My free Labrador pup... RIP Kai

“No matter how close we are to another person, few human relationships are as free from strife, disagreement, and frustration as is the relationship you have with a good dog. Few human beings give of themselves to another as a dog gives of itself. I also suspect that we cherish dogs because their unblemished souls make us wish - consciously or unconsciously - that we were as innocent as they are, and make us yearn for a place where innocence is universal and where the meanness, the betrayals, and the cruelties of this world are unknown.” 
― Dean Koontz, A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog


A week ago I had to make the very difficult decision to say goodbye to one of the most important relationships of my life. It has been my tradition to write about every one of my canine friends when they go as a way to tell their story, say goodbye, but also as a way to celebrate and create a space for healing. This time around it has taken every last ounce of determination for me to sit down and get out of my own way long enough to begin.

Over the years I have lovingly and commonly referred to our girl Kai as my "free Labrador puppy" but at any given moment one may have heard other names such as Kaya, Kai-dog, Cow-pie-ya, Kai-kai, Blondie, Peeps, Peepers, Yellow-dog, Whitey, Biscuit-head, Mama, Big Girl, Ole Girl, JYD, the Flying Dog, Killer, and many more...  some not so flattering. 

Kai came to me on one of the darkest days of my life, August 17, 2003 as I committed myself to the task of ending a relationship of sizable proportion. Since that day she has served as my constant calm companion, protector, and good luck charm against some of the greatest challenges that one can encounter in life. The crazier "life things" got, the calmer she became--a truly amazing and beautiful creature in everyway. She has been one of the greatest love affairs of my life. I suppose there are still some lessons to be learned here as I struggle to form words and clench my teeth every time I realize she is not immediately under foot or physically touching me in some way.

In order to crack open her story I asked my sister Becky, to whom I attribute a healthy amount of blame for our introduction, for a recap of Kai's entrance into our lives... 

"I remember walking up the loading dock at the Marriott for work and being immediately intercepted by our executive chef. He kept asking if my father wanted another Lab as we walked to the security office. There was a dog he wanted me to see, they found her that morning on the back dock trying to get to the dumpster.

 There she was – tied to a door-knob in the security office by a piece of rope. She was so calm, just sitting there staring at us, her appearance like she had made it through the wringer to get there. She had a weary, defeated look about her, like she’d experienced more of the wrongs of the world than the rights.  You’d have to have seen Kai then to truly appreciate exactly how far she came. We thought for sure she was much older, like 6 or 7 at least; her coat was dingy and roughed-up. There was a big old gash on the crown of her head and a raw ring of skin around her neck and maybe pregnant, not to mention just general scrapes and disarray. She seemed very sweet underneath it all, she wanted our attention, and she wanted us to stay. Obviously we couldn’t let the hotel manager see her.  Both of us being bleeding hearts we knew we couldn’t let her back out there and we just couldn’t call animal control. Dave said that we just had a few hours. That’s when I called Kate – happy about it or not, I wasn’t sure but she came right away. We were standing in the office waiting for her and one of the security guys kept saying that he was going to take this dog home with him, nice guy but a little short on brains. Kate heard it and I knew from one look at her face - that just wasn’t going to happen.

Off they went, days went by, no one stepped up to claim Kai - by then I don’t think Kate would have given her up." --Rebecca Sanker

 All of the above is true. There was a wire embedded in the skin of her neck and she was encrusted with so much dirt that I was pretty sure she was close to 100 years old. Come to find out when we washed away all of the grease and mud and put magic salve on her wounds that she was probably barely a year.

Once home, I bathed her, and then I began the process of dragging her from vet to vet looking for her owners, or a flyer, or any trace of what might have been her story. I called every shelter and posted dozens of signs in search of her family. Not a single person stepped forward...  So she met my little family of dogs, tried to kill both of them over their own bones and then promptly climbed up on to my lap, all 70 pounds of her, and fell fast asleep on my back porch. We would come to spend a incredible amount of time together on that back porch. 

A few weeks passed and I had her fixed. I gave her a real name thinking that we were the best place for her to be until...  Well that's the thing...  she must of known from the second that she leapt into my old green truck that she had finally found me. She perched on the console like we had just reunited after decades, maybe even lifetimes, and placed her head right under my arm and in my hand for our first drive home together. Funny, I don't think that if we were in the same location that we were ever more than a few feet from one another ever again, until now. And no, this is not even a mild exaggeration, this is the way that it has been for the last 11 years. I have loved every stinking minute of that girl's presence in my heart, even the really challenging ones.

