Dudley

Dudley

December 5, 1998 – August 28, 2011

After we lost our sweet Puff in April 2000, I was lost without a dog.  Because we were moving, I had to wait to get another dog.  Mike started looking online for a Cocker Spaniel after the kids and I moved to Las Vegas with him.  He found a picture of a beautiful 2 year old male named Warm Springs Daring Dudley that the breeder was selling.  They had used him for stud services and for whatever reason, they decided to sell him.  We also saw that the breeder had a litter of Dudley’s puppies, but that’s another story.  I immediately fell in love with the picture of this gorgeous dog.

We went to Moapa to take a look at Dudley and his puppies.  I loved everything about Dudley!  He seemed to like us, too.  I wanted to take him home right them, but we were still living in the rented townhouse and couldn’t have dogs, so we asked the breeders if they could hold Dudley and the two puppies we bought until after Christmas, when we would be settled in our new home.  They agreed.

Rebekah and I went to pick up Dudley, Zoe, and Buster the day after Christmas.  It was wonderful having three dogs.  They were so beautiful and full of fun!  Dudley had more energy than I had ever seen in a Cocker Spaniel!  He would run in the yard as fast as he could, around the yard and up and down the hill.  I was amazed at his speed. 

I was sick when we got the dogs and then I got worse.  One night I was lying in bed, delirious with fever, when Dudley jumped up on the bed.  I thought he was an angel sent from God to usher me into heaven because I was dying.  Turns out I wasn’t dying, but Dudley turned out to be every bit of an angel.  He was a gift sent straight from heaven to this family.  Everyone loved him and he loved almost everyone.  He was the friendliest dog I have ever been around.  Most dogs pick a human in the family and claim them as their own, but not Dudley.  He was happy to spend time with each one of us.

There were only two people Dudley seemed to not care for: my dad and my sister’s friend Jane.  To this day, we have no idea why.  When they came to our house, Dudley would hide.  We would find him peeking around corners looking at my Dad or Jane.  He would go the long way around them if he needed to go outside.  My Dad would laugh at Dudley, but I think Jane’s feelings were hurt.  Dudley never did warm up to them.

When Dudley came to live with us, he was painfully skinny.  He would eat, but not gain weight.  After a few months, I found out why; he had tape worms.  All three dogs had to be treated.  Soon Dudley started gaining weight.  He was ravenous.  Then he got fat, so we had to stop free-feeding him and put him on a diet.  He was not impressed!  He never did lose much weight.  That was my fault, though, because I enjoyed giving him treats.  He loved his food and treats.

Our family tends to give our pets nicknames.  Dudley had several: Lou (my mom liked that one because her name was Mary Lou), Louie, Lish, Lish the Dish, Lou the Lip, and Limmie.  I insisted that no one ever call him Dud because he was NOT a dud!  As he got older, I mostly called him Lou or Louie.  It just seemed to fit him.

Dudley had a habit that we never could figure out.  He loved to lick walls!  I would joke and say he had a plaster deficiency or that he was getting plastered.  It might not have been so bad except after a while, the walls would turn brown.  I ended up putting up poster board on his favorite spots after painting over the brown color, but he would just find another spot.  Before he died, he decided on a spot under a cabinet in the living room and he would go under there and lick away.  I can’t bring myself to paint over that area.  Louie loved that spot.

Dudley also loved flashlights and laser lights.  He would go crazy when we shined them for him.  We called it ‘playing light’.  He could play light for hours if we would let him, but we realized that he got pretty obsessed by the light.  He would pace and pant if we stopped.  It seemed unhealthy for him.  I finally had to forbid laser lights in the house because he got the most obsessed by them.  Flashlights were only to be used for short periods of time.  He still loved to play light up until his death.

I mentioned Dudley’s love of food earlier.  He was pretty funny about eating.  I feed my dogs in the morning after I get up and again around one in the afternoon.  At bedtime, they get a rawhide.  Dudley made sure that I never forgot to feed him.  Mornings were never an issue because I would feed them as soon as they came in from going potty.  However, every day Dudley would start stalking me around 11:30 a.m. until I finally fed him.  Sometimes I would have to feed the dogs as early as noon because Dudley wouldn’t leave me alone!  I would try to ignore him, but he would be right on my heels and I couldn’t get anything done.

Dudley loved to cuddle.  He would snuggle right up with whoever was watching television.  In the evening, he loved to snuggle with Mike.  He would sit up beside Mike and lay his head on Mike’s chest.  Toward the end of Dudley’s life, he spent a lot of time in the crate in my bedroom.  We called it his ‘room’.  If he came up missing, we would always find him in his room.  I guess he liked the solitude and quiet.

