I've lived long enough to experience that sometimes you go looking for a pet and sometimes the pet finds you. In our lives it has been about half and half. Both ways work, but I have learned to pay attention to cues from the animals to see if they want me, too.
If you read, Alice the Cat, you saw my mention of Rosie, our basset hound in the story. Her story has to start with a bit of TV trivia that only the 60+ crowd will probably remember. In the mid-50's there was a half-hour show called:
'The Peoples Choice' that starred Jackie Cooper, former childhood actor as "Socrates 'Sock' Miller, a Bureau of Fish and Wildlife ornithologist, is elected city councilman of Barkerville, a California housing development. Sock secretly marries his girlfriend Mandy and they then try to hide the marriage from her father, the Mayor. In addition, Sock has an unusual basset hound named Cleopatra (Cleo to her friends) who can talk and comment on her master's actions. The show aired for three years from 1955 to 1958."
That was the first time I think a majority of people were exposed to the breed in this country outside the dog show circuit. Cleo stole the show with her sarcastic asides and expressive hound-dog face on a regular basis. To me she was the only reason to watch the show. Fast-forward to 1970 when we were a young family with our first house and three children under the age of six. Into the mix, my husband thought a dog would be a good addition. I asked him what breed he favored and he said he had always wanted a basset hound. Me, too! His birthday was coming up in a few weeks so I thought it might be a good idea to surprise him with one.
Now remember, youngn's, this was the old days when want ads and cards on the vet office bulletin board were about the best ways to find a dog. I took the want ads in hand and was quickly dismayed at the price of a purebred puppy, but I went ahead and made a few calls. One of the calls I made was to a major breeder of basset hounds. I did not know that at the time, but she asked if I might be interested in 'leasing a bitch'. I had never heard of such a thing so I asked her to explain what that entailed. She had two females that were not show quality but had excellent bloodlines that she wanted passed on to puppies. Basically, I took the dog and when it was time to breed she would choose the stud and handle all the costs, we would split the litter with her getting first choice, then the dog and half the litter was mine to keep - no money exchanged. She invited me out to see the two dogs that were available. That led to a comical journey trying to keep the whole thing secret from my husband. The challenge was that we were a one-car family with my husband taking the car to work every day. I also had to keep this a secret from the children, as they would blab the surprise.
I prevailed upon my nephew who had a motorbike, arranged for a sitter to watch the kids, and off we went clear across town about 15 miles with me hanging on for dear life and praying I would live long enough to raise my children. The kennel was awash in wagging tails and long ears as I surveyed the choices. Rosie was a traditional tri-color and very friendly and Nan, was mostly white with red freckles and more rambunctious. After a short while I knew my choice was going to be Rosie as I think she chose me as much as I chose her. I settled the paperwork with the owner, clung to my nephew for dear life on the return ride and spent the rest of the day trying to keep a smug smile off my face. Of course, my husband sensed something was up and after a few days of quizzing surmised that his birthday present was going to be an animal. I said yes, but he would just have to wait and see.
The day arrived and I took the van when he came home from work to go pick up 'his present'. Poor Rosie was a tad nervous and wanted to get in my lap - not an easy feat while driving a Volkswagen bus. Somehow we made it home and the greetings were enthusiastic to say the least. Rosie, who had spent her first 11 months living in a kennel compound, experienced her first real home. She immediately took to the kids, decided soft furniture was a wonderful thing, enjoyed several cuddles and crashed on a blanket beside our bed that night. We had to go through the whole housebreaking routine, but that was not as much as an ordeal as it would have been with a puppy. She caught on quickly and was given free range of the house.
Her favorite place to be was with the children or us if they were in bed. It was an easy fit and we felt most blessed with our choice except when it came time to take her for a walk. Bassets have amazing power in those short legs and we soon took to calling the walks, 'drags' as that is what it felt like with your arms being wrenched out of the socket.
Dog training at this time was pretty much limited to show ring dogs. We found a card at the vet's office for a trainer and prevailed on her to let Rosie join one of her beginning classes. She was completely unimpressed with Rosie stating that bassets were notoriously stubborn and willful. She did not count on Rosie's willingness to please, however. My husband took over the training regimen as I had my hands full with the children. Soon our evening walks around the neighborhood were pleasant with Rosie trotting along side in a nice heel. Oh, and Rosie came home from her graduation class with a red ribbon for her efforts!
Fall came and it was time for the breeder to take Rosie back to be bred. She had decided since Rosie was one of the offspring of a national grand champion that she would fly her to Ohio to be bred with another champion stud. We knew she would be gone for a week and the house felt very lonely without her. The other dog that I did not choose was bred to a local stud. When Rosie finally arrived home from her 'ordeal' she was quite upset. She glued herself to our sides and didn't want to let anyone out of her sight. I think this was about the time she developed the habit of following me room to room as I went about my chores. She would just get comfortable and go to sleep when I was on to the next room or chore. I used to feel sorry that I was interrupting her beauty sleep so often.
