Dog

not a tarot post

Today I am republishing a story I wrote almost five years ago, about my dog Freya. She is almost nine now, getting old for a big dog. Recently an old family friend, Rona Maynard, published a book about her dog and about herself Starter Dog. I’m listening to her read it in the car. My 92 year old Dad has been so moved by it. Freya has perhaps been the greatest joy in my life. I know that sounds epic, but our love has no strings attached. It is this really pure thing we have between us. Anyway, if you have time, indulge me with a read. xo

Freya 6 months

Freya turned four last week. Give or take a week or two. She is a rescue so I am not sure exactly when she was born. She is a brown Newfoundland of extraordinary beauty. Her long, shaggy coat has as many shades of brown, tan and red as the leaves of an autumn color-changing maple tree. Her eyes are a warm chocolate brown. She is small for a Newfie, a mere one hundred pounds, and she turns heads and brings smiles to peoples’ faces when she leans her head out the car window or prances through the leaves at the park. She likes to wade up to her chest in Lake Washington almost every day, and sits down as if she is in a vast bath tub. She soaks for a minute or two and then is ready to move on. She is not too terribly smart but is remarkable and beloved to me in so many ways, not least of which is how she came to be in my life.

When my oldest son Ben left for college in the Fall of 2014 I decided to start fostering dogs. My youngest son Jacob, a sophomore in high school, was gung ho. I started with Missy's Animal Rescue down the street in North Seattle. The director thrust a three pound chihuahua into my hands and said “He’s scared and not potty trained, but you’ll do fine.” Magnum was one of forty chorkies (chihuahua yorkie mixes) all with names beginning with M, who had been rescued from a hoarder. Fostering was hard. The constant cleaning up, crate training, attempts at leash walking, and managing a husband who was absolutely not gung ho took its toll. But I was determined. I loved the interview process once a dog was ready to find its forever home and I got to be the one to decide who would get the dog. Magnum went to live on Bainbridge Island with a wealthy doctor’s family. We joked that he was certainly moving up in the world. Over the next few months I worked my way through Magnum, Muffin and Myrtle. They found great homes and it was incredibly satisfying. Once the chorkies were all allocated, I looked for another dog-focused rescue to work with. Missy's mostly had cats and I already have two at home. I was a foster expert now (any dog foster parent knows that is a joke).

I came upon Forever Home Dog Rescue on line, and when I went to their homepage the first thing I saw was a photo of a group of giant dogs in serious states of disrepair. The story I read below the photo made my throat catch. Twenty-seven Newfoundlands all rescued together from a swampy farm in Bellingham, WA. They needed a variety of surgeries and medications. They were all skinny and sick and they needed to be shaved because they were so horribly dirty and matted. None of the dogs were spayed or neutered and they had inbred with each other producing many of these medical issues. I did a little research on the breed while filling out the in depth application that this rescue required, different from the first rescue for sure. It took a week before they even called me and then I had to have an in person interview with the director, Lissa. I made it clear that I wanted to foster one of the Newfies and downplayed the fact I had never fostered a dog weighing more than eight pounds.

Vern came home with us in February of 2015. A one hundred twenty pound brown two year old boy, he looked a little ridiculous because his big yet very skinny body had been shaved down and he had a giant head. He was a big lover, but he wasn’t easy. He spooked if we were walking on the Burke Gilman trail and a truck applied their compression brakes in the distance. He was so strong I had to sit down on the ground when he panicked in order not to be dragged. He wasn’t ok being left alone. We had to take all the furniture out of my college son’s room in order to have somewhere to leave him where he would be safe. He still gnawed on the door jam. He ate a remote. He got into an entire container of rodent litter (Jacob had pet rats), and when I came into the room it looked like it had snowed inside. He was not easy, but we loved him. He had the most earnest personality and he snuggled and Jacob adored him and asked to keep him. I knew we were not going to keep him. My husband Chris had been adamant that fostering was ok, but we could not commit to a full-time forever dog, especially with Jacob leaving soon for college himself. I knew our time with Vern was limited.

So this is where the story takes a terrible turn.

