Saying Goodbye to My Little Buddy

The last time I developed a deep emotional connection with a dog had to be around my ninth birthday in 1973. The dog was a thoroughly mixed breed puppy that my siblings and I named “Barney” after Fred Flintstones’ short but far funnier best friend and neighbor. If I remember correctly our previous dog had passed away of some illness and probably to placate his anxious children our father grabbed the first puppy he happened to run across to shut us up. Back in those days very few people thought to spay or neuter their pets and there was always someone trying to find homes for the latest litter of pups the family dog had produced. This might sound cruel but most unwanted puppies and kittens back then were comparable to Christmas fruitcakes, something very common but often disposed of as quickly as possible by the easiest means available.   

Barney’s fate, at first, was far better than the most likely outcome his littermates endured. He was the very embodiment of the stories of how common mutts are the most loyal, loving, and patient of dogs. All important traits because my siblings and I were not the most well behaved or calm children.    

My parents’ marriage was always a disaster waiting to happen and sometime around 1975 when it finally melted down it was Chernobyl-like in magnitude. In the aftermath while our father largely drifted off the stage of our lives my two younger brothers, baby sister, and I were forced to follow our mother as she began an inglorious series of journeys crisscrossing the southern portion of the country. The exact details are excruciatingly complex but our mother would travel bounce around chasing a semi-derelict boyfriend one month then for reasons that were often nebulous at best load us up again the next and drive all the way back to our father for a temporary and half-assed reconciliation.

Somewhere in all this Barney disappeared in the midst of all this adult relationship realpolitik. Whether he was “taken off” by my father who had long since developed his own unique and separate interests or by my mother’s boyfriend who found him inconvenient is a question that will never be answered.  

After a couple of years of the best trailer trash drama I eventually had to separated myself from my mother and her boyfriend who still had control of my siblings and went to live with my maternal grandparents. After that, various circumstances never allowed me a chance to bond with a dog the same way I had with Barney. Even after my lovely spouse, Dragonwife, and I were married in 1993 I never got close to the three dogs we both owned at various times. I was fond of them and treated each with the kindness and respect every living creature deserves but they were totally devoted to my wife. For the longest time I just assumed I was not the type of person who could get emotionally involved with an animal. That changed about ten months ago when little Jaxx entered my life.

Generally speaking it’s never a good idea to wake me during the day when I am trying to sleep; working night shift is a pain all by itself without having to constantly answer ridiculous phone calls.  However, I take my parental duties seriously and stand ready to do what is necessary if one of the kids’ schools call. Needless to say I was ready to say some rather terse words to my wife when she called and began explaining how I needed to load her dog Sparky into the car and bring him down to a local pet shelter to see how he got along with a dog she wanted to adopt.

After I did my standard fifteen-minutes of husbandly protesting I began my usual wheeling and dealing seeking an angle to this situation that would be to my benefit. Truth be told I am a bit of a sucker when it comes to hard luck cases, as my wife explained was the case with this new dog she was interested in,  and pretty much go with the philosophy that there are room to spare here at the house and more than enough to eat for everyone. We already had adopted Sparky the Dog and Spock the Cat in the past couple of years and frankly I did not want to deal with cleaning up another mess. My children are Jedi Masters in creating residential disorganization chaos by themselves and I selfishly felt another dog would only add to the overall work load. All that changed when I arrived at the pet shelter.

Pets Inc. is an independent animal rescue agency located in the Columbia, South Carolina area that has taken upon the Herculean task of caring for and finding homes for abandoned dogs and cats. While it was a foregone conclusion that since my wife wanted to adopt another dog it would happen but the second I spotted that forlorn seven pound very dirty fuzz ball all unspoken opposition evaporated. Jaxx’s sad story only made sure I would welcome him as part of the family. However like Sparky the Dog and Spock the Cat I figured his attachment would be with my wife.

Pets Inc supplies a brief biography of each animal it sponsors which mentions how the dog or cat relates to adults, children, and other pets. For Jaxx it was painfully brief. The staff at Pets Inc figured Jaxx had been a stray for an extended period of time. Even worse he had never been spayed suggesting several possibilities, none of them good.  And they based their opinion on how Jaxx interacted with people and other animals from their observations since he came into their custody. They considered him rather docile and non-threatening. Oh boy, were they off on that one.

Jaxx’s adoption was far from a simple, happy ending. When we brought him home he immediately staked out an isolated spot in the living room and began growling fiercely whenever anyone came near. While he went along with having a collar put around his neck to approach him with a leash would cause him to nearly attack the person holding it. House training was a whole other world of poop.

Jaxx had the very strange, at least for my family and me, habit of backing up to a wall to poop. We never actually caught him doing this behavior but the smelly evidence was overwhelming. And of course the adage about small dogs having even tinier bladders proved very true, Jaxx, at first, always seemed able to make a puddle someplace in the house, as the months passed though we developed something of a rhythm that mostly solved that issue.