Dudley started looking as though he wasn’t feeling too good in 2010.  He had his checkups at the vet with Dr. Jamie and she said he was doing well, for an old guy.  Dudley and Zoe took it really hard when Buster died in March 2011.  I watched Dudley’s health diminish over the months.  In July, we realized that he had cancer, like Buster did, and the vet was not hopeful for a good outcome.  We watched his health decline, but we were in denial, because we did not want to lose him; especially after having lost Buster earlier that year.  One day Dudley would be sick, the next he would rally and look really good.  We let Bekah know that he might die soon and we tried to prepare ourselves.  One day, we decided that Dudley was suffering and we were suffering watching him, so Mike took him to the vet, expecting that he would have to be put down.  It was horrible.  Mike was sobbing; I was trying to be brave so Dudley wouldn’t be scared.  The vet gave Mike some medication for Dudley and sent him home.  We were so relieved!  The relief didn’t last long.  Each day saw my little Louie feeling worse and suffering more.  I couldn’t stand it.  Neither Mike nor I wanted to make the decision we knew was coming.

On August 28^th, Dudley was having a bad day.  I spent time cuddling with him and telling him how much I love him.  I got in the shower and was crying and praying.  It felt as though God was telling me that we were being selfish, letting Dudley suffer because we didn’t want to make a decision.  I got out of the shower and told Mike that we needed to let Louie go.  It was time.  We called the vet and put Dudley in the car.  I held him and talked to him the whole time.  After he was gone, I cried into his soft fur for a long time.  We took his body to the crematorium and the gentleman there was so kind.  He lovingly took our boy out of the car and placed him on the gurney.  We made the arrangements and brought our boys ashes home in a dog house shaped urn to place beside Buster’s on the mantle several days later.

There is not a lot that is worse than losing a beloved pet.  Especially one as sweet, gentle, and kind as Dudley was.  We were devastated.  I came home that day and lay on the bed next to Zoe and cried so hard.  I told her, “You’re the only one left baby girl.”  I have decided that we won’t be adopting any more Cocker Spaniels.  They have too many health problems.  Zoe has the same large tumors as Buster and Dudley did and she spends a lot of time alone in my room, just like Dudley did at the end.  She will be twelve years old in a few days and I worry about her.   I try to give her as much love as I can, when she lets me.  Unlike the boys, she’s not a cuddler.

March 8, 2012

One year ago today my little boy, Buster, went to heaven. Sometimes it seems like a nightmare and I will wake up and see his precious face and twinkly eyes staring at me. Buster was a one-of-a-kind dog. He adored me as much as I adored him and he protected me always. Anywhere we'd go, he would put himself between me and the biggest dog around and growl. I still find myself saying how unfair it was that he got cancer and died. It was SO fast! I think of the day I took him to the vet for the surgery he never came out of and wish I could hold him again. He was so scared he peed on the floor and fell over on his side. I want to scoop him up and kiss his sweet face once more and tell him how much I love him and how much he means to me. They say that dogs are not our whole lives, but they make our lives whole. Buster was both for me. He helped me through some pretty traumatic times in his short life. He let me hold him as I sobbed. He was the first dog at the door when I came home from anywhere and his whole body wiggled with delight to see me! When I felt unloved, unwanted, and hideously ugly inside and out, he would touch my leg with his sweet paw to let me know he was there. His favorite thing was to be brushed. His skin would crawl with delight as I ran the brush down his back. He loved to play ball, but never fetched it. He taught me early on that it was my job to fetch it and throw it over and over! He was the slowest eater of the three Cocker Spaniels. He would lay beside his bowl and eat one morsel at a time. God used this sweet angel-puppy to heal my heart and make me feel loved again. And now he has been gone for a whole year. My heart is still broken, even though we have added two more babies to our pack. The pain has eased some, but it is still there. I hold on to the hope that Buster is waiting in heaven for me and I will kiss his sweet cheeks once again. I love you so much Buster-puppy.

Puff

When my family lived in California, we had a beautiful Cocker Spaniel named Puff.  We rescued him from the SPCA and they told us he was five years old.  When I took him to the vet for an initial checkup, I was told he was more like ten.  I didn’t mind, though, because we loved him.  It turned out, however, that he had serious separation anxiety. 

The first time we left him at home, we went to church.  As we drove up to the house afterward, we knew something was amiss.  Our first clue was the blinds hanging at odd angles!  We walked in and it looked as though a hurricane had hit the inside of the house.  Puff was happy to see us, but I feared we would have to return him to the SPCA.  My husband, Mike, and I talked about it and decided to give it a try with Puff.

