Sonja Wendysdottir

• I'm sitting in front of the dying fire and thinking about Wendy the Weimer tonight.  I remember the compliments our gray lady got from strangers as she pranced around the drive, how seductive she looked when she reclined like a canine courtesan on her princess bed, how amazed we were to learn that her cast-iron stomach could handle Kleenexes, paper towels, acorns--even mustard--before, at ten years of age, it finally turned on her, a common affliction of big dogs.

Wendy was part of the fabric of my life.  I burst into tears the morning after she died when I saw that her princess bed was empty and realized that there was now no reason to put my cereal milk on the floor after breakfast.

Four months later, we acquired Sonia, a mastiff, very different from Wendy, with whom we knew there could be no comparison, but we claimed Wendy as her spiritual mother and gave our new doggie a second name in the Icelandic tradition: Wendysdottir.

Sonia is my darling, but she is, indeed quite different from Wendy,  While she does like to walk around the driveway and will drink my breakfast milk, she is quite discriminating about what she eats, and she won't use the princess bed.

So, after three years, it's time to let it go.  I'll donate the bed to The Caring Place for another dog to enjoy, but not without a tear in my eye.
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Personal Observations

Fiorella is a multi-tasker.  When she takes the dog for a walk, she practices her physical therapy posture, walking with her shoulders back and her chin up like a soldier.  When she eats breakfast, she also reads the newspaper and does the crossword.  And when she goes to the bathroom--never mind.
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When Fio studies Sonia's solidly-built Mastiff body and remembers the streamlined shape of  Wendy the Weimaraner, she wonders why she's constantly fighting her own body type.  DNA is destiny.
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Fiorella is one of those people who used to have migraines with auras, which means, according to Google medical news, she's destined for brain lesions.  And the heavy birthweight of her babies indicate she'll get diabetes.  To top it off,  cancer runs in her mother's family and heart trouble in her dad's.  Guess all that means she's gonna die some day.

Take That, Mozy!

Life has taught Fio patience, thank goodness, and she needed it yesterday afternoon as she ran off her 2012 blog entries, five pages at a time.  Yes, at last she figured out (stumbled upon) how to retrieve her sparkling gems from the bowels of Blogspot (a charming metaphor), but it took more than an hour. Then, because the pages were printed in reverse chronology, she spent another good hour re-ordering them, during which the dog kept getting in her face and complaining about not being fed.  Next will come punching holes in the pages and sticking them in a loose-leaf notebook, but that will have to wait until Monday.

Why is Fio torturing herself, you ask. Because she needs hard copies so she can put together booklets like the one she composed in memory of Wendy Dog.  Besides, she doesn't trust the Cloud.

After all, Mozy won't even let her sign up.

Loving and Loss

Daughter and her husband are mourning the loss of their oldest cat, just as Fiorella and her husband mourned for Wendy Dog, and Older Son and his wife for Angel Grace.  People are a very loving species.  We set up relationships with each other and with our animals and even with inanimate things, like houses and belongings.  Some people carry it too far and turn into hoarders.  And some people go the opposite direction and, don't seem to be able to relate to anyone or anything--we send these people to psychiatrists, but they often end up in jail.

Whatever, loving seems to be built into humans.  It's one of the nicest thing about us.

The Wendy Book

Let me see if I can say this without weeping buckets like I did yesterday when I thought about it, that my vision of heaven involves being greeted at the gates by all the dogs we've ever owned: Tina and Freelove, Sandy, Blackie, Hugo, Crazy Bella, Wendy, and, ultimately, our sweet Sonya.

 I'm working on the Wendy Book now. It will be about forty pages of blog entries and photos. Wendy was our first post-children dog. Oops, Gotta go. I'm getting misty-eyed.

Individualism

Wendy was a prancer,
A head-held-high dancer
Sonia is a prowler
A head-held-low growler
Wendy ate like
She'd never eaten before
Sonia acts like
Food is a bore
With dogs so different
I'll say it again--
Why do we think people
Should all be the same?

Possibilities

So much difference between the two dogs.   Sonya drinks water, normal water like it's going out of style while Wendy turned her snout up at all but bottled water and eau de toilet.  Sonya has dug trenches across our backyard while Wendy was prissy and never stooped to dig a hole in her life.  Sonya buries the remains of rawhide bones between couch cushions while Wendy never had anything left to bury because Sonya is a picky eater who always leaves some kibbles in her bowl while Wendy wolfed down not only her kibble, but anything else that came with her purview, even mustard. 

