Recently in Puppy Love Category

(I should actually create a category called Extreme Puppy Love for this one. But before you roll your eyes and hiss at me, cat lovers; please retract those claws, because for once this is not about MY adoration for dogs. In fact, I have nothing on the person I’m about to tell you about.)

A distant relative of mine is a rocket scientist. Apart from the obvious brilliance his occupation requires, he also has a kind and gentle soul and a fondness for dogs.

His love for creatures of the canine persuasion is indiscriminate. He is not bogged down by technicalities such as pedigree or size. I found this out for myself a few years ago when he gave me a lift back from the town of By George! to Stellenbosch. His two dogs accompanied us on the trip, because the three of them had been on holiday together.

I remember the one dog in particular. His name was Jakkals (which is Afrikaans for ‘fox’), but Jakkals the dog did not resemble the sly and pointy-nosed species he was named after. Not even remotely. Maybe his name was ironic, or perhaps he had looked much different when he was a puppy. Doubtful, though. Like me, I suspect that Jakkals was also the runt of the litter, because the mature Jakkals that I got to meet had a perfectly rotund body that was precariously balancing on four disproportionately skinny legs. (Kind of like me! Except for the four  skinny legs part... I don't even have ONE skinny leg!)

Upon first glance, his lineage became perfectly clear: Jakkals was a purebred pavement special. It didn’t matter though, because one look into that odd-looking little mutt’s sweet brown eyes and my heart was stolen.

Throughout the four hour drive (which actually took longer due to bad weather), I reached back frequently and petted him and the other dog. When they finally dropped me off at my sister’s that night, I said my goodbyes, thanked him for the lift and went on my way.

A few weeks ago I ran into that very same relative at the grocery store. We had not seen each other in more than a year. “How are you? And how are the doggies?”

His expression immediately changed. “Haven’t you heard? They’ve both died.”

I felt so horrible for him. Those dogs were like children to him! I reached out and squeezed his arm. “I’m SO sorry to hear that!”

“Yes, thanks,” he said. “They were both old, but still… I miss them terribly. Especially Jakkals.”

Suddenly he smiled a bit. “But you know, after Jakkals died, I had to go overseas for a satellite launch.”

Aww, I thought to myself. So the poor, grieving man immediately and bravely plunged back into his work. “Good for you!” I said.

“Yes, I had saved some of his fur and took it along. And while putting the finishing touches on the satellite before the launch, I attached it to the satellite.”

"Wait... you attached the FUR?" I wasn't sure that I had heard him correctly.

He nodded, squinted up at the Stellenbosch sky and solemnly said: “So now, twice every day, a little piece of Jakkals orbits by here, looking down on us!”

I was immediately so overcome… with the giggles. In my mind's eye, I saw the satellite, completely covered in dog fur. Luckily I managed to scrounge together enough decency and self-control to at least hold my laughter until I was in my car.

 Bow-WOW! Jakkals had gone from being an underdog in life, to being a posthumous astrodog! I always knew that the pup had it in (or shall we rather say on?) him to end up among the stars…

And I don’t think too many other dog owners will ever be able to match – let alone top – such a send-off for their dogs!

 

I was outside, standing on a chair and fiddling with my satellite radio's antenna, when my new neighbour rounded the corner.

"Biscuit! Biiiscuuuuiiiit!" He called. When he saw me he stopped. "Hey there! Have you seen Biscuit?"

Since this was shortly after the Great Arachnid Slaying of 2009, I was still a tad jumpy. I warily looked at him. "What exactly IS this Biscuit you are looking for?" I stood on my toes, already imagining and dreading his answer. A venomous snake? A non-poisonous snake? (I don't care. My terror doesn't know the difference.) A rat? A mouse? Or by any hopeful yet unlikely chance... a Biscuit as in Sea Biscuit? (Not that I'm all that comfortable around horses either, mind. There was that frightening experience with that volatile little Shetland pony when I was about ten years old which had left me traumatised for life. No, I'm not going to talk about it. Let's just say that, just because it is small, it doesn't possess any less horse power than regular-sized horses! Nasty little bugger...)

I knew it wasn't a dog, because NO dog gets past me without being petted and belly rubbed to within an inch of its life. And at the time, he had already lived here long enough that I would have noticed/heard a dog or a cat.

He ignored me.

"BIIIIIISCUUUUU... Oh, THERE you are!" I whirled around to look in the same direction of the garden that he was walking towards, just in time to see a huge light brown blur out of the corner of my eye. I froze. "Oh, hell..." I thought. "It's one of those mutant-sized cane rats... the same ones they put on leashes and use in Angola to sniff out landmines!"

