cried. Then I called my dear friend Rhonda, who loved Carolyn, knew Early, and knows Susan. My left ear is still ringing from her squeals of delight. "OH it's PERFECT!!!" she cried. "Susan is PERFECT!!! Oh I'm SOOOO HAPPY!!!! It's PERFECT!!!!"

I went to bed happy that night. I wanted to tell Greg and Carolyn that it was all coming together. That their sweet dogs were all going to be in the right place. That they would be pleased.

On Saturday morning (this is important for later) Comcast email went down. I put a note on my Facebook page that I couldn't get any Comcast email, and I heard from friends from Massachusetts to I don't know where on Facebook that their Comcast email wasn't working either.

A week or so before all of this, I had been out working at a Kennel Club Show and Go (or at some board meeting downtown or something... I can't remember, but I was gone for a couple of hours). Bill was home with the dogs. Giacomino had lost his footing right in front of Bill's eyes and had fallen out in the grass. And he couldn't get up. Poor Bill was beyond distraught. He gently lifted him, but Beans' four legs just didn't work. Bill carried him into the house and covered him up on his bed in the kitchen and sat by him. He knew that when I got home, we would have to make that awful phone call. I walked in, saw Bill's ashen face, and knew something was terribly wrong.

Only Giacomino didn't know, and when he saw me he jumped - okay, wobbled - onto his feet and said, "Hi! You're home!" Bill nearly fainted with relief. My Very Old Dog - who would have been fifteen on April 17th - had spinal stenosis. A narrowing of the spinal column in his neck made his legs numb. With this last fall, things worsened dramatically. He couldn't tell if his front feet were right-side-up or knuckled down. We tried some steroids, which maybe helped a little. Not really. But he was eating and happy, and could still enjoy his walk around the block, albeit with much more help from me.

So, where the plans stood, this year I would only go to the National for the day of the Board and General Membership meetings. Usually I set up a booth to sell my collars and book, enter all the dogs and am gone for nine days. But if I drove Tuesday, did the meetings on Wednesday, and drove home on Thursday, Bill would only have to worry over Beans for two nights. I entered Swede William, whose class would be on Wednesday afternoon, since I would be there anyway. I would meet saintly Friend One in Lexington on the way home to collect Easy and Spice. (It wouldn't have been fair to Bill, or Easy and Spice, to bring them into this house and then have me leave for the National.)

Saturday morning (the same Saturday that my email was down) the phone rang. Or maybe it was Friday night. I didn't recognize the number. The grandmotherly voice on the other end asked in a Midwestern accent if I were Patience. Yes, I am. Then the voice told me that she was sorry, but my sister Martha had undergone emergency surgery for a bowel obstruction last night, only when they opened her up they found massive ovarian cancer everywhere. The tumors were too large and involved to remove, so they had done an iliostomy to relieve the obstruction, left the tumors, and Martha was in the ICU in Toledo.

I can't even remember my end of the conversation. I couldn't talk to Martha because she was still on a ventilator. I needed to get to my friend's house as I was dog sitting. I felt dizzy. It was a beautiful day. I went to Heather's house and walked Emmett and Edgar. Heather lives in a gorgeous old neighborhood, and I'm not sure I had brushed my teeth. I needed a new plan. I couldn't make my brain work. I had just studied in my RN review course that the brain processes emotions and events while you sleep. It prioritizes and compartmentalizes stuff during REM sleep. I would sleep on it and try for a plan Sunday morning.

I was at Heather's from around 11:30 to 4:30, when the next shift of dog sitters arrived. When I got home, though Giacomino had been safe and quiet, he couldn't stand without help. He was tired, because he had worried while I was out. A horrible, burning realization crept into my gut, and bile spilled up into my throat. I had to go to Atlanta and to Toledo. I would be gone for a lot longer than five hours or two days.

I looked at my darling Very Old Dog and felt that my world was closing in on us.

Oh, God. Oh, God, no.

We're home/Thank you/Figuring things out

Oh, friends.

Your amazing outpouring of kindness makes my fragile heart smile.

Thank you for understanding.



I probably shouldn't be blogging. What I write will be neither cheery nor entertaining. Dear Readers, please do feel free to go to the next blog and check back in a little bit. Writing (next to hugging my hounds) is the best way I know to process "stuff" and I need to do that.


Carolyn and Greg had years ago named three friends in their will to take care of placing their dogs, should something happen to both of them. I was one of those three. (Never in our wildest dreams did we think... ) About four weeks before she died, Carolyn asked me to keep her oldest two, eleven year old siblings Easy and Spice. Easy had been a great good buddy of my Fat Charlie's, and Spice was Maria's mirror image. (Actually, Carolyn said - tearfully - that she was worried about where they would go. I said they were welcome to move in here, and she said that would be good.) Easy had surgery to remove his cancerous thyroid last year. It was supposed to give him a good quality ten months to a year. We prayed that Easy would outlive Carolyn. And bless him, he did.

Carolyn had helped us immensely, by letting some of the dogs go "visit" friends in the fall, knowing that they would stay. She couldn't bear to place Easy and Spice, Early, Beauty, or Jack, and trusted us to do that for her.

We had homes for the others, except Early. Early had lost a hind leg in a freak accident (actually after two surgeries to repair a fracture) as a six month old puppy. Carolyn had taken him through all his training and gotten him certified as a Therapy Dog. It was important to her to find a home for him where he could be a whippet and run and play, and where he could work miracles as a therapy dog.

I was on a mission. Not that generous people who would adore him hadn't volunteered to give him a loving home. But I felt a strong, personal burdon. I put out some quiet feelers. And then God, or the Universe, or a higher power, or whatever you believe in took over. Susan had two whippets. Her aged greyhound had just recently died. She had been active in greyhound rescue for years. She had been active in Animal Assisted Therapy and still does visits regularly. She has a perfect whippet yard, and goes to the beach. She trains obedience. She has a happy heart.

Even getting Early to Susan - from western Pennsylvania to southern South Carolina - was a breeze. We would all meet in Atlanta. I would be there just a day for the board and general membership meetings. Another friend (one of the three) was driving down and could bring Early. Susan had entered her whippets in Obedience and would be there. It worked.

We had to wait for the reading of the will, and though I knew that the dogs were getting excellent care, it haunted me to think of them sleeping in the house alone. It haunted me.

And then all hell broke loose.

[But the sun just broke through and I'm going to walk now. I hope I can hang on to Easy and Spice when they see all the Stupid City Squirrels around here.]

hug your hounds