Because of the aggression issue it fell to me to attach Jaxx’s leash and often times walk him. Yes, it was often a battle of wills but eventually Jaxx began accepting the leash, but only when I was the one holding it. This began the general practice of having me put the leash on Jaxx while my wife or one of the kids walked him. Funny thing, as soon as they came back in Jaxx would run to my location and want me to pick him up. So the habit of him either laying on my lap if I was sitting in the easy chair or spread out next my head if I was sleeping on the couch began. Not long after that Jaxx was always sleeping with me when I went to bed, he would make sort of a bed out of the other pillow. It was a total reverse of the same practice my wife and Sparky the Dog have established since I work third-shift, in fact on the weekends when I can sleep like a normal person on Friday and Saturday nights Sparky seems put off whenever I steal his usual spot next my wife.

Long story short, Jaxx and I developed a deep attachment to the point there were many times I caught myself thinking about how happy I would be to see him running around my feet when I made it home. Several times My wife laughed at the sight of me, a six-foot, five inch guy who weighs, unfortunately, two-hundred and seventy pounds fussing over an energetic ball of fur that was never over ten pounds. What can I say, Jaxx was my little buddy and I took great pride that he trusted me so much.

This all ended while my wife, daughter, and I were on vacation just two weeks ago. On the Wednesday afternoon of that week my nearly eighteen year-old son, who we had left at the house to watch over everything, called to tell us Jaxx was dead. I will not repeat how he said Jaxx died because it was a lie. For it to be true Jaxx would have had to behave in a way I know he never would, I told my son as much over the phone. He still keeps to his utterly impossible story.

Needless to say I weep like a baby down in Florida after hearing this news. After I recovered enough to be coherent we all had a very short discussion and canceled the rest of the vacation. We left Orlando around eight o’clock and arrived home around three o’clock Thursday morning the entire drive was very quiet. This has been very tough for me, I never could have imagined the huge hole I feel in soul from Jaxx’s death.

I have my theory as to what actually happened to Jaxx and it involved one of my son’s friends who I find obnoxious in many ways and who did not like Jaxx in the least because my dog would go into fits of barking when he came into the house and make every effort to bite him. My attorney wife has advised me to avoid all speculation about what I think happened since I have no real evidence but the one thing that keeps bothering me is how that particular friend of my son has not come over since our return. This is a teenager who my wife has joked we could declare as a dependent because of number of times he has slept over and the large amount of food he has consumed in our house over the years.

There is no simple ending here, for reasons that should be apparent my son, Darth Spoilboy, now has to deal with all the yard work and home improvement projects my wife had assigned for me. I assured my son he will receive no compensation for his efforts and in fact will pay my wife and I back the money we lost in having to cancel the rest of the vacation. More to the point I told him that until I learn the truth his summer is over and that I should not get any hint that he is bored because I will find something for him to do. Curiously enough he seems resigned to this, a confusing attitude since he considers Jaxx’s death an accident.

Yeah, I know this acquiescence does not necessarily support my theory that someone else is responsible but like his explanation of Jaxx’s death it is not my son’s usual behavior to act this way. The little secret he fails to understand is that I have been involved in his life since the moment he was born, I know him better than he knows himself.

On The Events Last Friday

It was a hot summer’s day at Fort Bliss, Texas during my basic training in 1984 when the drill sergeants herded the other trainees and me into the old building serving as the place for our instruction on the fundamentals of combat first aid. If I remember correctly, it was rather late in the afternoon and after a horrendous session where Drill Sergeant Bogen and Garcia smoked the hell out of us with a couple of hundred push-ups and the same amount of mountain climber exercises for some stupid transgression. Because of the heat and activity, all of us trainees were slightly nauseous and ready for the forthcoming period where all we were supposed to do was sit at desks and listen to the army medic acting as an instructor and watch a slideshow.

As much as I was personally ready to sit at my desk and go into my patented daze which even the toughest and smartest DI’s could not tell if I was awake and paying attention or asleep with my eyes open the material we had to watch kept my full attention. The slideshow turned out to be pictures of human bodied suffering from various wounds by assault rifles including the M-16A1.

To avoid all the gory details I will simply write that most assault rifles, and specifically the M-16 and ALL its derivative models use rounds designed to fragment inside body tissue producing massive wounds. The pictures I saw that day were both horrendous and terrifying. The wounds they showed had more in common with what comes out of a slaughter house meat grinder than human beings whether they were friend or foe. Even for a bunch of guys who for weeks had been indoctrinated in the glories of being a soldier the pictures of massive gaping wounds was enough to not only wake us up but turn our already raw stomachs. 