Imagine my absolute relief when the blur morphed into a harmless, hopping bunny! A BUNNY!

"Oh, CUTE man!" I said (perhaps a tad too loudly and enthusiastically) and jumped off the chair.

He scooped up the utterly charming Biscuit and brought him over to me. "Yes, he can even do tricks. Here, let me show you." He put Biscuit down at my feet and snapped his fingers, while I looked on with great skepticism. "Circle, Biscuit! Circle!"

Apart from twitching one of his long ears and his trembling whiskers, Biscuit remained utterly motionless. "Oh, Biscuit! Come ON!" For a dude with big ears, Biscuit sure did not listen! My neighbour looked at me. "I PROMISE you he can do tricks. But..." his face fell. "Usually he only listens to my ex-girlfriend."

I couldn't help myself. I burst out laughing. "Ooooh, ouch! Shame! That's gotta hurt!"

He also laughed, but not QUITE as heartily as me. "Yeah. He really really loves her. And he's possessive! When she's holding him and anyone dares to come near her, he actually tries to nip them!"

I knelt down and petted Biscuit. "Oh, you good boy, you!" I said and wished I had a large carrot to give him for displaying such loyalty and devotion towards the ex-girlfriend.

A few weeks later, I saw a gorgeous girl with long, blonde hair outside. She was sitting in our shared courtyard, a content Biscuit cradled in her arms. Seriously, that bunny was SWOONING. "You must be the ex-girlfriend!" I said, and promptly told her the story. Turns out that they now have joint custody, because Biscuit was pining for her too much. (I strongly suspect that he was not the only one, though! And what better ploy to keep on seeing her than to get the bunny involved... sneaky guy!)

Oh, and Biscuit can indeed do tricks. She showed me!  And boy, did that bunny ever show off...

 

It's been about an hour since I've read this, and I'm still sobbing.

"I believe I know exactly when Harry became an old dog. He was about 9 years old. It happened at 10:15 on the evening of June 21, 2001, the day my family moved from the suburbs to the city. The move took longer than we'd anticipated. Inexcusably, Harry had been left alone in the vacated house -- eerie, echoing, empty of furniture and of all belongings except Harry and his bed-- for eight hours. When I arrived to pick him up, he was beyond frantic.

He met me at the door and embraced me around the waist in a way that is not immediately reconcilable with the musculature and skeleton of a dog's front legs. I could not extricate myself from his grasp. We walked out of that house like a slow-dancing couple, and Harry did not let go until I opened the car door.

He wasn't barking at me in reprimand, as he once might have done. He hadn't fouled the house in spite. That night, Harry was simply scared and vulnerable, impossibly sweet and needy and grateful."

Read the rest of Gene Weingarten's breathtakingly eloquent article about his late faithful canine companion Harry here. The story also celebrates the plentiful virtues of old dogs in general. (The Washington Post requires registration. It's free though, and totally worth it.)

Everyone in my life knows that I am utterly besotted with dogs. The larger they are, the better. (I've lost my heart to many Great Danes and Irish Wolfhounds...) I've a particularly soft spot reserved for Labs, though.

But they don't need a pedigree to win my heart. I grew up with mutts (100% pure dogs!), and hopefully I will be lucky enough to one day share my space and life with many, many more dogs.

After all, it's no challenge to love them. There is nothing noble about loving a creature that loves you completely, without condition or judgement. Even though we often don't deserve that love and loyalty.

But there is plenty of nobility about them.

If only the human race could possess an OUNCE of the ability to love like that. Unabashedly. Unconditionally. Without fear of being rejected. Despite being rejected many times over by the object of one's affection.

With all of their enormous, pure hearts.

If only...  

Redsaid's resident web goddess Dee is experiencing some major heartbreak and loss today.

Her fabulous feline companion of the past 14 months died this morning when he was struck by a car in the street outside her apartment.

Now, it's no secret that I am far more partial to dogs than to cats, but I have to tell you, through Dee's hilarious descriptions, photographs and even a video of Chino, even I fell for him. He was one of the few cats who managed to utterly charm me and burrow his way deep into the almost-exclusively-reserved-for-pets-of-the-canine-pursuasion club located in my heart.

I know his human mama Dee adored him, despite the fact that he gave her many sleepless nights. Do yourselves a favour and go and read that post. I nearly raptured an internal organ when I read it out loud to Roommate Kate. Since I read it to her in the middle of the night, causing both of us to howl and laugh like a pair of hyenas, Chino even managed to keep some Stellenbosch residents awake! That's no mean feat for a cat who resided on the other side of the world in Australia and who never in his short life set a paw on South African soil. If that doesn't make a feline famous, I don't know what would! A leading part in a major motion picture? Well, his mom DID film him (as can be seen in that particular post), so...

