DogBoston’s Dog Blog

After years of dog ownership my wife and I thought we knew everything, but it took a nine-year-old toothless, half-blind, little girl named Jordan to truly educate us.

Our first dog was a black and white Shih Tzu named Blake, purchased from a breeder, who gave us our love for dogs, and unfortunately passed from a brain tumor at the age of six. By that time we had already acquired Foley, a five-pound Yorkshire Terrier, who still, till this day, rules the house. Then there was Jax, a Pappilon, bought from a less than reputable breeder. He would be lost within a year, suddenly stricken ill, and unable to be saved. Having lost faith in breeders we decided to try a pet shop, where we found Copper, another little Yorkie. We had her for three years, until that April morning when my wife came home to find her dead in her crate.

We began to discuss adoption. Then we went to another pet store, and saw an all black peek-a-poo begging us to take her home, and against our better judgment, we did.

We weren’t home an hour when I gave my wife the unfortunate news. I traced her pedigree back to a puppy mill in Lancaster Pennsylvania. “She is never going to be the dog we want,” I told her “and she probably won’t last a year.” Skye was on the floor, chewing a toy, looking at us with her big eyes, and we agreed, she belonged with us, for however many days she belonged. They were few.

Less than six months later fell down the stairs. She was woozy so we took her to our vet who said she had a mild concussion and sent her home. A few days later she began dropping a leg as she walked, pacing, and vomiting, causing another vet trip. Four days later she stopped eating, lost control of her bodily functions, and could barely move. And we found ourselves, for the fourth time in five years, saying goodbye to a departed puppy.

We were determined to adopt a dog, and began scouring Petfinder. We saw on the Shih Tzu and Furbabies rescue a nine-year-old Yorkie named Teddy. She had been a breeder dog, spending most of her time in a cage in Oklahoma. Her teeth had rotted from her head, she had cataracts, and was extremely shy. But she was a little doll.

I sent in the application and we heard back a few days later with some more questions, then a home visit, then we were told we could get Teddy the next night.

When we arrived at her temporary home she didn’t run in our arms, she sat on the chair and shivered, and when we held her she pushed off with her left leg. She still had her leash on and we were told she was a “darter” whenever she got on the floor. We signed the necessary paperwork and got her home.

We renamed her Jordan, not after the basketball player, because Jordan couldn’t fly, or even jump. If she rolled off the recliner she just let gravity take it’s course, landing on her side, or back, or if she fell just right, her feet. Jordan was an old family name and she was our old family dog.

That night holding her, when her ears flipped back, I saw the tattoos stamped on the inside. I realized she had never been a dog, only a number. It made me think of a concentration camp survivor. She never had love or affection, except from the litters she was forced to have, and then taken from her. She was nine years of pain.

The first night she did her number two in our bed in the middle of the night. But we didn’t mind. We had worst things happen in the bed. OK, we hadn’t, but she was a little girl who had lived in a wire crate, and going when she had to was natural to her.

For the first few months every day was an adjustment. At first she didn’t know what the grass was for, but she got the hang of it. She doesn’t like being on the floor, always running, looking over her shoulder, afraid of what will jump out after her, so we keep her in her recliner, and, when we eat, we put her in a stroller so she can sit at the table.

We couldn’t touch her at first, but now we start at the tail, and slowly rub, each time moving our hand up a little further, until we reach her head. She doesn’t do kisses at all. And she still pushes off with her leg when she has been held too long.

She took to my wife much quicker than she took to me. She has made me earn every bit of trust she has given me. For months if she sat with me she would tremble. Now she sits quietly. Someday she even sits on my lap while I work on the computer. She tolerates the grandchildren, allowing them to pet her. Nothing gives me more comfort than to look down the end of the bed to see her and Foley snuggled against one another.

Her looks have improved, her coat is now silky like Foley’s, her eyes brighter, she has gained weight, no longer just a thin layer of skin over bone. As spring finally arrived in the Northeast she has begun going on her walks. Foley stops and sniffs and charges and backs off and performs a little dance for who ever come near. Jordan walks with my wife, head down, determined, sometimes stopping to sniff, sometimes even sticking her head out a little when we meet a stranger.

As rewarding as every little step she makes has been sometimes I look at her and feel the drag of guilt, because for every Copper and Skye we bought, somewhere there was a Jordan, in a cage, in the cold, in the wet, with no human touch, getting scraps of food thrown to her, having her little ones ripped from her for some man’s profit. A dog not worthy of living a dog’s life. For every dog in a pet store, there is a cold, wet, lonely Jordan with numbers stamped on her ears who just wants to be a dog, and most don’t get the chance.

Jordan is lying at the end of the recliner now, where she usually lays, curled in a ball, her eyes shut, occasionally letting out a sigh of contentment, because after nine long torturous years, she is finally home, and giving her that home is the finest thing my wife and I have done.

[Ted G; Taunton MA; TedG63@comcast.net]