We’ve been known for our parties with more dog guests than humans. She has had countless friends and companions. Nikko, Echo, Troy, Gilly, and a whole cast of other characters, but Delhi and Jack Rabbit Slim were her closest sibling rivals. She loved ice cream cone toys and most of all meaty bones fresh from the butcher. Let's just say that there were many near emergency vet visits for her and others due to her food-aggressive talents. I think she might have eaten herself to death if given the opportunity.

The first morning I let her sleep out in the house I woke up pinned by the shoulders to the bed gasping for air. She had laid across me, check to chest, paws pressing my shoulders down and she was literally breathing my breath. Shaken, yes. Convinced that I was about to be mauled to death in my sleep, no...  She was checking me for life, I believe. Other dear family and friends know this behavior of hers well, she could almost love you to death with her enormous capacity for physical affection. 

She also had an enormous capacity for pain. In fact I don't actually believe that she could feel it. I watched her tear into other animals and dogs. I have seen other dogs go after her and she always walked away completely cool and usually with little to no damage. Never a pretty sight, but it was the truth. She used to jump and climb amazing fences and chase me down the road no matter the vehicle or lack there of...  

Did I mention this dog could fly? We swam often in the river in the early days, and in friends pools. She could nearly clear most of them on the short side--a constant worry. She was built like a brick wall but just add water and she turned into an airborne superhero... She often times had to be removed by force from water so as not to make herself sick. In her later years she would often be Jack's tugboat, dragging him back to shore by his toy, as his lack of buoyancy would require.

She taught her boy Jack Rabbit everything she knew. Within the first five minutes of their initial meeting, otherwise known as his first serious brush with death, he fell madly in love with the amazing force of nature we called Kai. Needless to say he still thinks to this day that he is a retriever and not a German Shepherd.  

She raised our GSD Jack, she fostered our buddy Troy, and she helped nurse my old beagle mix Delhi back to life several times over. With the birth of our daughter Finley she came into her fully evolved role. She was and always had been the mommy-dog of all mommy-dogs and now her purpose could be completely realized. She did have to face off with the new found mobility that 6 month old Fin was acquiring, but only seconds after my swift and only real physical warning, Kai became the greatest nanny/nursemaid that a child could ever have. If you think that I am exaggerating any of this, then there is no need to read further. 

Every nursing, nap, mealtime, dinner, bath time, bedtime, dress-up time, morning walk, coming and going was accompanied by Kai. Finley had a hand, a head, or a foot on that dog probably 75% of the time that they spent together in the day/night. Fin is three years old as of this draft and is devastated by the loss of her best friend and surrogate. She is articulate enough to tell me every chance she gets as well. I know that it will pass, but I also know that there is no true love quite like this kind. Unbound, solid, present, un-expectant, and unwavering. Love that simply is. It is like earth--it was Kai. Ever present in the middle of the children and their toys, the louder and the more chaotic things got, the more she inhabited her space--she seemed to be like the eye of my life storms. 

Her super tolerance I believe is why we never suspected for a second that at the age of 12 years she had anything wrong with her, other than the fact that she was stealing a little too much of Jackie-boy's food. Her coat was luxurious, dreamy in fact. Her teeth were that of a young pup's. Two weeks prior to her finally telling me that something was very wrong she snuggled with me one evening while reading and unwinding from the day and I sensed that something was off. She was such a familiar to me I could almost always anticipate what was coming from her. Our radars have always overlapped no matter the event... danger, mischief, rain, shine, labor, etc... it was not a talent, it was just this way. I was hers. She was mine. Although other humans have come and gone, there were no other options and no one nearly as steady or as trustworthy. 

On Friday morning she would not get out of the bed. Her breath was shallow. I could barely get her to walk down the 2 flights of steps to the backyard. I had to carry all 90lbs of her back up to the main floor. She laid in the entryway with us taking turns holding her and petting her until we could get her to the vet when they opened. Again, I hoisted her up and carried her into the vet. It was the first time that she had ever resisted going in, even as I carried her. 

