Doggone dogs we still love and always will

(Sarah Jane would have loved Cujo and Max and all the other pups we brought into our home and hearts.)


If you’ve owned a few dogs and cats over the years, and some of them have gone on to the Rainbow Bridge, you’ve probably seen a television commercial or two that brings back the memory of your dearly-departed four-legged buddy. We’ve seen a few ads lately that remind us of a couple of our lovable mutts.

One of our favorite dogs was Cujo, our Saint Bernard-mix. What a character she was, and not just because she was afraid of storms and firecrackers.

Hubby loved throwing food in the air just to see Cujo miss it. Sometimes it landed right atop her furry head, and most times she would seem unaware she had a piece of cheese just inches from her mouth. One of us had to pluck the food off her head and feed it to her. It never ceased to be funny.

With Max, our Malamute-mix, we had to be very, very careful. That long nose, sharp eyes and even sharper teeth were a lethal combination to any human hand that ventured too close while holding food. After she sunk her doggy fangs into hubby’s hand twice because he pulled a chocolate candy bar out of her mouth, we resorted to tossing her food from a safe distance for a while but I never gave up. Eventually Max could gently retrieve food from my outstretched hand. I felt like I won a prize.

Sarah the pup is another animal altogether. She is by far the biggest dog we’ve ever had. As she’s walked around the neighborhood, folks stop to talk to her and her master, drivers crane their necks to stare and one time a car full of young ladies yelled out, “Hey! Is that a Marley dog? It is! Hey!” I’m not sure what they expected Sarah to do, but she just kept her steady walking pace while sniffing the ground and trying to ingest whatever she could swallow before getting caught.

The weather has turned nice, so the dog is outside a good part of the day. That allows hubby and I to sit comfortably at the kitchen table and we’re able to eat slowly - our whole meal. Usually the pooch has her heavy head resting on our leg, staring up with sad brown eyes. Once she gets a bite from one of us, she immediately scurries around to beg from the other one. I’m sure we’re breaking some iron-clad rule by feeding the dog at the table but it’s our house, and our rules. Besides, if Sarah is nothing else, she’s loyal to those who let her lick the cold creamy part of a delicious Dilly Bar.

As we watch the TV ads that give us a glimpse at the pets we once had, I find myself wanting to try to replace Cujo and Max. This time, I’d want a dog that isn’t afraid of loud noises, and one who wouldn’t remove a finger or two as we offered food. But if we could have back the same ones we lost, who had the same idiosyncrasies, we’d take them in a heartbeat. After all, those are the dogs who stole our hearts in the first place.

The winner is the wolf we feed

(No, this isn't a picture of a wolf, nor is it our beloved Max - though I do have a photo of her around here - this is Windmont Park in Kewanee. It's a peaceful place, and the fountain is pretty. Yup, this is a perfect spot to feed the "good" wolf).

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

“One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

“The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

(From: A Motivational Story with Wisdom – Two Wolves Cherokee Wisdom)

A few weeks ago a friend e-mailed me the above message. She didn’t single me out; this was one of those mass missives, the kind I usually delete after reading the first sentence. But to paraphrase a famous line from the movie Jerry Maguire, she had me at the last seven words in the first sentence, so I kept the e-mail and re-read it over the next week or so.

No one wants to admit they harbor anger, envy, jealousy and the rest of the evil thoughts listed. I’ve been guilty of having every one of those awful feelings, and while I’ve dropped most of them, I find that anger and self-pity tend to stick around.

That isn’t to say that joy, peace, love, hope and all the rest of the good guys don’t have a home inside me. They do. It’s just that those other two tend to rear their ugly heads and demand to be fed regularly, and there seems to be an endless supply of, for lack of a better word, food.

Some may think I’m making up this next observation, but I’m not. I shared this quote with at least half a dozen people recently and without exception, each one zeroed in on anger and sorrow. They were angry with someone, almost always a family member, and they felt the sorrow that comes with the inevitable separation from those who once loved them.

