Dogs, Dogs, Dogs

I work against becoming a crazy dog lady.

My mother tending to some of her dogs, kept in multiple zones in and around her house.

Last summer, I lost my three pets. I call them mine, but they had been brought home by my son, who moved out and did not take them. The dogs were pit bulls, not a breed I would have chosen, but I tolerated/loved them anyway. Since then, my son has taken the younger one (who's not so young anymore). Last summer, both the older one and the cat passed away.

I won’t be replacing them any time soon. Part of writing about my mother involves seeking differences between the two of us, in the classic, “I don’t want to turn into my mother” way. Of course I find, and embrace, many similarities. One that I fight against is owning too many dogs.

My mother with her family’s childhood dog Wally, in 1938.

My father had grown up without dogs and did not particularly like them. When he married my mother, though, he also gained the first in a series of dachshunds that lasted longer than their marriage.

First was Penny I, followed by Penny II, after my father ran over Penny I in the driveway. Penny II was followed by Heidi, then Tina, and finally Gretchen. There was also a Rhodesian Ridgeback in the mix. When my father moved out, Gretchen remained.

For a decade, my mother lived on Roosevelt Island, which then did not allow dogs. Her mother took Gretchen down to Washington, DC and gave her excellent care for the remainder of her life. My mother, who until then had despised cats, suddenly was on board.

In part, I think not having a dog was what led my mother to leave New York. Cats didn’t completely satisfy her pet itch, so she chose a place where she could have as many dogs as she wanted. She became the crazy dog lady of Dorado. At one point, she had more than 30 on her property, as well as a dedicated guesthouse filled with an unknown number of cats.

She avoided her family and rarely expressed love to humans, but had a pure love for dogs. She deeply grieved the loss of each one in a way she claimed not to do with her own mother. Dogs, only dogs, gave her unconditional love, made no demands other than food and shelter.

I came to accept her choice of dogs over humans, even though I was one of those humans. Part of my process, though, was developing a resistance to dogs. The “crazy dog lady” fate is what I now fight against as I look at my pet-free house, with its damaged floors and scratched doors. Yesterday’s New York Times had a story about how our ancestors had dogs as early as 14,000 years ago. The human-dog relationship runs deep. So yes, I still pine for a dog. One dog…the gateway drug to too many.

To hold myself back, I have gone all in on rugs. Maybe someday I will roll them up and succumb to canine charms. But I’ll never lose my internal warning to avoid turning into a crazy dog lady.