The Tale of the Mighty Dog and Traveling Sister: Parts 1 & 2

The Tale of the Mighty Dog and Traveling Sister: Part 1

It has been one heck of a week. This is the longest I’ve gone without posting since I started the blog, which can be attributed to me being on vacation, bonding with my new dog and spending as much time as possible with my visiting sister.

Let me first start with my visiting sister, Jodi. She lives in Montana, which is the opposite of close to New York. Air travel to and from her state can span the entire country. Flying direct is not possible. She has actually flown more West to eventually come East. Very strange.

Jodi normally visits us once a year for a short four, five-day stay. She works in the service industry, so getting away is unpaid and trying to find someone to cover her shifts is never an easy thing to accomplish. Even though we only have her with us for a few days, it is worth it.

Because of the length of her visit, we pack a whole lot of visiting with friends and family into the mix. My sister’s wish of coming home and taking a day trip to the Adirondacks for a hike never seems to come to fruition because of all the visiting, but she accepts this fate. She enjoys the countless hours spent talking, laughing, drinking and eating with those who love her and miss her.

We almost fight over her. Well, I almost do. As cliché as this sounds, Jodi is so much more than just my sister. She is a soul sister … a dear, dear friend.

What makes my friendship with her so unique is that we have this incredible history together … our childhood. Jodi and I love to discover the deeper treasures in our lives and our Selves. We love to reflect on who we were as children and who we are today. We relish in the memories of us, and our family and friends, playing in the backyard our version of the Olympics, kickball, softball, volleyball, gymnastics, trackball, soccer, marco polo and manhunt. We laugh about our college days when those games in the backyard turned to flip cups, boat races and beer pong.

Jodi and I are only two years apart and one of the major themes to our sisterhood was the fact that we looked so much alike, twins even. When we were younger, and even into the early years in high school, people had a hard time telling us apart. Of course, Jodi and I could never see the resemblance. In my defense, I was a giant 4” taller than her! And in her defense, well, I don’t know what that was :), but I do know we used to get so mad about being seen as the same. We were somewhat in each other’s shadows.

As life happened, particularly in the early post-college years, we eventually grew more and more into our Selves, which created a healthy separation of identities. Both of us began to soul search, looking for greater meaning in our lives, yet the beauty of this was that we were able to grow together on this journey while walking on our own paths.

Shortly after Jodi graduated from college she moved to Colorado. The Rocky Mountains called her spirit and she was exuberant about living the ski life. Her bold character drove her to the West with a friend, and weeks after my graduation, I accompanied her.

She stayed in Colorado for many years, skiing, hiking, running, kayaking and working. Although my time in the Rocky Mountain state wasn’t as long as hers, we continue to share a love for high peaks, blue-bird skies and powder days.

When I lived on Kauai, Jodi came to visit me and quickly decided that the island was her next destination. One month after I left Kauai to move to NYC, she landed on the Garden Isle, hoping to heal the wounds to her soul that she endured from simply being a human. Kauai is a special place that can help us to release our personal afflictions. It had done so for me, and it eventually did so for Jodi, which then brought her to Montana.

As with every visit home, it eventually begins to wear on her, as the gifts of nature are her source of health and renewal, not constant chatter and gossip. By her last night here, she’s ready to get back to her life in the great outdoors.

I miss my sister already. Today, I say with great joy and pride that I do feel like she is my twin … the other half of me who can understand from a place like no one else my thinking and feeling. Even though we are separate, we are undeniably connected as one.

The Tale of the Mighty Dog and Traveling Sister: Part 2
My dearest Charlie … the new love of my life. He is a 2 ½-year old Pug (see photo above). I picked him up from the rescue society last Saturday, on the first day of my vacation. We drove immediately to the groomers for him to be cleaned and to have his nails clipped. While he was getting beautified, my mom (the new grandma) and I shopped around the pet store and picked up a few new gifts for Charlie: a round bed, chew toys, elephant stuffed animal, dog biscuits and food.

Charlie’s grandma began to spoil him within hours of his arrival. This was a prelude to how grandma will be when she eventually gets a human grandchild. I already told her that my kids won’t NEED 10,000 toys! She laughed and happily obliged.

After getting all clean, I placed Charlie on an old sheet in the passenger seat of my Subaru. He sat there so calm and content. I would pet him as often as I could while driving, just to keep him relaxed. I also played some great African music to get him accustomed to his new family. He seemed to like it.

When I brought Charlie into his new home on Fellows Avenue he was soooooo excited. He ran into every room and smelled every corner of every room. The only thing he wasn’t thrilled about was our stairs heading up to the second floor. He sat at the foot of them, whimpering to show his fear.

In what felt like minutes, Charlie already began to show signs of attachment to his new mama. Every where I walked, he followed. Every time I sat, he either jumped or motioned to be up on my lap. When I was at the rescue society, they showed me how he likes to be held, and yes, it is like a baby. He is a full-on lover, snuggler, be-as-close-to-a-human dog. He’s perfect.

So far, there have been two big surprises: (1) His reaction to the dog crate; (2) His reaction to men, including Biboti.

