Howling (In The Name Of)

Having a real Alaskan Malamute like Teddy was both a privilege and an honor, and one of the most difficult jobs I've ever had in my life, as one that's so often been filled with brutally hard work. He was absolutely astonishing to look at: a stunning, spectacularly beautiful animal of an uncommonly large size that marks the Giant M'Loot tribe of Mals, with their distinctive bandit face-mask of lush black and white fur. He was a lot like me, too, of a spiritual kind that's way deeper than mere pet ownership.

He was my puppy soul-mate: a "totem", a link to my ancient indigenous past like the first canines his pack still resembles so closely today. His temperament was as excellent as his looks. He was gentle yet powerful, strong and kind, intelligent while also being playful and fun. In short, he was perfect, and sometimes I was scared of the awesome responsibility that comes with taking care of such an extraordinary animal. Because of his rare genetics, he was also extremely high maintenance after human exportation to the "lower 48" states; not a lot of moose meat or seal chunks to go around the mainland U.S. As a result, he suffered from terrible diarrhea because of the filler food sold at commercial pet stores, which made me stick to him in a "mommy" way even more, that did not go unnoticed or unappreciated by him.

But our true joy with Ted was in the snow-filled mountains of the cold rocky west. There, he ruled supreme, just as he was designed to do. He was a King among animals, and as the strong wind blew back his thick mane to reveal his sharp eyes, his majestic lineage was clear for anyone to see, as his careful gaze swept cross the freezing landscape with each measured turn of his massive head. He was brilliant, he was my "baby bear cub", and he was a stone-cold killer in the deep-freeze chiller of the northern United States, which meant we loved him with all of our hearts. He was ours to protect and nourish, just as he would easily lay down his life to protect us in the wilderness, if it was necessary. He was way more than just some dog. He was part of our family. He was a part of my tribe. He was mine.

One of the most beautiful sights in the entire animal kingdom is a Malamute running through the woods in deep snow with their incredible snow-shoe paws, through one of the most difficult terrains on earth, with all the grace and elegance of a champion figure skater. He was our Olympic sport. Mals are powerfully-built athletes made for humans who can both respect that and keep up with it. Within a month or two of Ted's adoption into our human family, Kent and I easily lost our "courtship weight" that we'd gained while dating, because the "call of the wild" was too strong for all of us to resist, now a tight-knit family of three.

Our trips to the Coloradan backwoods now had a more acute focus than our nature walks of the past. Ted was a like Tasmanian Devil of unchained energy. He needed lots of fast-paced exercise to burn off his growing puppy stuff, or our apartment and any of our most precious belongings immediately paid the price for any laxity in his routine. He was "hardcore military": up at the break of dawn daily, disciplined in his habits, and voracious in his appetite for life. I was glad that Kent was former Coast Guard, and that hiking with my ex-Navy Dad meant that my pack had been carefully packed (and sitting by the front door) the night before, with a 5 a.m. wake-up that either had my father switching our bedroom lights on-and-off quickly in a jarring strobe light effect, or snapping up the window shades of our bedrooms with a loud "RAP!" (daylight permitting), because "the early bird catches the worm." Aye aye, captain...ugh...so sleepy. "Do you want to go hiking? We're leaving in five minutes."

And so it was with Ted, except that as soon as the cold mountain air blew into his snoofer stuck out the truck's window, his werewolf eyes went "something-something" that meant the crazy would start as soon as snow was quickly huffed up his nostrils. It was an altered state of reality. I've never seen anything like it, in any other types of animals, and I watch a lot of nature programming. It was unique to my snow-beast, and it was done with an urgency that had to be addressed properly. In the summertime, we had him iced down in air-conditioning and wet t-shirts that put him into a glorious bear-like hibernation state, making him sleepier and easier to manage. It was with this genius parental thought in mind (haha) that found us happily driving into the foothills at 7 a.m., greatly looking forward to a walk in the woods.

