Tag Archives: good boy

Measuring dog years…

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Thanks to Facebook, I know that it has been four years since I brought Jorah home from what was then called the Delaware SPCA. We weren’t off to a particularly auspicious start when he threw up about 75 pounds of partially digested dog food approximately five minutes from the house. Little did I know then, of course, that I was setting out for months on end of living almost exclusively in the kitchen because this six-month-old had absolutely no indoor manners or housebreaking to speak of.

Still, he was a sweet young dog – well intentioned if a bit absent minded. That hasn’t changed much. He’s still very sweet and decidedly absent minded. I’m not sure that he was entirely well served by having spent most of his life observing plague procedures (even before staying home and avoiding people was the cool thing to do). He’ll tolerate them once they’re inside the house and deemed not a threat, but he’s not especially well socialized with people or other dogs.

Our boy does, however, have a soft spot for cats. Hershel was his best friend and he’s still trying to devise a way to show Anya and Cordelia that he’s not 70 pounds of slobbering mess hell bent on running them down. They’re slowly figuring it out. Occasionally, Anya will even give him a few head butts when she thinks no one is looking. I’m optimistic those relationships will flourish in time.

In most other ways, Jorah is a complete reflection on my philosophy of dog raising… He barks at every unexpected noise and anything moving down the street. I tell him to stop. He barks some more. Truthfully, the only strictly enforced rules are 1) The bathroom, for canine members of the household, is always outside and 2) The living room furniture is out of bounds. Beyond that, he’s welcome to the run of the place. He loves napping on my bed through the day, but has never made an effort to sleep there at night. I can only assume my sheet-twisting and flailing around disturb his peaceful sleep.

I thought for a long time that I would always be a two dog household. Maybe I am, but I’m in no rush to find that second one just now. After a spring spent focused on our misadventures in feline veterinary medicine, I’m happy enough enjoying things exactly as they are at the moment.

A final gift…

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For most of last week I wasn’t fit for service. Sure, I managed to feed and bathe myself and tend to the life, health, and safety requirements for Maggie, Hershel, and George, but otherwise I was lost in the tall grass. If I had needed to submit a readiness report, it would have read “not mission capable.” Anything that wasn’t essential just got left on the side of the road.

I don’t handle grief well. I don’t suppose most people do. My approach is almost universally to put my head down and grind through whatever the situation is in low gear. I doubt that my psychologist friends would call it a particularly healthy coping strategy, but it’s what I do. Drawing inward, circling the wagons, defending the keep – call it what you will, but history tells me that it’s what works to get me through to the other side of any individual crisis of the moment. 

Consequently to all that, most of the administrative minutia of life stayed on the wayside until I was better able to get and keep my head “in the game” as it were. That means this week I’m just now starting to pick back up with the business of keeping the household running smoothly – groceries, laundry, and cleaning. It was also time to check in on the administrator’s panel for the blog and pay some fees, and tend to the minor details that keep my small part of the internet up and running.

It was in checking the back office side of the blog that I discovered one last gift that Winston gave me. Without me knowing it, my tribute post to a good and faithful dog rocketed into first place as the single most viewed post in the nine year history of this blog. In fact it didn’t quite double the previous “most viewed” record, but it came awfully close. It turns out the internet isn’t always the dumpster fire we make it out to be. Every now and then its collective users can find a way to leave even the most jaded among us more than a little bit surprised with their generous spirit and kind support.

Winston raised the bar on me while I wasn’t paying attention. If I never write another thing to exceed that mark, I’ll be more than happy with the result.