Meeting Mack

Not much to report on this day, the day after Thanksgiving. He is noticeably quieter today and not up to running around as much. Definitely doesn't seem to have the "spark" you notice in him. Maybe it's the cold, he seems to want to curl up in blankets we have all over the house. Maybe it's just cold feet. He did get his turkey though and loved it! But we've been slowly changing over his diet to a more raw form of dog food, introducing it very slowly and cautiously so we're not creating stomach upset, but so far he's chowing down like there's no tomorrow.  I try to remind myself that it's because I know he has cancer that I'm noticing more of his behavior changes and I realize had we not found out about his cancer, we wouldn't think anything about his behavior, but now I'm keyed into any nuance of change in it.  It's expected, I had this same thing going on with my Dad and every time I looked at him I wondered what I should expect in the coming days, whether he would leave us that day or the next.   He surprised us all by living about 18 months after being diagnosed with inoperable colon cancer. He probably succumbed to liver failure and not really the "cancer" and thankfully he went peacefully.

We look at our little Mack as having almost similar traits as my Dad, full of strength and grit, like his name, Mack, he runs like the semi truck that goes and goes, and if he runs into something or falls, he just gets back up and goes at it like there is nothing wrong.  He is as tough as the Mac truck, but just a little dog full of energy and spirit. I hate to lose that in him as we go on this journey, I don't want to say goodbye to that indefinable thing about him that everyone responds to when they see him. I know that people do, because wherever I take him anywhere and nowadays it's mostly doctor visits, everyone oohs and aahs over him because he does have that special spirit within him. I've felt that since the very first day I met him. Originally I considered him for the therapy dog program. He was the right weight, size, and temperament and we worked on the skills that he needed to do that, but when he hurt his knee and we knew that the other one wasn't in any better shape, we decided for his sake not to enroll him. He would have been a great dog for it because he truly had all the skills and was smart to the point that if you showed him once what you wanted him to do, he just did it and remembered it the next time. But with his injury he was protective of his hind legs so we were worried he'd get hurt in some way.

My first meeting with Mack was like meeting someone you've loved from the very first moment. I can't really explain this special relationship we had together, it was like we'd known each other for a long time. My friend Lisa had gotten him as a puppy for her and her three kids. He was such a tough little guy at the time, putting up with very young children who would do just about anything to him and he would lap it up. He loved kids. He ran around chasing them, nipping at them, running to and fro and having a raucously good time.  Due to circumstances that were happening at the time in my friend's life, she asked if we could babysit him while she went away.  We took him and loved him, but we returned him at the end of the two weeks, knowing that he knew our home wasn't his home. Unfortunately things were rapidly changing for my friend and she was facing a large move with three very young children and she was going to have to find a job, so she asked us if we would adopt him, saying that of all the people she wanted him to go to it was us.  I immediately agreed to take him, since those two weeks were so much fun and I knew then that I was in love with this little guy.  So I made my way over there and took him home with me that day and he cried and whimpered when we left their house. He was about 8 months old at the time and I know in my heart he grieved for his lost family. It was heartbreaking to us to see him at times but I know it must have been even sadder for him because we were childless, a quiet couple with no other dogs, only cats, and he was thrust into our home with no one to play with save a set of cats who wanted nothing to do with him.  Oddly enough we lived next door to an almost exact duplication of the three children he used to belong to, but the youngest was a little girl truly afraid of dogs, but the other two loved to play with Mack outside with them.  He'd see them outside and run to them as fast as he could but as soon as he realized they weren't members of his other family,  he'd lose interest in them. He knew they weren't his children.  For the longest time, he seemed like he was just staying with us and waiting out his visit. It broke my heart to see him and I worried that he would never truly feel he belonged to us. A few years later, my friend came to visit us and when she slipped out the door without saying goodbye, he ran to the door and whined...talk about a heart broken mess I was seeing that! I worried we'd made a mistake and talked about giving him back to her. I felt like I'd taken him from his real home. I wanted him to love me and not think about being somewhere else. But slowly over time, when he knew I guess that he wasn't leaving our home, he became our dog.  One day she  came to visit him again, he laid on her lap, licked her hand, then jumped down and started playing with his little sister, Oreo.  When she left that time, there wasn't any whining or following her out to go with her, he went off to grab a toy and tussle with his sister again. He was home.