I bought a large crate for Puff.  I had read that crate training was good for dogs with separation anxiety.  I would put him in the crate when I needed to leave the house and felt like he was secure.  I quickly learned that Puff was not happy in the crate.  Our neighbor mentioned his excessive barking.  I also realized that I would have to bathe him every time because he would be soaked in urine when I would get him out of the crate.  So I began taking him everywhere I went.

At the time we had Puff, I was homeschooling my kids, David and Bekah, through a local Christian school.  The kids were able to take P.E. and band through the school and had various activities there.  I also had monthly and quarterly meetings with the teacher who was in charge.  Puff and I became a fixture in the school parking lot as we waited for the kids.  Puff would sit in the back seat, happily looking around or napping; I would read.  If I needed to speak to the teacher in charge, Puff was a perfect gentleman while he waited in the car.  In Vista, the weather was almost always cool enough to leave Puff in the car with the windows down, especially if I found a spot in the shade.  I couldn’t leave him alone at home, but he was great in the car!

Puff loved going to my parent’s house.  When I was going to be gone for a long time or it was too hot for Puff to sit in the car, I would take him to Grandma’s and Papa’s house.  They loved having him there because he was such a good boy for them.  They missed not having a dog, after their Basset Hound Holly died, so having Puff there was fun for them.  My mom said that about half an hour before I would come to pick him up, Puff would sit looking at the front door, waiting; like he knew I was coming.

Puff also enjoyed going along to the kids sporting events and practices.  He enjoyed the attention he received and loved walking.  At one of Bekah’s softball games, David wanted to walk Puff so off they went.  Puff decided he needed to poop right in front of some teenage girls.  I thought David would die of embarrassment and he never again asked to walk him!

When we first got Puff, I decided that he would sleep in the living room.  I bought him a nice bed and set him up.  I kissed him and told him goodnight.  I went to bed and soon Bekah crawled in bed with us.  After about half an hour, we heard a light thundering coming down the hall and Puff came flying up on the bed!  He decided he did NOT want to sleep alone!  Bekah and I screamed and then laughed really hard.  From them on, Puff slept on the bed with us.

One day I had to get paperwork ready for my quarterly meeting with the teacher in charge of David’s homeschooling.  I kept both kids papers in open file boxes on the floor; David’s box was on the bottom.  When I got out the papers I noticed they looked funny.  I examined them all and tried to figure it out.  I smelled them and realized, with dread, what the problem was.  Puff would get up in the night and wander through the house, apparently urinating on David’s file box!  That day I purchased a baby gate to keep at my bedroom door so Puff could no longer roam through the house at night.  I made photocopies of all of David’s papers so the teacher would not have to handle and file urine soaked papers.  She thanked me profusely.

Sometimes Mike worked late and would be hungry when he got home.  He would quietly get food and sit in front of the television to eat it.  Puff had a really good sniffer and would rat Mike out every time by sitting at the baby gate barking.  Mike would come get Puff and they’d eat together.  Some of Mike’s fondest memories of Puff are sitting at the table eating, with Puff standing on his hind legs sharing his food late at night.

In September, 1999, we decided to move to Las Vegas.  Mike was working three jobs in Vista and he got a really good job offer in Vegas.  Mike left for Las Vegas in January of 2000 and the kids and I went in July of 2000.  We were a little concerned about how Puff would be in Las Vegas with his health problems and separation anxiety.  We didn’t know anyone there who could baby sit him and the summers are hot.  It was a source of concern for me.  It turned out that we didn’t get to take our boy with us.

Puff had a lot of health problems.  He had an enlarged heart and congestive heart failure.  At one point, he had some mild seizures.  He was also overweight.  Eating people food was not good for him.  I managed his health as best I could.  One day he started bleeding from a tumor by his rectum.  I took him to the vet and with all of Puff’s other health concerns, the vet was reluctant to do surgery.  I had to make the excruciating decision, alone, to have Puff put to sleep April 8^th, 2000.

I missed him so much.  He was my little shadow and went everywhere with me.  I sobbed for weeks.  I was panic stricken when I realized I couldn’t smell him in the house anymore.  I felt so alone.  I muddled through the rest of our time in Vista, not going too many places and waiting for the house to sell. 

My name is Buster

My name is Buster.  I am a Cocker Spaniel and I am ten and a half years old.  Now I live in this really cool place they call the Rainbow Bridge, but I used to live with my human family.  They really loved me a lot, and I loved them.

