Gatsby's Story

The woman on the phone sounded desperate and frustrated. " I can't keep my son's dog any more. He is nine months old and I have already had to take my shelties to the vet's twice because he keeps fighting with them." I was manning the golden retriever hotline and was silent as she went on. "My son was in a car accident and cannot care for his dog anymore so we took him in. My husband spoils him. His name is Zeus. He is sweet but just does not get along with my dogs." She  had tried the Houston rescue but they would not take him.
I knew this rescue would not take him in either. They had a strict policy against aggressive dogs. It does not  match with normal breed characteristics for golden retrievers. We had a mouthy golden when  I was a kid until my mom did some training with a professional. I wondered if we could handle him, my husband and I. We had just moved to a large house with acreage and my current golden rescue, Tucker was getting up in years and I wanted another one. The rescue that I volunteered for would never let me adopt because we did not have a fenced yard in the traditional sense. We had the Invisible Fence but they did not think it kept dogs safe enough. I could see that point in some neighborhoods, but we lived in the country with no neighbors. The dog from Houston seemed like a golden opportunity. My husband had a job coming up in Houston in the next few days so he got the address and said he would just have a look. He came home with a dog that looked more like an Irish Setter than a Golden Retriever. He was papered and his birthday was on Valentine's Day.

The first thing we needed to do was change his name. Zeus, I felt, gave him too much power. Husband named him after his favorite book character. Gatsby. It would be nice to report that he and Tucker became instant friends but that just did not happen. There were some snarley fights and bloody ears. Finally they came to an understanding and stopped fighting, except on rare occasions. We also discovered that Gatsby thought cats were for chasing and eating. We had the Invisible Fence put a unit in the house to keep the dogs from going no further than the landing at the top of the stairs. Oh how the cats taunted him.

He WAS unruly, and spoiled. My husband was fond of picking up the squirmy 65 pound fluff ball and hugging him. He was difficult to walk and tried to attack most other dogs. If you ran across the yard, he would try to bite your hands. We sent him to boot camp. The best one in town. He came home with some manners but we obviously did not keep up with them very well. He regressed so we sent him back when we went on our delayed honeymoon.

So the manners thing, well, we just decided to ignore that and made sure that no friends brought their dogs over. We discovered he was great a sticking his heads down holes to catch rats, rabbits and skunks. It was not until I heard him crunching an armadillo shell that I realized that, they too, were hole dwellers to be caught. Safe to say, we never really had a rodent problem.

When I got pregnant, I was worried how he would be around the baby. I really worried that he would attack it like he would a small animal. As I was crossing the lawn on day to answer the phone, he leaped up and bit my hand. It was more like teeth hitting skin but it hurt and I knew I could not stand for that. I clasped my hands together and swung at him, rolling him across the lawn. He looked stunned sitting back on his haunches, From that day on, he never bit at my hands or arms when I ran by him.
The baby came and we did everything the books tell you about introducing a baby to your pet. Tucker liked the baby. Tucker liked to lick the baby. Tucker was ancient. He was 15, could not walk very well, hear very well or see very well. Gatsby was indifferent. He did not have time for this creature who stole his dad's attention from him. Did I mention that my husband spoiled Gatsby rotten? Tucker crossed over the Rainbow Bridge soon after Jake was born. Gatsby learned that babies meant food on the floor and likely leftovers.
As Jake grew though, Gatsby mostly still ignored him. I mean, pretended he was not even there, as he ran over him to go outside or get to food. Kiddo took it all in stride. We decided Gatsby was a little too sad and lonely after Tucker's death so we adopted Daisy from the shelter. She was the only dog who did not cower in a corner after meeting Gatsby. They cowered because he tried to dog fight everyone. Daisy, a border collie mix, was quick. She darted out his reach, got in her herding crouch and seemed to say "I am going to figure you out, tough guy." We loved her. She and Gatsby had some tussles but in the end she dominated him. She herded him all over the yard, running backwards to his running forwards. She herded small animals for him to catch. On two separate occasions, those small animals happened to be our cats who had gotten outside. The endings were not good for the kitties and I was glad I was out of town. I was so angry, mostly at Gatsby, because I had seen him go after the cats, mouth wide open on more than once.
So he lived happily guarding his home and people and keeping the yard free of armadillos and stray dogs. I was never as crazy for him as I was for Tucker. He was mostly my husband's dog. When we got divorced, we split up the dogs. I don't think Gatsby was looking longingly across the sound for Daisy's green light but he missed her. She missed bossing him around too. So the dogs went where Jake was, sort of. I only took Gatsby when his dad was traveling. It was hard to keep him away from the cats because the new house is much smaller but we worked it out. He learned the Invisible Fence at the new place too. I think Daisy faked him out, making him think it was a smaller area than it really was, because he stayed close for a long time. We used to joke that he was not bred for his intelligence, or that he must have been inbred and his brain was pinched in his cone head.
I will miss him. I know that we gave him a great life that he might not have gotten. He might have been put down much sooner because of the aggression. I mourn the loss of the kitties he killed but forgave him. He deserved a chance and we gave it to him. We did not take him places where he could hurt other dogs but I would have liked to have taken him swimming, like I used to take Tucker. My eyes hurt from crying and so do my son's. He went peacefully. Daisy must have said goodbye earlier because she was not very interested in the whole death thing. She was more concerned about us. I think she will be content being the solo dog. Gatsby's ashes will live at his dad's with the ashes of my dog Tucker.
Jake and I decided that now Gatsby is in heaven with Tucker, the horses, Sahil, Bailey and Chai and the kitties, Smudgie, Gracie and Virgie, along with my dead iPod (well it died too, so you figure it out). Perhaps in some great animal heaven comedy, the cats get to chase Gatsby for once, maybe even while riding horses.

