Dogs I Have known …Part Two

Post childhood dogs

After I left Portugal, I spent several years in England trying to cope with the damp foggy weather, failing to cope with it, and the crummy living conditions, and eventually leaving to come and live in Canada in 1965. There were no dog friends during this period.

After doing some really silly stuff during my early time in Canada, I ended up joining the Mormon Church (really bad plan) and temporarily moving into the parental home of my friend, Anne. She and her parents and her little step brother and sister lived in a three bedroom suburban home with a huge, fluffy grey cat named Cat, and a lovely German Shepherd dog called Peter.

Anne and I shared her room. Cat lived in the house. Peter slept in the garage. He was too big to fit in the house!

Anne also had a lovely horse called Sunny. Sunny was a retired harness racing trotter, with a very mischievious personality.

One of our favorite activities was to load Peter in the car and drive up to the stables to visit with Sunny. Peter loved these visits because he could romp about collecting huge sticks and playing tug of war with one of us. Peter also loved to race about and leap over things. He and I would play while Anne took Sunny for a jog.

Peter and I became very good friends because he knew I would always throw sticks and then play tug of war. Sometimes he would dump a stick almost the size of a log on ones feet in order to get a game started.

When I finally got my drivers licence, and a car of my own (a beat up 1954 Chevy), I was able to take Peter out for drives when Anne was busy. Peter was ecstatic. He would jump in and sit beside me in the front seat, grinning from ear to ear. No worries of ever getting bothered by anyone while good old Peter was in the car. He had the loudest bark and the biggest set of pearly whites you have ever seen.

Peter always rode shotgun when we took Annes’ little brother and sister to the drive in. There were many a would-be Lothario scared almost to death after they tried to flirt with Anne in the front seat, then saw Peter rising up silently in the back seat and letting out his ferocious bark.

Sadly, eventually Peter got a tumour and we had to let him go. He was a lovely doggy friend and I really missed him when he left us. I included him in this section because although he was really Annes’ dog, I was very close to him and he felt like mine.

Next came Tasha

After a few more ill-thought out capers on my part, we come to the late 1970s.

Tasha came after Bruce and I got together and found a cute house with a big garden. Tasha was about 2, and then her owners opted to have a baby, but the wife felt nervous about keeping the dog. Tasha was not fond of small children (with good reason — some rotten little brats had let fireworks off in her face.) Her male owner was clearly upset at giving her up, but seemed happy enough with us. He brought her to our house in his big pickup truck. For ages after, Tasha would become very excited if she spotted a pickup truck; she had been with him since she was a tiny pup.

We had some early misadventures because Tasha was not properly house trained, but that phase passed. She was really smart and learned very quickly.

Tasha was very protective and resented people walking past our second house. We had a nice big bay window in the dining room, which just happened to look out toward the street. She successfully destroyed the wood around that bay window sill by leaping up, front paws armed with strong claws, jammed into the sill, while barking furiously. We eventually had to get it clad with formica, which proved to be effective against her claws.

Among her many exploits was the day she chased the scruffy Greenpeace people off the front lawn; the time she did not recognize our friend Terry through the screen door, which opened outward, and leaped against it sending Terry and his glasses flying in different directions; the day she watched a guest head upstairs to the washroom, and stealthily waited at the bottom of the stairs to leap out and say “Woof!” when the guest came down. The guest almost fainted and Tasha stood back with the happiest expression, as if she planned it.

Tasha was a great dog, lots of fun.

Tasha was with us until she was 15. We knew she was having some serious health issues. One day I was sitting around practicing guitar and she came over and nudged my hand. I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk, but when I got the leash, she gently nudged my hand again and just looked up at me sadly. I knew it was time.

Then there was Moka

A few months after losing Tasha, I was volunteering at the local dog pound. I would take the dogs for walks and play times in the grounds. One day I arrived and the ladies at the front desk rushed me into the new arrivals area and begged me to take this huge wolfy-looking dog for a walk, and to please consider adopting him. They were really worried because some tough looking youths had been looking at this dog earlier and were talking about dog fighting.

I took the big fellow out for a walk and found him very gentle and pleasant.

While I was out, the tough youths returned with the intent of adopting the dog. The front desk ladies prevaricated and told them they were too late, I had already signed the papers to take him. These meanies were very displeased and snarled among themselves, and at me, but finally reluctantly left empty-handed. After which I got Bruce to come to the pound and fortunately for all concerned, Bruce was happy to take the big goofy dog we named Moka Java. The ladies at the Pound were overjoyed.

I was still really broken up about losing Tasha, but couldn’t resist big, silly Moka.

Moka was the biggest, goofiest dog ever. He loved to go for walks, he loved to dig up and chew on bushes (this stopped the day he tried to uproot a visciously thorny shrub rose bush. I feel sure he thought it was my doing that the rose bush got him. He sat there and gave me the dirtiest look ever, but he steered clear of garden work after that.); he loved to chase squirrels; he loved to greet people and get fussed over; he absolutely despised Pugs. He also had it in for yappy small dogs. His dislike of small yappy dogs boiled over one day when a small terrier belonging to a neighbour, came rushing at him, yapping up a storm and Moka turned quietly, picked the small dog up by the scruff and pitched it back to its own driveway. He did not growl, or snarl and did not leave a mark. Just wanted to show this thing not to annoy him. It never did run at him after that little contretempts.

Moka was a stealth food thief. He once quietly removed a Danish from the kitchen counter and held it in his mouth, keeping it invisible until he could swallow it without my seeing. He also once successfully removed from the Christmas tree, peeled off the foil, and ate all the booze filled chocolate mini bottle decorations. We of course, freaked, but amazingly, he suffered no bad effects from the chocolate.

Even though we had a large park within walking distance, we liked to drive a few miles down to the lake. There was a really nice meandering park at the lakeshore and we liked to wander around there. Moka seemed to enjoy those walks too.

Moka loved his comfort. We had two very nice slingback chairs with puffy cushions which we had in the livingroom, side by side. Moka found he could lie across these chairs, making himself a very nice bed. I ended up draping them with an old sheet, as seen in the photo.

In 2006 Moka was diagnosed with Cushings Disease and was given less than a year to live. He also had some serious hip and spine issues. Amazingly, we had him until 2008.

He collapsed one day while we were out walking, luckily not too far from home. His back finally gave in. I was able to half carry him home, but he was clearly in a lot of pain. I knew it was the end when he refused even his favorite treat. Bruce and I quickly got him to our vet who is thankfully, only a 1 minute drive from here, and with tears falling freely while we hugged and comforted him, we let him go to the Rainbow Bridge, where I feel sure he is happily chasing squirrels again with his happy, goofy smile.

During the last two years of Mokas’ life, our neighbour two doors away had been trying to get us to adopt her recently rescued puppy, Tessa. Pat had removed Tessa from an abusive situation but really did not have room for her. She already had three of her own dogs, along with two belonging to her daughter, who had recently come to stay with her.

Because of Mokas’ age and his health, we had resisted, thinking that it would be bad for Moka to have this tiny, bouncy puppy around. That he might feel he was being replaced.

In 2008, not long after Moka passed, Pats’ husband had a stroke and she really needed to quieten the house down. Knowing we were dogless, she implored us to take the now two-year old Tessa, along with one of her daughters’ dogs, a very cute Border Collie called Finn, until things had settled down a bit.

They became our first fosters, which we will talk about in the section on Fosters and Neighbour dogs.

Because Tessa was a foster-fail, her story belongs in her own section, which will be next.