Percy Boy (first published in 2017)

The dog as family pet is an experience and way of life shared by 44% of American households, and are a whopping 78 million strong.  Science seems to indicate the domestication of wild canines began somewhere between 12-15000 years ago, and today there are over 300 recognized breeds.  And for many of us “owners”, these creatures that live with us are less so the family working animal and more equal part of the family dynamic.

Those who know me know “Percy Boy”, my little rescue pup.  Percy is a Pug/Chihuahua mix, who accepted me into his life after a long search that started in June 2009.  I had always had dogs as a child, and my ex-wife and my two sons loved them as well.  Dogs were thus always part of the family, and all but one were found at local dog rescues.  But as a single individual, I missed having dogs terribly and felt that even though I worked full time I could provide a good, loving space to one in need of a Forever Home, especially with a good dog sitter to give him breaks daily until I arrived back home each day.  While there was no special breed or size I was looking to find, for some reason I found myself searching on “Chihuahua mixes” despite my childhood tastes for larger breeds.

The first few dogs I met through my searches with weren’t a good fit for one reason or another.  The one’s from puppy mills were horribly traumatized, and would best be paired with someone that would be home full time.  Others were aggressive with me or other dogs, and given I was working full time, again, they would need a lot of attention that I couldn’t adequately provide.  And others, well, we just didn’t gel.

It took a few months of false starts, but the stars finally aligned, seriously (pun intended, read on).  During one of the many searches on pet rescue web sites I came up with little Percy’s picture taken while fostered at Sirius Stars Canine Rescue, and something about the scraggly little guy in the photograph caught my eye.  He looked a bit battle worn but proud at the estimated age of 5, and the mix of breeds gave him a nice tough little demeanor.  I liked that!  As I recall the story, he was found as a stray wandering around Augusta, Georgia, and slowly made his way north via foster families, with 2 placements ending up unsuccessful due to one reason or another.  That part worried me, but decided to meet with him anyhow.

First impressions mean a lot.  I met Percy at the rescue and I’ll never forget the first millisecond we laid eyes on each other.  After arriving, the owner discussed the approach to the meeting, where I was to sit in a waiting area, the living room of the home really, and wait for her to retrieve him from the kennel out back.  After a few moments, I heard a doorway in the back open and close, and the characteristic “click/clack” of toe nails on the wood or linoleum floor.  The owner came around the corner of a hallway with Percy, who paused when we made eye contact. He took me in. Suddenly he burst into high gear and came charging down the hall and leapt up on my chair. After sniffing me for a minute I tentatively stroked his fur. He licked my face a few times, then just as quickly started exploring the room and jumping on furniture, shooting for the tops of the chairs and couch. “He likes being up high, so he can scan the area—will that be a problem?” the owner asked.  It sounds silly, but I knew at that moment I had found the right one.  Everything just aligned.  “Of course not,” I said.  An interview and a house visit later, Percy arrived forever with a harness, leash, and winter sweater. The rest, they say, is history and thus began the odyssey of Percy Boy becoming a permanent part of my life.

Here I’m going to summarize the next 8 years quickly.  As mentioned, Percy had a bit of temperament, including with possessiveness with toys and his food dishes.  A bit of effort went into the training, the leash walking, the patience, the hand feeding, the development of a relationship and trust, before it all normalized.  I also found a fabulous dog sitter who clearly loved her job and clients, and Percy bonded well with her too.   It didn’t take all that long, perhaps 3-4 months as I recall, but at that point Percy became the dog I know today.  Three years after coming into my life, I moved from a small house with a tiny back yard to a more rural spread with plenty of room for long walks and even a meadow for sniffing out various critters.  At 13 he is a bit grizzled with a gray snout, has some joint issues and shaky legs, is getting hard of hearing (or really good at convincing me of that), and has his good days and bad days--his days of long walks are over and he seems mostly content to do his business, smell a few bushes or simply what's drifting in the wind, and then go inside to crash.  He never tolerated motion in the car and couldn’t participate in various outings off the property, but I never ever have left him longer than 4 hours without a visit from someone to relieve himself. This included those occasions out of the house on weekend getaways or my annual week-long where the sitter would visit him 4-5 days a day (and still be less expensive than a kennel!).  As I said, I literally built my day to day life around him.  That’s nearly a decade of time together in a nutshell.  Now to the purpose of the blog entry.