Because it was summer and hotter than we liked, we parked at a more easily accessible roadside spot than we normally would, what with wintertime skiers posing a serious threat to an off-leash Ted that frightened us once on a trail, never to happen again. Kent knew of a spot with running water, so off we went on a light walking trail. We let the fur beast loose to allow the magic to happen, feeling fairly confident of a smooth hike on a beginner's path. He lopped off to disappear down the top of a small dirt rise, which didn't concern me much. There was a lot of visibility on a trail like this. Kent and I relaxed and chatted, confident that we'd catch him around the bend. Famous last words. No sooner had we established a groove, than we heard a high-pitched shriek and a man's yell. Fuck...so much for our pleasant little Sunday stroll. Now what?

Kent chuckled as he said "let's speed up and see what that moose is up to", so we did. We ran down the path like two concerned pre-school parents to greet two very white and very scared suburbanite kids without any real hiking gear cowering in their tracks. Aw, poor Ted! He stood there at the top of the little hill a little freaked out with his head tilted cutely, pink tongue out and bushy tail slightly wagging. Wha'd I do? Oh, nothing, beast-man, and I harnessed him back to me. He was perfectly lovely. The idiots on parade were much less charming. The guy (about college age) had picked up a fucking tree branch, and he was slightly hysterical. "WHAT IS THAT?!" he yelled out to us.

He and his girlfriend thought Ted was a wolf, and they visibly relaxed when we explained he was our dog, though keeping their distance by walking off the path and around us on the small trail. Whew! As a big man, Kent knew the stigma. He'd been bullied before for being a big lad. And so, he couldn't resist tweaking out the wealthy "Trustafarian" college kids from out-of-state just a wee bit more. As we passed by them, he laughed. "Yeah, hey, just so you know, my Malamute would have chomped through that branch like a toothpick snapped in half because of the massive size of his jaws. Like a pit-bull!"

With that, they grew pale and wide-eyed again, hurrying off down the trail to warn any other hikers they met about the friendly "werewolf" walking with his family in a beautiful sun-dappled forest. It was the only real scare we had that day with our precious little beast, and "Amen" to that. We breathed easier knowing he was with us, so I didn't let him off-leash for the rest of the hike. Oh, well. So much for my easy summer day. It was a parent thing, you know? A werewolf like Ted just wouldn't have understood. But, you do. Right? Yep. You do. I can tell.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totem

Second Life

When my mom and I first met Dom and Angel, we didn't have great expectations about their stewardship of my Giant Mal, Teddy, but we were in dire straits. My father had come up very briefly to help me by putting my dog in a kennel, as I began the most intensive medical care process of my life so far that included surgery, DVT, PT, and then more DVT's. I knew I couldn't have him back in my life full-time, and besides, Teddy had been designed for me and my large Scottish ex-boyfriend, and he wasn't around anymore to do the heavy lifting needed. 

I was unused to being single so I had clung to Ted even tighter, but deep in my heart, I knew Brooklyn wasn't the right place for a huge snow dog like him, even though I took excellent care of him in Park Slope. We took frequent walks to Prospect Park for off-leash runs every morning that ended one day after a group of pit bulls set upon him, then we went on to "doggie discipline" classes for his safety while out on walks, and then a move further down the hill that was closer to a smaller enclosed dog run off of the Slope's Fifth Avenue that I could monitor much better for crazy dogs and their whacked-out owners.

I had worked it out to the best of my ability, even hiring a few good dog walkers in the process, but he was far too large for a woman my size, and I knew that, too. My father had told me to adopt him out right after my move back to Brooklyn, but in the wake of the financial crisis my ex had left me in, I didn't have the heart to do it, and with no one around me (as usual) to help out, I found a way to use my exuberant energy that marks a woman in her prime during her 30s to great effect. The exercise did me good, and after my bad break, I quit smoking to take up regular exercise again, albeit in the form of mixed martial arts, but it was either that or fencing, so I went with fighting, because I'm a natural-born fighter, and I'd been fighting all my life in one way or another. It was a good fit for me at the time, and it helped to fill up the void that had been devoted to an exceptional animal's daily care.

