My Emotional Support Dog
During my divorce, a process that nearly spanned a decade,which also included my loss of employment directly related tothe unfortunate fact that my ex was also my boss, that led to my down trodden bankruptcy and then out of necessity the eventualand inevitable adoption of Kennedy my emotional support dog.
On a clandestine level Kennedy, spelled with one backwards N,as my daughter, who put his name on the front of his dog house had a slightly dyslexic moment and so the name stayed on the dog house and all future documentation, was still just an extraordinary pet.
Kennedy was not named after the president as I originally thought. I had given my daughter, I think about 4 at the time,the opportunity to name our adorable Golden Lab and to my surprise about a year later I discovered that Kennedy was actually named after one of Emily’s friends in nursery school. Still an amazing dog despite his namesake not being presidential.
Kennedy grew rapidly with great energy. I was always in a frantic race to keep up with him and always behind in training and discipline. Kennedy was by no measure spiteful or vindictive by nature. With his high levels of energy, order and discipline simply did not take. While walking him, and much against my nature I used a choker chain with a spiked collar which Kennedy, while gasping, also mocked my efforts at walking on a leash with any decorum.
It was a Pygmalion situation working in reverse in which I was attempting to civilize while Kennedy remained a pagan by nature and wanted liberation, and total freedom of movement. While walking, and I now use the term loosely, I reached the Birchwood Trails a system of many kilometers where people also enjoyed cross country skiing and snowmobiling, once there I release Kennedy to the wilds and let him run at warp speed. It was all fine and good until another walker/skier/snowmobiler appeared on the scene and then Kennedy would be gone, sometimes up to a day.
Out of desperation I had enrolled Kennedy and myself into dog obedience and training school. I use the excuse that at that time my right arm was in a cast and I was therefore unable to controlKennedy’s immense power during our obedience lessons, but that would be a lie as it was Kennedy who was to blame as he systematically sabotaged the entire process.
His ADHD was clearly out of control and neither I nor the frustrated experienced instructor could reign Kennedy in and I was told, and I then passed the word to Kennedy that we had been dropped from the class. There would be no graduation. There would be no certificate for his doghouse, with the reversed N, nor would there be any dog treats or any form of celebration, “walks” to the park would be curtailed until further notice. It was a sad and humbling humiliation for dog and “Master.”
After Kennedy’s probation I drove Kennedy to Mac Island where the path system began close to where the Athabasca and Clearwater rivers converged. To get Kennedy out of the van without losing him I had to first go to the rear of the van and secure his leash, no longer choker, that was a joke. I then sneaked to the driver’s seat opened the door a crack got out went around to the sliding door, open that a crack, grabbed the leash and let Kennedy exit the van.
Kennedy pulled be rapidly over to the water with the high expectation that I would throw out sticks. After all he was a water dog and fetching was in his DNA. With no one insight, as I usually brought Kennedy here either at dinner time or earlymorning to avoid other interlopers on the paths. I took an appropriate stick and threw it out into the water, in the slow-moving area where the water planes landed. Kennedy didn’t actually return the sticks to me, but if he did it was always a tug of war game so over time, I just found it easier to get a new stick and throw again.
By the fourteenth stick as this was also a wooded area with many sticks, Kennedy spotted a beaver and in mid-stroke discarded his stick and proceeded to swim mid-stream to “fetch” the beaver. The beaver seeing Kennedy approach simply took a breath swam fifty feet under water in the opposite direction before coming up. Kennedy meanwhile baffled zeroed in on the beaver’s new position and strongly and gamely swam in that direction.
Like the repetitive nature of the stick fetching Kennedy never gave up and followed that same beaver, unless the beaver was of a duplicative nature and had a partner, Kennedy doggedlycontinued to follow further and further away from me and from shore until being the sensitive and concerned dog owner I am I realized that I would soon have to save my so-called-water dog from a potential drowning.
Kennedy didn’t drown that day but he was nearly disemboweled by two boxers about two weeks later out on the trails. I know I shouldn’t but I let him run free when I got further from civilization and into bear country which is anywhere from the center of Fort MacMurray to approximately infinity going in every direction. Today it was boxers. Kennedy came running towards me rounding a curve and of course I immediatelythought bears. Soon he was followed by two boxers off leash, I mean what kind of owner does that! Before I could say, “Sharknado” the two hounds of the Baskervilles set upon Kennedy with a resounding fury.
