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“He’s gone,” the vet whispered to my wife. Tears streaming down her face, she leaned over our little Doxie/Beagle mix and exhorted him to find his two sisters “up there.” “Chica and Shadow,” she said, “will take care of you.”
It was more than I could bear. Tears welled up in my eyes as I watched Carol say goodbye to our little Mickey. He was only twenty-seven pounds, and he had been a major pain in the backside much of his life. But he was our pain in the backside, and we loved this ill-tempered little mutt who had adopted my wife at our local animal shelter thirteen years before. That’s right, he adopted her.
Carol had been a volunteer at the Humane Society shelter for fifteen years and had directed its operations for much of that time, so she was often on the premises, and Mickey had been left there for adoption. After being taken home by potential new families a couple of times and returned because of his bad temper and hatred of cats, he decided Carol was his mark. So he started jumping up in her lap every chance he got. This strategy lasted about three weeks before she finally gave in and decided to bring him home for just one night, to see how he got along with our other dogs, two Dobies and a Lab at the time. He came to visit and stayed thirteen years, finally leaving only when he couldn’t stand on his little feet any longer. He was almost seventeen years old when we had to stop feeding him by hand, hoping he could somehow fight off the ravages of old age indefinitely, and take him on his last ride to the vet’s office.
Mickey’s passing was peaceful, almost serene. The scene was very subdued from the moment we arrived at our vet’s office, where we were immediately ushered in to an examining room. The receptionist came in and gave my tearful wife a silent hug, and we sat down to wait quietly. A few minutes later the vet came in and, after a hushed conversation with Carol, retreated to gather the things he would need. When he returned, he gently began the steps that would take Mickey from us, while my wife stood at the opposite side of the table, assuring our little pal that everything was going to be all right. After a few moments, he was gone.
I could hardly believe it. He was so quiet. I fought back the urge to check him myself, to see if he was still breathing. Maybe we could change our minds and take him back home. But I knew that couldn’t happen, so after another brief, subdued exchange with the vet about final arrangements, Carol and I left to return to our lives and our three other pets, anxiously waiting for us. They knew something was wrong.
Our little tyrant lived a long and irritable life, generally trying to make everyone in his orbit toe the line and cater to his whims, sometimes with disastrous results. Like the time he attacked one of our Doberman Pinschers. As a matter of fact, he picked fights with her on two separate occasions. Chica was very big, even for a Dobie, weighing in at about ninety pounds. Although she was usually good-natured and didn’t bother anyone, she could be very formidable when provoked. And Mickey made a specialty of provoking others.
We never knew what caused their arguments, but Mickey had the temerity to attack Chica (he bit her in the face) and was torn to shreds for his bad judgment. He had over two hundred stitches in him from just one of their encounters. Not that that stopped him, because he was truly tough. I remember finding him in the hall after breaking up one of their fights, just standing and waiting for us to look after him, not uttering a sound. No whimpers or cries. Just waiting, expecting one or both of us to come and take care of him. My wife scooped him up in a towel and we rushed off to the vet to get his little body stitched up.
Mickey survived his near death experiences and went on to reach new heights of arrogance and bossiness. But, he had always been that way. To begin with, he was incredibly funny looking, but he never seemed to know it. I honestly believe he thought he was ten feet tall, or at the very least another Doberman. Perhaps because his markings were like those of a Dobie, black and tan, with little tan eyebrows. But the reality was that he was comical.
His front legs bowed out at the elbows, which made his walk a little like Popeye’s, sort of a rolling gait, moving at an angle, a little sideways, with a long, straight tail that seemed to give him his balance. He had a long body and was so short that when he sat down, his back feet often popped up between his front legs. Long floppy ears framed his sharp little face. And he was always deadly serious. There was no joy in this guy. He meant business and let you know it! He could, and did, stare everyone down, including our Dobies. But, in spite of that, everyone thought he was too funny for words, constantly provoking laughter.
It must have been very discouraging for him - to take himself so seriously and yet be the source of so much mirth everywhere he went.
From the very beginning, we had no illusions about the fact that Mickey was funny looking. But if we did have any doubts, they were dispelled soon after he came to live with us, when we took him for his first walk in town. Everyone we passed burst out laughing. Without exception, everyone. He was that funny. Strutting alongside my wife with his sailor’s gait and warning anyone and everyone to watch their step, Mickey was in town and they had better watch out. This guy had a real attitude!
