Thankful Thursday: Puppy Love

Outside of my family and a select group of friends who stood by me when I decided to get sober, my longest and healthiest relationship in the world is with my dog, Clementine.  She's an eight year old Rottweiler/Blue Heeler mix, and we've been together for almost seven years.  Today, I am grateful for my beastly baby and all she's taught me.

My darling Clementine, 4 years and 40 lbs ago.

She was found wandering skinny, hungry and alone in a blizzard by a family my father worked with.  They took her in and tried their best to make things work, but she was too much for their 3 bedroom home and family of 5, so they began looking at other options.  When they mentioned the possibility of getting rid of her in front of my father, he thought of me immediately.  Not only have I been an animal lover and rescuer my entire life, my birthday was coming up.   When he called and asked if I would be interested in adopting a dog, he explained that she was "a few months old", but that no one knew her exact age.  He also told me that she'd been found abandoned during the winter, and my heart melted.  I agreed to be her human before meeting her or even seeing a picture.  I had no idea how to be a dog-person (up to that point, I'd always been a cat person), but I liked the idea of having a dog, and her story broke my heart.  I knew she had to be mine.

So, four days after my birthday in April of 2008, I loaded a small kennel and a good friend into the car and set out to pick up my new baby.  When I finally arrived at my destination, I discovered that the puppy I had expected to take home was actually some sort of half dog-half puppy hybrid, not to mention the most gangly creature I'd ever laid eyes on.  She was wearing an old, faded red collar with extra holes punched in it in order to fit her properly, and she cowered when the children of the house wandered by.  She was so desperate to be please, so pitiful and tentative....It was love at first sight.

Playing copilot.  She rides better these days,

I was told that her name was "Kitty", but that she wouldn't answer to it.  I was relieved to hear that, because when I decided to adopt her, I'd already had a name picked out.  I remember scratching her ears and chin and asking if she would be my Clementine.  She may or may not have had any idea what I was talking about, but she smiled and wagged her tail.  I took that as a good sign and officially renamed her.  From that moment on, she was my little baby citrus fruit.

When everyone had said their goodbyes and it was time to load her up, I realized she definitely wouldn't fit into the kennel that I brought along.  I stashed it in the trunk and opened the back door of the car, ready to welcome Clementine to her new life.  She was so unsure as she climbed into the car.  She was hunched low to the ground with her tail between her legs, and she quickly folded herself into a tiny ball on the floor of the back seat.  There was absolutely no amount of coaxing that would get her to move onto the seats themselves, each time I tried to place her there comfortably, she would wince and whine.  Finally, I gave up, deciding that she probably knew what would make her most comfortable.  It was a boring, quiet trip home.  She didn't move a muscle or make a sound, she just laid in a sad little ball on the floor.

The first several weeks were HARD. Clementine was a difficult dog to train and a difficult creature
to contend with.  After all, she was young and full of energy.  She was in that horrible teething stage

that dog's go through when they're growing up.  She'd gone through at least 2 other owners and had no sense of who her master or pack leader was.  She had no sense of stability or home.  She was timid and emotional, as though she'd had an owner who screamed at her rather than training her.  She was also sneaky, stealthy and faster than a speeding bullet.  Within the first month, she managed to destroy over half of my wardrobe and several pieces of furniture.  She also had an incredible knack for escaping.

Despite any and all of her flaws, my love for her only got stronger as time went on.  There's nothing quite like the feeling of coming home after a long day to see your dog's eyes turn into cartoon hearts the moment they lay eyes on you.  The relationship I was in at the time, like most of my relationships up to that point, was built on a foundation of loneliness and an inability to stand on my own.  We were companions (bad ones) and that was pretty much it.  Clementine was my first experience with unconditional love.

That was also when I was in the beginning stages of working through my depression after the mental hospital.  I was going to therapy, I was taking a plethora of different medications (for a plethora of different mental health ailments), I was reading a lot of philosophy....  Basically, I was just trying to learn how to be a happy, healthy person.  That's when Clementine started to change my life.

Grown up, going gray, and too fat for her chair.

It started with getting active.  Having a dog isn't exactly the same as having a cat.  It's not a sedentary activity, especially if the dog is young.  When I realized that Clementine was chewing everything in
my life because she was bored and all hopped up on youth, I started taking her for walks regularly.  Not only did that seem to quench her thirst for  destruction, but I noticed a marked improvement in my mood after our walks.  After a week or two of consistent walks, she began to leave slack in the leash.  She stopped worrying about every passing smell and squirrel and we were able to walk the entirety of the town without me feeling like my arms were going to fall out of their sockets.  She began listening to me at home, she began coming to her name 10 times out of 10.  She started to understand how to sit, how to lay, how to roll over. I'd never been so proud of anything.  Each time she learned or accomplished something new, my heart would swell with pride.  It took her a while, but she finally accepted me as leader of the pack and as a consistent presence in her life.  I may have decided that she was my dog the day I got her, but it took Clementine a lot longer to decide that I was her person.

Eventually, the relationship I was in fell apart.  He had been seeing another woman, and even though I had suspected for some time, I was devastated.  We were living together, so we had to divide the assets and figure out who would take what to their new life.  It wasn't exactly amicable, but he knew better than to fight me on dog custody.  He moved in with his new girlfriend while Clementine and I moved back home with my parents.