Ted was amazing, but I hadn't had a good night's sleep or a day off in over four years that led up to my accident while walking him. I knew I needed the break. So, I wasn't as "bummed" at the prospect of someone else taking care of Ted as much as I felt like a bad parent that had let him down. He hadn't done anything wrong really, besides pull for a bagel in the street too roughly after I put him on a diet at my vet's urging, and it was 5:30 in the morning, at the continued harassing insistence of my fucked-up downstairs neighbor. It was a situation designed to hurt me, it was I'm saying to you, and I knew that, too. Nothing new. So, after me and my mom had talked with Angel and Dom on the phone after advertising him for sale and for a free adoption, they chose the latter cheaper option, but on paper, they looked great.

Angel and Dom had worked for a pet store, and Dom had had several Mals before, which made them the perfect candidates. I was suffering from a bad sickness and heartache, with intolerably sad pictures of Teddy taken by digital camera in his pen at a Brooklyn kennel that tore my insides to shreds, and I just couldn't take it anymore. My brother decided to take the momentum from my natural motherly guilt to pour on more abuse about my "selfish" behavior in the wake of the most serious injury I've ever had in my life, not of my own doing. It was too painful for anyone to bear. And so, they offered to drive out from Pennsylvania to meet us before we signed over his doggie papers to them and then they picked him up from Brooklyn.

It showed us that they were serious enough dog owners to go through all that, and we weren't doing it for the money, even though both of us could have used every penny we could get, then and now. When I met them at the door, they could see how injured I was, and my mom in her walker just re-confirmed the seriousness of our situation, because she is a very crippled lady. "Oh, wow...", Angel said as I struggled to open the door with my crutches while my mom feebly limped into the room on her walker, "you guys really need our help!" Yeah, we do. My mom and Dom struck up an immediate acquaintance brought about by their shared Bronx upbringings as Italian-Americans. They were lower class than us, as we could plainly see from their dated dress and hairstyles, but times were what they were. They were available, and they answered all of our questions perfectly, but not before making sure that Ted was free, because they'd seen the ads for him at a fair price.

We explained that we put out as many feelers as we could, including those to some of my mom's crazier friends and the insane dog rescue lady from upstate, before settling on them as a couple. Dom had Ted's picture gripped tightly in his hands, looking down at it while we talked. "You're 'in love' with him, already, aren't you?" I asked him. He just nodded his head slowly. Both he and Angel had multiple marriages, partners, and kids before, and now they were empty-nesting. Dom was trying to quit smoking, so they decided he could use the exercise that came with regular dog-walking because he was rather significantly overweight, with nothing to do in their rural home besides surf the web all day, and that's what led to our engagements on social media.

Honestly, I could care less about their day-to-day lives as people outside of my social class, but I got a chance to see them interact with Ted through their posted pics on an almost-daily basis, and for all you parents out their with an ache in your heart that never heals, you know the feeling well. It eased the tight band around me just a little bit more, each time I saw a new photo or comment that was favorable to him and his care. I could go on living and getting better with his life finally settled, like I'd promised all those years ago after his car accident. "I'll always take care of you, Ted. I promise. And if I'm not around to do it, I promise that I will make every effort possible to see that someone else does." And I meant it, as I nursed him through his car hit, and then the serious bacterial and viral infections he got after swimming in a public park lake in Denver that included e-coli and Ebola.

It was enough, enough hurt and pain for him to last a lifetime or more. Ted deserved a nice grandma who was openly lonely while empty-nesting, and Angel was that. She and Dom broke up (of course), and I was continually horrified to see Dom's FB posts about "sexing" his "SL daughter" online, but combined with Angel's redneck views of life and her daughter's online porno business, it seemed like both she and I had finally gotten what we really wanted: some peace and quiet at home with a nice, large, furry, and very high-maintenance werewolf. 

She and I got a real second chance at the good life that eludes so many mothers and their serious heartaches. Would that we all get that shot in life! How great would that be? To actually find the people, places, things, and animal friends that give you a second shot at the life you deserve. How wonderful it was for us, as hard-working single women, to finally get the chance we really deserved at having some peace of mind for those we care about so much, because that's what being a mother is all about: giving until it hurts, then give some more. You just keep giving love.