Y’all Listen..I have had a struggle or four bringing myself here. I so want to create new and interesting or fun stuff for you to read. Blame it on Honeymoon phase brain, I deeply apologize! I am doing amazing, and I promise some typical posts in the near future, but this will be something a bit different. My good friend has asked and talked to me about joining me on the blog for a while. We have an incredible energy together, and his Family is so so close to my heart. There is a quote that I have loved for years, and it fits not only the place that this post takes me, but also what he chose to write about. “The time for Change is Now, Always.” Without any further introductions, here is my amazingly talented and intelligent friend, Del.
So I am lucky to know Mrs Suzy Doozer. She is an awesome person and a great true friend. She has this blog, something I have expressed interest in for a long time, for a venue to express my own thoughts. She is kind enough to entertain my musings. We have spoken about collaborations, as well as my interests in longer form writing. She gave me some truly great ideas. I hope she uses them as her own inspiration, as they sprang from her imagination. This moment, this moment, though… is all about me.
My family is out of town, practicing safe socializing with other family, trying to give my son some semblance of joy for completing his senior year. I am home alone with the exception of the puppy of mass destruction. Joy. She is… anything but. And yet, so much of that very thing. Memorial Day is the anniversary of her joining our family. It started like this…
I am a late nighter. Evening time is my time. I wake up, get active and get restless. Typically, this means wandering the aisles of the 24-hour Super Wal-Mart, doing the shopping. It was Memorial Day 2019. I got back, pulled into the garage and exited the vehicle. Normally, I would close the garage door from inside the car, via remote. For no specific reason, maybe the open night air, I got out and wandered around to the attached laundry room to re-start the dryer (a dryer that takes at least 2 cycles to complete the task, another story, a more boring story). The laundry room has no light switch, I plugged in the shop light and turned to find a pudgy little black puppy sitting at my feet looking up at me. I should in fact have been listening for some ominous bell tolling or something. I called my wife on the phone (a modern convenience of boundless convenience), telling her there was a puppy in the laundry room. She was on the way from elsewhere in the house at this point.
The puppy was sweet, as puppies are. She was squinty (foreshadowing), and very happy to be in front of a human. I spoke to her as one does to a puppy. Looked around for someone in search of, etc. No collar. We leashed her, she was cooperative, happy for the attention. I walked up and down our neighborhood street for 20+ minutes (11pm-ish, btw), hoping for someone to emerge, frantic for their lost sweetums. No such luck.
I should mention, we are dog people. We love them. We have one, Jack, who is, in a word, awesome. He is indeed, another story. Needless to say, it is not in our nature as a family to shove this little one out, close the garage door, and just… move on. SO, we brought her inside, and battened down for the night, determined to resolve this the next day after work. It was a long night.
She whined. She barked (surprising bass for a pup). She whined. She barked some more. I didn’t really sleep. I knew this situation was going to need more attention. Meanwhile, my son was most intrigued by the visitor. As was Jack, who held his post as pet-supreme in high regard. Having had no sleep, I called in sick Tuesday. As a side note, it should be remembered that it is common practice with most companies that calling in sick the day before or after a paid holiday negates that benefit. So instead of not getting an extra day, I had to use 2 days’ worth of my own employee benefit time. This was again a type of foreshadowing of what was to come.
I got up mid-morning, fed her, walked her, etc., in keeping with proper care of an animal in my care. I then took her to the most local vet to see if she was chipped, or in the hopes someone had come looking for her. No such luck. The vet made a comment about her squinty eyes as well. Hmmm. Moving on, for now. Back home. Jack was suspicious, but, being active and playful by nature, seemed happy to have a toy for the day.
We proceeded to look for her missing family. We walked her through the neighborhood, knocking on doors, uncomfortably approaching neighbors, looking for her home. We put up signs. We were losing hope. As we rolled into the weekend, 2 distinct things happened. 1) my wife discovered horror stories on the nextdoor app for our area about backyard dogfighting rings and 2) my son got fixated on the pup.
We were in no place in our lives to take on an additional pet. By no means suffering or struggling, but aware of our limitations, and having a desire to maintain a comfortable environment for everyone, there was no need to add an additional responsibility to our list. As it was a Saturday, I happened to be working an extra shift, and delegated to my wife that she could drop the puppy at the shelter (it is a no-kill shelter, those who are gasping at my lack of humanity). I may as well have asked her to take a rip-saw to her ankle. I have been the designated travel agent to the rainbow bridge for our previous furry loves ones, so I should probably have just known better.
Meanwhile, my son, brilliant, sensitive, and overflowing with compassion (an inherited trait, believe it or not), said the simplest and most pithy of things. “Everyone deserves a name.” He started calling her Joy. That was it. We were done. The next day, the “Found-Puppy” signs came down.