Simply put modern assault weapons are meant to serious maim more than kill. This produces a side “benefit” of forcing another trooper to provide care resulting in two people rendered combat ineffective. When you combine the destructive power of modern assault weapons with their enormous rate of fire for soldiers in a combat situation it makes them highly effective.

Unfortunately, we have an extremely surreal situation in America where fools living under delusional ideas of patriotism or manhood and others suffering from apocalyptic paranoia have created a market for such weapons among civilians. I write surreal because I cannot go to a drug store and buy a full-strength sinus medicine without having to show my identification and some record of my purchase being made.

Of course, this is because criminals have in the past bought mass quantities to make highly addictive methamphetamine. But you can buy all the ammunition for any pistol or rifle you want and talented right-wing media types and fancy lawyers will proclaim it a right protected under the Second Amendment. I will not even begin to write about how all sorts of professionals working with much safer equipment than a weapon have to go through periodic recertification and evaluation. Somehow, a weapon of mass killing is thought of along the same lines as a computer or microwave oven.

As anyone can guess, I am writing this over the terrible events that happened in Newtown, Connecticut last Friday when an insane individual using a Bushmaster assault weapon his mother legally bought slaughtered twenty children and seven adults. The Bushmaster is a civilian version of the M-16 family of weapons and with the high capacity, thirty-round magazines the assailant used he turned those children and adults into pictures of carnage I remember from my basic training days.

As the days since that massacre have passed whole collections of misguided idiots and paranoid fools have come out of the woodwork screaming about how unfair or wrong it would be to ban their favorite adult play toys. The misguided idiots wrap themselves up in the American flag crying about their Constitutional rights even as the blood of those children lay drying in their classroom floors while those who believe in black helicopters and rampaging zombie hordes huddle in their bunkers with their precious firearms waiting for some doomsday.

The funny and disgusting thing for me in all this is that at one time I bought into all the mass hysteria over civilian assault weapons and the “right” to own one for protection. Time and more constructive interests like SCUBA diving and surfing took me and my money away from that insanity. Still though since I was raised in the southern gun culture where it is a religion in every since of the word I generally ignored those who continued with the crazed pursuit even though they often irritated the Hell out of me with their zealotry. This included several close family members who have now effectively disowned me.

Like many others, the events in Newtown have shattered my casual indifference and I will join or work with any group that seeks to ban further civilian purchase of assault weapons and the outright elimination of high capacity magazines that allows such rapid-fire carnage. Rabid Second Amendment types will of course whine about their rights and how the purposed assault weapons ban will leave those weapons only in the hands of nasty criminals. That would be a valid point if the Newtown massacre and the ones before that were the result of someone using an illegally procured weapon.

For the possible, but very few right-wing types who read my crap I am not talking about repealing the Second Amendment, I own a semi-automatic pistol and a small caliber rifle that I keep hidden along with my tiny amount of ammo, which is in a separate location. A total ban on all civilian ownership of firearms is both impossible and wrong; countless millions of responsible adults hunt and own a weapon for protection. I say again, I am all for the Second Amendment as I am all for free speech which is protected under the First Amendment but like everyone knows no one has the right to yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater. I believe the same thing about the Second Amendment, while responsible adults have a right to own a pistol or rifle military grade firearms DO NOT belong in the hands of civilians under any circumstance and I will work to see them banned. I cannot deal with seeing any more pictures of slaughtered innocent children because of the fears and delusions of a few.

Haitian Disaster relief

“There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad humanity must assume the aspect of Hell”
Edgar Allan Poe
Ignoring recent stupid and insensitive comments by Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh it is my sincerest hope that we Americans could set aside our petty and ridiculous differences long enough to help the people of Haiti in this darkest of times.
Despite our advantages many Americans have a talent for seeing the world only through their narrow perceptions of reality. We often overlook the struggles others face for the very basics of survival on a daily basis in the best of times. The reverse is also true in that we Americans can rally and move mountains to bring hope and comfort to those who have lost everything.
Here is a convenient link supplied by Google for two relief organizations. Unicef and Care

More charitable organizations from the Morning Joe website.
My personal donation I just gave was small but I plan on donating more as quickly as possible.

Special Place in Hell

Someone once said that capitalism without humanity is evil. That is an adage that takes special meaning, at least for me, whenever children are involved. I'm all for some person who comes up with a new idea, or through hard work builds a business, making a buck or two off of it. However, to purposely endanger the lives of children so the bottom line can be fatten up just a little more defies all manner of common sense. While I write this last statement realizing I'm far from perfect I hope God reserves a special place in Hell for those "business people" that follow such practices and curiously enough a few business journalists I've heard who make light of these events claiming China is too good a friend to get very upset over a few poisoned children.

A government probe announced on Tuesday showed a fifth of 109 dairy producers checked made batches of products adulterated with melamine, which is banned from use in foods.

