I was born into a family of dog lovers. We rarely had more than one at a time, but we always had at least one. It surprised none of them that Families.com hired me on to be one of the Pets Bloggers. So I decided my inaugural entry would honor and remember the pets that made me who I am today.
[h]Mike[/h]
When I was born my family had Mike. He was a mean old dog who didn’t like anyone except my dad. I have vague memories of him. He was predominately black with a white chest, and I want to say he was some kind of a sheltie. Family legend has it he was hit by a car, also by a bus, later fell off a cliff and got stuck in a crevice, but lived through all of it. Somewhere along the way he’d also had his jaw rewired after it was broken through some other unfortunate incident.
Mike was a biter and a fighter and he wasn’t too fond of me, the little crying noisy thing that all of a sudden just showed up one day. (My sister was 13 when I was born, so they’d developed a mutual understanding –he wouldn’t bother her if she didn’t bother him. Something I would learn too.) He growled at me often and even bit me a few times, but instead of learning to fear dogs, I learned to respect them. Mike taught me that dogs are much like people; some are more tolerant, loving, and kindly than others. So, just as my sister had, I too came to respect Mike’s boundaries, and he mine.
But I really wanted a dog to call a friend. I never begged for one, but my dad knew. When I was six he was visiting with a vet friend who had rescued a sheltie from the side of the road. My dad asked what she was planning to do with the dog. She said she would try to find it a good home. He said, “Look no further. I know a little girl who will make him the perfect best friend.”
[h]MacGregor MacKenzie MacKintosh Mroch[/h]
Or Mackie for short. Mike was still around when Mack came along. But at eighteen, blind and deaf, Mike didn’t have much fight left in him. We saw right away just how special Mack was going to be. He respected Mike and gave him alpha billing from the get go. He never vied for dominance. Instead, he tapped his natural herding instincts to help Mike. He’d guide him off our step-down porch, around the back yard, and up to the door again. Day in and day out.
The day my dad decided it was time to put Mike out of his misery it was Mack who consoled me. (Yes, even as mean as that old Mike was, he was family and I mourned his passing.) As he was that day, Mack continued to be there for me through good and bad over the next ten years. Wherever I went, so did Mack. In fact, when I had to talk with the judge to help him decided custody when my parents’ divorced, he asked who I wanted to live with. I answered: “I don’t care. But whoever gets me gets Mackie too. I’m not going anywhere without him.” And so it was written into the agreement.
Mack passed the summer before my senior year of high school. We had found a lump near his groin, so into the vet he went. They took it out successfully, but Mack had a heart attack coming out of the anesthesia. To this day I believe he knew he wasn’t coming back that night. Instead of sleeping on the floor next to my bed the night before like he usually did, he slept on my bed. That morning he sat in the bathroom while I got ready to go to school instead of sitting at the sliding glass doors watching for squirrels. And then he followed me to the door as I was leaving and just sat there. I kissed him goodbye as usual, but if I’d known I would never see him again, I would’ve held him a little bit longer and little bit tighter. He was sweet, marvelous, gentle, and smart from beginning to end, and he was the greatest first best friend.
But he wasn’t the last, as I’ll talk about in Part Two.