Smudgie the Cat

My fiance, Darren and I lived south of town, in a small rent house, very close to our neighbors on either side. On one side was an exterminator who was not fond of cats. I swore to Darren that he was responsible for death of one of our cats. It was a trauma, the vet said, usually from a fall, or was it really a throw?

This is where Smudgie's story began with us. She crawled through a hole in the fence into our yard from the evil exterminator's. This cute little ball of white fur stood out among the fall leaves. We had to rescue her from certain death. Darren began to feed her. We named her Smudge because despite the fact that she was mostly white, she had a black smudge of fur on the top of her head. She had no idea it was there.

 I wanted to bring her inside the house because it was winter and pretty chilly out. We both worked on getting her in. She was shy and it was difficult to even get close to her outside. Lucky for us, she liked out other cats.  Somehow we got her in the house. Mostly she hid,. She was the ghost cat. We forgot we had her at times. Which was good because our landlord didn't know we had any cats. It was easy to lie to him if WE never saw her.

We moved to our dream house in the country. She went with us, along with the four other cats (our landlord was unaware of) and our dog. We decided the kitties would all be indoor cats to keep them safe from coyotes,  that is until one began spraying and he got reassigned outdoors.

He disappeared some months later.

 Fast forward eleven years, I am divorced living in a smaller home on 6 acres near Bastrop. The cats from long ago are all now deceased, except Smudgie. After our move, she still preferred to hide under the bed. The fear was intensified by the move. A stray cat, who came with my new house, moved in. She loved him. He was a Big Ol' Tom cat, who she would come out sit near. He made her feel secure. Then a kitten joined our household. A silly orange thing who surprise attacked whoever passed by him. She hated him.

Mostly, Smudgie stayed aloof, coming out only at night to sleep beside me. She woke me up in the morning, before dawn's light,      staring at me,     willing me to pet her. She would not leave until she was weary of me. Eventually, my son got the same treatment. She started to venture out into the rest of the house when the dogs were outside. Smudgie was actually getting social in her old age.

Then Smudgie got sick. I took her to the vet and their results were inconclusive. They recommended that I have an ultrasound done on her. . . I declined. After spending $500 to hear their results were inconclusive, I could not afford another chunk of change for an ultrasound.  Suppose something WAS wrong with her insides, would I pay even more to have the vet open up the old girl and an attempt to fix the problem? No, I simply could not afford that.

 I took her home and she seemed to rally. She was keeping food down and gaining weight. Then right before our vacation, she got worse. I sent her to the vet while we were away, half expecting her not to make it. She did make it. In fact she rallied again, but not for long.