Shortly after Carol brought him home, she enrolled Mickey in an obedience class. She has always taken our dogs through obedience training, but he was a special case. He was extremely headstrong and, in spite of his small size, insisted on doing everything his way. Carol was especially intent on getting him into class and making sure he understood that she was the boss. So, off they went, one night a week, faithfully joining about thirty other eager parents, all anxious to learn how to make good citizens of their charges.
From the outset, Mickey was determined to make everyone else do things his way. It was a constant battle of wills. Sit, down, stay, meant nothing to him. He would go right when Carol said “left,” he stood when she said “sit,” and he charged some other dog, barking and snapping for emphasis, when Carol said, “stay.” For six weeks, he was the laughing stock of the class.
Then came the night of the final exam.
I decided to attend, to lend my wife some moral support in her quest to dominate our twenty-seven pound bundle of attitude.
The class began routinely, with each dog being put through his or her paces by its owner, while the judges watched and conferred, scoring points. Finally, it was Mickey’s turn. Carol started him into the routine, and as they moved through the process together, the group began to grow silent. It was almost eerie. Because Mickey was perfect. He did everything just right. Couldn’t have been better. When he finished, the judges once again gathered to confer, and later when the results were announced, Mickey had won the competition. The crowd burst into spontaneous applause – and laughter. Everyone just broke up. Mickey had won first place in obedience class! No one could believe it. Least of all Carol.
But, never fear. It didn’t last. He went back to his old ways shortly thereafter and remained obdurate for the rest of his little life.
About a year after he joined our family, Mickey became especially upset when Carol added more competition for her attention to our household. She brought Charlie home to live with us. He was a sweet, gentle and good-natured, fun-loving guy, who was destined to grow up to become a very large and powerful seventy-five pound Pit/Hound mix. Another rescue from the animal shelter.
As a three-month-old puppy, Charlie was already the same size as Mickey. And, he soon discovered that taking hold of Mickey’s collar and dragging him up and down the hall was great fun, with Mickey barking and snapping all the way. How Mickey hated it. But he was powerless to make Charlie stop. Charlie was already very strong and was having such a good time that nothing could deter him. Up and back they went, until Charlie eventually grew tired of annoying his smaller playmate and lost interest as he grew to three times Mickey’s size. Later, he decided to change the game, which sort of morphed into mock attacks on Mickey, in a vain effort to stir up some action. For twelve years, almost to the end of Mickey’s time with us, Charlie kept attacking him, trying to rile him up and get some fun going. But, somehow Mickey never quite got the message that this was supposed to be fun. He resolutely responded by barking and snapping, but without any enthusiasm for the game, just irritation.
It wasn’t that Mickey couldn’t handle the situation physically, because he was a great athlete. He was capable of jumping almost three times his own height, which sometimes made me think he must have had some grasshopper in him. Straight up. He could almost jump directly onto the island countertop in the center of our kitchen. We often came home to find that he had been walking around on the kitchen table or a desk, nosing into things to see what he could find that would be of interest. He also could run incredibly fast when he wanted to. Up and down the full length of the long hall in our home or around his yard. Feet flying, tail straight out behind, ears flapping in the wind, yapping as he went, he became SUPERDOG, faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings. Well, let’s just say tall things. He was an athletic marvel almost to the end.
Finally, I feel I must share a story about Mickey that I just can’t resist. It’s about his pillow. His personal pillow, that is. When he was about six or seven years old, Carol decided to put a special pillow on the floor at the foot of our bed, so he could lie on it when he felt the need. However, after a while we began to notice that he was not using his pillow in quite the way that was intended. He began to attack it when he was frustrated. At first, we became aware that he was leaving the room we were in, running into our bedroom and attacking his pillow with great energy and hostility, growling and tossing it around in the air, grabbing it with his teeth and shaking it violently from side to side. However, we quickly discovered that he had found another, more effective way to work off his frustrations - by using his pillow for physical release, if you get my drift. That was almost too much for us. It got so our house became a sort of laugh-in for some of our friends who, when they came to visit, would sneak back to our bedroom to see Mickey in action. The only problem was that we never knew what he was going to do with his pillow, fight it or make love to it.
If you conclude from this story about Mickey that we loved this little guy, you’re right. And, if you get the idea that having him in our family was worth every minute of the aggravation and difficulties of coping with him, you would be right again. He was just a mutt who came from our local animal shelter, but he was a great mutt, and we will always be grateful for the joy and fun of having him be a part of our lives for thirteen years. I don’t know what we will do to replace that joy. But, I do know we will try. After all, that’s why the Humane Society animal shelter is there. To help us all find the friends and companions we want and need. And to help them find us.
Please remember that the next time your local Humane Society asks for a contribution.