The feeding of that wolf comes from the constant thinking and re-thinking of The Incident. It can be a new wound or an old, old one. Sad and angry thoughts intrude during the day and keep us awake at night. Close friends and co-workers often lend a sympathetic ear, thereby giving the wolf even more to eat as details are rehashed until there’s nothing left to say, at least until the next time.

As we shared our wolf stories, a common theme emerged. Anger and sorrow diminished somewhat as we shared what happens when we keep ourselves too busy to think about what brings us down. Taking a keener interest in work, volunteering, going back to school – those things and more have helped to starve the one wolf while nurturing the other.

The men and women around the table that afternoon had found ways to bring peace, hope, serenity and empathy to their lives, and for some of them, it had been too long a time. They laughed easily, and it was a beautiful sound. Though there were no rules among us banning discussion of troubles, no one mentioned anything negative. We went our separate ways, and promised to get together again soon.

I love this piece of wolf wisdom. Heck, I love wolves. Our dog Max looked like a wolf, at least to me, and one of the things about her that impressed me every day of her life was the look in her eyes. Somewhere inside of her, I could see just a hint of what looked like sadness. It was always there, even while her tail was wagging in happy anticipation of a treat or some other wonderful thing. I was never able to relieve Max of that look in her eyes.

I see that expression in the eyes of some of the people closest to me. They’ve been hurt in some way, and no matter how hard someone tries to point out all they have to be thankful for, the wolf inside is hungry and it demands to be fed.

My hope is that you are able to distinguish between the two wolves inside of you. You can pretend that all is well, like far too many people do, or you can follow the wisdom of the old Cherokee.

Life’s too short – feed the Good wolf.

A post from Kewanee, Illinois

Well, we're into the dreary days of mid-winter...blech.

The skies are gunmetal gray (I love that term, even though I hate the color). Winds are picking up, but most of the snow has melted because of a lovely couple of days with 60-plus degree weather. I know we all loved it; well, most of us did.

Enough about the weather. Let's talk dogs.

Sarah Jane will turn 2 on the 25th of this month. She's still a handful, and we love her to pieces. Snow wasn't a problem for Sarah this year, thank goodness. She walks every day with hubby, around the park, around the house; she can take the cold pretty well, but she doesn't much care for rain and sleet. Who does?

I still miss our Max. That dog had a wild ride in Life. She came up from Texas, and though she was a pup when she arrived, we didn't have much of a hand in her initial upbringing. I'll always wonder if she would've been a bit different, more tolerant of other dogs and people and even cats if we'd raised her from the get-go.

For a short while, a very short while, she and our dog Cujo got along reasonably well. One night Max just suddenly decided she wanted to be the boss and she attacked Cujo. For the next five years we had to keep the pooches separated and that took a toll on everybody.

Cujo tore up the floor in the back room where she had to stay while Max was out. Max was stressed inside her pen (where she spent far, far, far too many days) while Cujo was out. Max did try to make friends with one of the cats, but Spook scratched the dog once too many times and after that, we worried that Max would kill the cat.

Max was such a good dog after Cujo died. She didn't seem to have any ill effects from spending so much of her life in a pen. When she suddenly became ill and died two days later (on Mother's Day almost two years ago), we were devastated. We loved her so much.

Max had a way of looking right through you. She understood certain words and phrases, and we knew our house was safe with her inside. And, she was beautiful to look at, very much like a wolf.

We have Sarah now, a yellow lab-mix, a much more active dog than we're used to. Cujo and Max couldn't care less if we were home or not, as long as there was food and water in their bowls, and someone let them out to go to the bathroom. They weren't the cuddly type.

Sarah, on the other hand, thinks that she should be the center of everyone's world. And she's huge - 90 pounds, and we've never had a dog that big. But her heart is just as big, and we love her, too.

Guess I'll go now. I hope with all my heart that if our son is out there somewhere he will see this blog and it will give him one way to keep up with his family. We miss him, and wish he would at least let us know that he's OK.