Earlier this week, officials said 1,253 children were ill and two had died after the country's biggest baby milk powder maker, the Sanlu Group, last week revealed its products contained melamine, which can be used to bamboozle milk quality checks.

Melamine is rich in nitrogen, used to measure protein, and so can be used to disguise diluted milk. It can cause kidney stones and other organ problems. Four suppliers have so far been arrested for selling melamine-laced milk to Sanlu.

Not again...

I have to apologize to those who read my blog about my latest absence but events have once again overtaken my family and quite frankly I have found myself overwhelmed and lost to a great extent. Several times recently I have sat down at my computer to make comments at other sites and begin a new post entry on my site but I have found myself after many minutes staring at a screen unable to think of anything to write or much less summon the energy to type. Simply put, my uncle who I have given the name "Uncle Paul" to in my posts passed away last Saturday morning. In the course of twelve to thirteen months my family and I have lost my grandmother, my mom, and now Uncle Paul. It was not my intention to report this event chiefly because I just didn't want to write anything like this again. But I have found myself unable to "bounce back" like I had after the passing of my grandmother and mother. My grandmother's quality of life had deteriorated greatly over her last couple of years requiring almost twenty-four hour nursing care at the facility she was living at. While I miss her greatly even now please don't miss understand me when I write that she mostly talked about looking forward to seeing my grandfather again during those times she knew where she was at. I feel she is now in a better place free of the problems and concerns that plagued her in the last few years and along side my grandfather, probably sitting side-by-side next some river fishing. My mother greatly abused her health for years refusing to alter her behavior even after repeated warnings from her doctors that she was putting herself in an early grave. I made my peace with her and her behavior accepting the reality of her choices. That doesn't mean I miss her any less, it's just some things can't be changed no matter how many people endeavor to try. Their passing shook my family and me but there was a certain acceptance of the events due to the nature of their ages and health that made it, in some regards, easier to come to grips with sooner. My Uncle Paul's passing has been far more devastating for the whole family and a private hell for his wife Lady Einstein and their son, Neo.

Uncle Paul's health was far from perfect, he had been fighting a "mild" form of cancer for many years that while under control from chemotherapy never went into a full remission. Even though undergoing the grueling treatments there were several times I saw him up and about living a normal life just one or two days after the end of a session. For many in the family we had gotten to the point of overlooking what he was going through since whenever we saw him he did his best to not to show the toll it was taking on him. But it can be argued that my uncle loved life so much as long as he had breath in his body he was going to live it to the fullest no matter what. As the years progressed he did find himself making more and more visits to the hospital as the toll on his body became greater and it took more attention to stabilize his condition. The visits, at first, were usually just a couple of days but became more severe and longer as each one passed. While he fought to keep the cancer at bay the chemo began very much to be a double edged sword in its own right. The periodic chemical assault that prolonged his life ultimately damaged his liver to the point that just a few months ago while his health was stable he was under going tests in Charleston for a possible liver transplant at some point. The week before the Martin Luther King holiday I learned from my brother Joe Cool that Uncle Paul was once again in the hospital "probably just for a few days" and would be out before we all arrived down on the coast for the early start of the weekend on Friday. I had looked forward to joking with him on the Bush zombie clones roaming the state with the Republican primary coming that Saturday. My uncle was a independant minded Democrat and thought the Republicans a pack of fools. Even though the kids and I made a side trip in Charleston we arrived first in Georgetown to find Lady Einstein and him still at the hospital. His condition was far worse this time but I hoped that a little prayer and his seemly boundless energy might once again bring him back. I kept that hope as long as possible even though it became futile not long later.

One of my other cousins reached me first last Saturday morning with the news I didn't want to hear. I was devastated and I broke down and cried laying on my kitchen floor. The rest of that day was a blur as Dragonwife and the kids packed the needed items for the trip to the coast. I collected myself enough to drive down but I honestly don't remember the trip although Spoilboy did later make a point of asking me if I was okay several times. Needless to say I don't recall him asking me anything due to the shock I was in. The funeral was last Monday and since then I have found myself still unable at times to believe he is really gone. Uncle Paul almost worshiped Lady Einstein and was the type of father I try to be to my kids so I can't imagine what she and my cousin Neo have been through and will continue to have to endure. My other, and last uncle, whom I have given the name Uncle George finds himself the last sibling of the four that included my mother. The depth of his sorrow was such that the entire family was worried about his possible health. He has his wife and two sons but never expected to find himself the last one standing out of my mom, Uncle Bear who passed away in the late 1970's, and now Uncle Paul.

I am uncertain when I will return to blogging on a regular basis. I will be back at some point and I must admit that just getting this off my chest has made me feel better. Until then I will be lurking in the mist somewhere and wish everyone the best. And dear sweet Jesus in heaven I never want to write a post like this again for a really long long time.