Alas, Clooney, We Hardly Knew Ye
By: Linda Moran
Tags: Hospice, Aging, Humor, Dogs, Therapy Dogs

Misadventures in Aging

Why do things have to be so complicated?

I worked all of this search over the last year, looking at money, size, changes in apartment, who to talk to. I did my homework, exploring ways around unresponsive search agencies and apartment regulations. I waited somewhat patiently until I could actually start looking after both knee surgeries had been well-rehabbed.

All this for a dog, and not just any dog. A service/therapy dog (allowed by law in our rather stringent complex rules) both to help protect me from running into things like people and walls and corners…and for grief as my husband is in hospice care for renal failure.

I thought about a name for over 4 years, one that would be perfect.

Clooney.

So perfect, so simple, so memorable.

I thought of starting the process now so hubby could be part of the search and feel better about me being ultimately on my own. Both of us have had dogs — growing up and as a married couple: Rex, Candy, Brutus, Liberace, Duke, Colonel, Jethro, and Major. But we didn’t rush the process. We had an information appointment with an adoption lady who helped place and train dogs.

Large dogs are hard to place and don’t always come available for months, so on this Friday afternoon we were prepared to wait. We would need to order a service harness for training, dog food, treats (5 flavors of Milk Bone since we last had dogs??), pay for any shots, and anything else. For 90 minutes we asked every question we could think of and then left, prepared to wait a few months.

Saturday morning I have a text that she has a possible candidate and will be “interviewing” him this coming Thursday: physique, bone structure, overall health, leash-trained, and so on.

Thursday night she calls. A Great Pyrenees, four years old, about 90 pounds (so he would be able to keep me from falling over), walked well on the leash, socializes around animals, spent most of his four years moving around rescue shelters.

The following Friday we go down to Central Vermont to get him — a 90-mile drive. The trainer wanted me to visit, check him out, then sleep on the decision. It was difficult for me to be away from Hubby for two days like that, and I no longer drive, so he came home with us, this big gorgeous, white-haired furry toddler.

picture by author

He was beautiful.

I was in love at the first glimpse of a rather large white ball coming toward me. I pulled out the milk bones to make his acquaintance and told him to sit. The rescue lady said, “Ah, he doesn’t do sit.”

(Should have been a clue….)

I gave him the Milk Bones anyway and loaded him into the car, he standing for the 90 minute ride home, head happily out the window. We get home…and our education starts….

We’ve each had dogs…we thought we knew what to do. But it’s 30 years later…

The Pee and Poop Cycle: oy, male dogs mark everything as their territory sometimes more than once during the same visit. I faithfully carried my poop bag — Clooney was too busy checking out his new neighborhood of smells, but when he finally settled on his bushes, oh my, that was a lot of poop. Picked it up, dropped it, and had to scoop again.

Dos and Don’ts of the Furniture: He jumped on the couch immediately and spread out the whole length of it, making himself quite at home. “Clooney, down.” Got to the bedroom before us and made himself very comfy on the bed. “Clooney, down.” We caved on the couch. He knew hubby would pet him as much as he wanted, and he knew (I could see it in his eyes) that I was the warden.

Bedtime: We all three headed into the bedroom where we had made him what we thought was a soft cushy spot. He sniffed, bunched it up , and trotted out to the living room and on to the couch. We let him know that would be okay. Getting up during the night, we discovered Clooney had migrated back to his spot in our room and settled half-on and half-off the bedding — right across the closet door. Okay, we can do this.

Bedtime 2: The next night I was in bed reading and Clooney came in, rumpled the bedding, and down he went. While I’m congratulating myself, I heard very large paws cross the room, then back to bed, and then a banging on the wall. So I peeked…he had come and picked up one of my shoes and was banging it against the wall — with his back to me. This is a smart dog…which brings me to -

Clash of Wills: He looked directly at me as I collected my shoe — eyeball to eyeball (oh, those gorgeous white lashes) and I knew we were a match for each other.

Training: We discovered the first day that he did not know any basic commands; for a four-year-old, I would expect sit, down, stay. Nope. He did walk well on the leash, which was good. I turned to YouTube for videos on training your dog to sit. Okay, I had kibble (and baloney, but that wasn’t good for him, according to the trainer) and we would do this. I rubbed the kibble on his nose and then lifted it slowly up (like in the video)…but he just looked at me and didn’t sit. After the fourth try he looked at me as if to say, “No way, lady, this is a lot of work for nothing” and turned away for more rubs from my hubby.

One of the videos said that a dog might not know what you meant by the command…so it was time to pull out the baloney. He sniffed and I put my left arm completely around his upper body and pushed on his rather large butt. It worked and he was happy with the baloney — he wasn’t in any hurry to leave me. Five more times, full court press, but he sat, and the time interval to get him to sit got smaller. I was exhausted. But we had just begun….

Stamina: non-existent. Great to pat and hug, but huge upkeep for him with walking and training. He’d go out on his little porch, settle in, and then bark — a no-no for the complex. I am very out of shape and recovering from treatment for a-fib. Hubby was in too much danger of falling for him to walk Clooney. By Sunday every one of my muscles hurt, and my right toes were bruised from him stepping on them. There was no way I could take him for the walks he needed. We also realized fe wanted — and needed — play time mid-morning and mid-afternoon…not at 70-plus.

Clooney took to hubby and would be next to him all the time — good sensitivity on the dog’s part. We discovered we were both so exhausted with his needs we had no time for us.

Time and weather: The deciding factors. Hubby is in his final months of hospice, and with a dog not trained for basic commands, this just wasn’t going to work for us — or for Clooney. He needed to be out more, and on Sunday all he heard was “Clooney, no. “Clooney, no.” Yet with baloney he was making progress on sitting. As for weather, here in Vermont it is dark now during potty times. I thought within 2–3 days we would have identified the good spots off the complex property…but my version of “walking a dog will be good for me” was out of my physical range. I’m currently in-between couch potato and 20-minute walks…and there were just to many new smells for him to hurry the process.

We didn’t have Clooney that long, but oh, we fell in love with him. The adoption lady wasn’t as straight-forward with us as to his training, and we weren’t physically able to do what he needed. So much for my therapy companion. Come Spring I’ll start looking for a dog half the size with basic commands.

Ah, Clooney, you were a bright start in our lives for a few days, enough for us to miss you and know you needed better than us.