How Ziggy made me a dog person (Part 2)

I'm off work today, so I have lots of time to blog. I'm trying to be patient about waiting to hear about Kira. Part of me wants to keep e-mailing Karen to let her know we are still here and still want Kira. But the better part of me says not to "stalk" her. It is a decision she will have to make. I know she wants what is best for Kira.

In the meantime, I can continue talking about Ziggy. I have been happily distracted from his loss by the continuing Kira saga. But a day doesn't go by that I don't miss him. I wake every morning, expecting to see him. I have a wonderful view of the back yard from my desk as I write this, and it makes me sad that I will never see him play there again. The weather is warm right now, and if he were here, I'd be outside with him, pulling tufts of downy undercoat from his chest and hips, making happy birds and happy squirrels. He loved being groomed (however, he didn't like having his nails clipped, but he tolerated it).

So, what makes someone "a dog person?" My mother is by all means NOT a dog person. When she and my brother came for a visit at Christmas in 2001, I was so proud of my new dog and excited to introduce him to her. But she didn't want anything to do with Ziggy. Why? I asked, surprised that anyone could resist my beautiful dog. "He has secretions," she said. OK, laugh. I certainly did! "Secretions???" "Yes, secretions," she responded. She liked watching my cat (that was before Daily) interract with us, but she wasn't really interested in cats either. I don't know how my mother, who has no feelings for animals, managed to raise so many "Ellie Maes." My two sisters and I have had many critters. M currently has two cats and a cockatoo, and L once had 13 cats (again, from people dropping their unwanted cats in the country), and she even had a flying squirrel or two. I've had many cats, gerbils, hamsters, mice, fish, some rescued squirrels, and a dog (I hope to have many more dogs).

Mom knows her girls love their animals, but she doesn't want any herself. I have often wondered if my mother was so fastidious about the animals because she was once a nurse. But that doesn't work, because my friend, Lea, was a nurse once, too, and she has had many dogs and loved every one. She is neat and clean, but manages to have her critters, too.

Lea assures me that I am a dog person. She says that a day never went by that I didn't mention Ziggy. She says that I always had a story to tell about him. Until she mentioned it, I never knew that. But thinking back, there have been many wonderful Ziggy stories to share. And I love telling stories. Before I had Ziggy, I always had cats. And my surrogate sister, Tracy, had cats. Before she moved out to LA to try her hand at screenwriting, we used to tell each other amusing cat stories. Sometimes--no, I must say often-- we even repeated stories we had told before. But that never bothered us. One time when we were laughing about our repetition, I suggested that we could assign numers to the stories. That way, I could say "Hey, Tracy, remember #86?" Ha ha ha, we could laugh heartily at #86. That story was how Rocky trained me not to laugh at his klutziness by spraying the file cabinet when I did laugh at him (I learned early on to clap my hand over my own mouth to keep from laughing at him). Then Tracy could say: "And what about #93." And of course I would laugh heartily at #93, which was how her large cat, Baby, grumbled noisily all the way downstairs when he wasn't allowed outside. We had hundreds of such stories. They may not be so funny to YOU, but they were totally hilarious to us.

But this blog is supposed to be about dogs. It's a dog blog. In December, I taught Ziggy to "wipe his feet." We had a lot of wet weather, and the back yard can get quite muddy. So, when we came in the back door, I taught Zig to walk around the mat in a circle three times and sit, and called that "wipe your feet." Hey it was so CUTE and it worked beautifully! What I loved was how proud he was of himself when he did something I asked. I love that wonderful German Shepherd grin when he looked up at me. It was such a sweet moment. Whoever came up with that stupid "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" phrase didn't know a thing about dogs (or at least GSDs). Ziggy was 9 when I taught him that one.

My husband is the "truck god." Ziggy would have loved nothing better than to have gotten up in the morning, gone out to the truck, jumped in the back seat, and stayed there until evening. At the end of the day, you could have gone out and opened the door and asked "So, how was your day, Ziggy?" and he would have said "It was a good day." That is, if he could have talked. Of course, get real, I would never have left him in the truck all day.

He loved that truck and my husband. Every Saturday when H came downstairs in his jeans and weekend clothing, Ziggy lept up eagerly. He knew they were about to go out in the truck to do "guy things." That included filling the truck with diesel, dropping the shirts off at the cleaner, stopping by the wine store, stop at the doggy store and maybe even the dog park, go for a nice walk along the Potomac...whatever else guys do when they go out and do guy things in the truck. Zig always had a very self-satisfied attitude when he came in after one of these great Saturdays. He knew where he fit in. When Monday came around and H came downstairs in his suit, Ziggy was depressed. He hated Mondays.

Ziggy's vocabulary was astounding. Forget the usual "sit," "stay," "heel," "leave it" etcetera. He knew SO much more than the usual stuff. When the "truck god" went outside to do things, and somehow neglected to take his loyal companion with him, Zig would be beside himself because he couldn't see H. He had trouble deciding which door was the best one to try to see the love of his life (who else would I be meaning but H, the truck god). So one day he stood at the front door, trying so hard to see H. I said "go to the back door, Ziggy" not really expecting him to know what I meant. After all, a door is a door, right? Not hardly! He spun around and ran to the back door. That was a little bit startling.

But imagine this: before we cleverly moved the taboo rug into the loft, replacing it with a dog-friendly one, I used to say "get off the rug, Ziggy" and he would move off of it. But if I wanted him to sit on the mat inside the door and said "get on the rug" he got ON that mat. That's almost creepy! How did he know? Dogs are so incredibly smart. They are dumb, too, and do gross things, like eat kitty poop from the litter box (ewe!), and then they get sick from it. And they never make the connection...or maybe the "kitty treats" are just too yummy to them to care that they get sick from them. Ok that's enough of that topic, thank you very much!

Ok, I must quit now. I have other things to do around the house. Timmy warned me that this blogging thing could be quite addictive. He was right! But there are so many stories to tell. Later.