Dogs EVERYWHERE!!!: Why I Have SEVEN Dogs! Part Three:
All Fuck Breaks Loose
Get caught up:
Aunty Joann, who had a condition that gave her daily headaches and five dogs, committed suicide. Oh yeah. Trigger warning or something. Most of her dogs were locked in the condos. She called them condos, Reginald calls them crates, but they’re cages. Soft language doesn’t change the facts. Neither do trigger warnings. There they stayed for three days until someone was concerned enough to break into her house and find the, I can only imagine, horrific scene.
Authorities took the dogs to the Humane Society and locked them in larger cages for two weeks while Reginald, Moonshadow Cavaliers, and another breeder from whom Aunty Joann got another dog tried to get them out. After two weeks, they got the dogs released and returned to their breeders, which meant Worf came here. Hershey came from Moonshadow. They have over 20 dogs. Hershey is fixed, so she was of no use to their breeding program, and they didn’t have an emotional attachment to her. Aunty Joann referred to us and our combined pack of dogs as “The Fam.” We’ve known Hershey since Aunty Joann got her. Our house was her first stop after she picked her up. Hershey is also three of our dogs’ half-sister, Troy, Tori, Worf, and Charlie’s aunt even though Charlie’s older, and she’s always lived with Worf. Those factors added up to Hershey coming here.
To add chaos to anarchy, Thing, whom Reginald acquired to sustain her breeding program came of age and into what they call season, which means heat, which means ripe, bloody, and ready to procreate. Troy eventually overcame his loathing long enough to implant five puppies in Thing. When her mentors asked how many Reginald would be keeping from this litter, she replied, “Zero.” Knowing Reginald, I said, “Great. Which one’s named Zero?” Somehow in dog breeding math, six plus Xero makes seven, seven dogs, fuck,fuck,fuck,fuck,fuck. That’s not the end of the story though.
I talked about Jerry in my Santa post. I met him in a Walmart, and we bonded over Cavaliers and the Giants. He was a retired widower who had his wife’s 13-year-old Cavalier who was in heart failure. Apparently, that can last for years. Reginald helped him acquire a retired breeding dog, Izzie, from Moonshadow. He knew his first Cavalier, Trikki Woo, didn’t have much time left, but she was his wife’s dog, and he couldn’t euthanize her. Less than a week after Aunty Joann died, Jerry asked me if I knew about any other female dogs who might be available. He was pushing 80 and didn’t want a puppy.
We gave Hershey a few months to get over her traumatic experience. Jerry came to visit her. She visited Jerry. Eventually, Reginald decided Hershey was ready, and she went to live with Jerry. Do you want a Worf, too? He did not. It was nigh perfect not only because we found a good home for Hershey, but we saw Jerry often since he practically adopted us, which also meant we saw Hershey often. Six, six dogs, hahahahaha!
About a year later, Jerry went in for surgery to have his arteries unclogged. He trusted no one more than us to watch his dogs for the few days he would be in the hospital. Well, there was someone who had been watching Trikki longer than we knew Jerry, but she lived hours away while we were 15 minutes away. During his surgery, Jerry had a stroke. Nine, nine dogs.
Trikki Woo almost immediately refused to eat, which also meant that she didn’t get her medicine that was concealed within her food. Jerry was in no condition to be conscious much less talk about Trikki’s hunger strike. Contrary to what we knew was happening, we force-fed Trikki. We didn’t know the extent of Jerry’s stroke. Was it minor, and he’d be home in a few weeks? Was he going to fuckin’ die? We agreed to do our best to do everything we could to keep Trikki alive until Jerry recovered. She was not happy about it. We were not happy about it.
Reginald had a trip planned to spend a week with her family that just so happened to be at this time. She left me with nine dogs, one of whom I had to force feed while wearing gloves because she was more interested in biting me than her food, Xero wasn’t house-trained yet, and Charlie had an infection and burst stitches from a recent surgery to remove some lumps and fix her.
Why is being spayed or neutered referred to as fixed? “He had these big balls, but we fixed that. He’s all better now.” “She was intact as nature intended, but we fixed that, taught nature a little lesson on how things should be made.” I guess calling them mutilated wouldn’t be sensitive language that conceals the reality.
It was during that week that Trikki collapsed and started breathing heavily. The first dog I ever dog-sat when I was nine died on my watch. The last dog I dog-sat died on my watch. I had a lot of successful dog-sitting experiences in between, so I am not a dog killer or bad at the job. Eight, eight dogs.
When Jerry died one week before being released to finish his recovery at home, his family didn’t want his dogs back. Moonshadow agreed to take Izzie back and let her finish out her life in retirement. So, that’s where we are now. Seven, seven dogs, hahahahaha!
To be concluded…
