So much has happened in our lives over the past two years since we last visited with you. We have so many new stories!

Jasper and I are living on our own. Actually, he still lets me live with him. Not that much has changed! Onyx now lives with Michael. They came to visit a few months ago, stayed for about a month. Michael took care of the dogs while I went to Kentucky to visit my son, then I took care of them while Michael went to visit his parents. It was a wonderful arrangement for everyone except Jasper. It seems that he prefers being an only child. What a surprise.

Here’s a photo of Michael and Onyx taken last fall. They are so happy! Made for each other. You can click on the photo to enlarge it.

It took a few days for the dogs to settle in to their new environment. I knew the corner had been turned when Jasper didn’t growl or bark at the fella sweeping the sidewalk in front of the hotel on our morning walk. People can now get into and out of their cars right outside our window (we’re on the first floor) and he looks at me before he does anything. This afternoon when housekeeping knocked on the door, he looked at me and when I didn’t say “quiet”, Jasper let ‘er rip. Just a few barks, but enough to let the person on the other side of the door know there was a dog in the room. With so many learning situations presented, he got the hang of it. I am so proud of him! Knowing when to bark and when not to is an invaluable skill. For dogs, too.

Onyx, on the other hand, has become quite the little pistol. Since Jasper is not barking at every noise and everyone, she’s taken up the torch. Not consistently, you understand. Just when she feels like it. The Princess of the Known World can’t be bothered with such nonsense as remembering stuff.

And she has become quite naughty. This morning she chewed up the corner of the blanket on the bed. Why, I asked, would she do that when she owns all the toys in the room? There is no answer other than she can. So she did.

We went for a ride this afternoon and she stretched out full length in the back seat leaving no room for Jasper. I tried to scooch her over to one side and it was like she was velcroed to the seat. Right now she is coyly trotting back and forth across the room with her prized chew bone in her mouth, waiting for Jasper to take the bait. He swings his head from side to side following her every move, lays down, trying to look nonchalant. Here’s a photo of Herself.

It’s hard to get past her beauty, her elegance to see the little devil that lives inside.

I am delighted to say that the three of us have become quite the synchronized team when we’re taking a walk. For the first few days we looked like a sledding team without the sled. Onyx would stand under Jasper to see what he was doing when he was marking the plants, then he would see something of interest and jump over her back, step on her leash and she’d stumble. He wanted to charge ahead just when Onyx wanted to stop to pee. The leashes would get all tangled up with me in them. Oh, and remember that the first few days Jasper was barking and growling at anything that moved. I’m sure we were quite the sight. Now we look like we’ve been doing this all our lives. Extraordinary walkers, that’s us.

Jasper got his name from a rock. As you can see in the photo below he was golden brown with a spray of black on his overcoat. (Click on the photo.) I didn’t think he was a very good-looking puppy, as puppies go, so he would need a nice name. Since his coat looked so much like one of my favorite stones, picture jasper, that’s what I would name him.

Looking back at this photo, taken the first night I had him, I can’t imagine why I didn’t think he was the most adorable puppy on the planet, but I didn’t. Maybe it was that smell thing he had going on. Or perhaps it was his complete disregard for me. From the moment I brought him into the house he acted as though I was someone who lived in his house and was there to take care of him.
He gave me no love, no cuddles, no sweetness. He was demanding and distant. He bit me, scratched me, walked between my legs tripping me up, he didn’t want to sit on my lap and was generally incorrigible. And he loved men. He went nuts over the pool man, the mail man, the gardener. It was embarrassing. My rescue dog could care less if I lived or died.

I became determined to understand him. Terrier being the only identifiable part of him, I bought a generic book on terriers. Never having been owned by one before, I thought perhaps there was something terriers specifically needed that I didn’t know to provide. The book did not provide any answers to that question, however I did learn that their self-assured arrogance is genetically hard-wired. Self-confidence is a positive trait. However, it’s my opinion that one can be confident without being aloof. This puppy was both and I didn’t much care for his attitude. I wanted to be loved, appreciated! I saved this dog from a terrible fate and I wanted to at least be liked.

As I came to know him, I found Jasper to be a very complex personality. His love is subtle, but evident. When I leave the house he sleeps on my bed which is near the front of the house so he can hear my car come into the driveway. I was away for a week recently. When I returned, he was so excited that he forgot he was Mr. Cool and licked my face all over and made funny little sounds of happiness. I adore this dog and in his own way he adores me right back. Life is good.

