I wrote a story called “Cats and Other Assorted Love Stories” some time ago, which also introduced my readers to my dog, Kali. The overriding theme was my dislike for cats, but the story was really about love, loss, and learning. If you haven’t read it yet, please check it out soon.
Kali’s time came yesterday, and we are going through the grief that dog lovers inevitably experience as part of the agreement with the universe for receiving so much love from an animal only dog lovers truly understand. We go through this over and over again. I believe this is my last time. There is too big a hole in my heart this time.
I have had many dogs in my 70-plus years on this earth. Not always mine, but I grew up with some and owned others. There were roommates’ dogs, girlfriends’ dogs, strays taken in, and others. If you are a dog lover, you understand it in your heart.
My earliest recollection was when we were sent to live with my grandmother, who got a miniature poodle and asked me to name her. I named her Zsa Zsa, after Zsa Zsa Gabor, the actress and socialite who was on TV a lot at the time. I was honored that, from then on, Zsa Zsa was a part of Grandma’s family. It was a big responsibility for a 9-year-old.
Many others came and went for various reasons. It’s not easy when you lose them or have to say goodbye for other reasons. Of course, owning a pet isn’t easy either, as they need attention, have to be fed, walked, taken to the vet, cleaned up after, and potty trained. It’s a major responsibility and should not be taken lightly, or the pounds wouldn’t be full of unfortunate pets given away by people who just don’t have the time or didn’t understand.
Owning a dog can be for various reasons. There are work dogs, watch dogs, fighting dogs, but most of us dog lovers just love dogs and understand how they can enrich our lives and the lives of our children. They teach us about true, unconditional love. They know if you’ve had a bad day and respond accordingly. They meet you at the door when you come home as if you’ve just returned from a long trip. They are there right next to you when you’re down and when you’re up as well. They become a part of you. In return for this gift, you must endure the most intense pain down the road, which you mistakenly think you can handle until the time comes. This is the deal you make, and you will have to pay up at the end. Is this much love worth it? Today I don’t know. Ask me again in a month or a year.
When my kids were little, we thought it would be a good idea to teach them about love and responsibility, so we brought a purebred Sheltie into our lives. We named her Lassie, after the show, and it was instant love. We further taught them about life by bringing in a suitable mate to help Lassie become a mother, and we even had the litter right there in our house. Of course, we couldn’t keep all the pups, which were in high demand, so we sold them, which was the idea. A deal was struck with my kids that they would have to be brave and let them go, but we could keep one. The runt of the litter was chosen and named Baby, and all was right in the universe.
Lessons learned and the family expanded. The two dogs were inseparable and moved in unison all the time. It was comical. They had a good life, and when the time came, it was so painful for all of us as they passed not long after each other, leaving the burden on my wife to take them on their final journey. I wasn’t ready to love that much, hadn’t learned enough, and didn’t realize that I hadn’t given them all the love they deserved like they did to me. I came to feel guilty for years.
My solution was to vow and announce no more dogs. It’s too hard. No more “who’s feeding them?” “Who’s taking them out?” “Who’s playing with them?” They are not part of the furniture; they need your time. We took Baby and Lassie on numerous trips with us, even to Disney World. We were a good family for them, but in the end, I wasn’t there for them. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
After some years without dogs, we had cats—another story, please read. My daughter Jen lived in Palm Beach Gardens, while we were in Boca. She wanted a companion and decided a cat was for her. She enlisted my wife Darla’s help to go to PetCo near us on “rescue day.” They would bring in rescue animals for adoption and let people interact with them. As I always did since the Lassie dogs’ time, I said, “No extra animals come to our house!” (It was always half-joking but serious nonetheless).
Jen looked at the cats, and one bonded with her immediately. She would have to come back the next day to claim “Ty,” as she called him. Darla, of course, played with the puppies that day. As people and their kids overwhelmed them, one tiny brown ball of fur crawled under the long dress Darla was fatefully wearing and hid until the people left. One look at her eyes and a bond was struck. I’m thinking Jen was too excited about Tyler to notice how those two were with each other, and of course, my command of “do not bring any other animals home today” ensured no one would dare.
Sure enough, they came home with no animals, and Jen would go pick up Ty the next day. I dodged a bullet. Or did I?
Darla told the girls about the little brown muffin. In the morning, Jessica went into the living room to find her mother a mess, crying about her new friend and having to leave her. Jessica demanded that Darla go back to the store and claim her if someone, God forbid, hadn’t already done so. As usual, the women in my house completely disregarded my “orders,” and they hid her from me for a few minutes while we all talked about our new family member, Jen’s cat, Tyler. Then I saw her!
