Going back as long as I can remember, there were dogs in my life. Unortunately, while I remember them all, I do not have photos of our amazing pooches. My earliest memory is of the dog named Happy, He, as I recall, was a stray that showed up one day, got fed by my parents and stayed. At the time, we had two other dogs, Cherrie was a French Pug who I was not very friendly with, but she and Happy had a good time together. My sister Sue got a miniture poodle when she was about 15 that she named Cleo, what a cute little pup she was.
My first real dog of my own was Sandy, a bit of a mutt that had the temparament of a wanderer and the heart of a lion. I swear she had Hyena in her.
When I was 8 years old, we went to a farm and there was this pen with lots of puppies in it, I went over and knelt by the fence and this cute little brown with black stripes pupply came over excited with their tail wagging to greet me. Naturally, that was the dog I chose, My dad let me birng her home and because of her coloring, I named her Sandy. We grew up together so when she was about 4 years old, I was about 12, my mom required me to take dog training classes. Sandy was about a 40 pound ball of muscle that did whatever she wanted, and that was not my mom’s idea of a good time. We took her to a dog training camp for a month, then I had to take her to classes at a local field with the owner Val, who had this amazing giant white German Shepard that was the picture of a well behaved dog. Along with Sandy, there were about 20 other owners and dogs. I was probably the youngest trainer there, and defintely did not have the worst behaved dog. A month of dog training school gave me a head start.
I still remember the horror I expereinced when each day at the end of training, we had to send our dog after a man running away (he had a long arm guard made of hessian and straw. The dog was required to tackle, bring down and guard the man by taking him on his arm. Obviosly, being that it was South Africa, the man running away was black. I think that drill traumatized me more than trained Sandy!
When we moved into an apartment, my dad, without my knowing, gave Sandy to some folks who lived on a farm and I never saw her again, althought I looked for her in case she came back. I never really felt compelte about that process and never forgave my dad for not giving me a chance to say goodbye, I loved that dog.
5 years later we moved to North America and it was not till I was married with children that we got another dog. This time, Stella. A Black Lab/Golden retriever mix. Given I had some experience of dog training, Isearched for and purchased the books The Art of Raising a Puppy and How to be Your Dog’s Best Friend by the Monks of Skete. I got the puppy as a gift when my ex-wife and her sisters each got a litter sister, so in our extended family, there were 3 such puppies. When we got together with the others, the dogs had a famous time. Eventually we had a really problem with Stella. She was a real escape artist. She would dig holes under the fence, so we buried a piece of steel all around the prpoerty about 5 inches from the fence to discourage her. Then she simply broke though the fence to get out. She was real wanderer. I would get calls from nearby towns saying, “I think have your dog” from time to time, in any event, based on her massive range, we made the choice to give her to my ex-eife’s sister who had one of the litter, because she lived on 5 acres, and had an electic fence around their chicken coup. Well they soon learned that Stella was a skilled breaker of things. She would lay next to the electric fence, just out of range of getting a shock, listening till the battery ran out before she went through the fence to get what chickens she could in the coup. Pretty soon, they made the choice to give Stella to another family that had 100 acres. Last I heard about her, she was happy to have that property to roam around. I have no photos of Stella, since her life was pre-facebook
After Stella, I found a CockerPoo in Canada that was having puppies and we drove up to BC to pick up Cosmo.
He was a great dog. I took him for walks every day, and given that we lived next to a green belt, he got to really be a dog.
Here he is in the green belt, just dogging it.
One of his favorite things in the world to do was go on boat rides with us. He loved the feeling of the wind in his face.
He lived 14 years, and raised the kids. What was funny was that he was deferetial too all the kids other than Joshua, who he considered a peer. Here he is with Josh as an older dog.
I trained Cosmo according to the guidence in the books, and he was truly a wonderfully obedient animal. He lived about 16 years before his age got the better of him and it came time to put him down. Just few weeks before he died, we went on a long walk on the island, here he is in the rain with me that day. a day I will never forget.
But not to end this story about him on a sour note, here he is doing his other favorite thing, playing in the waves.
And how does one describe the beingness of a loving animal. Let say a picture is worth 1,000 words. This photo was taken the summer before he passed, about 6 months left in his life, and the whole time, he made us all feel his total devotion and love.
