WARNING: Do Not Read if Your Pet is Healthy
Jozy Girl Kitchens
My dog died. My husband and I can’t get off the ground. This is embarrassing to admit but I think if my living-far-away uncle died I would not feel as grief stricken. If you are already worried this could happen to you, stop reading! That’s a BBLB mandate. When my Jozy was healthy, frisky, and a little naughty, I couldn’t read pet obituaries on Facebook. And now, I’m writing one.
This is the third dog death in our family. All from late aging issues. My Jozy was approaching 100, factoring in dog years. Our first dog, Casey, a puppy-mill Bichon Frise, was blind, frail, and kept falling into our pool (usually in the early am hours). Finally, when my husband had to perform a rescue mission by jumping into the pool at 3:00am on a cold January morning, I said, “that’s it.” We wouldn’t have even known Casey had toppled into the pool were it not for Chloe (our two-year-old Bichon Frise) who kept running in and out of the doggie door screaming “Mom, Dad! Lassie fell into the well!”
I’m not going to take up too much blog real estate by describing Chloe’s death except to say she was universally disliked. She was a rescue dog with “issues” we were told. She was a biter. Chloe bit our friends; she bit our family members (she trapped my stepsister, probably the nicest person I know, in our bathroom one New Year’s Day as the rest of us were outside playing corn hole); she bit a trial lawyer! Who was really upset!!! But we loved her. Should people come to visit, she was sequestered upstairs in the master bedroom to avoid unnecessary trips to the ER. But she was ours to the bitter end (and some friends and family were pretty bitter alright.)
But Jozy. We bought Jozy to compensate for Chloe’s anger issues. Jozy was as sleek and beautiful as a runway model. My son insisted her name include the Z because it reflected her righteously high cool quotient as a black female. Jozy’s job as chief of security was using her deep, husky voice to scare away possible intruders. A squirrel passing gas three streets away would elicit a good fifteen minutes of barking. Of course, if actual human strangers lurked in our yard nary a yip was to be heard.
Jozy and her sister Chloe
We decided not to get a back-up dog this time. We wanted to give our queen her due. She deserved her space to grow old. After all, my husband and I could relate to her slower pace, arthritic hips, and desire to be in the comfort and peace of her own home. She was our pandemic pal. We were a threesome who spent a lot of quality time together. Her whole focus was on us. She recognized the sound of my bra drawer opening which invariably meant I was leaving the house and abandoning her. We kind of had to move from our former home because she would go bat shit each time we ventured into our backyard swimming pool. Jozy recognized the sound of my bathing suit drawer, and she would go crazy trying to jump into the pool to rescue us. It was pretty annoying.
How many people can you say recognize those intimate details about you? As attentive as my wonderful husband is, he is not as tuned in as she was to my patterns. That’s what pets do. Their primary job is to focus on their owners. So, what do we do when that focus is gone? When the doorway to the laundry room doesn’t have eaten and spit out kibble underfoot? How do I get to the bathroom in the middle of the night when she isn’t blocking the doorway? What do I do in the morning when I no longer have to feed and walk her?
My arms feel empty, kind of in the same way we felt when kids and grandchildren no longer needed nurturing and snuggling. I suspect that’s why many of us get those pets. To fill a nurturing void. I remember when my kids were young and someone said, “Why don’t you get your family a dog?” “I have pets,” I replied. “They’re called kids.
I admit to being a little blue this past month. But I had a thought tonight. As women, do we seek out nurturing others rather than tending to our own stuff? Pets, kids, friends, lovers, they require a lot of our focus and attention. It feels good too. But, what if, when these voids occur, we turn inward and imagine what our own selves might need. Just a thought…hope it lasts.
Next up….I can’t stand it. A puppy is in our future.
Jozy as a puppy with her best friend Rusty