Sunday is National Pet Day. If there were a parade for the event, Tess and I could make a fair claim to be grand marshals.
Since we met 10 ½ years ago, we have had 13 pets – 11 dogs and two cats – between us, although not all at the same time. Still, there are circuses with fewer animals than we have had.
When I first met Tess, we were the pet version of The Brady Bunch. I had my dachshund, Dooley, and my tabby cat, Tiger. Tess had a husky named Maxine (Max, for short), a boxer-mix named Paddy (who, with Dooley, would have a relationship like something out of Nicholas Sparks novel), a shih tzu named Molly (so old that her age could only be determined by carbon dating), and a maltese named Vera, a fading drama queen (the dog equivalent of Blanche DuBois).
Max was the first to go, literally. He kept escaping from Tess’s fenced yard. No amount of added fortifications – not even electric fencing – could contain her. About twice a week, Tess would get a call from someone informing her that they had Max in their custody without Tess having known she had slipped away. Her favorite destination was the Walmart about two miles away. She would wander through the sliding doors when they opened and peruse the fruit/vegetable department until being detained. Finally, one of her captors drove her home, mentioning that he had a big farm with plenty of room to roam and wondered if he could take Max as his own. It made sense. So long, Max.
The next to go was Tiger, who just wandered off one day and never returned, perhaps seeking a dog-free environment. I can hardly blame him.
By the time we bought a home in Columbus in spring of 2013, the inventory included Vera, Molly, Paddy and Dooley. Nina, a chihuahua that had belonged to Tess’s daughter, Audrey, arrived that Christmas, having been an ill fit for Audrey’s new home in San Francisco. Nina is a small-town dog. Crowds make her nervous. Aptly-named Mellow arrived next. Baloo the Great Dane was a senior rescue who lived out his last months in our care, bringing the inventory to six.
Poor old Molly finally passed a couple of years later, no doubt eager to be reunited with the Mastodons of her youth.
Tess had wanted another Great Dane since Baloo passed and had a cousin who was a breeder. So Great Dane puppy and soon-to-be dairy cow-sized Jolene arrived to fill Molly’s spot in the lineup. Last summer, sweet old Paddy passed away. Dooley, heart-broken, passed within a few months. We were not surprised.
Since Nina and Vera are strictly inside dogs, the departure of Paddy and Dolley left Jolene without an outdoor playmate. About three months ago, we brought home a lab we named Jasper to remedy that. Jolene and Jasper are now as bonded as Paddy and Dooley had been.
Of all the dogs I’d had and lost going back to childhood, I miss Dooley the most. I mentioned this to Tess about a week ago.
Tess had been out of town for business all week. Friday, she called to tell me she was on her way home and had a surprise for me.
She arrived with a seven-week-old English Bulldog puppy. I named him Fred in honor of my late brother, who often cared for his daughter’s bulldog, Smoot, and treated that dog like royalty on those occasions.
Fred is fearless. When Jolene and Jasper (a combined 225 pounds) are rough-housing, 13-pound Fred hurls his little wrinkled body clumsily into the middle of the action and is often sent tumbling across the yard, head over paws. He just shakes his head to clear the cobwebs and plunges right back into the melee.
Fred’s memoir at this point would be entitled, “Eat, Fight and Sleep.”
These days, Vera looks more like Norma Desmond than Blanche Dubois. Nina’s body is still a chocolate brown, but her face is white with snowy age. When they pass, it’s likely we’ll not resupply. We are at the age where some math is required to estimate whether or not we’ll outlive the next pet. We figure the current supply will take us into our mid-70s.
Still, it’s hard to imagine a life without pets. It’s difficult to articulate what they mean other than to say they occupy some furry void in the hearts of folks like us. Granted, six pets may seem a bit obsessive.
A new survey that came out to promote National Pet Day shows that 72% of American households have a pet.
What’s more, 13% have five pets or more. Unless that 13% are mostly goldfish owners, Tess and I may not be as crazy as we imagined.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is ssmith@cdispatch.com.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is ssmith@cdispatch.com.
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