The emotions I went through were overwhelming. First, how could they disobey me like that? Not that they ever listened to me, but also, I feared that one day we would regret this. I tried to be logical and unemotional, but Kali, as we came to call her, came over to me and made her case. She looked right into my soul.
She said, “God is giving you another chance to be the best father to a puppy you could be.” I saw them all—Major, Zsa Zsa, Brutus, Lazy, Fritzy, my Tasha, my first truly my own, Lassie, and Baby. I wasn’t able to love them the way they loved me. I wasn’t ready. I was selfish during their lives, and certainly, I just couldn’t be part of the end of Lassie and Baby and left it up to Dar and the kids, shirking the responsibility. Kali looked at me, and her eyes said, “I’m the one. I will love you to the end if you will do the same for me.”
And there you have it—my best friend and constant companion joined the family. She had a special bond with everyone. Jen always got excited licks when she came to visit because she was the one who made it happen, and it never wavered. Kali loved Jen no matter how long it had been between visits. My son-in-law Carlos, tough man that he is, was mush around her, and he learned to be gentle with her. Jessica always had a special way with animals and communicated with her on another level. In the first two weeks of having Kali home, Dar and I went away for a weekend, and when we got back, Jess had Kali house-trained, sitting on command, and ringing the bell to go out. Of course, Kali loved her mommy so much for saving her and their conspiracy to not let anyone else take her from PetCo, but I believe she knew she was there for me. She had a mission, I’m sure.
I took her everywhere; we took her everywhere. We had a little convertible she loved driving up the beach road, and we went every chance we got. We took her to outdoor restaurants and big fields as she grew bigger and needed to run. She was fast and could jump really high, catching a ball or frisbee. We spent loads of time with her. I took her for walks, and as I started playing more and more guitar in my little music room, endlessly trying to learn and not improving much, she would come in and listen. She would sit beneath me and listen, sometimes falling asleep as if she really liked what I was playing. If I played the same licks over and over and couldn’t get them right, she would know it was futile and leave the room. I would sometimes take an acoustic guitar on our walks and play some nonsense while we stopped to rest. Me, my dog, and my guitar—those were lovely days.
Early on, Kali had a fondness for chewing on socks and one day ate one. We rushed her to the vet, and it was actually dire—$1,200 if we x-rayed and gave her special medicine to “pass” the sock, and if not, it could turn out that we would need an operation costing $3,500. “Are you prepared?” Yes, we will do anything. “Do you have pet insurance?” No. What’s that?
Kali passed the sock thankfully, and we learned a $1,200 lesson and got pet insurance. We were committed. Over the years, there were other incidents, and we used the insurance—bee stings, caught in her tongue, a couple of teeth removed, and some other issues. We were always thankful we had that insurance. Of course, Kali was our baby.
Everyone in the neighborhood loved Kali as well. For years, we didn’t really talk to our neighbors until Kali came along. On our walks, Kali insisted on saying hi to every dog and dog owner out there, even if the dogs snapped at her. She loved it when I chatted with the neighbors, and the dogs would “hang.” She used to sit on her perch atop an old couch under the window, looking out at the front yard and street, so she could see everything that went on in the neighborhood. She was the Mayor of Soleil Circle. If you walked by the house, she would bark to say hi or alert us if necessary. But when her doggie friends went by, she would go crazy, barking ferociously while grabbing her favorite toy and smushing it against the window as an offering to come say hi. Everyone knew who Kali was, and over time they understood she just wanted to say hi. Sometimes they stopped and said hi, and other times they moved quickly so Kali wouldn’t go so crazy. The muffled ferociousness was comical, and many people would stop, wave to her, and laugh. Sometimes dogs would get loose from their yards and come running up to our door. Of course, we let them in, gave them some water, and then the three of us—Darla, Kali, and I—would return the dog to their house.
Kali was the mayor.
Halloween was a big deal at our house. It was Jenifer’s birthday, so growing up, there were always Halloween parties at the Skolnicks. After everyone was grown, we focused more on making our house the scariest one for trick-or-treating. We relished the kids hesitating to walk up to our door with outlandish decorations, us dressing up, including Kali. Her ferocious bark made her seem like Cujo, until you got near and then she would lick you to death. Kali endured her little devil costume on those nights just so she could participate and see everyone.
