Hey, I was a single mom since my girls were toddlers, and could never make myself trust anyone with the girls. They are now grown up amazing women, so I must have done something right there.

Without being paranoid, I even have a hard time trusting someone to dog sit. I remember years ago, I was going with my daughters to some Caribbean islands for Spring Break, and had hired someone to take care of Douchka, our German shepherd. The lady came to the house, met with me, and Douchka. She was working for a pet sitting company and I had checked the references, so everything was good, right?

I did not even have time to drop my suitcase in our hotel room in Grand Cayman that the phone rang. It was my dog sitter asking me what to do. She opened the front door, and Douchka ran away.

“Did not I explain to you lady that you should enter by the garage, close the garage door, and then enter the house?”

“Yes, yes, but I was in a rush…. What do you want me to do?”

“GO FIND MY DARN DOG!”

Thank God, Douchka was much smarter that the dog sitter, and after causing us such a fright (like a message to me, that will serve you to leave me behind!), she came back, and was waiting at the front door when the dog sitter came back.

Douchka was a funny one. Each time we were coming back from a trip, she was greeting me like crazy, then was stopping talking to me for a few days, I mean, totally ignoring me!

I had a very good friend who used to dog sit my pack: a friend, a vet tech, and loving my crew, but she passed a few years ago, and since then, I have to acknowledge that I stopped taking any kind of vacation. If one day I start again, I might just do like Sandra Bullock, and buy a bus to get my whole crew packed in! I have only 7. She has 13!

I do have a girlfriend who does dog sitting at her place, but here too, I would not trust her. You see, she doesn’t follow directions. She does believe that she knows better that the dog parent what the dog needs. She walks dogs off leash in the woods surrounding her house even if you are adamant about the leash thing. She is lucky: up to now, all the dogs who ran away came back, but here too, it’s an accident meant to happen.

So, I just scratched from my list the dog sitter thingy! What about boyfriend? You see in the news those horrific stories about boyfriends killing girlfriends’ dogs or hurting them.

I scratched the living boyfriend from my list years ago. My girls were teenagers at that time, and he had a dog, a Labrador retriever, the one who made me become a lab addict. So everything was good, right? At that time, I had Douchka, my shepherd and Pouch, a Golden retriever. Douchka was already around 8 or 9 at that time.

And we lived together. Every evening, Douchka was the only one waiting for me when I was coming back from work, no matter how late it was. She was my girl. She was also my daughters’ babysitter, best one ever. She was so protective of them, and got so frustrated when the girls got older and started to ride their bikes!

With old age came aches and pains in Douchka’s life. She had arthritis in her hips, in her knees. Yes, medications helped up to a point. It just breaks my heart when they start to slow down.

In December of that year, Douchka was treated for a kidney infection. She had some blood in her urine. Despite of the antibiotics, there was still blood, and she was prescribed another type of antibiotics. One day, Jessica came to me and told me Douchka peed a few drops of urine with blood in her bedroom deliberately. This was not my dog, and this episode broke my heart. Did she think I was to thick to understand that something was going on?

Within an hour, I was at the vet, and X-rays showed a growth in her bladder. The next day, she had an ultrasound showing a tumor, and by that time she could not urinate because of that tumor. I still remember her face after the ultrasound: she knew. She looked at me and I saw in her eyes that she wanted to go.

I went back home, got my two daughters and we went to our vet, the three of us like always. The boyfriend asked if he could come, and I said no. He seemed relieved.

Letting her go was also for my daughters letting go of their childhood. It was a whole era that we let go with her, and a friend. Douchka was my most devoted friend. She was always there, and yes I took her for granted.

Coming home empty handed, boyfriend was roaming around me, and finally confessed that he was feeling a “bit guilty” for having kicked her so many times. Tears were uncontrollable at that time. 15 years later, it still just hurts imagining her, my sweet and devoted girl, being kicked by that man, and being a silent victim when she was already with so many aches.

Why did he kick her? The only explanation I can think of was jealousy. Douchka would have given her life for me and the girls, and I mean it. She never, ever did anything wrong in her life. I cannot remember him interacting much with her but he loved dogs, labs.

This is the day I scratched “boyfriend” from my bucket list.

So, yes, surrounded by my pack, I am not sure of many things these days, but I know that I will grow old surrounded by dogs, because you see, they are your best friends in good and bad times. Unconditional love…. You can’t find that in humans.

