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| Hoover and I...the good ol' days. |
It’s been a dozen years since I’ve had a dog. I was a miniature schnauzer guy as that was the family pet growing up and I got two more as an adult. But the truth is, as much as I loved having a dog, I was completely shattered when they died. I don’t just mean heartbroken. It was far worse. After the last one died unexpectedly at the relatively young age of eleven, I rapidly swirled downward into a massive depression and ended up in the psych ward. Yes, there were other factors, but I felt I’d been holding on just because I had a dog to live for, another being that depended on me. Truth is, I’m not sure I can risk going through that kind of crisis again.
Since Hoover died, I’ve dog-sat several dogs for as long as five weeks at a time. A couple of them have been a handful. One had intense anxiety and I was only one of a few people she liked enough not to bite. My sister’s dog which I’m dog-sitting now has been deaf since birth and has some challenging quirks. It’s awfully hard to correct a deaf dog when she’s not looking your way. There’s the automatic habit of stating a simple command but it has no effect.
When dog-sitting, it’s easy to shrug off “problem” behaviours. I didn’t raise and train the dog. She comes as is. My relationship with the dog is unique and there are certainly opportunities for positive behavioural change but the limited times means I look for small victories instead of a major transformation.
This is my second time dog-sitting Billie. The first time, back in December 2024, came with dread. It was during a ten-month period of time when Evan and I had broken up and we’d had zero contact. The problem, as I saw it, was that both my sister and Evan lived in the Denver area. It felt like it would be just my bad luck to run into Evan at a grocery store or to see each other at a traffic light. As long as he was out of sight, I could do my best to keep him out of mind, but just the possibility of having our paths cross meant that both Evan and all the unanswered questions I had about our demise put him front and centre in my brain again.
What I dreaded turned into a good thing. Not wanting to brace every time I saw a white car—I know vehicles based only on colour; makes and models mean nothing to me—I messaged Evan to say I’d be in the area if he wanted to grab a coffee. I fully expected no response or an emphatic, “Hell, no.” That dog-sitting experience and the proactive message I sent brought Evan and me back together. It hadn’t been a goal. I never hoped for or even contemplated that sort of result. And now, almost two years later, we’re still together, going strong.
So this round of dog-sitting is going to be partly a two-person endeavour. It may bring to the present a future issue that we both dance around.
But first, let me give a Billie update on Day 5 of the two-week dog-sitting gig. Everything went well on the first two days. Billie and I saw my sister and brother-in-law off at Denver International Airport and settled into a decent day of keeping things low key at home. The plan was to drive three hours to Evan’s new residence in the Aspen area where we three would spend most of the fortnight together. But taking Billie away from her home the next morning felt too rushed. While she remembered me, I wanted us to adjust a little more first. I wanted to re-establish some boundaries I’d managed to introduce two years ago. Evan’s home is precious to him (he’s an architect and interior designer so every single item he owns comes with a story that doesn’t include a mention of IKEA or Target); I didn’t want Billie charging in and running to her kennel with a vintage leather belt or peeing out of stress on one of his prized area rugs. For reasons that shall become apparent, I really wanted Billie to make a good impression.
Instead, Billie and I went on a scenic two-hour hike only six minutes from my sister’s home. We were both getting our exercise and I got to practice avoiding hostile barking episodes as we encountered mountain bikers and other dogs. (I also got to fondly appreciate what a good dog Hoover had been.)
That second night, I was awakened at 2 a.m. by Billie standing on the bed making gagging noises. My previous schnauzer, Lincoln, spent the last several years of his life throwing up around 4 o’clock every night so I immediately fell back on the old routine of getting the dog off the bed and rushing to unslide the deck door. I was only partly successful this time. For the next four and a half hours, Billie vomited ten times, leaving me with carpets, flooring and deck space to clean in the morning.
We would not be driving to Evan’s. Not that day, as Billie threw up all her breakfast and then upchucked a few more times into the afternoon, and not the next. I needed to be sure her stomach had settled and to stay in the area in case I needed to take her to my sister’s vet of choice.
Billie got better thanks to time and a couple of meals of plain scrambled eggs. (Evan’s suggestion which I confirmed through Google as being a viable option.)
We arrived yesterday. Evan had met Billie back in 2024 since she had more problematic behaviours at the time and I couldn’t leave her at home for more than an hour. Still, this was a reintroduction. Evan was Evan; Billie was Billie. Things went as well as could be expected. Billie, who is used to sleeping on the bed with humans, cozied up to Evan’s legs all night. I tried not to take it personally that Billie chose Evan over me even though I’m the one wholly responsible for feeding her, walking her and cleaning up her vomit. Humph.
Still, I took this as a very good thing. Let there be bonding between Billie and Evan. After all, there is a bigger issue which I’ve been putting off mentioning. Back in 2022, as Evan and I walked from a Vancouver urgent care clinic where he was diagnosed with COVID, he casually dropped a bomb that was exponentially bigger than his medical news: “I don’t ever want another dog.”
This came as a total surprise because he’d talked positively about the five different miniature schnauzers his parents had had over the years. (Same as my favoured breed…what a coincidence!) He had spoken fondly about a little dog he and an ex had shared while living in Miami. He’d prefaced the bombshell announcement with, “I love dogs. Nobody loves animals more than me.” That seemed totally irrelevant. The bottom line was that, if we stayed together, I would never have another dog. In effect, he’d closed the conversation before it even began. Where was the fairness in that?
But would a conversation have done anything other than to aggravate me more? His statement had come across as emphatic.
In that moment, I stopped on the sidewalk. After several months together, he’d just blurted a deal-breaker. We were incompatible. As much as I hadn’t been able to get another dog after Hoover’s death, I didn’t want someone else precluding any possibility of raising a dog again. In my dogless years, I’d upped my travel adventures. So much easier and somewhat more economical without having to arrange for dog care while I explored Sweden, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia and other countries. Travel farther afield enriched my life in ways I hadn’t realized when I went on extended North American road trips with my dogs. Freedom was nice and it came guilt-free and worry-free over what a pooch back home was thinking regarding possible abandonment and a sudden halt to frequent tummy rubs.
In that moment at a standstill on the sidewalk, I saw our whole relationship falling apart. Everything had been amazing but was I willing to give up any and all possibility of a dog? A hypothetical dog might just end it all.
I made it clear that I still wanted the option of having another dog somewhere down the line…when the desire to travel waned, when a yearning to care for a furry animal—poop bags, vomit and all—became greater. For the past four years, we’ve danced around this subject. Is it an inevitable relationship killer, like when one partner says they don’t want to have children? I don’t know. I hope not. But it’s not like these dog-sitting gigs are a replacement for having a dog of my own—of our own. For now, the urge to travel remains great.
But there still seems to be a lot riding on Billie making a good impression on Evan and that means Billie, a challenging dog to be sure, needs to be well-behaved.
Last night, Evan grossed out when Billie dragged her butt along one of his vintage rugs. “I will be having that rug cleaned,” he said, not with a glare but with a smile. This morning, as he got ready for work and Billie jumped up on the just-made bed, snuggling into one of Evan’s leather pillows, Evan said, “She’s kinda sweet, isn’t she?”
Yes, indeed. Ain’t she sweet! Work your charms, Billie. Maybe your challenges—er, quirks—will come off as endearing. Maybe the possibility of a future dog is still in the cards.