My son Ben, away at college in Bellingham (scene of the Newfie rescue), began to lose his vision in February of 2015. He called and told me he thought he needed a new glasses prescription and I said we’d get it checked over Spring Break, a few weeks from then. I thought nothing of it. The following week he called and told me his eyes were feeling weird and he said that his vision change felt different from just a prescription change. I told him to go to an optometrist in Bellingham or we would just get it checked out when he got home the following week. I thought almost nothing of it. He had hypochondriacal tendencies, often complained of fatigue and headaches. I was the kind of mom who you had to be feverish or actually throwing up to stay home from school. I prided myself on being tough, no pushover. Little did I know how tough I would have to be.

Ben came home for Spring Break on March 23rd, 2015. I had made an appointment that day with our eye doctor. The doctor’s face fell as she examined his eyes and she told us that his optic nerves were very pale, and that we needed to visit an eye surgeon immediately. By immediately she meant that she was calling one right then and there and we would drive directly over--they were keeping their office open for us. From there we went to a neuroopthamologist as the eye surgeon had no clue what was wrong, but he was also puzzled and had no answers. Ben's eye sight seemed to diminish almost daily. There would be hundreds of doctor’s visits, surgeries, hospital stays over the next eighteen months. But this story is not in fact the story of how my son was eventually diagnosed and treated for an extremely rare form of cancer, which embedded itself between his pituitary gland and optic chiasm. This isn't the story about the tumor which if not obliterated, would take his vision and then his life. That story may come later. But it is important context for understanding what happened next.

It took eight weeks to receive the definitive diagnosis for a nongerminomatous germ cell tumor of the pituitary and optic chiasm. And during that time we drove back and forth to Bellingham with Ben, telling ourselves some crazy story that this was all going to be ok and that of course he would be able to finish out the Spring quarter. We also still had Vern, who was getting more socialized and at ease in the world. One day as I walked with him in our neighborhood feeling as if my life was never going to be ok again, a car pulled up beside us and the man in the driver’s seat asked “Is that a Newfie?” He was with his wife and it turned out they were neighbors, about five blocks away from us. I told them yes he was a foster and we were looking for his forever home. They had recently lost one of their dogs to cancer and had raised Newfies and Mastiffs for years. I brought Vern over to their house and they fell in love with him. They wanted him. I was relieved and also worried. We began the process of adoption and I allowed them to keep Vern overnight both to see how he did with them and to provide some respite as I traveled back and forth from home to Western Washington University to UW Medical Center, as we prepared Ben for a brain biopsy to determine the specific kind of germ cell tumor he had which would affect his treatment plan. The surgery took place on May 15th. At that point I was letting the neighbors, the Redfields, have Vern all the time even though the adoption wasn’t finalized. The surgery was horrible, again a story for another time. Ben remained in the hospital with numerous complications. Jacob was having to wing it as a fifteen year old boy with a family in crisis. I moved back and forth in a frenzied daze trying to keep it together. We waited for the biopsy results to come back.

On Friday May 22nd, 2015 (I do not have these dates written down, they are just planted in my head), the results of the biopsy were back. At that point Ben had been moved to Children’s Hospital. The results were terrible, the worst kind of germ cell tumor, with a choriocarcinoma component. Chemotherapy needed to begin on Monday. He would have six rounds of very aggressive chemo followed by forty rounds of proton beam therapy. The success rate was seventy percent. I asked if we could go home for the weekend. The doctors agreed. As we got ourselves together to go home and prepare for the beginning of what I knew would be hell, my phone rang and it was Jacob. He was very bereft. This child of mine is not a crier by nature but that was what was happening. He was begging me to get Vern back. He was desperate for a dog to keep him company. He felt so alone. I knew that couldn’t happen. We had committed to the Redfields and they would provide a good home. We were heading into an impossibly hard situation and time. Now was not the time for a new dog. That was the rational answer. But I wasn’t feeling particularly rational. And desperate times called for desperate measures.

Then I told Jacob I would fix this. I would figure out a way for him to have a Newf. I hung up and called Lissa at the rescue. We were already planning on meeting to finalize the adoption of Vern. She knew what had been happening with Ben. I told her we needed another Newfie. My kids needed a dog to go through this terrible time with. She tried to deflect and said maybe we should take a little dog who would be less trouble. I told her we wanted a Newf. She said there was only one left, a female of six months called Brownie who needed a lot of work. I told her that was just fine. I did not consult my husband. I knew when I was doing it that it wasn't rational, that I wasn't being a good wife. But I did it anyway. Could she please bring the dog today and I would take her.