We all have to be thankful for many, many things. Today, I am going to write about how thankful I am for the privilege of having shared George’s life. There is an African quote saying that no one is completely dead as long as you still talk about him or her. So, for everyone who never heard of George, listen to his story. I will not talk about the last 48 hours of his life. I just want to celebrate George’s life for the 3 years 5 months and 12 days where he was alive and well, where he was “George.”

He was my first born, or should I say my yellow lab, Lola’s first born. As soon as he was born, he started screaming bloody hell, and my daughters and I nicknamed him “Big mouth”. He was black, and a big boy. I still have the journal of my only but memorable litter. Big Mouth was 1lbs. 4oz! It was Lola’s first litter, and she seemed a bit lost after her first born. I did not realize that she was having her second pup right away, and trying to help, I cut George’s umbilical cord which I think really puzzled her, and yes, I goofed, but after a minute or two, she was too busy with “Blondie” coming to think of what she should have done and did not do. She did everything by the book, without reading the book, for the four others.

And here were my five wonders. They were all perfect: from toes to head, tail included. I counted every nail, every ear, every tail (Okay they only have one! But hey just checking that they were perfect!)

It did not take long to realize that two of them had great personalities: “Big Mouth”, and his sister “Ms. Piggy”. Do I really have to explain why she was called “Ms. Piggy”? It was hard to separate her from her mom’s teats… And she grew up as the girl next door that everyone envies because she can eat everything she wants but is still totally fit. Great metabolism I am telling you.

I am going to go with their real names now. We named “Big Mouth” George, as George in “Grey’s anatomy”. Everyone loved George in the TV show. If I had known how he would end up, I would probably have considered another name. His sister “Ms. Piggy” became Sophie as in the books I read in my childhood from the Countess of Segur who had a character named Sophie who was getting all the time in a lot of trouble, as my Sophie!

George decided that the only way to take a nap was on his back. It was really helpful for us, humans since it was hard to recognize George and his other brother “Boubou” who became Jackson. In order not to get lost between the three black ones, two got nail polish on their nails, and up to this day, if I try to apply nail polish on my own, they fly away. They just hate the smell. George had white nails, and Jackson red ones.

George was the first one to open his eyes. And what eyes! When he grew up, he had really slightly slanted eyes, and I was always making fun of him calling him my “Asian boy.”

When there was something mischievous going on, you could be sure that Sophie and George were involved. These two were like attached by the hip. The first snow storm we got was a big one, and I never got tired to see them in the white stuff! They were in heaven with that white stuff. You see, you can dig it, swim in it, hide in it…. So much fun! That winter we got so much snow. When you have small kids, snow is fun, but my girls were in their late teens and I did not realize how snow could be fun when you have 5 teenager pups around.

My daughters always made fun of me and George, since the only place where George could stay still for a while was … my lap! When he was tiny, he was always on my lap when I was driving the bunch to the vets or for walks along the canal. But George grew up, and when he reached 80lbs, it became quite a challenge. How could you say no to him?  We made a deal: he could be on my lap when watching TV at night or of course in bed. He took the challenge a bit further when he shared our Christmas breakfast one year! He was just so proud to be sitting on a chair with us. That was a “George moment.”

The boy was stylish, let me tell you! To go out, he had a harness soft inside but glittering and red on the outside. One of the vet techs we saw nicknamed him “Disco George”!

When Sophie and George were outside, you never knew what could come out of it. One day, I heard screams like I never heard before. The pack was playing in the yard. Sophie and George were on top of Jackson, and had their mouths stuck in his collar. My poor Jackson was getting strangled. I had to grab scissors and cut the collar right there to free everyone. This is, by the way, the last time they wore a collar at home. I did not know that there are many fatal accidents when dogs are playing together with the collars of each other.

George and Sophie were also the one who were thinking ahead. I got my pack into the habit of healthy snacks. So yes, they get carrots as treats, but for George and Sophie, they always wanted more than one carrot. You never know what can happen tomorrow. Maybe Mom will ran out of carrots. So each time, when everyone else was satisfied with one carrot, Sophie and George had to manage to grab 3 and hide two out of them. A few days after his death, I found “his” stash of carrots, cookies, and toys half buried behind bushes.

George was happy from the minute he got up to the minute he went to sleep at night. He could not bear the thought of having the day starting without him, so as soon as he was awake, he was having a dance over my body “Get up Mom, get up!”

