The Black Hole

Wow - time flies when you're so wrapped up in other things, you barely remember to pay the bills.

As you can see by my profile photo, I managed to talk my husband into letting me get another dog. We were interested in adopting the dog pictured on the previous post, but by the time we got to the Humane Society, that particular dog had already had numerous applications submitted for her. We were getting ready to leave when a little black head popped up over the gate separating the entrance area from the main body of the shelter. The folks at the shelter had discovered a litter of five puppies on the side of the road, and after rescuing them and having them seen by a vet, were offering them for adoption. The little head belonged to the only male of a litter of what they claimed were lab mix puppies, and they'd named him Rusty. (Odd, because he's not rusty anywhere.) The little black head belonged to an odd-looking body - he had a white patch on his chest and belly, one entire leg that was blue merle, and each remaining paw was gray; he also had a kind of gray "goatee". He had one ear that stuck straight up, and the other tilted forward. He had a quizzical, sober, and inquiring expression, and no puppy playfulness at all. He was very somber for a three-month-old puppy. After asking about him, we learned that he was running loose in the shelter that morning because he was scheduled to be neutered, and had just had his first bath in preparation, and they wanted to keep him inside so he wouldn't get cold. We fell in love at first sight.

All's well that ended well, and we brought him home. I had him housetrained in a remarkable three days, and that, combined with his serious demeanor, intelligent gaze, and tendency to think everything over very carefully before acting on anything, led me to name him Buddha. He's very "zen", for a puppy.

(We think he's more Border Collie than Labrador Retriever - I've since found out that there are short-coated Border Collies, and that they can be just about any combination of colors.)

I fell down the puppy hole and have just started peeping about again, looking at the world to see what's happened in my absence.

After Buddha had been with us for about six weeks, our elderly Miniature Schnauzer, Muffie, began having a series of small strokes. The vet said that given her extreme age (20 years old) about all we could do was give her aspirin to thin her blood. This did a remarkably good job, but only for about a week. After that, she went progressively downhill. Finally, we submitted to the inevitable and had her euthanized; we were tired of watching her suffer.

It really sucks to have two companions who had been with you for years die within three months of each other. (Oh, and one more thing - our vet now thinks our beloved Polly's kidney failure was caused by what we now know was tainted canned dog food.)

About two weeks after that, we adopted another puppy from a different shelter to serve as a companion for our little guy. We chose a puppy that we were told was a cross between a Boxer and a Mastiff. (She looked like a pit bull to me, but the folks at the shelter said they knew about this stuff, and they could tell she was a Boxer/Mastiff.) She was a remarkably homely girl of a dark brown brindle color; we named her Sadie (my husband picked the name this time.) The two puppies spent all their time playing and generally having a marvelous time, but problems cropped up from the very first day. The first time I tried to feed them both at the same time (each had a separate bowl) Sadie would rush Buddha and snarl and snap at him until he moved away. If he then tried to go to her bowl (which was only logical - I didn't call him Buddha for nothing!) she'd rush back and snap at him there, too. She ended up guarding both bowls and wouldn't let him eat. She bullied him unmercifully. He doesn't have a mean bone in his little body, so he just let her do it. (The only time he ever growled at her was if she came to me for a pat - he didn't like me petting anyone but him.) She soon translated this behavior into their toys, bones, even the two beds they slept in. She was so dominant-aggressive I was afraid to leave them alone together. One morning when I had to go to the doctor, my husband went to the bathroom briefly. While in there, he heard the sound of dogs fighting. When he went back out into the living room, he found Buddha on the floor, and Sadie was pinning him down by the throat. Sadly, we ended up taking Sadie back to the shelter. We found out later that she wasn't a Boxer/Mastiff mix at all - she was a pit bull.

She could be a pain in the butt, but boy! Was she a little lover when she wanted to be! I miss her.