My Heart is Broken

Late this morning I had to say good-bye to one of the best friends I have ever had, my dog Trixie. She was technically my dad's dog, we had even adopted her specifically to travel with him over the road in his truck. But she was my baby - from the moment we met.

In the summer of '96 my dad decided he needed companionship during his long trips for his trucking business; he wanted a dog. I was living with dad and Lorie (my step-mom) then, coming off a bad job situation in Washington state. I was working as a temp and desperately needed something in my life. Lorie, ever the one to want to add to her menagerie (they already had two dogs and three cats), she was all for it.

We grabbed the ads and started looking. Dad wanted a "real dog", something tough. He really loved Teddy who was a Chow, but Teddy couldn't get up into the truck. So, we needed someone who could climb into the cab without being lifted. He wanted a puppy so he could train it properly and it would grow-up in the truck. (Yea, that training thing never happened, she trained us, but I digress.)

With those guidelines we searched. We made a couple of stops at low rent houses and wanted to rescue them all because the situations seemed less than conducive to being healthy. But we kept looking. Then we spotted an ad for rottweiler puppies. Lorie was skeptical, "They get awfully big". But of course, we went to look anyway.

When we arrived at the woman's back yard there were ten strapping rottie puppies running around. We stepped inside the fence and the woman began talking about the parents - he was a bruiser who weighed in at 225, she was a slight 3/4 rottweiler with 1/4 doberman and weighed in at just 90 pounds. The 12-18 pound puppies were running a muck, jumping on each other and constantly rolling into piles. They were cute, but I wasn't that moved.

That's when it happened. I felt this little tug on my tennis shoe string. I looked down and there she was, all two pounds of her - Trixie. I leaned down and picked up one of the ugliest puppies I have ever seen. In fact, before Trixie, I don't think I had seen an ugly puppy; I didn't know they existed.

The two pound ball of fur sat in the palm of my hand, tongue hanging out, thrilled to be off the ground and eye to eye. Oh yea, the eye - she had one that was kind of wandering or crossed or something. Seriously, she wasn't cute. Suddenly she kind of pounced forward, ended up on my shirt, licked my face and frankly, it was over. I had to have her.

I showed her to Lorie who, whether she realized it or not, kind of flinched at this little, almost misshapen dog-like thing in front of her. She shook her head and said what I was already thinking, "I don't think that's what your dad has in mind". LOL. Uh, no. He wanted a strapping pup, a manly dog and well, not Trixie.

That's when the lady started telling us Trixie's story. She had been born when the sack game out after all of the other healthy and two or three pound puppies had come out. The lady just happened to spot that there was another body inside and broke it open. Trix was not breathing, so she massaged her a little and she came to life. All 8 ounces of her kind of whimpered and rolled into the crook of the woman's arm and made her cry. She fed her with a bottle for the next six weeks and kept her away from the other puppies for fear they would hurt her. She had just been let out to play with them for people to come see them all.

I looked at Lorie and my heart was so full I started to cry. She nodded and said we would try, so we headed to grab my dad and bring him back.

An hour or so later we returned with dad in tow. I had not prepped him, I just planned to surprise him. He strolled into the yard and reacted exactly as I expected, he loved the strapping puppies and immediately honed in on the very scrappy males. The lady told him the boys were spoken for, but all of the girls were available. I turned to look for Trixie, but she had already found me and was trying to crawl up my leg.

I picked her up, kissed her and took her to my dad. I said, "Actually dad, I was thinking about her" and put her on his chest. He shook his head, "Honey, I don't think so, she's too little." She snuggled up to his neck, licked him and fell asleep - it was over. There's no battling that.

We took her home and for the next several weeks she slept with me, followed me, spent quality time on my lap. I was 'getting her ready' to go on the road with my dad. She gained weight quickly. After just 6 weeks with us, she weighed 18 pounds and the ugly was gone. She was cute on her way to being, as an adult, beautiful. No wandering eye, no patchy fur. She was one of the best looking dogs ever. (Yes, I am aware I am biased.)

She also ended up weighing 95 pounds. That was a problem being she never got over being a lap dog. Up until the last six months or so when she couldn't make it on to the furniture, if you were sitting down, she wanted to be on your lap in some way. 95 pounds of big, docile, drooling, love. Rottweilers are actually some of the biggest, daffiest dogs you will find and gentle as all get out. There's a reason why there is a set of children's book about a rottie name Carl who takes care of a baby. Rotties, like any other dog, can be mean, but there are only two ways - they are raised wrong and made that way or they are chemically imbalanced, just like some people. Otherwise, I cannot recommend them highly enough, they are pure love.

Trixie loved the Farmer's Market, I took her often. She loved to go for walks. She was one of my exercise partners every time I tried to lose weight over the past 1.5 years. This time around, she couldn't. Even 16.5 months ago when I started this journey, she was showing signs of age, as she couldn't walk as far as she used to. But she never lost a thing mentally. She was smart and sweet as hell.

By the way, if you are wondering how this big dog got her little name, that would be dad. He named her for Trixie Norton on "The Honeymooners". Lorie and I wanted to name her Josephine Bakker, after the dancer - Trixie is black you know. But dad overruled us because she was his truck dog. Oh, about that... Once she became too big to lift in and she didn't like to climb in, she tended to be timid, he stopped taking her on the road. LOL. But she never stopped being his baby and mine for that matter.

She was my baby. Until the very end as I petted her with long, deep strokes as they gave her the shot to stop her heart at the ARL. I watched intensely through sobbing and tears to make sure her breathing stopped right away, I didn't want her to suffer anymore. It did and she reclined onto her side and died. I kissed her and rubbed her ears one last time. She loved to have her ears rubbed in little circles, it calmed her.

Nothing as hurt me so deeply in so long. I am crying again now as I write this. Trixie taught me so much, but unconditional love was the top.

Even after I stopped living with dad, every time I went for a visit she would stop whatever she was doing and come see me, her little nub going for all it was worth. When she was a puppy she would get so excited that her nub would so fast her butt would vibrate and she would suddenly sit because she couldn't control her excitement.

When I got the call this morning that she was dying and hadn't really moved in two days, I knew we had to let go. When I arrived I expected to find her on the floor nearly lifeless as Lorie had described on the phone. Instead she somehow made it up on all fours and headed toward the kitchen to greet me. My dad was floored, but Lorie acknowledged that if anyone could get her to move it was me.

And that's just it, she was pure love for me until the end. I will miss her so much.

Right now I want more than anything to numb my pain. I have done so all of my life with food. That's why I am blogging here now. Food is not going to cut it. I have come too far to try to dull this with cookies. Besides, Trixie would not want me to be self destructive, she loved me. Now, on the other hand, if I wanted to eat Kleenex or paper towel in her honor, she would be quite pleased. (Yep, those were two of her favorite things to steal and eat - eww. But it was funny too.)

Yours in health, Kate