That afternoon, with Ben in his own bed for the first time in weeks, and Jacob waiting at home, I went over to the Redfields to meet Lissa, and met Brownie (now Freya) for the first time. She was wound up to say the least. A six month Newfie, weighing in at about seventy-five pounds, she had no leash skills and was extremely anxious. She did not run into my arms and give me kisses. She was brown and beautiful but had a frenetic and anxious energy, but she didn’t growl or bite. She was nervous and scared. I told Lissa this wasn’t going to be a foster situation. She would be our forever dog. Lissa, who is an amazing and generous woman, knew I was in a very bad mental state and in retrospect handled me so well. She told me I could return Brownie any time if it got to be too much and she would help me with anything I needed. The fact that she trusted me with this dog, that she knew how badly we needed the comfort of this animal, in spite of how hard it would be, is a true testament to her trust and empathy. I will always be grateful for that.

So Brownie came home and Jacob renamed her Freya almost immediately, old Norse for Lady. Freya spent a lot of time observing us, sussing us out. My husband Chris was so furious he couldn’t even speak of it. Having a new rescue puppy was absolutely too much for our family to handle alone. Friends came to sit with her while we were at the hospital and Jacob was at school. Freya care became part of the overall plan of care for our family, along with meals dropped off three times a week. I did not cook a meal for six months while Ben was undergoing cancer treatment, and Freya was very rarely alone. At first she hid out mostly, not a fan of people, not even us so much. What Freya did love was other dogs, and food. So that is what we focused on, going to dog parks where she was so happy to hang out with her brethren, and lots and lots of treats.

A new indoor dog park/bar opened near us and we became members of the club almost immediately. Dogwood Play Park became our daily hangout, especially beneficial during the Seattle winter rainy season. Freya began to be more comfortable with humans, especially the ones who gave her snacks. She started to relax. When she turned one Ben was done with treatment, and I thought maybe I too could relax. I didn’t realize that the year after treatment is almost as bad as the year of treatment. You want everything to be better but the body has been ravaged and needs time to recover, the pieces that can be recovered. What you learn is that everything has changed. There is no going back to the time before the diagnosis. The family unit is different and needs to restructure. There is so much stress, anguish, pain to work through. And so much of what I worked through I did with Freya. I can say that I got the dog to comfort my kids but that is essentially untrue. I would not have gotten Freya if Jacob had not been so upset, if I hadn’t felt he needed something to hold, but once she landed in our home, in all her messiness, she was my dog and our hearts were irrevocably linked. The number of times I hugged her and cried is countless. And she was just there for me, with no words and no judgement and just love, and needs I could actually fulfill. Our relationship could be simple.

I’ve considered my relationship with this dog deeply. Transference is a theoretical phenomenon characterized by unconscious redirection of the feelings a person has about a second person to feelings the first person has about a third person.. In this case the third person was and is most definitely the dog. And the dog, my precious Freya, turned four last week. She had a party with a giant cake and a dozen dog friends. And my precious Ben is back up in Bellingham where he belongs, back in school and exceeding any expectations I could have ever imagined for him. Most important, he is really happy. Jacob, precious too, is away at college, now a sophomore, and has for the most part recovered from the trauma of that time. Those boys are two of the strongest people I know.

Chris still resents the dog. He always will. But his resentment is less visceral than before. He comments on the huge bills related to Freya’s care (including a recent surgery and hundreds for doggie daycare), and adamantly refuses to walk her. But his easing of negativity toward the dog he made it clear he did not want, is also a transference of a sort. It reflects the easing of the tension and negativity between us which was the result of going through having a child with cancer. Numerous studies conclude that divorce is a likely outcome when parents have a child with cancer, even if the child survives. It is probably one of the most stressful events which can occur in a life and that a marriage can endure. We are doing better these days, in our almost empty nest, the nest that includes Freya and our two cats. The kids tease me that she is the preferred child in the family. There is an element of truth to that.

And this dog. She is my angel and my witness. I have had many pets over this long life, but there is no pet I have had which has come even close to how I feel about Freya. I know that a big piece of my emotion toward her is how she came to live with us, what she witnessed our family going through, how she became a part of our family. Her adoption date matching up with Ben’s diagnosis date is connected and just true. And now she gets to be the beloved dog in a relatively peaceful house. I will continue to give her the life of a rescued princess for as long as she lives.