I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: aging dogs

  • above, beyond and served with Buddy Biscuits

    above, beyond and served with Buddy Biscuits


    Spike to Charly: Listen, did you hear that? I think the old woman is scraping the bottom of our food box.

    So what? Charly said.

    So what? SO WHAT? I’ll tell you so what. It’s nearly six o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, and we’re going to be out of food tomorrow unless our Great Provider manages to contact Woody’s Pet Supplies in the next few minutes. No food for our meals, not to mention we’re out of Buddy Biscuits. When will herself learn to make reminder lists.

    ********************

    Point taken. Shoulda, woulda, coulda made a list, but no worries. I left a voice mail for Davis, the young owner of Woody’s who occasionally bailed me out of my emergency orders by delivering the dog food on his way home from the store after he locked up at seven o’clock. I tried not to take advantage, but he wouldn’t be surprised by my predicament on the weekend before Christmas.

    He didn’t call back, though, nor did he come by our carport Saturday night. Sigh. Davis must have been swamped with last minute Christmas shoppers, I thought. Well, good for him. Pretty and I had supported his business since it opened in the summer of 2022, watched his inventory grow, celebrated with him when he found a good groomer to add those services so if he was too busy to call me, I was really happy for him. There was no possibility Spike, Charly, or Carl would go hungry when we could feed them leftovers.

    ******************

    Sunday morning my little terrier Carl and I were in the kitchen staring at three empty dog dishes. It was 8:00 a.m. which was when the dogs ate breakfast. Carl looked from me to his empty dish with alarm.

    Spike and Charly had begun barking from their posts in the den when they heard their dishes rattling around.

    I was startled by a knock on our kitchen door; a man stood at the bottom of our steps waving at me. No one came to see us at this hour, but he looked familiar so I walked toward the door. There stood Davis with a huge bag of dog food and two boxes of Buddy Biscuits. I’m sorry I didn’t get these to you last night, he said, but we were busy so I didn’t listen to my messages until this morning. When I heard yours, I drove to the store to get what you needed.

    *******************

    Kindness is contagious. I will treasure many moments with family and friends during this 2024 holiday season, will be moved over and over again by thoughtful gifts and gestures, by music and memories that inspire good moods, by stories that remind me joy and laughter are still possible with faith in a future of possibilities for people of good will. All is not lost.

    But I hope I always remember Davis appearing on my doorstep at 8 o’clock on a Sunday morning the weekend before Christmas with peanut butter Buddy Biscuits for Spike, Charly and Carl. That was service above and beyond – kindness that should be celebrated regardless of the holidays we observe.

  • this is where the magic happens

    this is where the magic happens


    My dog Spike and I are “working” in my office on a rainy Wednesday night in December, but my mind has been frazzled by the recent drama of the car theft which has affected my concentration, sleep patterns that are suspect anyhow on good nights, and winter/holiday doldrums that were here before any of that madness. Bah humbug.

    This monkey’s expression while reading the Wall Street Journal reminds me of how Spike and I feel during the storm tonight. Basically, WTF.

    Then I have to laugh because I gave this monkey to my dad for a Christmas gift to put in his office when he was a public school teacher turned administrator in the late 1960s. He loved it – said it made him smile whenever he noticed it during a stressful day at work. I saved it when I cleaned out his personal items from the school office in 1976 two months before his death. The monkey is a symbol of a powerful bond that shaped my life forever, a reminder of a good father who gave me the ability to find the “funny” in the journey, the vicissitudes of life as he would say.

    I think he would approve of my working with a dog like Spike at my side. Daddy always loved his hunting dogs who never could hunt because they lived a life of luxury sprawled on a sofa next to him in an air conditioned home.

    I understand now that not everyone had the loving, yet dysfunctional, family I had growing up; but I’ve had a monkey in my office for nearly fifty years that makes me smile on a rainy night in South Carolina when I remember the man and that Christmas.

    Spike and I feel better.

  • Carl’s Seeing Eye Person

    Carl’s Seeing Eye Person


    our dog Carl in front of fireplace in den – January, 2023

    Carl in September, 2023

    Pretty brought Carl into our home in the summer of 2020. Well, she didn’t exactly bring him into our home – she left him outside in a crate on our carport late one night, and when I asked her the next morning if she heard a dog barking from the direction of our carport, she mentioned there could possibly be one in the area. Because we already had two dogs in our relatively small house, we had agreed to never get another one. So much for agreements. Our daughter-in-law Caroline had told Pretty, Sheila will never be able to resist a terrier; of course she was right.

    Carl came without a definite age – possibly ten years old, and I thought he would be a good companion for the other two aging dogs who co-existed without fuss or much bother. But he also came with a host of physical problems including severe infected ears from years of inability to bother by his owners. Despite months of meds, my determination to get this little guy’s ears free of pain, Carl also brought a spirit of spunk that would shake off my constant attention to his ears with ear drops and then race outside like a puppy to explore the backyard he loved. Our other dogs Spike and Charly were ho, hum about the yard so they were initially ho, hum about Carl…until Spike and Carl decided to become mortal enemies. We all managed to survive the crisis, but our lives were modified with baby gates for separation and compartmentalization to remove opportunities for confrontation. Charly the femme fatale was comfortable with either male but also understood the truce between the guys was tenuous.

    My daddy with the doctorate in education occasionally used the phrase “hard times done came upon us” when describing his battle with colon cancer that shortchanged his life at the age of 51 in 1976. Pretty and I felt that way about Carl’s battles with gradual hearing loss in 2023, gradual loss of sight in 2024 to accompany the two shaking arthritic back legs that resisted the magic shots Spike took monthly for his arthritis. Hard times done came upon Carl in the past two years.

    Carl this morning next to his bed in front of a barrier baby gate

    Carl has not lost his spunk, however, although that, too, has modified with age. When he attempts to fly down the brick pathway in the backyard now, his two front legs do most of the flying with the back two legs hopping along behind. He still prefers his backyard with its vast expanse to the confines of the inside rooms.

    I have become Carl’s Seeing Eye Person. I wasn’t certified by The Seeing Eye organization in Morristown, New Jersey (although I did visit Morristown once), but I was definitely trained for the job by a determined terrier who in the last year came to sit next to my recliner, stared me down with his cloudy eyes until I got up to walk outside with him. Patience is one of Carl’s virtues, but my lack of understanding the fear he must have had to live in a world without sound or slight sight surely annoyed him until now I know. Not only do I understand his limitations better but I try to anticipate his fears of the darkness so that he can find his favorite places to pee and poop.

    Carl this morning staring toward the pool

    (we have no luck in growing either plants or tennis balls)

    *******************

    Pretty and I often talk about our Hospice Care for three very old dogs which have given up on learning new tricks, but I will always be grateful for the lessons I’ve learned about aging from each one. I wish for Carl’s bravery in the face of overwhelming obstacles, his joy in running free outdoors, his will to never give up on life even when life doesn’t go the way he planned. Thanks, Carl. I needed that lesson particularly in recent days when hard times done came upon all of us.