AJC > Sandy Springs > Blog > Archives > 2005 > October > 03
Monday, October 3, 2005
Dog daze raises cosmic questions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My wife Carol, who is very wise when it comes to the universe, says there are no coincidences, that everything happens for a reason. Everything.
Which is why I’m bumfuzzled over an event that took place last week. But to tell that story, I have to tell this story.
When I was growing up, cats and dogs had free run of our neighborhood. The cats lolled in the sun and chased birds. The dogs chased cars and left surprises in the tall grass.
In my house we were cat people. My mother wasn’t wild about animals and cats were deemed to be the lesser of two evils.
So 10 years ago when I bought my house at the age of 37, I had the backyard fenced and my son Zach and I went to the animal shelter to rescue a dog. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. Perhaps a regal-looking Golden, the kind that would lay by my feet in the evening while I wore a satin smoking jacket and read Dickens or Thoreau by a roaring fire. A handsome animal that would look good as I walked, thoughtfully puffing on a pipe, in the early chill of autumn. I should have told me son what was on my agenda before he found Jake.
Jake is a dog of dubious parentage. He was listed as a Basset-Shepherd mix, but since then we’ve had another half-dozen breeds suggested. Suffice it to say, at the end of the day in the celestial dog factory they took all the leftover parts and the result was Jake. He is short and stumpy. His history reads like a rap sheet and the furry little thug would later require a week at doggy boot camp before he was officially part of the family.
Two months after Jake was adopted, Carol became my fiance, and three months later Jake was joined by her dog Molly when we (Carol and I, for those trying to keep track) got married. Molly is a black Lab mix, and like Jake, she will never be considered a candidate for Mensa. We don’t refer to them as the dogs, we call them “the morons.â€?
Now begins our other story. Three weeks ago, Carol and I found ourselves hooked into one of those pet adoption events they hold at shopping malls. They do this because they know that people like me have a hard time walking past sad-eyed dogs.
The dog we were interested in was not interested in us and it should have ended there until we met Sydney, an Australian Shepherd mix. Unlike the morons, this was a very sweet animal with a past that read like a Dickens novel. How could we pass this up?
We walked down the mall and sat and thought about it. A third dog. A third set of shots. A third dog that would need boarding when we travel. More dog food. More dog maintenance. It made absolutely no sense. But good sense doesn’t stand a chance against a pair of big brown doggy eyes, and two days later Sydney came to live with us.
It’s been an adjustment. The morons have been together for seven years and they are set in their ways (read: they take nine naps between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m.). Sydney has all the energy of a young dog and neither side is sure what’s going on. Which may be why Molly snapped at Sydney and took a pretty good hunk out of her nose. And that brought us to the vet Tuesday last, which is where I’m having trouble reading the cosmic tea leaves.
The building that houses the after-hours veterinary practice is the same that housed my first pediatrician when we moved to Sandy Springs. The examination room I had Sydney in was the same I used to sit in with a fever, cough, runny nose, etc.
Coincidence? Not according to my wife. The meaning? She doesn’t have an answer to that one, at least not one that doesn’t impugn my spotless character.
What is the circle of life that brings a man back to his medical roots 43 years later, only to find the space is now for those using four feet? When did curing acne give way to stopping fleas and ticks? When did “turn your head and cough” get replaced by a discussion on the merits of getting neutered?
Questions, I have. Answers, I need.
