We would like to post another story, more personal this time, on Pam Townsend. We posted about her work with the SPCA/Humane Society of Prince George’s County (www.pgspca.org).
This story is about her first doggie love, and how it lead to her love of dogs and her work with rescuing dogs. Enjoy!
“First I want to tell you about Boots, a medium-sized mixed-breed dog with a tri-color coat and four white “boots.” She was a great family pet although she had a need for exercise that our daily walks and backyard play just didn’t satisfy. She’d get loose at the first opportunity, squeezing past my brother’s friends when they came in the back door. She didn’t want to run away…she just wanted to run!
Word would soon go out among the neighborhood children: “Boots is loose! Boots is loose!” We’d all head out, giving her what she probably thought was a great game of chase, until she finally got tired enough for someone to catch her.
Despite her truancy, Boots was very much part of the family. If you tried to play a board game or read the newspaper spread out on the floor, she would lay down right on top of it. And she would get perturbed if any of us hugged each other without including her.
By the time Boots began suffering almost-daily seizures and my parents had to make the difficult decision to have her euthanized, I had graduated from college and moved out on my own to another state. Although she not been part of my daily life for several years, I was deeply saddened by her loss, which marked an end of an era in my life.
Next came Boris and Natasha, the first dogs of my adult life…and my first black dogs. They were the result of an unplanned pregnancy of a yellow Lab by a black Lab/golden retriever mix, and the owners were looking for good homes through friends and friends of friends. My husband picked Boris, and Natasha chose me. We’d only planned on getting one puppy, but faced with this dilemma, we took both. It turned out to be a good decision because they kept either company while we were at work.
Boris was an exuberant, outgoing, beautiful boy; a friend once described him as “happy go stupid” and suggested I should have named him Jethro (from the Beverly Hillbillies) because he was tall, dark, and not too bright. His great joy in life was playing fetch, which he would do until he dropped from exhaustion. He was the canine love of my life, and I was devastated when he died of bone cancer a week before his tenth birthday.
Natasha was quieter than Boris…something of a wallflower. She was also very sweet…except sometimes with him. If we gave them bones to chew, she’d decide that his must be better and would take it away from him. He’d gamely settle down with hers, only to have her again decide that his must be better. We used to say that she was a perfect example of the word bitch when used in a derogatory fashion. As much as I loved Boris, I ended being glad that he died first since Natasha blossomed and sort of came into her own after that…despite the arrival of two puppies, Tango and Samba.
While some people need to grieve for weeks or months following the death of a beloved pet, I felt this aching void that needed to be filled and began looking at rescue websites almost immediately. We ended up adopting Tango and Samba just weeks after Boris died. Once again, we were planning on getting one dog, preferably a young adult. But when my husband saw Tango and Samba, who were 4-month-old black fluffy puppies, he just cried because they reminded him of Boris as a pup. So…once we decided to get a puppy we opted to get two so they could play with each other and not bother Natasha as much as one pup would have. And it worked out quite well. Although Natasha wasn’t interested in playing with the puppies, she seemed very interested in watching their antics, which helped bring her out of her depression. And I always made special time to do things just with her until she died at the age of 13.
Samba is a lot like Natasha. She’s quiet and self-contained. She enjoys the company of people and other dogs but is perfectly happy to be by herself…especially if that means napping or just hanging out on our bed or sofa. She’s completely uninterested in fetch or playing with dog toys (unless it involves stealing one from her brother), preferring to sit outside in the yard and watch birds fly by overhead. Her favorite activity is taking walks.
Tango, Samba’s brother, is our “problem child.” He is suspicious and wary of unfamiliar people and anxious in unfamiliar environments. Since the age of 2 or 3 he also has been aggressive toward dogs he doesn’t know. We don’t know if these issues are the result of genetics, lack of early socialization (we know neither of them had any prior to our adopting them), or even brain damage as the result of being tossed about like a ball when he was only a couple of weeks old…or a combination of the above. If we had known he was going to be such a challenge, we wouldn’t have adopted him. But once we did, I fell in love with him and since then have worked to help him become the best dog he can be. This has involved reading books and attending lectures by such noted behaviorists as Patricia McConnell, Nicholas Doddman, and Suzanne Clothier.
Ceiligh, the most recent dog to join our family, is a pointer/JRT mix. She looks like a black-and-white Germans shorthaired pointer, just smaller (30 pounds). We call her our “accident.” We went to a Petsmart to get goldfish for our pond, and a small rescue organization was there with a litter of 8-week-old puppies. I told them I couldn’t take one because we already had two dogs, one of whom had “issues,” but that I’d hold one to help socialize it. I should have known better. Instead of goldfish, we ended up with a 5-pound puppy.
Ceiligh is the spoiled youngest child of the pack. She not only sleeps in our bed, but under the covers. (Tango and Samba choose not to sleep with us, although they often get on the bed for a cuddle.) Given Ceiligh’s genetic heritage, it’s not surprising that she’s active and fast. So, to channel her energy, we started taking agility classes. She’s actually very good at it…when her sensitive nose doesn’t lead her astray. I keep thinking that one of these days, when a career, SPCA/HS work, and efforts to have a social life don’t take up all of my time that we’ll actually give competition a try.
And lastly, there are our foster dogs…who share our lives for anywhere from a weekend to several months: Angel, Geordi, Kira, Darby, Owain, Darla, Cooper, Annie, Kaia, Jack, Taz, Leila, Cinder, Winston, Bosley, Ginger, Mandy, Arthur, Sebastian, Sydney, and (currently) Willow.”