They found three things, fluid building up around her heart making it very hard for her to breathe, some changes in her bronchial passages, and a BB in her chest wall. The BB was unrelated to her pericardial infusion, but it is further proof of her long suspected pain threshold.

I know that I my choice to save her from suffering was the most important and courageous thing that I could possibly do for my friend. She deserved to be honored with as dignified a passing as I could provide for her after all of these years of love and service. She had told me it was time. Finley and Jack said their goodbyes and then went out with Grandma & Grandpa. Erik & I held her tight as she was sedated and then softly went to sleep. As she was nuzzling in, just as she always did, I hoped that she was dreaming she was snuggling down into the family nest for a glorious nap with her people.

My lessons from this biscuit colored beauty abound and continue even as I type. I am completely comfortable admitting that I am utterly lost without her. I am also unafraid to look all of this in the face. If the most important thing that we can do for one another in this short life is to show up, then I am there, especially for Kai. 

Right now, I am looking out for her light in all of the recent darkness that surrounds me. She always knew what to do...  I am trying to embody her example in almost everyway.

Rest in peace my sweetest free pup, you are forever my heart. 

I am the luckiest gal around to have had the honor of having been chosen and loved by you, but also to love such an amazing being. 

My undying love & gratitude to you for busting my heart wide-open and keeping me safe.

All in all, I can not help but feel as though we are not finished. Until then... 

Happy 16th Birthday Delhi-dog. RIP.

My original raison d'etre...
A better friend I have never known.
Thanks for all of the years old girl.
Not a day goes by that I don't think of you.

I love swimming dogs!

My girl Kai is like a champion swimming, diving, extravaganza! I can't keep her out of even the smallest puddles, so naturally when our friend Megan showed these images to me I had to pass them on! Hilarious and beautiful. Something to brighten the day!

http://dailypicksandflicks.com/2012/02/11/underwater-dogs-by-seth-casteel-picture-gallery/

Pictures of D...

Literally there are hundreds of images of this little gal in my catalogs. These are not anywhere near the best, just convenient and just a few. She probably survived more adventures than the images that I was lucky enough to catch of her in my distracted state of early adulthood. I imagine that she had used up at least 9 of her allotted lives, and that has actually been confirmed repeatedly by many respectable sources.  

Delhi-dog was originally the by-product of my Aunt Barbie's super-old, mangey mutt, Boots, who got a little too friendly with Ruby, the too young to be fixed, but not too young to have pups, Beagle. And as my mother might say, "they ate spaghetti together, like the Lady and the Tramp, and then they had pups."  A rather poisonous beau from my previous lifetime adopted one of these so-called spaghetti pups, and after much deliberation, play, and napping with the sweet little dumbo-eared pup we named her Delilah. Delhi for short. She had more names than any dog I have ever known. Most of which were completely ridiculous, or made no sense what-so-ever... Delhi-dog, Del, D, D-dog, Deli-sandwich, Hero, Dilweed, Doobie, Dilbert, Scooter, Tooter, Tooters, Tootie, Toots, Tuesday, Princess Tuesday, Delilah Hooker the Southern Belle,  D-Wee, Doodle, Noodle, Nonna, Nonie, The Queen, Butterfly, Goldilocks, Scoob, Grasshopper, Choochie, Choochie-Chachie, Chachkee, Tutchka, Tootsie, The Matriarch, just to name a few...  ehhmm...  I am sure that this is not that unusual for anyone who has completely fallen head over heels in love with a tiny, sassy, beagley, spunky, seal-colored, little ball of sleek inky fur. Honestly, even if it isn't, I don't know if I care. It was the way it was. My little wash and wear pup had claimed me within moments of our first sniff of one another, and as for Winston-the beau, well, let's just say that she got over him more quickly than anyone might have guessed. 