I thought I was about to watch his death before my very stunned eyes. Kennedy, also a coward and a realist flipped on his back exposed his belly and all his manly parts (his pronouns even back then were he/him) to the fury of the Boxers as I beat them with a large branch the size of a hockey stick. The attack abated as the owner of the demented dogs ran around the curve as I placed my stick down protecting my innocence in the whole sorted affair. Quickly, taking the moral high ground I made some off-hand snotty comment about better controlling their dogs, hypocritically leashed my own dog and strode off stage.
By this time in my life, I was living single and Kennedy really was my emotional support dog. The one that when things got tough or not even challenging in the least would abandon me without thought of consequence. Frequently, this happened when anyone came to the door, parcel delivery, pizza delivery, me opening the door in a thoughtless manner, Kennedy would take the opportunity to brazening run around me or through me and make a dash for the streets. Often, I would get a phone call from a person, a stranger, miles away asking if Kennedy, as identified by name and number on his collar, was my dog. After admitting that I was I would go retrieve him, and have our sad reunion.
I think he pretended, or at least put up a reasonable pretense that he was glad to see me. He knew at least to jump up, another bad habit I couldn’t break, bark with little sarcasm and wag his tail with some effort and convincing level of enthusiasm. When you live a lonely isolated single life an emotional support dog of such low caliber falls through the cracks, neither reprimands nor pep talks did any good. It was as if Kennedy understood no English or was totally indifferent to my emotional needs at that time.
Kennedy eventually refused his dog house even though I put a heat lamp in it with imported hay from southern Alberta. He generally slept in the hall outside my bedroom. He snored, or we both did, and it was better if we were separated. However,by morning if I gave any signs of life such as slow movement,rhythmic breathing, he would leap on my pathetic single bed andfor lack of room, I’m sure not affection, he lay, all ninety pounds, on my chest making it hard for me to breathe. Often mornings, especially week ends if I ever wanted to sleep in or linger in bed, I would have to remain perfectly motionless, as any motion was capitulation.
Once up and Kennedy fed before I had life giving coffee, I would take up position in my easy chair which was situated atsuch an angle that I could throw a tennis ball the length of the living room, into the hallway to the end bedroom. Kennedy would complete a sliding fetch and retrieval and unlike the sticks would actually put the ball in my lap eagerly panting and waiting for the next throw, which I did over and over again as I developed the amazing ability to drink coffee and read my book or newspaper using only my left hand.
This game would continue winter or summer outside as well and I think Kennedy “loved” me the most when I had a tennis ball in my hand or even had one close by. In summer I filled a kid’spool with water placed my lawn chair at the opposite end of the yard and threw the ball into the pool which I could hit 9 out of ten shots. In winter even at minus thirty I sat by my firepit and threw the frozen tennis ball about 30 feet to the back fence where Kennedy often did a leap and got the rebound for an extra 2 points.
I can’t explain why I loved that stupid dog so much but I really truly did. Maybe there is such a thing as unconditional love. No matter how many times Kennedy ran away, or disobeyed me or used a sarcastic tone, chewed furniture, peed on the rug, woke me up too early, demanded food, nipped me too hard at play, reported me three times to the SPCA, escaped my fenced in back yard or followed me to school one day and ran lose through the school to all kids delight…I still loved that dog.
Eventually, out of necessity to get a life I moved back to Ontario. I had to find another home for Kennedy, a sobering under taking. Previously, my ex got the cat as their characters were a perfect match.
I wrote up advertisements, this was before the age of internet and social media, but like social; media I created an advertisement for Kennedy riddled with lies with an adorable picture and through the help of the bulletin board in my vet’s office, where I had Kennedy neutered, hoping for more compliance, I found a good home for him.
And I swear without a word of lie or any exaggeration I can barely type this last sentence as I am bawling my eyes out and hyperventilating as I think how much I loved that dumb, stupid,disobedient, neutered emotional support dog. I can still see his happy oblivious face and lolling tongue hanging out as he poked his head under the fence of the backyard at his new home where they had not only kids but lots of sticks and tennis balls and that was the very last moment that I had the last sight of my dear dog Kennedy with the reversed N and how’s that for emotionalsupport.
Marty