I know we can never really say that we know exactly what someone else is experiencing, but since I have very recently also lost a dog (something that was so painful to deal with, I couldn't even write about it until about two weeks ago when I e-mailed another friend about it), I can sincerely say that I know her grief is very real and that she needn't feel embarrassed about being heartbroken. How could anyone NOT be after sharing space with such a delightful and spunky creature?

I hate that she is going through it and I really wish that she could have had some more time with 'the best roommate she's ever had'.

Here's to Chino and all the other wonderful fur-balls, large and small, who make our human lives brighter and more complete.

It's been a big week for dogs.

First*, there was the unleashing of Snuppy, the world's first cloned puppy.

Then* Jake, a 4-year old Golden Retriever from San Diego, dog-paddled his way into the record books as the first dog to ever take part (and successfully complete!) in the annual Alcatraz Invitational, during which mostly human swimmers brave the trecherous 1.2 mile crossing from the infamous and now historic island prison of Alcatraz to the San Fransisco shore.

Jake made good time in just under 42 minutes. In fact, by placing 72nd out of 500, he beat out most of the humans.

*Actually, Jake set his record last weekend, before Snuppy was introduced to the world, but I only realized this after I'd already written this whole story (all four paragraphs of it!). And since I'm the world's Laziest Blogger...

I know, I know, I KNOW that I haven't continued the travelogue yet (but come on, have you come to expect anything less from me than this stellar standard of procrastination I've been maintaining since starting this blog?!).

You may have noticed that posting has been a tad lighter than usual (Really? you ask, looking so utterly perplexed that I simply have to believe that you haven't noticed anything different than usual).

This is because the computer has been unplugged so that its private quarters can be painted. Yes, in this house the computer is one of two appliances with its own private quarters. The other is the coffee maker. Its room is one which most other people refer to as "the kitchen." Here, it is simply known as The Coffee Maker's Private Quarters.

So where was I? (I must be the only person in the Universe who loses track of her train of thought while writing.)

Oh, yeah... blogging light due to the paint. (Head also a bit light due to the paint, but that's another story, and a not altogether unpleasant one at that.)

The painter must've known what kind of emotional upheaval the lack of a computer (and therefore, internet connection) would cause the likes of me, a self-diagnosed (even though it isn't even in the Time/Life A-Z Medical Encyclopedia!) CD (Computer Dependent), because he brought me something to try and compensate for the bleak, empty computerless hours that I had to face this past week.

Here's what he brought me.

I interrupt your regular holiday programming to bring you the following:

By now you've all probably heard about this silly woman in Texas who shelled out $50,000 to have her dearly departed cat cloned.

Yes, indeed: when Nick Senior's nine lives expired after 17 years, his heart-broken human mama simply couldn't let go. So instead of donating the $50,000 to an animal shelter in Nick's name, or adopting another cat in need of a good home, she approached the Genetics Savings and Clone company (please have a moment of silence for that brilliant play on words) with some of Nick's DNA to manufacture another cat in Nick's image.

I may be cute, but I sure did cost an arm and a leg.

Just in time for Christmas, St. Nick delivered the very expensive kitten to the woman two weeks ago. She was ecstatic, saying the cat is identical to Nick in looks and personality.

In a blinding display of originality, she decided to name the kitten... what else? Nick Jr.

Personally, I would've called him... what else? Copy Cat.

I know this is mostly old news already (see why a procrastinator couldn't possibly make a good reporter?), but for the benefit of at least one of my now-officially-down-to-two readers (what's happened to the rest of you? Oh, right. Me. In that case, please continue about your business of ignoring me) who lives abroad in the same planet that I once came from, I've decided that this story bears repeating.

I've never told you guys, but every weekend night after we perform our play, another one act is performed at the same threatre.

Their cast is quite unique, since one of the members has four legs, two ears and a perpetually wagging tail. Yep, it's a dog. But not just any dog! Since the play is about blindness, she is a genuine seeing eye dog.

Her master has kindly loaned her services to the production, and needless to say, that sweet black lab is the star of the show.

It's a highlight of our week to go to the theatre and to see Libby. Her owner, Mike, is extremely nice for allowing us to give her treats and to pet her to our heart's content.

Today is Mike's birthday, so I sent Libby the following e-mail (since his e-mail address is her name):