The weeks passed and Rosie grew round and fat. We were sure there would be at least half dozen puppies given her size. I decided since she was named after a flower that all the puppies would have a flower name, too. So a host of names were chosen for Rosie's bouquet. The breeder had given us instructions on what to expect when her time came and said that she was a phone call away if we had questions. As you may have read (in Alice the Cat), when her puppy was born, she prolapsed her uterus and had to be rushed to the doctor. I was sent home with puppy formula and an eyedropper and told to feed the puppy every two hours. Oh, joy, just like motherhood. We abandoned all the flower names and called the puppy Posy. She was a cute little lemon and white fat puppy. Nan, who was bred to a local stud, had 11 puppies!
Rosie came back the next day and was a less than enthusiastic mother. I had to take her to the large box we had built and sit with her to get her to feed her puppy every couple of hours. After a couple of weeks of sleep deprivation that was when we welcomed Alice and bless her heart she did the trick of keeping Rosie and the puppy company. From then on it was smooth sailing.
Rosie and Alice bonded so that when the puppy left she didn't seem to mind at all. The days, weeks, months and seasons rolled by and Rosie fit like a glove with the family. When Alice died it threw her for a loop, as they were so close. On top of that we moved that winter to a new house. Once the routines were well established I started thinking about getting another cat. After talking it over with my husband I took off one day for the animal shelter to 'interview' cats. They had a very nice way of letting you spend some time with your choices. You wrote down the number of each cat and while you waited in a room they brought them in one by one so that you could spend time getting to know them. Maggie, as she came to be called, was the last of five that I had chosen to look at that day. When she came over and curled up in my lap I knew I had been chosen!
She was about 4 months old and must have had some negative experience with dogs, as she was afraid of Rosie, which just about broke her heart. I could tell she thought the kitten was for her. I noticed in a couple of days that the kitten seemed listless and was not eating. I thought, oh, no, I just couldn’t lose another cat! I took her to the vet and the vet said she had distemper. He wasn't very encouraging but he gave her subcutaneous fluids and some meds for me to give her. Once again I was on nurse duty and I kept the kitten with me at all times in a pouch and managed to get her to eat and take a little fluid by eyedropper. She rallied, survived and went on to live 18 years.
Maggie developed a unique trait from that early episode. If you were sick she would come and stay with you in bed until you were feeling well enough to be up and around. In fact, she was so good at that I started to rely on her ability to let me know if the kids were really too sick to go to school. Of course I did the usual things of checking temperatures and looking into their eyes, but if Maggie wasn't hanging around I figured they were faking and sent them to school. I once woke up to her laying half on my chest purring like mad and kneading gently with both paws right on the spot of the worst sore throat I think I had had since childhood. It was one of those sore throats that hurt too much to get up and take aspirin to quell the pain. Darned if she didn't make me feel better with those soft warm paws.
She and Rosie negotiated a relationship over time and while it was not nearly as close as she had had before, Rosie nonetheless, loved her new cat. Three years later there was another move to a different house. Rosie was an old hand at adapting by this time. We just showed her where her run (potty) would be and where she would sleep and she was fine.
On the weekends and evenings when my husband would work in his shop, Rosie was his constant companion. It didn't matter how noisy or dusty the woodworking got, she would just find a spot to curl up to watch over dad. Since I worked in the shop during the days trying to supplement our income she was well use to the environment. When the kids came home from school she would hang out with them while they unwound.
The pages flipped on the calendar and one year I noticed how white Rosie's muzzle was getting and that her step was slowing down. She was getting up there in dog years. She didn't always notice right away when I left a room. She took herself off to bed earlier in the evenings. Then one day I realized when I got the pictures back from the developer, that photos I had taken during the Christmas festivities had her in every picture as if I knew she would most likely not make it to the next Christmas.
We watched her wind down like a clock until one day it was obvious that something more was wrong than old age. The inevitable trip to the vet confirmed my worst suspicions after many tests. It was found during exploratory surgery that she was riddled with stomach cancer. Rather than let her wake up we told the doctor to just put her to sleep. The children had had Rosie in their lives for many years so it was a hard task for them to deal with her loss. We had time to spoil her and spend time with her before she left us so the shock wasn't quite as stunning as it had been with Alice. But we all missed her deeply and felt like we saw her out of the corner of our eyes or heard the jingle of her tags for a good long while.
It was Maggie's reaction that surprised us. We found her doing some of the same things and lying in the same places that Rosie had. It was as if she was trying to fill up that empty spot for us and deal with the loss of her friend even though they didn't appear that close.
For a long time we thought we could never have another dog, let alone a basset hound, but three years later fate led us to Lulu. A basset hound so unlike Rosie and so personable that she deserves a story of her very own. Stay tuned some week for the tales of Lulu, the Basset hound!