As I write this, Percy is struggling to hang onto life.  One morning several years ago, Percy got out of the dog bed that resides next to mine in the master bedroom, and was walking very stiffly and holding his head stationary in an odd position.  This was followed by several rounds of vomiting yellow mucous and nearly constant diarrhea that prompted a quick trip to the vet in between his purging. An examination and tests indicated that he had a flare-up in his pancreas, and the vet indicated the diagnosis, while not immediately dire, could prove fatal if not watched carefully.  She suggested that I find a dog food that he could tolerate well after pretty much thumbing his nose at much of what was put in front of him after that, and thus, began an odyssey to finding and improved daily diet from the can.   Nevertheless, after the first episode, he seemed to get a continuing set of flare-ups each year no matter what he ate and the vet finally attributed his affliction to a probable viral factor driving the disease.  There was little I could do but manage his health and comfort each time the pancreatitis occurred, and be diligent about keeping his diet steady and bland.

The events are horrible to endure and follow the same pattern, and Percy clearly suffers.  Following the first day’s vomiting and diarrhea, extreme lethargy sets in, he exhibits the inability to walk due to weakness, and he must be carried inside and out to urinate.  No food is taken in to give the pancreas time to rest, and the episode usually lasts 2-3 days, although in 2014 a 5 day episode of no food intake and little water around Christmas had me convinced he was heading to the Rainbow Bridge for sure. With the current episode, he is a full 3 days of lying still with a few sips of water now and then.  He struggles to stand when he needs to change position and adjust the big fluffy blanket I put on the floor for his comfort.  It’s a waiting game, and each time it seems a little harder for him to recover.  Experience tells me that with three days into the process, the next 24 hours are likely the critical time for him.  He’s not getting worse at this point, but he’s not getting better.

Oddly enough, as I was writing the draft for this blog entry, he stood up shakily on his own without encouragement, and looked at me funny.  On a whim, I got up and quickly boiled some chicken strips, cut them up into tiny pieces and mixed them all with rice and offered a heaping teaspoon of it in a bowl.  He took it down quickly and promptly went back to sleep.  Hope.  It’s a good sign, although he’s not out of the woods yet.  Six hours later and two more heaping teaspoons, followed by naps in between these tiny meals, it’s clear the next 24 will really be the pivot point.

During these times, it’s hard for me to quell the dreadful thoughts about the possibility of losing my

little friend, my Percy Boy, especially now that doggy old age is a reality.  It’s never clear who owns who, and I just mentally think I’m privileged to provide him company.  As I said before, my life is built around him daily, and since retiring in October 2016, he’s been my constant companion as we wander the house or 3 acres of rural property in north central Maryland.  Up until a month or two ago, he used to sleep in the master bedroom next to me in his own little bed, but stopped doing so I think due to arthritis and his shaky legs.  During the day he is usually quite active and puppy-like playful at times but I surmise by evening he’s a bit stiff with age, and running up the steps to the bedroom isn’t in his game plan any more.

As mentioned he is also hard of hearing nowadays or a very good actor, but still, we spend many an hour on the front porch or patio, just watching things go by from our command perches.  Any errant bird, rabbit or God forbid a dreaded squirrel comes into his range of vision, as that starts a chase that is surprising for his age, and amazing he still respects the property boundary he was trained to observe.  I still chuckle at his attempt to chase a Great Blue Heron that landed 30 feet in front of us one day, and the chase that followed as the startled bird struggled to gain height as he closed in with turbos blazing.  He is a good dog.  Man I love him.


As always, I am hopeful this latest episode follows all the previous patterns, and while his advancing age isn’t a help, the fact that he ate something on day 3 admittedly reduced my anxiety level 10-fold.  Despite a long line of puppies that preceded him and were loved hard, Percy and I are different, the true human/dog link, that bond that makes us pack brothers.  I can’t imagine life without him, and it’s hard to remember life before him.  When the time comes, Heaven truly will have a new angel.  I hope that when my own time comes, he’s the one to greet me, to sit once again on the porch and hold court.  Percy and I, Brothers.  Just a boy and his dog.

[EDIT: Percy died a year later in August 2018. I held him in my arms at the vet while he was administered a path to the Rainbow Bridge. I cried more that day than I have in my entire life. I think his spirit helped me find two more Chihuahua mixes that needed forever homes: Leo and Penny. I'll be forever grateful for his love. And saving my life. That is another story.]

Be well…

Death Be Not Proud

Today I received a call that one of my closest childhood friends, Mark H., had passed away at age 59, apparently of natural causes alone in his home.  He and I grew up together as teens and we lived next door to one another, along with his younger brother and (slightly) older sister.  I remember the day the family moved in, his younger brother screaming at their dog running around in the chaos of moving, and Mark and I making eye contact as he rolled his eyes at his brother’s behavior.  We all became fast friends and hung out often as we went through high school together, but it was Mark and I that shared many an adventure growing up.  We drove our bikes and later our cars way too fast, fished the streams and ponds within biking or walking distance, and searched for snakes everywhere.  We grew our hair long, listened to the hard rock of Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix and Black Sabbath, and pretty much lived the life described in the Movie “Dazed and Confused”. You figure that last part out.  In the picture, Mark is on the left, I am on the right.