It is important to mention at this point the social media situation. My wife is an active Facebooker. Me, so-so. But posts were made, pictures posted, etc. Everyone was so very generous with us. “Look at your new dog!” “Joy has a home!” “Aw you got a new dog.” As we were adjusting to what was initially a short term fostering situation, trying to genuinely help, everyone else was quick to assign us permanent guardianship. I was very “Suck it!” about things at this point. We were discovering quickly that this little ball of energy was incontinent and destructive. So the congratulatory comments were just salt in a quickly festering wound.
Moving forward, once we determined we would probably be taking a longer term position with Joy (officially designated member of our family), we took her to the pet clinic for shots, etc. Upon examination, it was determined that she had eye issues, entropian, where the eyelids roll inward. She was sensitive to light, always rubbing her face and scratching at the irritation. The long term effect is blindness. The option was a surgery (sigh). This was the cost of helping out a lost animal. Eyelid surgery for animals is reasonable, but not financially convenient for us at the time. So to all those folks who were so quick to offer us up as a host for Joy, we laid it out there in the form of a GoFundMe. “You wanted us to keep her, you can help pay for the cost of doing so”. I will mention here that my host, Suzy Doozer, was a significant contributor to this cause. Respect her.
There is kindness in the world, and hope for the future, people paid, we met our goal, the surgery occurred (it would have occurred anyway, before I get the “You Cheap Heartless Bastard” award). She looked awful afterward, freak show eyelids framed with creepy suture eyelashes, cone of shame. In a fairly short time, though, she was in good order, and you could tell she was literally looking at the world in an entirely new light. It was something to see her walking around, actually looking at stuff through wide eyes, processing images and taking in everything anew.
Meanwhile… we acclimated to having a second dog in the house, as did Jack. They played very well together. This has waned a bit over the year, as he is a couple years older and more mature, less inclined to the harassment that comes from Joy’s seemingly bottomless well of energy.
The destruction that ensued, well, that is a story too. And probably a lesson in, well, many things. Pet care, boundaries, valuation of material things, cleaning up after yourself or “don’t leave valuable shit laying around”. So far the toll is roughly 2 bags of gummy bears, about 7 pair of earbuds (including some expensive ones), 2 pair of shoes, several pillows, cd’s, dvd’s, video games, a low-table, a futon (frame and cushion), a very nice recliner, 2 door frames, 3 power cords (how she lived through more than one is a mystery to me), 2 rugs, and the carpet from our family room (potty training stubbornness). I can assure you I am missing a few things, it has been a long year, but those are the highlights.
So here were are, a year later. In the course of the year I have been witness to some interesting things. Joy makes an impression in her exuberance. She is so energetic, our holiday gift from my mother-in-law was obedience training. Seriously. It hasn’t taken hold (yet), but we were interrupted by some pandemic thing.
She is fast. If you look at her or feel her flank, she is all muscle (part of her mixed breed I assume). When we got Jack, he was fast. Like, greyhound fast. When we would take him to the dog park, he would erupt from the gate like a bullet from a barrel, people would literally stop, stare, point, and comment. And that was before he would run 7’ straight up a tree after squirrels. After she quickly transformed from the tubby-cute puppy to almost the same size as Jack, medium-sized, I’d say, we took them to the park together. Like a little sibling, she saw Jack take off, and was gone like a blur. She strode past Jack in glee, trying to play with him, body checking him, and we knew she was the fastest dog we had ever seen, ever.
Also, Joy and my son love each other deeply. She follows him like the sunshine to her daisy. He is a teenager, so she gets attention between video games and YouTube videos of people… playing video games. But they are sweet together. Joy is clearly lonely for him this weekend, but I promise I am making my best efforts to make her feel stimulated and appreciated. She has mostly followed me around, enjoying my incessant chattering at her. But you can tell she is looking for him. If I remove the barrier to the stairs (anti-destruction boundaries), she immediately runs up and jumps onto his bed, looking for him. It is touching, sad and adorable.
So I have rolled and rambled about a puppy. She is sweet. She wants to be good. She is Joy, because she is so full of Joy. When she sees you, her tail wags so hard her whole body writhes. There is an irritating “foot licking” thing we are working on, but overall, she has been a great addition to the family. I think she was lucky, but I think we were lucky too. If we had taken her to the shelter, like it or not she would have been put down. They would not have kept her very long, no one would have taken her, she is very “mutt”. And with the eye issue, they wouldn’t have made the effort or expenditure to fix her eyes. Cruel world.
As a long term look, this little girl has so much love to give, so we are lucky to be the recipients of the type of love a furry friend can give. She is so sweet, and I feel that when she careens into me when I get too low to the ground. In looking back, I can honestly say we did not need another dog, the expense, the distraction. But in retrospect, she needed us.
That’s my story for now. Sitting here thinking about life in the moment. Thanks Doozer.
****Photo credit to the beautiful and wonderful Sherry Spearman****
Diaries of Suzy Doozer 
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