From the meal in the morning until night, he was making life fun and interesting. I always make my crew sit before meals, and George was so happy to please….. I could still picture his butt barely touching the floor but with eyes speaking so loud “Come on, Mom, come on! I am good. I am sitting!

Then, so many times at night, I was still in my office, and I could hear him go upstairs to go to sleep. In the middle of the bed on his back with his four legs up: that was George!

A ball of energy. When I was coming home, George was coming ahead of the others to greet me. It was hardwood floor, and George had perfected the art of wood skating, and always managed to stop by braking with his four legs just when he was getting to me. That was George.

George was like his Mom, and loved the water. His mission in life in Fall was to retrieve every leaf from the canal where we were having our daily walks. Then, coming next to me to shake off the water off, he had that grin “Did you see Mom, did you see? No more leaves!”

Playing hide and seek in the yard with Sophie, stealing the chicken which was just waiting for him right there on the counter, and running through the house with it in his mouth, retrieving balls, bumpers, jumping in the air, living his life at 100 miles an hour, then snuggling with me at night with his eyes full of love, that was George.

I believe you just met my boy!

Yesterday, I went for a walk with my Mom along the C& O Canal and I missed you! We had so much fun last weekend. It was almost like before. Not completely though because, for whatever reasons, you always have to growl at me first when you see me, then, you kind of forgot about it. It does hurt my feelings but I always discard it right away, because, each time, I am so happy to be with you.

Of course, I was born a few months before you, like 4/5 months, so, obviously we did not meet right away. When Mom brought me home from that garage where I was staying with my siblings, I was so happy! I was in a warm house, surrounded by good friends. Zeus was the best friend I could ever have. I loved to snuggle with him, and when I grew up, I think he liked to have me around during thunderstorms. I hope that I helped him during these stressful times!

I remember the day after Mom brought me home, we got a lot of white stuff, and yes I remember wondering about my siblings, and how they were handling it in their garage. I kind of love the white stuff, and I had fun with Lola. It was kind of weird, you know, because it was cold and wet, but not wet like the river. The river is just too wet for me!

It was in early summer of 2007 that I met you for the first time. Deborah, my mom’s daughter, brought you to our home, and instantly, we clicked. We loved the same thing: hanging out in the dust, not mud please, just dust, and sunbathing on the deck.

We were seeing a lot of each other at that time because your Mom was going out of town a lot, then, when your Mom was working, you were coming every morning and leaving at night. I knew exactly when you were coming: it was always after breakfast. I have always been a slow eater, but when I knew you were coming, I was eating ever faster than Lola and Zeus! Then, you arrived, and we had so many choices: like hanging out in the family room on the couch, or on Mom’s bed, or playing in the yard, or hanging out on the deck.

Things changed one day: When you were coming home in the morning, you were ignoring me, and going straight to Mom’s bed and staying there the whole day. I tried to convince you to come to hang out with me, but one day, you even snapped at me, and I retreated, totally puzzled. I always thought that the fact that you were silent and never even had the tiny bark to explain what happened was a big mistake. I am sure we could have settled things down. Barking would have been far better that the silence. But you just started to ignore me.

Then, one day, you stopped coming. It was in 2009. I remember clearly, because you stopped coming just a few months before Zeus crossed the Rainbow Bridge, and I was feeling so lonely after he was gone.

I needed you there girlfriend! Lola was so busy at that time with her own kids, and I was kind of jealous of her. I would have loved to have kids who would have followed me everywhere, and I think I would have taught them better manners that she did with hers! Sometimes, I still wondered why I could not have those cute little things too, but when I see how fast they grew up and how – even now, five years later, they can still be so obnoxious, maybe it was a blessing that it did not happen.

So, Kaia, this letter might be better than a lot of barking in a way, but when you came to spend the last weekend at home, I was so happy, but now, the house looks empty again without you. I started to hang out a bit with Zoe, but Zoe has too many blonde moments for me. You and I, Kaia, we understood each other with just a look or a smell. What happened girlfriend? We were goofing around all the time! Remember the whipping cream we stole?

Sometimes I feel so lonely and it doesn’t matter how many dogs are home with me, that I feel like howling, and you know me, I don’t howl that easily!

I hope that you are happy staying with your two feline friends: Lolita and Chloe. But today, the sun is shining, and I would have loved nothing better than lying down on the deck with you.

Pawsitively yours,

Maia.