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Bye Bye JJ

By audhill | October 17, 2007

Thanks to the people who emailed or responded to my post about my run in with my dog. I appreciate your kindess and support. The black eyes have gone down and the swelling is receding. The scar will be there. I can’t tell yet whether it will be raised or just a white line across my nose. I go back and forth, and I don’t stay away from mirrors, but it’s looking better today than it did. I hope for the best.

I’m freed up to grieve about JJ some more. We brought him back to the no-kill shelter where we found him. We’ve been without him for three days now. The owner of the shelter is a dog trainer, but it won’t really help unless he is adopted into the home of a trainer, too. JJ respects dominance, but he’s an alpha dog… he’ll always jockey for a top spot with anyone who seems weaker than him. I want him back, from before the deal breaker.

I want him back where I can be more dominant, rather than loving but inconsistent. I want him back from before the early signs that I had that he needed more controls… before I started giving him treats for nothing, before my husband and I accepted his growls as maybe not growls, before he started not listening to me anymore, before I found it cute that he’d come out into the living room and growl at me to come to bed, before I sat down on the floor below him and asked for a kiss, before he snarled, trying to push me away from his special person, before he had to be pried off my face. I want him back but we’re not going to go get him.

I’m still confused, because I really thought JJ was going to be with us for his life. I imagined another 15 or 20 years of experiences together and I had plans for him…plans for the beach and the nearest snow fall… plans for trips to Canada. I wonder if he is forgetting our run and fetch game around the lake, swimming in my mother’s pool this summer, jumping in the shower with us nearly every day… drinking water from the tap as I rinsed the dirt from his paws, being kissed and held every night in his bed by our bed, being massaged every morning when he woke up. I imagine he remembers mostly what is in front of him and doesn’t think so much about past and future. That’s a dog’s grace.

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