This isn’t at all what I thought I’d be writing about this week. On Monday, my plans included talking about cookies, and showing off my nearly done sweater.

Then on Tuesday, the second of my biggest fears happened.

Tuesday was the first big storm of the season. Extremely windy, very rainy, and the dogs just refused to go outside. They would wander near the door acting like they needed to go out, but when I put them in the dog run, they just stood there whimpering at the door, refusing to move. So I’d let them back in.

Towards noon, I moved from the living room back to the “office” to hop onto the internets. I hadn’t seen the dogs in about 15 minutes, and I wondered what they were getting into, since usually they lay on the floor of whatever room I was in. I found them coming down the stairs, and went up to investigate. Instead of moving from the door in the rain, they had both decided to do their business upstairs.

I was so mad. I called my mom and told her that I hated them, telling her what they had done. Of course I didn’t hate them, but I hate cleaning up the messes. I was so mad that they both cowered in the cage together¹, when usually Honey wouldn’t let them outside. I was so mad, that even though I didn’t hit them or rub their noses in their messes, they knew I was serious. Rocky was so afraid that he refused to come out of the cage when I told him too, and growled and snapped at me when I tried to pull his collar.

I was so mad that I put them in the full backyard in the storm, and then didn’t think about them for the next hour. I put them in the backyard because that’s what we do when they disobey and go in the house, and I chose the full back yard so they could at least lay under a tree or the gazebo to stay out of the rain.

About an hour later, after I had cleaned up their messes, and wasn’t so mad at them anymore, I looked in the backyard to see if I could see them. I couldn’t, but that wasn’t so worrying. There are lots of places for them to hide. I walked into the garage, and looked out a different window. And saw that the gate was open.

Immediately, I knew they weren’t in the backyard. The gate didn’t stay latched because the wind was pushing a wobbly fence around² and the latch had nothing to hold, blowing the gate wide open. I walked to my room to put on some pants, and while I was in there my phone rang. Since I had just seen the gate open, and I didn’t reconize the number, I thought maybe it was someone in the neighborhood who had caught the dogs. It’s not uncommon to see animals loose durning the storm.

It was in fact, someone who had found the dogs. It was animal control, and the dogs had been hit by cars.
This wasn’t immediately serious, not for at least five seconds. Our last dog Zippy had quite the habit of escaping and getting hit by cars, but in her case, it was always a graze. However, this time we were not so lucky.

The words that tumbled out of the phone were terrible. “Your dogs have been hit by a car, and the German Shorthair is still alive.” Even in a shocked state, I could parse that. Much quicker than my mom did when I said the exact same words to her. The dogs were hit. Honey is not alive.

I was so relived when she said that Rocky was alive. He’s my brother’s dog, and he spends the day with us while he’s at work. I was so relieved that my bad mommying (I shouldn’t have put them in the backyard! In the storm! It’s all my fault!) had only killed my dog, and not his. As I was still on my cell phone with Animal control, and she was trying to calm me down, I was dialing my mom, whose work number I would probably be able to dial during a terrorist attack³. I called her to have her call my brother, because I wouldn’t be calm enough to, because I still had to give animal control a vet to send Rocky to. Because I had to pull together enough to get dressed and find my glasses and run in the storm to the vet’s, which took me 15 minutes. 15 minutes of sobbing uncontrollably and nearly hyperventilating, because the only thing I can think about is how it’s all my fault.

When I got to the vet’s, Rocky is standing there in the room, much blood on the ground, but standing. They had been waiting for me to start, to put him under to stop the bleeding on his leg. They couldn’t address anything else until he was done bleeding. After they take Rocky in, I call my brother to tell him the status, to tell him the vet I’m at. And then I have to sit there and wait.

The animal control officer comes in and tells me they were hit, and Honey died immediately. There were lots of people on the scene trying to help Rocky, which is why she got their so quickly. Rocky had tried to run home on his bad leg, but they kept him their for help. She told me they were hit on Madison, and I wasn’t surprised at all. When I worked there at Taco Bell, we would see dogs hit or nearly hit all the time.

I feel terrible for whoever hit the dogs. They probably crested the hill going the speed limit, and right then, there’s a dog in front of them. Or maybe they didn’t see them at all. And now whoever it is has to live with the fact that they hit and killed my pretty emo puppy. A dog they didn’t see.

After the officer gave me Honey’s collar, it still didn’t seem real. Her body was in the truck, but I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to remember her mangled and broken. I would like to choose to believe that the officer fell in love with her and she didn’t want to give Honey back, so Honey is alive and being emo on the other side of town.

Rocky will live, but still may lose his left hind leg. It was open to the bone from hip to ankle, and the vet said he was dragged for a bit, so there is bone missing from his kneecap. The surgeon is supposed to look at it today and let us know, but Rocky was up and around in the vet’s kennel, trying to run around on it. But then again, Rocky is too dumb to know when he’s hurt.

I feet terrible for him, because he’s going to miss Honey as much as I do. My brother and I got our dogs within days of each other, and Rocky was only a little puppy. Honey was the mommy-dog who was patient with her but knew how to put her foot down when he was over the line. They lived together during my first year in Chico, and when I brought Honey up to join me, my sister said Rocky whined and was lonely, and looked for her all the time. He’s going to come home and be looking for her again, not knowing where she went. I can’t imagine not being able to comprehend why your friend isn’t there any more.

I miss my dog. I miss her in the middle of the night when she moved around and wanted out. I miss her in the morning when she would sing to my mom for her treats. I miss her when I’m alone on the computer, when she used to lay with me, her body along the length of my bed. I miss putting her out at night, petting her, and just being able to look over at her and know that there is one thing in this world that loves me unconditionally, even when I screw up. I only had her for three years, but they were the best years of our lives.

I loved Honey, my emo puppy, with all my heart, and she will always be missed.

1. I was not so mad, though, that I didn’t recognize how cute they were and ran to get my camera before one of them moved. [back]
2. In fact, that portion of the fence fell down completely that day. [back]
3. Which is actually good to know, due to all of the dreams I have where I can never dial 911 properly. [back]

Tagged: on Thursday, October 15, 2009 · 3 Comments »