Kip, the survivor
Tags: Animals, Animal Abuse, Abuse, Dogs, Black Cat

March 2012

When most young people say “I own dogs,” what they really mean is “my parents own dogs and I sometimes play with them.”

Some months into our relationship, I’d asked him if he had trained a dog before. Sure he had! It was really easy! Dogs are the easiest pets to have, much easier than cats! In other words, John’s grandma and grandpa had dogs, which was fine.

Right up until it was very not fine. When I first moved in with him and his alcoholic roommate, he wanted his dog back. Well, one of “his” dogs anyway. After all, he was no longer living in his grandparents’ basement and had space of his own. Again.

This was Thor, the 95-pound freak of a German Shepard. But a very well-behaved dog. He was up in his age, nearing about 9 years old. And John wanted him back. Now.

“That’s my dog,” he told his grandma. “We grew up together and he’s my buddy.”

He’d tell me, “Thor and I would watch each others’ backs.”

From what? I wondered if it was related to the odd habit John had of peeking through the blinds throughout the day.

“What are you looking at?” I’d ask.

“Nothing, just seeing what’s outside.”

I took a peek too. The street.

But she did give him Thor. Looking back, I wondered if she was aware of what would happen to the dog. Did she know? Did she care? That woman. I think often times she acted simply out of guilt. She knew a lot about what had happened to John. In fact, she was there for some of it. In her old age, trapped in a miserable marriage to a miserable old man, with nothing to keep her company but demons from her past, she lost her sanity. And I’d say her sense of reasoning too, but I suspected it was never there to begin with.

She really did lose touch with reality, but in every interaction I had with her, she showed me nothing but kindness. Kind, supportive, and full of complete nonsense.

Between reading paperback smut she checked out from the library, she tried to fill her hobby time with baking. In fact, she used to be an avid baker. She could bake the most delicious cakes in the entire world and then you’d be shocked to hear her say “It was just a box cake, all I did was follow the recipe!” But she didn’t mention was her recipes were 50 years old and she still used the same exact brands the original recipe called for. Some kind of weird old lady kitchen magic covered in crumbs. All the while Thor would keep her company.

“I found a fella,” she whispered to me once in the kitchen.

“Huh? What, a fella?” Don’t you have a fella already? Well then again, I couldn’t blame her for wanting a new one.

“Yeah, a fella! Real handsome too. Saw him in the book store. I couldn’t help but talk to him. He told me — ” then she’d whisper extra carefully “ — that I was so beautiful. So I talked to him more. We’re going to meet up! I had seen him before that too but he didn’t see me then.”

“Oh, um…” I was so uncomfortable. Here my grandma-in-law, one of the only two in-laws I had in John’s tiny family, was seeing how I’d react to her having an affair. “That’s nice Gramma, you seem very happy.”

She’d nod and grin like she was saying big time. Grandpa came in the room.

“What are you all snickering about?” He didn’t have any teeth. I can do a pretty good impression of him if you ask. So it was more like “Whadaryou all ssssnikeringabout?”

“Girl stuff,” she muttered and swatted him away. Her excitement folded inwards as she turned towards her daily tasks of cooking every single meal, taking care of both dogs, gardening, sweeping, mopping, remembering her medicine, remembering not to move too quickly to keep her back pain in check, and just generally avoiding suicide. If I were her, I would have killed myself years ago.

But the point that I’m trying to make is that she only had Thor. And books too, but that’s no substitute for a loving pet. Thor would never pull on the leash, jump up, or get on the furniture. He quietly napped at her feet.

And after nine years, John demanded him back.

And because his gramma wanted to make up for the past, he got him. I’d never lived with a large dog before.

“So what do we do?” I asked as the dog slumped down in the living room of John’s new rental house.

“Not much, he’ll take care of himself.” He motioned to the door. “We take him outside to use the bathroom and then he sleeps.” The dog looked up at us with his eyes.

And that is indeed what he did.

The first day or two we had him we played with him in the yard. A couple of games of fetch. We even went out for ice cream and I gave Thor the end of my ice cream cone.

But by the third or fourth day, John was pretty much bored of him. He’d settled into the house, much like the rest of the furniture. And like the rest of the furniture, it was always in danger of getting smashed to bits.

And I was the one who had to put him down months later.

A completely different dog. And John was right, he really did become a different dog in his old age. Turns out you can’t take an old dog away from his home, scream at him, hit him for messing himself out of nervousness, throw him down the stairs and into the tub without expecting that dog to change.

John didn’t want that dog, he wanted the old one. The puppy that didn’t think much about the abuse. The young male that recovered from a hip punch without much trouble.

He only needed the basic care you’d give any animal. Food, water, warmth, love. But I wasn’t enough, not for the oppressive power John had put out.

Doing the only thing he knew to handle his pet problems, he dumped Thor back with his grandma.

“There’s something wrong with this dog. He’s not the dog I remember. Take him back.” Thor had lost 30 pounds.

To be honest, I’m not sure if his grandma believed him, or if she had a vague idea of what had happened to him in the month or two he stayed with us. In either case, she saw him change too and was devastated. A week after getting him back, she called me to come over.

She surprised me by saying she took him to the vet. “He has colon fissures and is in constant pain. He’d need really expensive surgery or he won’t be able to hold his bowels.” She sobbed. “And I don’t have any money.”

Nobody had any money for Thor. We didn’t even have money for ourselves if we were sick or hurt. If I was sick, which I frequently was, I’d have to sell something to afford antibiotics. I’d only go in if I thought I could probably die without them. But Thor apparently had colon fissures and needed surgery. There was no nope. He didn’t look up. He blankly stared off into space.

“Honey, I need to ask you do to something for me.”

I already knew what it was. Yeah, I could do it. John wasn’t going to. It would be too much for Grandma.

“I’ll take him.”

Thor didn’t know. Much like people, you can look into an animal’s eyes and see their past. His eyes were hollow. He got into the car and didn’t seem to feel one way or the other about it. Ears limp. Shallow gaze out the window, even though it was rolled down.

I cried because I knew he couldn’t.

“Hey, you want a burger?” I pulled in through McDonalds. In the mirror, I saw his ears perk up as I ordered two double-stacked Big Macs, both for him.

I wish I had done that more for you. I wish you had a better life. I wish you could have a burger every day. And the colon fissures, if they were actually there, didn’t matter because he’d be dead in the next hour. I unwrapped the burgers for him and he mustered up a flash of energy as he scarfed them both down. I smiled. His gaze faded into the distance again after he was finished licking his lips.

It was difficult to explain why I was taking him to the animal shelter.

“I heard it’s only $15 here… He’s terminally ill… Yes he’s mine… No I can’t afford to get him treatment… He’s almost ten… I’d like to be able to hold him when it happens.”

They took him into the back room. Twenty minutes had gone by.

They’d forgot.

“The bag is ready.”

“What bag?”

“The body bag. It’s extremely heavy so we had to use three bags.”

“I… What? I didn’t ask for a bag.”

“You said you wanted to hold the body?”

I walked out.