There's more. Sonya is clumsy on the stairs. frequently falling halfway down, while Wendy zoomed up and down like a pro.  Sonya, even without a leash, sticks around when Husband and Fio take her outside, and she never pushes through the partly-open door to escape, like Wendy did.  And Sonya is more docile at Puppy Training, while Wendy was more--uh--willful.

It's all in the genes.  And again, if dogs behave differently because of their heritages, shouldn't we understand that's what's going on with us?   Even close relatives has wide genetic possibilities, some of them not too nice.  That's where we hope  the nurture comes in.

After all, sweet Sonya is the same breed as Cujo.

Mastiff Mastery

When Fiorella and Husband started talking about a new dog, they knew it could not be another Weimeraner because Fio would weep for Wendy every time she saw it. So, after a fair amount of research, they decided on a Mastiff--big, amiable, and looking not at all like Wendy.

What Fio didn't know is that a Mastiff, or at least our Sonya, is smart as a whip. Puppy learned "sit" and "stay" as if she'd been practicing in the womb, has figured out how to let herself back inside by leaping up and pawing the lever on the patio door, and hauls poor Bosco out of his hidey holes by his leash. You've never lived till you've seen a dog walking a dog.

My Canines: First Rate

Wendy sat crooked, Sonya sits straight
Wendy trained early, Sonya was late
Wendy ate quickly, Sonya will wait
Two different dogs, both of them great.

Comparing Dogs

Happiness is having a sweet puppy sleeping next to you on the couch.

Sonya is a very affectionate dog, just like Wendy, but she and her spiritual mother differ in other ways. Wendy caught on to housebreaking almost overnight, but Sonya is...uh...laggard. Wendy was a mover and shaker. The greyhound in her insisted she make a break for freedom at every opportunity, racing through the woods and hallooing her joy in a deep, resounding voice, before she returned to her beloved daddy. In contrast, Sonja follows Husband around the yard without a leash, and her only vocalizations so far have been high-pitched puppy yips.

One surprising difference is that Wendy always gobbled down her food as if it was the last kibble left on earth, while Sonya isn't the least interested in the uber-healthy dry food recommended by the vet unless Fio laces it with a tablespoonful of canned dog food. (And this dog is supposed to weigh in at over 120 lbs as an adult?)

Yes, Sonya is different from Wendy, but Fiorella wanted it that way. It would have been easy to get another Weimer, but wrong. No dog could compete with Wendy, and Fio didn't want to tear up every time she looked at the substitute. Sonya is a different breed, new and wonderful. We love her for herself.

Puppy Tails

When it comes to doting mothers, Fiorella takes the cake. No one else's babies were as beautiful as hers, as smart, as cuddly. And she's the same with her puppy. Sonya is the most darling doggie every created, a deserving successor to Wendy the Wonder Dog. In fact, Fio considers Wendy to be Sonya's spiritual mother. Thus, in the Icelandic tradition, Puppy's full name is Sonya Wendysdottir.

Sonya is beginning to adjust to her new circumstances. Fiorella tried to teach her how to descend and climb the stairs for a 2:00 a.m. pottie call--didn't quite make it--and Husband stayed home to take her to the vet in the morning. When they came back, Fio's job was getting a couple of pills down her puppy throat (accomplished with coatings of butter) and acting as a bolster for her long afternoon nap.

Even Bosco is helping. Sonya had been turning her nose up at the prescribed puppy food until her pal showed an interest in it. Then she gobbled it down. Nothing like a little competition.

Second Day Out

Fiorella usually handles emotional distress by racing around the house in a frenzy of housekeeping, but she was limited on this occasion because of the stupid hip thing. That means shes spent a lot of time staring into space, sleeping, and crying.

But she and Husband are talking about getting another dog, probably a rescue dog who's already house trained. Not now, of course. Not yet.

Lament

Fiorella did not grow up in a dog household, but she married into one. Parents-in-law had three mentally-stable chihuahuas and she and Husband soon acquired a female beagle, then a male. Tina and Freelove produced several litters, none of the pups of which Fio and Husband kept back for themselves because they had also adopted an orphan of the storm, Sandy, a big shepherd's collie, who breached the gap between T&F and Blackie, a small hyperactive dog prone to digging out under the fence. Hugo, a big ridgeback/labrador mix also joined the tribe somewhere along the line, as did Bella, a beautiful but crazy cocker who ended up having to be put down. Then came Wendy, beautiful Wendy, sweet Wendy, loving Wendy.

And now Wendy's gone. Husband has no one to take long walks across the acreage with, and Fio has no company on lonely days.