One year of living petless
I grew up on a farm. On farms, house pets are the exception. To be honest, I didn’t know anyone who actually had an animal living inside. Some had dogs - and we did at times - but they always lived outdoors or sometimes in the barn. No-one had cats other than barn cats whose job was to keep the rodent population down. 'Too much work,' was my mother’s response to my attempts to sway her. She already vac’ed the house daily to rid it of straw and dust, and worked very hard ensuring manure remained outside. I can’t blame her for wanting to avoid pet hair, scoot marks from a dog’s bottom, and the grains of litter that migrate through every cat owner’s house.
As an aside, after my father died, I bugged mom to get her own pet for company. After a few months of my hounding, she summed up her marriage in a spot-on quip: “I had a pet for 55 years.”
When I left home, I’d lost the urge to get a pet, focussing instead on education and career. Home was where I slept. Until I was nearly 40, when I pet-sat for a friend during law school, giving me a taste of living with something furry.
I found a very greasy looking tuxedo cat who’d been the under-cat in a house full of them. She’d been neglected in myriad ways and had been given the unfortunate name, Poopy. Under my care, absent other pets, and by exchanging an “o” with a “p” in her name, Poppy flourished. Briefly. Three years into our relationship, Poppy stopped thriving and after a fruitless (and lucrative for my vet) period, I took her for a final car ride.
I wasn’t put off though. Two months later, I got a pair of 18 month old Siamese littermates named Ming and Jasmine. It took them months to warm up to me. Jack’s arrival into our life soon after set them back. They never liked him - too rambunctious for their delicate natures. Jack had a boxer, Kora, and Kora’s pup, Bidi, and the combo of the Siamese twins and the boxer duo delayed our move-in by months. Too complicated. Or maybe we were both being cautious. When we did finally get the house, the cats were sequestered on the 2nd floor and never shifted to the main level where the dogs lived.
Dogs become so much of their owners’ identity, especially in a new neighbourhood. I walked the blocks of Weston meeting people - or more likely, meeting their dogs - discovering who was friendly and who wasn’t, and fast learning that Bidi and Kora, in fact, weren’t. I soon joined the ranks of owners zig-zagging up the streets, smiling and waving at others and their pooches from the opposite sidewalk. Speaking was futile because either mine or theirs were barking in their own aggressive-sounding greeting.
Our fur-friends are shorter-lived than most of us and not long after the Brady-bunch-style move-in, Kora died. We topped our pet numbers back up to four a couple of years later with little Molly-poop, as Jack called her, saddled as she was with a past that didn’t involve house training. Not long after, Ming died, and then of course, Jack himself. Some early evenings of widowhood, Bidi’s fur was sodden as I sat on the floor with a dog on either side, weeping into the closest neck at hand.
When the world shut down in March 2020, I was alone with two dogs and a cat for company. Thankfully. Walking the dogs was a good reason to be outside and I did it with gusto, walking them four times each day to maintain sanity and fitness. Soon it became clear that my walking needs exceeded theirs by a large margin. The dogs smiled gratefully from their beds as I went out on two of my four daily walks solo or with a neighbour. I kept their walker on staff as much for my own socialization as theirs. She and I spoke once a week outside at a six foot distance for many months. During COVID, I oft said to her and others that I couldn’t imagine ever living without a dog again.
Two years ago, having ignored the frequency of landmines of cat-vomit on the floor between my bed and the bathroom, I finally noticed Jasmine had faded away to half her body weight. I let her follow the path her sister took at the vet’s five years earlier.
Six months later, Bidi, whose mobility had been compromised for a number of months, wasn’t able to stand. Her final trip to the vet was the toughest I’d ever done. She grinned until the end, snaffling up an entire bag of liver treats while the vet and I sat on the floor on either side of her.
Then one year ago this month, after six months of being kept alive on heart meds, and a significant weight loss of her own, Molly came to the end of her life too, leaving me pet-less for the first time in 18 years.
At first, I actively canvassed for a replacement dog. A middle-aged one, not yet ready for heavy vet involvement, but beyond the chewing and house-breaking stage. Something smaller than Bidi and larger than Molly, suited to my new smaller house. Not requiring grooming. Muscular. The list of requirements was long.
After I auditioned one candidate, I realized I didn’t want a dog. I wanted Bidi. She and I knew each other’s foibles. She tolerated my silly rules like no-dogs-on-furniture; no-dogs-upstairs. I knew not to touch her left ear due to a mysterious sensitivity. I could spoon-feed her entire dinner, even when she was sure she wasn’t hungry. With Bidi, I’d achieved that symbiosis that mom had achieved with dad (something I hadn’t, by the way, ever achieved with Jack who never cared much for my rules).
A year into petlessness, I’ve realized I’m not going to get another, at least not yet. I have flexibility I haven’t had in decades, sometimes being away for 10 or 12 hours at a time, impossible for anyone with a dog. My house is cleaner than it’s been in years. No-one is shredding my upholstery or tearing up my garden. No-one offers me a lint brush at work. I can walk several times a day and greet others’ dogs without incident. I’m now the Weston weirdo chatting up dogs, big and little, scritching their heads, and exchanging a few words with their owners too. It’s all I need for now!
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