When I was born into what Mommy called a “litter,” I was the smallest of all my brothers and sisters.  Mommy said I was the runt.  I was smaller than my sister, Zoe, for a very long time, but when I was around two, my legs got long and I gained weight, and I was finally bigger than Zoe!  She still treated me like a baby and would call me a puppy.  But Mommy said that was ok, because I was the cutest puppy that ever lived.  I liked that.  She said that Zoe was the prettiest girl ever.  I laughed about that because I liked being cute and not pretty.

Mommy told me that they almost didn’t get me when they went to the breeder’s house to look at Dudley and Zoe.  They thought they only needed two dogs.  But Bekah held me while Mommy and Daddy were looking at the other dogs, and she fell in love with me.  The whole way home, Bekah begged for me.  When they got home, Daddy called the breeder and asked if they could have me, too.  I am so glad they did and so is Mommy.  She says her life would not be complete without me!

My favorite human was Mommy.  She fed me and rubbed my belly and brushed me and kissed me and pinched my cheeks.  She would whisper to me that I was her favorite and not to tell the others.  The ‘others’ she was talking about were my biological daddy, Dudley, my biological sister, Zoe, and my nephew, Ziggy.  Dudley and Zoe are Cocker Spaniels like me.  We came from the same doggy family.  Ziggy is a miniature Dachshund and used to be my human brother’s dog, until David moved away and then Ziggy came to live with us. 

Life was pretty fun when we came to live with our human family:  Mommy, Daddy, David, and Bekah.  Zoe and I would run and chase each other all over the house and yard.  Mommy said our growling sounded like a lawn mower.  Funny.  Dudley was a very fast runner.  He would run up the hill and all around the yard.  Mommy loved to watch him do that.  But it didn’t last long, because Mommy and Daddy decided to get a swimming pool.  I had no idea what that was, but big machines came and dug a huge bowl in the ground!  We couldn’t go in the yard by ourselves anymore because Mommy was afraid we would fall in the hole; but Dudley, Zoe and I would sit by the patio door and bark loudly at the men and the machines.  That was a lot of fun, but I missed playing in the yard with Zoe and Dudley.  One day, the swimming pool was finished and Mommy took us out to see it.  It was a giant water dish!  I couldn’t believe it!  I looked at Mommy and thanked her by licking her leg.  My favorite thing about this giant water dish was when Mommy would add more water.  I would run to the spot where the water came out and bite the water; then I would run around the pool a bunch of times and go bite the water again.  The front of me would get all wet, but I was very happy!  Boy were we surprised one day when our human family decided to get in our giant water dish to play!  How silly, we thought, but they did it all the time.  And they would even bring their friends over to play in our water dish.  Sometimes I didn’t like it and I would bark at the friends.  Zoe, Dudley and I had to learn to be very careful around the giant water dish.  Sometimes we fell in and, boy, that was a surprise!  Mommy watched us very carefully, though, and always seemed to be there to help us out of the water dish. 

When we were very little, our human sister, Bekah, would dress up Zoe and I in baby clothes and take pictures.  I would growl and pretend I didn’t like it, but it was fun.  Zoe really liked it.  I guess that’s because she’s a girl.  I liked having a human brother and sister.  They would play with me and cuddle with me.  But then they got very busy with school and even part-time jobs.  I never understood that.  I thought they should just play with me and Zoe and Dudley all the time!   But Mommy spent a lot of time with us, and so did Daddy, when he got home from work.  Sometimes Mommy would go away for a long time to visit Grandma and Papa and I really missed her.  No one seemed to understand me the way Mommy did.  I loved to sleep next to her in bed, but sometimes I would sleep under the cradle that David used to sleep in when he was a baby.  As I got older, it became my favorite place to sleep. 

Sometimes Mommy would play hide and seek with me.  She would go hide somewhere and then call my name.  When I found her we would laugh and cuddle.  I never told her that I could just follow her smell to find her.  Mommy and I did a lot together.   I loved my pink ball and Mommy would throw it down the hallway.  I would run after it and squeak it really loud and then Mommy would fetch it and throw it again.  That was great fun.  One day, my pink ball ripped in half and Mommy went to the store to buy another one.  She came home very sad and said there were no more pink ones anywhere.  I was very particular about the kind of ball I played with.  It had to squeak loudly and be sort of soft.  So Mommy kept looking and bringing home different balls, but none were just right.  Finally, one day she came home with a white ball that had colorful bone shapes all over it.  It was perfect!  I squeaked that ball as often and as loudly as I could; especially when Mommy was on the phone to Grandma, because it would make Grandma laugh.  Mommy went back to the store and bought two more balls just like my new favorite one.  I was so happy!