Jasper, Onyx and I are traveling. Sort of. We’re no longer mobile, having landed for an extended stay in a Best Western hotel about 100 miles from home. I’m here to work on getting back into shape after knee surgery.

The dogs haven’t had the benefit of travel or socialization in their short lives (Jasper is 13 months old, Onyx is 6 months). About six weeks after Jasper came to live with me the meniscus in my right knee tore while I was walking him one evening. Several months later I had surgery on both knees. Two months after the surgery Onyx came along. Because of the painful condition of my knees for the better part of a year I’ve been unable to take them to classes, dog parks, or even for walks. My health and physical condition are now rapidly improving. Not only am I looking forward to being more active with the dogs, they are my inspiration for continuing to work so hard to get well.

Jasper is off his game here on the road. Poor guy didn’t know there are different rules for different places. At home it’s okay to bark when someone approaches our property. Here it’s not. If he hears someone ‘lurking’ around, it’s okay to growl and carry on. Here it’s not. If he’s outside at home at 1:00 in the morning and he sees or hears a ‘bad man’, it’s a-okay with me when he lets out a blood curdling war cry. When he hears someone outside our hotel room window at 1:00 in the morning and lets loose with a 100 decible bark to sound the alarm of imminent danger I do not have quite the same appreciation for his hard-wired gift of protection.

Now that he has claimed the hotel and grounds for his own, no one and no thing escapes his diligent eyes and ears . He growls and barks at children, men, women, cars, the security guard, the housekeeping and maintenance staff, other dogs, and voices coming from the parking lot. At home he is rewarded for being a good protector. Here I tell him to be quiet for the very same reasons I reward him at home. My son was kind of screwed up for a while so I’m really hoping to get it right with the dog.

Onyx is pretty much a wash & wear dog. As long as her rank and status of Princess of the Known World is respected, she’s good to go. Being Princess means she gets to settle in the back seat of the car first. Being Princess means it’s okay if she takes her half of the seat out of the middle. It also means that she can take all of the special chew toys I’ve given both of them here at the hotel and stash them under an end table in the farthest corner possible where no human or male dog can ever get them. And it’s okay to parade around the room with one of them in her mouth to show just how good it is to be Princess.

I am hoping that as we have more experience traveling together Jasper will come to understand that different places have different rules. Of course, there are no rules for the Princess of the Known World other than to oversee her subjects with grace and parity.

From the moment Jasper laid eyes on Onyx, he was smitten. He could not believe his good fortune. To have someone around who spoke dog was, was just too good to be true. He would come to me, then go back to her, then come to me, back to her. I felt like he was thanking me and expressing sheer joy. They took turns chasing each other, sleeping side by side, sleeping head to head, they chewed on opposite ends of toys. That camaraderie continues today. With a few exceptions.

Onyx wanted to be involved in anything and everything Jasper. That included his food. The first few times she helped herself to his dinner he was tolerant. After a few days he had reached his limit of patience and laid into her (big noise, scary teeth, no injuries). Scared the daylights out of her! She wouldn’t come into the kitchen for the rest of the day. That was the last time she ate food out of his bowl. Treats are another matter.

I won’t give the dogs rawhide. I’ve heard that it can cause a blockage in their intestines. There are so many other healthy choices available that rawhide can be easily avoided. The bully sticks are a favorite. I should say they were a favorite because they fought over that kind of treat so much that I took them away. Onyx wanted them all. And she wanted to hide them where no one else could find them. Like under another toy or a rug. Jasper is a pretty laid back kind of guy. He didn’t care if she left her treat and came over to his to gnaw for a while. When she started getting nasty with him about it, I intervened. They now get no-grain doggy biscuits (Nutro Ultra products) and occassionally cheese for treats. Although I think it’s on the expensive side, the chicken jerky is great. I’ve figured out that if they can eat it quickly, they don’t have time to fight over it. Being a two dog mommy is challenging.

I am so glad I got Onyx. Jasper is delirious. It doesn’t take much more time or money to have two dogs and the benefits greatly outweigh any adjustments that I have to make to take care of them both.

I wasn’t planning on getting another dog. Like Jasper, Onyx was put in my path. Actually, I think it would be accurate to say that Junior was involved in bringing Onyx to me.