Of course, it was not all roses. Here he is after rubbing his neck in dung and about to get a bath, or as I like to say, “Thems the rules!”
When I see his pics, I miss him.
When Cosmo passed, I was heart broken. My marriage was on the rocks, the world had changed, my business had come to an end and my mom passed away. I suddenly felt very alone. Cosmo’s death impacted Josh the most, so he went looking for a new puppy and he found Kiva, an Eskipoo. I reached out to the owners of the farm in Eastern Washington, and they sent me this photo after telling me that they had a litter of 4 puppies, two male and two female. Only one was not spoken for, a male. I was fine with a male, but I asked her if I was getting the runt of the litter? “Oh no,” she said, “He is the pick of the litter. The other male was more docile and the buyer asked for a quieter dog.” That made me happy so I put the money down right then.”
Kiva, a name chosen by Mia, who named him Prince Kiva, was selectged because I wanted a name that began with a hard “K” sound since that is a very audible sound to dogs. Kiva is the one on the left. When we picked him up, he was 6 weeks old and very tiny.
There he is with Mia on his first day in Seattle. The kennel owner brought the puppies to Seattle, and when she was handing him off to me she said, “He is the pick of the litter, a really great little personality!” and she was not wrong. Kiva has been an amazing friend to have in my life. When he was very young, a baby really, just a few months old, Melissa and I split up and having the unconditional love of this lille fella saved my life. Seiously. As it turns out, he is really an empath. He leans in to you to show you how much he loves you.
He made friends easily too. This is him with Rusty, a cocker poo that a friend owned.
He would come to work with me and make sure I got out.
Once he discovered the water, which he did at around age 2, not being willing to go into the water before that, he took to it like, well a dog to water! He is a famous retirever. Poodles are retrievers and he definitely has that in him.
When I had my knee surgery he not only got me out walking but he took care of me. Here he is getting an ear scratch while he held my arm out of affection.
He really loves the water and when I take him down to the lake, he strains to go swimming. I discovered that he loves swimming so much, there are times he just goes into the water for a swim on his own.
So, now, when we go to the lake, I bring a float for him to fetch and play with. He LOVES it.
What is remarkable is that the water is quite cold, so when he has had enough, he just runs up onto the grass to dry off and warm up. He is such a happy fellow.
But he is deeply committed to water retrival.
In the winter, he loves the fire and spends a good deal of time staring at the flames.
On the other hand, when its hot out, he does enjoy a slice of cold watermelon!
I trained Kiva to be obedient using the same MOonks of Skete books, What makes them great books is that these Franciscan Monks express their faith by raising German Shepards and the lessons are very dog friendly. I have made a point of letting Kiva, along with Cosmo and Stella before him, be a dog. I have not humanized him and trained him to do Stupid Human Tricks to paraphrase David Letterman. Instead, I encourage him to enjoy his dogginess. He sniffs and marks to his heart’s content.
On the other hand, Kiva is a very smart dog. Dog intelligence is smetoimes measured by their sense of humor, their desire to play chase and keep away. Kiva is a master of that. He playes chacse with me till he pukes, then he wants to go walk it off. But, once he catches his breath, he is off again. It’s the same at the water. He will go all day if it’s warm enough.
KIva welcomed Heather into my life too. She was dealing with the stress of divorce from a narcicist so she was on edge at first. Kiva, being the empath he is cuddled with her and gave her his unconditional love. Even today, some 7 years or so later, he still loves her to pieces. She was heartbroken when he was attacked by a German Shepard
“Kiva gave us a scare yesterday. There is a dead-end service road near our place that we let him off the leash to explore and be a dog. A neighbor who lives off the service road has a massive black German Shepard. Well Kiva has a thing about big black dogs. I think he sees them as goats to heard because he will often try to herd them if he gets a chance. Well he went after this Shepard yesterday and that dog, being an Alpha male itself, was having none of it. He pinned Kiva and bit his hind quarter breaking the skin. The Shepard was on the leash and was so animated he was pulling his 200 pound-plus human behind him as he went after Kiva who had managed to get away squealing in fear and pain. Our hearts were racing and that poor little fella was tail between his legs slinking off for the rest of our walk. Poor fella.” It took surgery and a lot of love to nurse him back to health. That happened when he was 9 years old.
He is an amazing animal and we are so gratelful to have him in our lives.
My Life: A Memoir 