One day, David went away.  Mommy said he got ‘married’ and would live with his wife.  I didn’t think that was a good idea because I missed him, but he and his wife would come to visit a lot.  Then the worst happened!  They got a puppy named Ziggy.  They would bring Ziggy over for Mommy to babysit because they worked all day.  Mommy loved Ziggy a lot and held him and played with him.  I didn’t like that at all!  But Mommy still spent a lot of time with me and would still whisper to me that I was her favorite and tell me not to tell the others.  That made me happy.  Ziggy was annoying and barked a lot when he had to go in the crate.  When Mommy would let him out of the crate, I would chase him and growl.  Mommy would laugh because she knew I would never hurt him.  She said I was a lot like Papa; I liked everyone to think I was tough and mean, but I was just a sweet, soft teddy bear in my heart. 

Mommy loved to sing songs to us dogs as she did her work every day, and she talked to us all the time.  My favorite thing to do, when I got old, was to lie on the bed and wait for Mommy to come in the room.  She would come in and be so surprised and happy to see me and then come over to cuddle me and tell me how much she loved me.  At night, before she went to sleep, she would pat my tummy and say, “Good night puppy-boy.  I love you.  Sleep good.”  Then I would sigh loudly and we’d go to sleep. 

One day, Bekah left us.  Mommy said she was a big girl and moved to her own apartment.  She would come over a lot and play with me and Zoe and Dudley.   That made me so happy.  After a while she moved back to our house so she could save her money to buy a house.  I thought she was back forever, so I was really surprised when she left us again.  She didn’t visit as much, but we still got to see her once a week.  I really missed her, though.

David decided to move far away one day and asked if Mommy and Daddy would keep Ziggy for a while.  They said yes and Zoe and I were not happy!  He slept on the bed with us and ate our food and treats and took up a lot of Mommy’s and Daddy’s time.  Dudley liked him a lot, though, and talked us into tolerating Ziggy.  We learned to get along pretty well.  Ziggy still lives at our house. 

One day Daddy disappeared.  Mommy was worried a lot and would leave us all alone for a few hours every day.  She said she was going to the hospital to visit Daddy.  We didn’t know what that meant and we were so scared that Mommy would leave us, too!  After seventeen days, Mommy brought Daddy home; but he was different.  He was weak and slept a lot.   But he would still talk to us and pet us.  Eventually, he went back to work and I hoped everything would get back to normal again, but it didn’t.

I started feeling icky.  I stopped eating very much and had diarrhea; eventually, I stopped pooping.  Mommy was so busy helping Daddy get well that she didn’t notice I had lost a lot of weight and my tummy got big.  Then one day she did notice and she cried.  She took me to the vet, Dr. Jamie, who said that I was very sick.  She did an x-ray and made me lay on my back.  That made me really mad because I don’t even let Mommy roll me on my back!  Dr. Jamie also took some blood for testing.  Dr. Jamie said that it didn’t look good.  I didn’t know what she meant, but Mommy got scared.  They decided to do surgery the next day and Mommy took me home.  That night was really weird.  Mommy and Daddy laid on the floor with me and prayed to God about me.  They cried and talked to me and told me how much they loved me.

The next day I was miserable.  Mommy said she could see that I was in a lot of pain.  She had no idea that I was in more pain than she could imagine.  She took me to the vet again.  Boy I hated that place!  This time, mommy left me there.  I was scared, but Dr. Jamie is a very nice person and she loved me a lot, so I tried to be brave.  They laid me on a table and helped me to sleep while Dr. Jamie did surgery.  I couldn’t feel a thing.  I dreamed about cuddling with Mommy and eating my favorite treats.  I was happy. 

What I didn’t know was that as Dr. Jamie was doing the surgery, she found lots of very bad cancer in my belly.  That’s what was making me so sick and losing weight.  She called Mommy and told her that she could stitch me up and send me home, but I would be in more pain than we could imagine, or we could “let him go.”  Mommy sobbed.  She didn’t want me to suffer.  So she told Dr. Jamie to let me go and asked her to give me one last kiss for her.  Pretty soon, I woke up in this place called the Rainbow Bridge.  I was confused at first, because Mommy wasn’t there.  I looked for her everywhere.  Then this dog named Puff found me and explained where I was and what was going on.  Puff was Mommy’s dog a long time before I was even born.  He said that he and I, an another dog named Candy who was Mommy’s dog when Mommy was a little girl, would wait in this great place a have a lot of fun every day and have wonderful food to eat until Mommy gets old and dies.  Then she will meet us here and we will go to Heaven and be together forever!  I’m happy that I am in a really good place while I wait, but sometimes, I can hear Mommy crying because she misses me.  I miss her, too.  We were the best of friends and she said I was her protector.  I stayed by her side and we loved each other.  We can’t wait to be together again.