My mail lady, Jill, loved Junior. She would get out of her mail truck and bring him a cookie if she saw him at the gate even if she didn’t have mail that needed to come to the door. One day years ago I asked her if she had a chiropractor. Jill told me about the one she went to who worked on her and her dogs.
Dr. DeGrasse has her people practice three days a week in a regular office. On Tuesday and Thursday she practices out of an animal hospital. One Wednesday in June of this year I went in for an adjustment. Dr. DeGrasse asked me if I had thought about getting a friend for Jasper. I said I’d thought about it but hadn’t pursued it. (Actually the thought was fleeting since it had come just before I found that Jasper had eaten the bathroom trash again. Do you know how hard it is to get mad at a dog with a cotton ball stuck to its nose?)

Anyway, Dr. DeGrasse said a woman who worked at the animal hospital had found a puppy on the backside of Silverlake the past Sunday. (Backside means it was in a very remote, unpopulated area of a recreational lake.) The puppy was a female and had an eye infection but otherwise seemed okay. She said the woman who found her couldn’t keep the puppy because her dog wouldn’t allow another one in the house. So, like I knew exactly what I was doing, I got in my car and drove to the animal hospital to “look” at the puppy.

They brought the puppy out to me. I took her and sat with her for quite awhile. She was quiet, very thin, and had the saddest look on her face. I don’t care what anyone says. Dogs have facial expression and I’m not reading anything into it.

I was sitting in the waiting room with her and it seemed that most everyone there (clients) knew the puppy’s plight. When the puppy put her head on my shoulder and snuggled in, everyone in the room went, “Ahhhh”. Soon they were all saying, “Take her. Take her.” It was like they’d been practicing the chant before I got there because they were synchronized in the way only practice can achieve. Think Queen’s ” We Will Rock You”.
Well, I didn’t take her. I didn’t have a crate in the car and I wasn’t yet sure that I should take her. I went home and told Michael what I’d done and what I was thinking about doing. Michael is a friend who was staying with me at the time. If I got the dog, it would be my responsibility, not his. But, Michael is a good person to bounce ideas off of and has no qualms about telling me when I’m nuts. To my absolute amazement he immediately said to go get her. So, I did. Actually, we both went.

Michael took the puppy to the car while I waited inside to get the medicine for her eye. When I came out, he suggested that if I was going to stick with the “rock hound” theme for names, the only ones he could think of for a black dog were obsidian and onyx. Onyx she’d be.

The first stop was PetSmart. She needed a collar, a name tag, a leash and bowls of her very own. Things got out of hand in the toy department. I’d pick up a toy for her and Michael would earnestly ‘recommend’ that Jasper get a new toy, too. $112.00 later we were on the way home to stage two - introducing a new dog to ‘home dog’.

Before Jasper crashed into my life, I was privileged to share myself with Junior, a liver and white Brittany. I got him when he was 6 weeks old. We moved across the country three times. He loved, loved, loved to ride in the car. After we were ‘really’ on the road (doing highway speed) he would curl up into the smallest ball possible on the floor behind the passenger seat and wouldn’t move until the car slowed down, which, for him, meant the window would come down, he could put his head out and that a walk was in his near future.

He had a wanton disregard for any authority, most especially mine. I turned him over to a professional trainer who took him into her home for a week. Thereafter, Junior and I would meet her in a field for an hour each week where she taught me to train Junior. Two beautiful relationships came out of that experience - mine and Junior’s and mine and Peggy’s. Dogs truly bring blessings from the most unexpected places.

Junior died at the age of 13. The last year of his life was difficult for us both, but most especially for him. He had a kidney disorder, he had become blind, arthritic, senile. I struggled with the issue of ‘humanely euthanizing’ him, but just could not do it.
The day after Christmas 2002 I woke up and walked into a flooded bathroom. I mention this because I’m sure many of you have experienced similar upheavals and their effect on familial peace and well-being. Because plumbers cease to exist on 12/26, we went about figuring out how to manage living without running water. Around 6 PM that night Junior began gasping for air and choking. I called the vet who agreed to wait for us.

The vet confirmed what I already knew. He could ease Junior’s discomfort, help him to go on, but the quality of his life should be considered. That night I made the decision I had been unable to make until that moment. Junior was clearly suffering. Michael and I said goodbye to this dear soul, thanked him for being such a good companion for so long. We sat on the floor holding him for what seemed like only moments, but in looking back the vet and his staff had let us stay with him for about half an hour before coming back in. The injection was quickly effective. It was a relief to see Junior relax. The vet tech started to take off his collar and I slapped her hand away. I didn’t want anyone else to touch him. I took his collar and started to cry. Hard, heavy sobs that can only come from deep within one’s soul.