Charlie has been trained for more than 2 years now to live within the world of a crate, so I felt it was only appropriate to have one for him when he came home to keep some sense of normalcy. Personally, my hope has been to wean him off the crate because I’d like him to be an old-school dog that can be free to roam in the house WHILE staying behaved. This is how our dog was growing up, and this is what I always envisioned for my own dog.

On his first night in the house, Biboti and I were getting ready for bed, so we walked him into the back room where his crate is and motioned for him to go inside. He didn’t respond. I then gave him a little nudge on the behind to get in there and he put on his front breaks. I was shocked by his resistance. I proceeded more aggressively and placed him in there. I shut the door and Biboti and I went upstairs.

Within seconds, we could hear him whimpering.

“Let’s give him a few minutes and see what he does. He supposedly ‘loves’ his crate and is used to living in it, so he should be fine,” I said to Biboti.

He wasn’t.

After about ten minutes, the whimpering escalated to barking and since it was around midnight, we both thought it wasn’t appropriate to allow him to continue to annoy our neighbors (NOTE: barking isn’t a common thing for him, so this was alarming). We went downstairs, let him out of his crate, took him with his new round bed, blanket and elephant stuffed animal, and brought him upstairs into our bedroom. Because he was scared about staying downstairs alone, he completely forgot about how scared he was to go up the stairs, and he did, so fast, all by himself.

We first placed his round bed away from our bed, near the door. This didn’t work like we had hoped because it was still too far away from us, well, from me. Thankfully our bed is high, so he can’t just jump up on it, but he places his front paws as high as he can reach on the bed, which allows us to see just his black face. He began to do this repeatedly on my side of the bed and then would get annoyed because I would push him down, so he would go over to Biboti’s side and do the same thing. He continued this behavior for about 20 minutes.

Because our upstairs is all hardwood flooring, we could hear his little nails pitter pattering across the entire upstairs. He was traveling into the other bedroom, the bathroom, then our room, then back through the hallway … over and over. At one point, I heard what sounded like a guitar being strummed (which there is one in the other room), so I got up to see what was happening. Potty-trained Charlie had gone poopies right near the guitar because he had gotten himself so worked up.

We then got smarter. I placed his round bed and elephant stuffed animal at the bottom of our bed near my side, so he was that much closer to me. After a few more rounds of him trying to jump up on our bed, he eventually put himself to sleep in his new bed. Thank God.

This whole bedtime process took about 45 minutes. I went to sleep that night praying it would get better with each night, and thankfully, it has. On his second night, it only took 5 minutes for him to put himself to sleep in his bed, which still rests (a week later) at the foot of our bed on my side. Now, I tuck him in his bed with his blanket, so he is snug as a bug, and he falls right to sleep. He’s such a good boy.

The other big surprise was how Charlie reacts to men, and in particular, to Biboti. As I had written about before, Biboti is a fan of dogs, but not the Pug breed. He doesn’t see how cute their ugly face is and he has never spent time with one to know how their personalities can be so funny. I basically begged him to be on board with me getting one, which he was, but my only thought was about Biboti needing to fall in love with Charlie, not Charlie needing to fall in love with Biboti.

When my mom and I first brought Charlie home, Biboti was working. When he came home, he entered the house with joy and jubilation in his voice.

“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie! Helloooooo Charlie,” he said.

Charlie freaked out. He barked right in his face and actually stepped backwards, away from him. This was the FIRST time I had heard him bark (NOTE: Now, Charlie only barks when people enter the house, as if to say, “Who are you?” or “Hello!” or “I missed you” or “Stay away from my mom!”) Biboti was startled, as was Charlie. Biboti tried to pet him and Charlie coward down like a scared puppy. He continued to stay as close to me as possible.

I could see Biboti’s feelings were hurt, and then suddenly it dawned on me—

What if Charlie doesn’t like Biboti?

Yikes!

I could tell by the way Biboti welcomed him that he was completely open to loving him and it was my dear Charlie who could possibly screw this whole thing up. I began to panic, just a bit.

Little by little, Biboti began to spend more time with him. Charlie loves to be held, so Biboti picked him up and placed him on his lap. This seemed to help. Then, Biboti took him for a walk/run around the block, which Charlie loved. Progress was being made.

A week later, Charlie is still a mama’s boy, but he loves his dad too. And, Biboti loves him so much as well. He even took Charlie out this morning for his usual morning routine and fed him—always a good sign. They both seemed very content when I got out of bed.

Because I have been home for the week, we’ve taken Charlie to do just about everything. We’ve been feeling him out in different settings. We run errands with him and leave him in the car, on the front seat, but not for too long. He does really well. We had a birthday party for my mom at her house with 25 guests and Charlie was there, hanging out with all the people, like he was a member of the family for years. He was great—mellow as can be after all the male guests arrived. That always seems to prompt a bark or two. And, we’ve left him alone at home when we’ve gone to work at the studio, free to roam the downstairs. So far, so good.

Yes, Charlie is a dog, but he is my new baby. It feels so good to have him around. His presence definitely fills a void while also invoking a new found joy in my heart, soul and life.