Then in 2017, I got cancer. I think Kali knew, as did our cat Sam, who, after years of staying completely away from me, suddenly took to laying right on my neck, where, unbeknownst to me, my cancer was. Kali seemed unusually affectionate and licked me there as well. When I began my treatments, Kali was there on my bed until I left for treatment, and when I returned, she took her place again. I was not myself during those days, and much is a blur, but I do remember, as my wife nursed me, Kali would watch intensely with her head in my lap, even when I was being fed through a tube. She seemed to never leave the bed if I was in it. One night, during an incredibly weak and down phase, I dreamed I was heading towards a tunnel and felt a sensation as if from another world until I realized it was Kali licking me and making me come back. I survived, thankfully, and life moved on, and we all grew older.
I did begin to jump to attention when Kali’s friends were walking by, and she did her thing. I would quickly get her leash, and we would greet the neighbors and their dogs, and if we weren’t fast enough, we would wait for their return and do it then. I did this for Kali, and she loved it.
We talked about selling our house in Boca and moving to Jupiter, where my youngest brother lived and was right near daughter Jenifer, in order to get out of the overgrown city and have a peaceful existence in the country. As the market was right for us to make that move, we wanted to do this for Kali as well. A big yard in the country, where she could see trees and wildlife, we thought, would be good for everyone.
One week before moving, we got the news. She had been moving slower for a while, her hind legs not working as well, but we weren’t prepared for—she had extreme kidney failure and maybe six months left. She would need treatment at least twice a week, a special diet, supplements, and other pills just to make it that far.
It was expensive. I don’t know what we would have done or what other people would have done, but we DID have the insurance and were going to give her the best 6 to 8 months we could. The vet gave her the first couple of treatments and showed us how to do it and told us it was up to us now. Are you kidding? We were skittish, but we tried and ended up going back to the vet until we moved a week later. Kali didn’t like us giving her the treatments in the new house at all, and I was the only one who could stick her. We had a routine—Carlos would hold the bag high and squeeze it so it went faster, Darla and Jess fed her treats and comforted her, and I did what had to be done. After a few times, she made it known she wasn’t having it anymore. We were devastated. We were referred by our Boca vet to Harmony Animal Hospital in Jupiter.
It’s so important in life to meet the right people at various stages who can be the difference between succeeding and failing, learning and floundering, opportunity and stagnation, living and dying.
Harmony took Kali in. They didn’t pull any punches, but they said they would help us give her as much time as we could. They implemented a three-times-a-week treatment at the office and administered the treatment for us. I had to hold her, as she didn’t like it at first and wouldn’t let anyone touch her unless I was there. So I began leaving work early three times a week, and we worked together—me, Darla, the doctors, and the nurses. We tested her often, tweaked the treatments, and gave her 2½ years of enjoying the country, seeing our grandbabies come into the family, chasing rabbits but letting them go, and we religiously gave her as much love back as she gave us.
The nurses at Harmony sometimes didn’t like “hurting” Kali and were hesitant for their turn, while others were loving and confident and did what had to be done. Over time, all of them would easily step forward and do the treatments, and some would even come in to say hi to her when she was getting her treatment from others. It was such a warm and loving environment that Kali flourished during these years. She literally would jump and run to the front door when we announced we were going to see “your friends.” She loved seeing other dogs there, but Kali was a people person and truly loved everyone there, including the front desk girls who greeted her so warmly and every doctor and nurse. We were blessed to have them in our lives.
We went through a bad period a couple of months back, and we thought that was it. They suggested stepping up the treatments to four times a week just to see. Kali responded well and made a great comeback. It was getting harder and harder to get her in and out of the car in the last couple of months, though, so we started doing the treatments at home and at the vet only once a week so they could see her and test her. One of the nurses, Jordan, lives in our neighborhood and volunteered to come over and do the treatments so Kali would be comfortable. We were happy, and so was Kali. She was doing a lot of laying around at this point, but we would say, “Kali, Jordan is here,” and she would jump off the bed and go to the door to greet her earnestly to get her treatments. This was another blessing. Kali loved Jordan, and Jordan loved her back.
The hardest thing I have ever done in my life—and I have had to do some hard things—was to make that last ride to the vet. We chose to do it there since it was such a happy place for Kali, and everyone loved her. Everyone came to say goodbye, and while there is a big, giant piece of my heart missing right now, I know we did the right thing.
Dogs come into your life for a reason; sometimes you choose them, and sometimes they choose you. They are there for you to teach and especially for you to learn from. Kali chose us. Kali chose me. Kali needed me, and I needed her to give me another chance. I loved her unconditionally with all my heart.
Until we meet again!
