Here’s your seasonal eerie tale from my own life

[baranduyn]

“I may be out of this now.” Baranduyn, 12/16/2013 “Lohnen nicht, ohne dich; four months gone”

Or not.

In an earlier blog post I explained that my husband found a dog and brought it home under the happy delusion the dog was probably a Labrador Retriever mix. I named him Levon.

I didn’t explain that my husband brought Levon home just three days after the first anniversary of the deaths of Hunter and Gabriel. I didn’t explain that I didn’t want another dog. I wasn’t ready. I forgot that for some events there’s no such thing as ready.

I took one look at Levon and said “I see a broken hip in my future.” Not one of the dogs I’ve had in my life have been leash-friendly. I am within two years of being sixty years old. Levon was maybe not the perfect dog for us.

And while I still believe he is at least part Great Dane the truth is I suspect neither of his parents were any kind of purebred dog. I know he has some hunting dog in him now because he points and flushes birds at every opportunity. I suspect he’s at least a quarter pit bull which brings its own problems.

I’m not a member of the pit bull=evil club. Some owners on the other hand are dwelling in one of Dante’s rings full time and don’t know it. That stupid ‘my dog is so bad assed’ mentality has caused much suffering and pain, mostly to the dogs. I hate those people and I don’t care who knows it.

I also know that Levon’s size and his possible pit bull ancestry makes him damn attractive to vacuum-brained troglodytes who might think “She doesn’t know what to do with that dog but I do.”

You. Know. Jack.

Levon is a couch potato. He likes being right up next to people at all times. He does not like being outside unless I’m on the other end of the lead. Oh and by the way…this is a mindblower here…he really likes cats and not as a toy or a tasty snack.

Much unlike a dog that owned me many years ago, a giant of a white GSD named Kasey. Like so many he was passed onto me by people who couldn’t keep him. Kasey was a compulsive barker and they’d been cited and ticketed so many times for his compulsive barking they knew he would likely be taken away and euthanized. So he wound up with me.

Kasey had so many quirks I could spend days detailing them and I’d still leave a few out purely by accident. Because he wasn’t really dog-like, to my mind, I asked a hard question of my vet who brought in boss vet for a consultation. Their opinion was that minimally Kasey was at the very least one-quarter wolf, which type of wolf they didn’t know. Maybe more. I doubt his original owners knew this either. So there was the face-grabbing ritual and on more than one full moon night I’d give up and go outside and howl along with him. I highly recommend howling at the moon as a pastime, if you’ve got the right dog to help you out. It’s so cathartic.

In the time when Diego was the only dog in the house I often found myself telling my husband stories of dogs I had been owned by. Kasey has more than his share. This will matter in a little bit so keep it in mind.

Then came Levon who was an out-and-out stray. The thing with strays is that you never know certain facts. We didn’t know how old he was. We didn’t know what breeds went into him to produce that sleek gold coat, those giant round paws or his light brown eyes. I wonder if he’s got some Carolina Dog in him. I wonder if he’s got some Vizsla in him. I just don’t know and there’s no one to tell me.

My husband diligently put up ‘found dog’ posters around where he was found and I registered him as found with Harnett County and Wake County since if I throw a ball really hard to the north the ball will land in Wake County. Nothing.

So he was our dog, we thought. We thought so more because one day when I was at yet another dentist’s appointment my husband brought Levon along for company. We stopped at a vet’s office on the way home to see if Levon was microchipped. He is. The tech ran the number and told us the registration of the number had been pulled. He might have been reported as having died. When I was outside walking him and crying because people make me so mad the tech told my husband that a lot of stray dogs are microchipped and the registrations are cancelled just before they’re dumped.

“He’s your dog now,” she said.

We were going to have him neutered. There are many good reasons to neuter a dog. Thousands of dogs are euthanized every week because they have no homes. I lost one dog to testicular cancer. It might curb roaming, which Levon doesn’t do anyway since he can’t take the sofas with him. It does help with marking; he wasn’t housebroken when he arrived and he’s now well on his way. Instead of sixty-five pees in different places outside he locks up and lets it all go at once.

Another reason bluntly is that as a neutered dog he is far less attractive to thieves. Neutered dogs do not make good fighting dogs and if you think that nobody would steal a dog for fighting purposes you’d better do some reading, booboo. He can’t be bred to make more fighting dogs. Many people think a neutered dog is useless as a guard dog or watchdog. Fine by me; think that to your heart’s content if it keeps my dog from a life of misery at your wretched hands.