My mother sent me a plant with a note of condolence. Friends sent cards and email and called me. After those first few days of his passing, no one ever mentioned him or dogs to me again. For years. My sorrow was more apparent to them than it was to me. I didn’t realize that until a friend gave me a battery-operated dog for Christmas in 2004. I took the toy to our family gathering and commented how odd it was that none of them had thought of giving me something similar. Their response was that they would never have brought up another dog because of my grief over Junior. Until that day I hadn’t appreciated the depth of their sensitivity for the loss of my pal.

A few months after that I began looking at dogs on PetFinder.com and other rescue sites. I read the pet section of Penny Saver every week. Just looking, you understand. I wasn’t ready to bring another one into my life yet, but I enjoyed looking at them, reading about them, wondering if we’d ‘fit’.
Late summer of 2005 I decided that I would begin to search for a new companion. I decided I wanted an adult female, A rescue dog, of course. Beyond that, nothing was definite. I couldn’t decide whether to look at the breed rescues or the ‘generic’ rescues. I wasn’t in a hurry, so I looked at them all. Small dogs, medium dogs - I wasn’t set on size either. All I knew was that I wanted an adult female, preferably one that wasn’t too needy, not too aloof, preferrably with some manners and housebroken. Just right, you know?

There is a Great Pyrenees rescue kennel a few miles from my home. I researched the breed and thought we might be a match. I arranged with the owner to visit the kennel on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Of all the dogs there, a female named Allie was the one who captured me. She was 10 years old. As much as I liked her, I could not put myself into the position of likely going through a loss again in a year or two. The kennel owner, Dottie, and I stood there and we both cried as I told her about Junior and then she told me about her loss of a treasured dog. I wish I’d been strong enough to take Allie in, to love her for however long we had together. But I wasn’t. As it turned out, the universe had other plans for me.

At first I didn’t think he was magnificent. He was cheerfully oblivious of his unfortunate situation, he smelled bad, and from the moment we met he made it clear that he was in charge, unless he wanted me to think I was.

All smelly, arrogant 12 pounds of him crashed into my life a few days after Thanksgiving last year. I had just pulled out of my driveway, going to return a movie. It was dark. As I turned the corner, I glanced to the right and saw a puppy sitting against a garage door, spotlighted by a security light at the eave of the garage. We made eye contact and he ran straight toward the car. I stopped and got out to be sure he was okay and found him under my car. He came right to me, not as a wiggly little bundle as most 3 month old puppies would, but bold as brass on a dead run. I reached out to pick him up and that’s when the smell hit me. What on earth was that smell?!

I picked him up and went to the door of the house he’d come from. No one was home. There was nothing to do but take him with me and try again later to return him. I put him in the back of the SUV. Fortunately he was too little to jump over the seat and spread his love all over the interior of my new vehicle.

All the way to the store, he softly cried. I talked to him, but it did no good. He was going to tellme  his story and there would be no consolation. I returned the movie, then went next door to the grocery store and bought a small bag of puppy food. Since it was just after Thanksgiving, I thought the puppy’s owners may be out of town (hey, it happens), or maybe he didn’t belong to that house, whatever. I wasn’t going to let the little guy go hungry while I figured out what to do with him.

As I turned the corner back into my neighborhood, I saw a car in the driveway of the puppy’s house. An odd feeling of relief and sadness came over me at the sight. I left him in the car and went to the door. The woman said the puppy belonged to her roommates and she didn’t think they wanted him anymore. She said he jumped on their toddler, nipped and bit everyone and had probably dug himself out from under the fence. I told her that I’d keep the puppy until she talked to her roommates. But, she insisted on taking him. I had her describe him before I’d give him back. Over the course of our short conversation I became very concerned about the little guy’s well-being. I made sure she knew where I lived (across the street, kitty-cornered from her house). To be sure she understood (or, probably that I felt heard), I repeated several times that I’d take the puppy if they no longer wanted it. Reluctantly, I handed over the smelly bundle and drove the 25 feet or so to my house.

I parked, got into the house, dropped the grocery bag with dog food and receipt by the back door to return the next day and went to wash my hands. While I was drying them, the doorbell rang. Wondering who’d be at my door at this time of night, I was stunned to see the neighbor with the puppy hanging under her arm and holding an empty, battered dog dish in the other. She cheerfully informed me that, yep, she was right, they didn’t want him. I took the dog and the dish from her and watched her walk back into the night.

I’ll always wonder if they’d have kept the puppy if I hadn’t bought dog food.