Mark was an equestrian (they hailed from the great state of Texas) and the family had several horses.  He taught me to ride their monstrous quarter horse, “Old Blue”, who while seemingly gentle most of the time, found opportunities here and there to either rub my leg into fence posts, trees and other obstacles, or throw me over fences by inexplicably charging them, feigning the intent to jump them, and then coming to grinding halt.  Mark would howl with laughter, and eventually I join in and get back up on the beast.  Soon he had me barrel racing as well.  I, in turn, brought the world of herpetology into his life (I kept dozens of snakes in my bedroom growing up.  Mom loved it, Dad…not so much.). We looked for reptiles and amphibians everywhere and even took a road trip way down south to catch species not found living north of that state.  On the way back from that trip on some desolate south Carolina highway, we were pulled over by a trooper I swear was convinced he had two hippies with a car full of weed.  He was stunned (perhaps a little horrified) to find the bags in the back were filled with snakes we’d found, not Mary Jane.  He and another trooper who showed up for the show let us go with a warning.

Mark was a good friend, but like many friends, time and distance put a damper on the relationship as suddenly as it began.  I went off to college following high school graduation, and he back to Texas. Since the 70s I think we crossed paths only a few times at Christmas get togethers at his family home, where his mother still resides.  I often wondered why we corresponded so little, and never called, and never made it a point to get together and reminisce. Things change. Then again…

During my life, friends, family and acquaintances die.  Some were overdoses, heart attacks, car accidents, disease…it happens.  We live, we die.  The news hurts, and we feel grief.  There are condolences and the clichés such as “live each day like it’s your last”, “tell that special someone that you love them”.  Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t.  Somehow though, I think many of us, while we attend the ceremonies around death that our Western culture bestows on us, we have this strange feeling we are different.  Invincible, immortal.  We won’t die.  Or we’ll live to a record old age and pass away silently into the night, oblivious.  I confess to feeling this way from time to time, having dodged major disease or serious accidents so far.  Good genes, good luck, sure.  Invincible?  Get real.  No "Unbreakable" here.

News of Mark’s death was different than any other.  I felt like I had been punched in the gut, and sat motionless as I listened to the news of his passing.  I immediately called Mark’s mom, and was surprised at her strength and resolve in the face of this tragedy.  Afterwards, I called his sister, and at that moment I realized that Mark and I had never really parted ways.  I could hear his voice in hers, his laughter in hers, the stories, all shared, poured out between us.  Mark was a good man, and made a difference in this world. He was fiercely loving and protective of his only child, a son, and was loved by many.

A good man.  As his sister and I talked of the past, strangely, it dawned on me that I actually may have old photo’s of Mark stored away, and following the call, ran to the basement and started moving boxes, and finally found one simply labeled “Photos”.  In minutes I had found several pictures of Mark and I on our North Carolina adventure.  Young, cocky, hard and fast friends.  The photo above was taken minutes before that trip! The story of a friendship in that photo, truly the 1000 words.  But more importantly, it also occurred to me that I also had a relic from the 70s we had shared.  My Epiphone FT-130 Cabellero acoustic guitar, purchased soon after I got an electric guitar and amplifier, had been strummed often by Mark.  Between us I was the musician and loved to play along to records as we sang at the top of our lungs, but I finally showed Mark a few chords and how to play them on the acoustic so the two of us could jam the days and nights away.  We made horrible, lovely music!  It was clear his DNA must still reside on that guitar.

I offered Mark’s sister to write down some anecdotes and make the pictures available to his son, but I think he’d appreciate having the guitar his Dad once played along to Black Sabbath’s War Pigs and Paranoid.  For me it’s mostly memory and played little, but I think his son would appreciate it, and perhaps he’s a player himself, and could strum a few notes that would ring of his father's voice.  Regardless, the gift is not the guitar, but Mark reaching  out through the cosmos and telling me something very important.  I am NOT invincible, and I will die someday.  Any time, any day.  Steve Job’s once said “Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.”  Yeah, but you have no choice about the dying, and heaven is up to faith at this point.  I need to remember that.  Mark’s long waited “Hello old friend” wasn’t what I expected, but I heard him loud and clear.

Maybe I won’t live each day like it’s my last, or tell everyone on the street that I love them, but there are things I can do, must do, and some things I need to stop doing like right now.  It was a hell of a wake up call, this shout out from the Other Side.  Someday, we’ll be chasing snakes again.  John Donne had it right in his sonnet Death Be Not Proud: "...And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery...". You rest in peace, Brother.

Be well…