But before he was neutered my husband got a call from someone who saw a poster with a picture of Levon and thought he was her dog. My husband explained that Levon was unaltered. Balls intact. Her dog was neutered but she still thought he was her dog and now I was losing it.

Because I trust no one. I don’t know her. Is she wracked by grief because her beloved dog is gone to such an extent that she needs to look at every dog who even vaguely resembles hers? I can understand that. We also have a lot of backyard breeders around here and I was ready to go to war if I suspected that was the real goal.

No he wasn’t her dog. She just needed to see this for herself. When I brought him to the door (yes there was an epic fight later between me and my husband while I tried to explain the basic stupidity involved in giving people you don’t even know your damn address) her husband said instantly “That’s not him.” I turned him around so she could see his testicles and I assured her I did not superglue a pair on for her benefit.

Then Levon was neutered. He tolerated the surgery well. He recovered quickly. He didn’t even rip the incision open despite the Cone of Shame unlike my Hunter who had to have his incision reclosed TWICE.

And then my husband decided to have Levon’s existing microchip transferred to us. Which is when we found his previous owners.

The tech at the vet’s office either didn’t do the scan properly or gave the wrong number over the phone or maybe decided if the big boy was wandering around unattended and skinny as a rail they didn’t need to have him back anyway. You can’t imagine how skinny that dog was. Emaciated, if I may say. If he’d had a spinal problem you wouldn’t need x-rays. I could not only count every vertebra, I could see the discs in some areas.

Now phone calls commenced between my husband and the microchip company and from there between him and Former Owner. Former Owner sent him some pictures and I will ever be amused by the one of him sprawled out on their sofa. Then I blinked because there was a cat lying on top of Levon.

I knew he was good with cats. I have three, none of them kittens. Charlie, my oldest cat, was terrifically attached to my Gabriel. Charlie kept coming out into the main house and looking at Levon and every time Levon would lie down, curl around and avert his eyes. Levon knows what to do with cats. Don’t chase, don’t bark, don’t stare, just wait. This is why even as I type the big boy is up on my bed with me, Diego and Callista. Her nose is about five inches from his and from time to time either he will gently extend one giant paw and touch her or she’ll extend her own fluffy white mitten and touch him.

I waited for Former Owner to demand her dog be returned. She didn’t. She told my husband she just wanted to see him, to see if he was all right and she’d explain later. So yesterday they met at a park and the explanation followed.

They adopted Levon from a shelter just about a year before my husband brought him home. He was estimated to be four years old then. They loved him. His thing was lying on sofas or beds and being friends with cats. They knew no more about him than we did.

There were a few problems. They couldn’t housebreak him. My husband told them with some pride I’d finally gotten him to poo outside and for the most part this is true. However when I got up today I found a Levon-sized landmine in the dining room so don’t get cocky here, B-girl, don’t get cocky. They looked him over and loved him up as they say here which means petting and hugging and nothing nasty at all, thank you. They were impressed by his general condition and no, they did not ask to take him home. Levon did follow them a bit as they went to their car but when my husband said “Let’s go home” he jumped into ours.

They have another dog and that dog hates Levon and Levon does not love that dog at all. The conflict got so intense that they had to find another place for the big boy. They did but they did not like how he was being cared for. He was awfully skinny. He was tied out all the time. In other words he’d fallen into the hands of a jackass who understood dogs better than anyone and actually knows nothing at all. I’m glad I don’t know who that person is because my need to unleash a full-on ass-whippin’ with a length of maple is intense.

That person told them Levon slipped the leash. Nonsense. He was found with only a light, reflective flea collar around his neck. The people at the store where he was found assured us he was dumped there.

So Levon came home again. He slurped water, did his ecstasy dance, squashed Diego with one surprisingly gentle paw when Diego got out of control, as he does and we all settled in. The registration of the chip is being transferred to us and if anyone thinks they’re going to claim this dog now they had better be prepared to get beaten half to death by me. That dog is now well-shut of jerks who know nothing while insisting they know everything. I don’t know why they don’t all join our General Assembly, where we keep the really stupid people hereabouts.

He does not and cannot replace the dogs I lost last year. I hold them so close in my heart. I still miss my boys. Diego and Levon are not natural smiling dogs and I miss that like crazy. I still wouldn’t trade the ones I have for any dog unless I’m mopping up the floor again. Almost house-broken is not the same as house-broken but they’re both miles better than they were.

But I promised you an eerie tale, didn’t I? I could point out that I believe the pets in my life were meant to come to me. I could mention that I sometimes see unique behaviors in the pets here and now that I saw in pets now long gone.

No matter; let me give you the twist ending.

Before he was called Levon by me the dog’s name was Kasey.