She stopped eating. She stayed close to the water dishes that I had placed everywhere around the house for her. She would not even drink the tuna juice I drained from the can. I knew the end was near.

Every morning I would ask my son, trying not to sound serious, "did you see Smudgie? Is she still alive?"

She wanted to go outside. Even inside cats went outside to die when their time was near, or so I had read.  It was tempting. I could just see her getting carried off by a hawk, who would be terribly disappointed by the lack of meat on her.

She hung in there. I could hear her labored breathing at times but she still managed to purr when I groomed her.

 And of course it would be a holiday weekend when SHE chose to go. Weekends and holidays are the times pets always seem to get sick at my house. I knew she ready to die but the vet was closed. She would have to leave of her own accord.

 Labor day morning, my son came into my room to see if I was awake.

"Good morning sweetie, is Smudgie out there?" I asked. I thought I had heard her meow in the wee hours but when I looked for her in the dark, I did not see her.

He checked and found her stretched out on the living room rug.
"She is just lying there, Mom, kind of staring into space."
 "Is she breathing?"
 "I am not sure."
 I got up and went to look. She was not breathing. She had died all stretched out with her eyes open and front teeth exposed in a death snarl. Now I had to see if rigor mortis had set in.

I hated touching dead animals. The fear of feeling them stiff as a board was scary and unnatural to me. I got some rags and managed to pick her up to put her in the box I had made for her coffin. A coffin that was meant for a small curled up kitty.

I put her in the box back feet first. Her head and front paws stuck out.

My son looked at her open eyes and slightly open mouth. "She's kinda freaking me out, Mom."

I put a rag over her face and set the box on the dining room table.

I needed to find a longer box. I wandered around the house and the garage,  but nothing seemed to be big enough. In my son's room, I found a large unopened Lego box.
Presenting it to my son, I asked "How's this for her coffin?"
 "uh Mom, there are Legos in there."
 "Yeah, but we can dump them out." He crinkled his nose and shook his head.

Off I went in search of another solution.

As I passed the lifeless Smudgie, still sticking out of her box on the dining room table, I asked no one in particular, why she could not have died smaller, like in a little ball.

 I asked Jake what he thought of a funeral pyre. We had a large burn pile in the pasture and it could work. After explaining what a pyre was, he looked at me as if I had snapped, crinkled his nose, again, and shook his head.

I sighed and left the room.

Reflecting on this, perhaps having a funeral pyre for a cat on the anniversary of the horrible Bastrop complex fires was a bad idea. I could see the headlines now: 2012 LABOR DAY FIRE SOURCE FOUND.  The locals would gossip, "some crazy lady was having a funeral pyre for her cat. "At least there was not a burn ban.

 Out in the shed I found an empty feed bag. That might just work. The plastic, and paper composition would keep the predators out and the smell in.  I got the body from the table and slowly slid her into the bag. Not very dignified but it would have to do.

Now I had a grave to dig.

I needed to soak the rock hard, parched earth first. It was 100 degrees outside and she was not going to stay in the house anymore. What would I do with her body in the meantime?

Out in the garage I looked around. The deep freeze!! Maybe it was inspiration from having just seen the movie "Bernie" where Jack Black's character puts a body in the freezer in the garage. All I knew was,  that it would work for now.

 A hour later, the ground pliable, the grave dug, and head stones found. We were ready for a kitty funeral as soon as the temperature dipped below triple digits. My son was grieving between video games and did not to have friends over. He did not want to cry in front of anyone but me.

"Mom, where is Smudgie?" he asked after lunch

"In Heaven." I answered, knowing this was not really what he was asking.

 "No, Mom, where is her body?."

 I paused, deciding not to lie. "In the deep freeze with the ice cream."  I will know I scarred him for life, if he never wants to eat ice cream again.

We had our quick funeral and covered her well so critters would not dig her up.

Fifteen minutes later, my son really wanted another cat to fill the void. I told him we needed to wait just a bit to let her know how special and irreplaceable she was.

"In fact," I said, " let's go celebrate her life with a bowl of chocolate mint chip,           
now that we can get to it."