It ended up being the ideal situation for the two of us.  She loved my parent's ancient Collie, and it
wasn't long before she started imitating their dog's behavior.  In less than a month, that frail, graying puffball had my dog better trained than I had in almost a year.  My parent's house also provided Clementine with a dead-end street and almost an acre of property to explore.  I was able to trust her outside without a leash or tie-out in almost no time.

Once I was able to trust her without a leash, I started taking her to parks.  We would visit parks and wild-life reserves in every county surrounding us.  I'd let her off the leash and explore while she ran and danced in circles around me, like I was her Sun and she was stuck in my orbit.


She still acts like that when I take her out, though her run has slowed to an enthusiastic trot.

Throughout the last several years, my dog has been a constant source of smiles, happiness, cuddles and companionship.  On my darkest, saddest days, when I feel low and worthless, I just look at her face and take comfort in knowing that I sure did something right with her.
The gangly little dog that I brought home from that trailer park in 2008 has swelled into a 95 lb cuddle monster with a passion for car rides, cuddles and blankets.  She is jealous and bashful and protective and fierce, but she's also gentle and self-conscious.  She helped teach me about what it means to loyal and trusting.  She helped me realize what unconditional love actually looks like.

More than anything, though, Clementine has taught me that you can solve any problem and face any obstacle as long as you have patience, compassion and a sense of humor.  I'm so grateful that I took a chance and adopted this ridiculous, emotive little beast, but I'm far more grateful to be her person.

Marital Relations.

The end of last year--losing so many people we cared about in such a small time frame--was incredibly difficult on my marriage.  Despite the fact that we have been together and present for each other's traumas, it is difficult to understand the individualized experience of another person.  I often find myself trying to push my grief aside, thinking "Well, no matter what happened, you didn't lose your mother...You need to be strong for your husband."  My husband, meanwhile, told me his thought process is similar; he finds himself pushing aside his emotions, thinking "She just lost two people, now she has to hold your hand through this.  You need to be stronger for her."

While this is a form of distraction--an easy way not to focus on the barrage of insane emotions these losses have brought up--it has also made me open my eyes to one of the most difficult conflicts I've ever faced: how to balance my need for support with my marital oath to be a supporter.

In the beginning, when our wounds were still fresh and we were flitting in and out of denial, we encountered a level of tension that we'd never felt in our relationship before.  We were each in a highly emotional, vulnerable state.  We each felt as though we'd been locked in dark rooms, and as we searched for a way out, we became more and more frantic....  Unable to handle our own feelings, we put all of our effort into ignoring them.   My husband withdrew emotionally--thinking that refusing to acknowledge his grief might prevent him from experiencing it--and I threw myself into my every day life with a vigor, trying to wrap myself up in a blanket of routine and monotony.

Suddenly, and for the first time in our relationship, it felt like we were no longer partners.  It was as if he was standing a few feet away from me, but I was unable to reach him because the earth was splitting apart between us.  I felt scared and helpless and powerless as I watched this great divide grow into the grand canyon.

I wish I could say that we recognized the need to communicate immediately, but we were both so wrapped up in our own experience of loss that we were unable to see clearly or think rationally.  Instead of turning to each other for support, we turned inward.

We each found ourselves in a place of righteous indignation; each of us bitter with the other for failing to see our desperation and misery, for being unable to save each other.  Our home, usually filled with laughter, was quiet.  We each clung to our side of the bed at night, making the distance between us palpable.

We went on that way for a couple of the most miserable months of our marriage until one day it all just came out.  I don't remember exactly what spurred the conversation, but all of a sudden we were speaking to each other again and finally saying things that mattered.  Instead of talking about what to make for dinner or what had happened at work or what we'd heard on the news that day, we began talking about what we were feeling--what we were experiencing.

It turned out to be the the same.

We discussed how hurt and lost and unsupported and alone we felt; how scared we were about the growing space between us.  We talked about how we had no idea how to proceed--how to sort through everything and heal.  We were finally able to take off our bandages and be vulnerable with each other.

I wish I could say that every day since that conversation has been perfect, that we've figured out how to balance our personal needs with the needs of the other, but the truth is that this is new territory and we still stumble frequently.  What I've learned, however, is that I need to take my husband's hand when I'm falling.  I've learned that I need to share with him in order to create safe space for him to share.

Yes, the earth is still cracked between us and there still is some distance to overcome, but now that we've built the bridge, it's just a matter of making our way across...

We probably should have went with a more sturdy model, huh?

I'm not sure how long it'll take us, but I do know that we'll get there.  While I wish things could've played out differently---that we had more time with our loved ones, that we'd been able to process each experience individually instead of sifting through a pile of grief--but I can't get hung up on all of that.  I have an obligation to myself and my husband to get through this in a way that is healthy.  I have no choice but to accept life despite the terms and conditions in the fine print.

I've learned that our love is stronger than we ever knew and that honesty, vulnerability, empathy and compassion have a lot to do with that.  I've learned that grief makes you do and feel some fucked up things--things that aren't even close to the scope of reality.  I've also gained a lot of perspective; I've realized that every day my loved ones are breathing is a day to celebrate.  I've realized that in the scope of life and death, not a whole lot really matters....  The important things are the people you are surrounded by--the people who let you lean on them when the world gets dark, the people who love you despite the fact that humans can be pretty unlovable sometimes. Cherish them.  Appreciate them.  Don't take them for granted.  Everything and everyone is finite.