Delilah was college educated. She would walk to the studio with me at night and we would sneak into the locked suite on rooms by prying one of the casement windows open and then climbing/crawling/crashing into the empty dark space that made up MU's photo area. We would print in the crusty, creepy, sulfury, darkroom until the wee hours of the morning as often as possible. Del on her little make-shift roll-up bed under the enlarger cubicle with her soup bone, and I, with some leftover beer or wine from the previous weekend. Sometimes friends would join us, but mostly it was just us. She was sooo small early on that I could take her just about anywhere. She would go with me to the photography studio nearly everyday. Old Professor Olie Schuchard just loved her to pieces and even when she pottied in front of the studio film processing sink, (and he slid in it!) he still let her hang out with us. Commonly she would ride around in the front of my overalls, in my zipped up fleece,  in my backpacks, to parties, to the store, hiking, biking, camping, and traveling, lots and lots of traveling after music and all that that entails...  We were completely inseparable and she was my raison d'etre. She gave me purpose enough to not self-destruct as so many young folks tend to do. Every morning no matter how badly I wanted to hibernate, we would get up and go out into the world to do her business and to just be. 

She was the grand diplomat of dogs when it came to her canine relations.  It was not uncommon for us to throw great dinner parties in college where there were more dogs that humans in our house. Del raised many surrogates, mediated many fights, instigated all forms of household terror and destruction, and melted even the most aggressive of canine/human demeanors. Cats even loved her. In fact, her first real away from home roommates where two feline friends, Mina and Maya. Miny (pronounced Mee-nee) liked to sleep curled up in a Kleenex box together. And they often bonded over mouse hunting in our Columbia apartment. 

As she evolved into a much more mature pupper she went on to graduate school with me. In my U-city studio she had her very own handmade palette futon where she perched, everyday that I could bring her, surveilling the happenings of the Wash U photo grads and their mishaps. She was my ride along companion. She undoubtedly earned her honorary MFA and charmed many people into changing their minds about dogs along the way. When she didn't go with me she would bust into my roommate's room and demand to nest in her covers. Many times we would say that we had to "make Delhi into the bed" or we would come home to find our beds completely dug up and Del lounging somewhere way deep down in the pillows.

I went away for a summer to live in Florence, Italia where I was a TA for my professor Stan Strembicki in the WU study abroad program. Poor Del lived with my parents while I was gone and it was absolutely gut wrenching for me to leave her. My parents had always lived with dogs and of course adored their dogs. In fact, at the time that my parents were married my grandfather had some 26 dogs living on his property at one time. Most of these were puppies, and no he was not a breeder... and no he was not a hoarder or anything other than proof of the whole spaghetti slurping phenomenon that Lady and the Tramp proved to be true...       ...Yikes!... I can't even imagine what you must think. Oh well!  Anyhow, my parents up until D's entrance onto the scene, had never really let our dogs sleep in the main part of the house, much less in our rooms, unless it was either killing cold, storming, or the 4th of July. Miss Del changed all of that single-handedly in one night. My naive parents left her to roam the house that first night that I was officially gone--their biggest mistake.  Old Del was crafty, and she was a professional snuggler to boot. Worst of all, she was a notorious tongue kisser! Sneaky about it too! Very carefully and undetectably she wriggled her way up between the sheets at the foot of my folks bed, army crawled up into their pillow space and proceeded to sleep there until morning on her back with her paws peeping out just over the folded back bed covers.  My father had turned over in his sleep to face her at some ungodly hour, of course thinking that it was my mom. He found very rudely and silently that the tongue that was stealthily licking the inside of his mouth was most certainly not that of his bride. Nor was the breath! Yep, completely digusting! When I came home at the end of the summer it was clear that things had changed--from then on dogs were allowed in the house, and not only that but Del, especially, was allowed on the furniture, in the beds, in the pillows, and even allowed to jump up on laps, (when invited of course!) Somehow I don't think it was her kissing talents that won them over in the end though. 

Sweet Del! This is only a tiny snippet of your story, but I really needed to remember you today old friend. They just don't make them as true blue as they use to. I often tell Finley stories about you and without a doubt I will continue. You will forever be my little seal-colored, ghost-face with a rhino bump on your nose, even when we draw you or paint your image in words. Thank you for giving me the incredible honor of having had a raison d'etre--you.

Rest in peace Delhi-dog

This morning when I woke up and my old pup Delhi could no longer walk. She was not eating or drinking. I had to do one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. I had to have little miss Del put down. Having been best companions for the last 16 years really reinforced that she was nearly always there from the start of my adult life. I doubt that I know what to do without her. Images to follow soon, for now I'm going to snuggle with the dogs that are still with me.