Wednesday March 20, 2013

I am a lover of animals, dogs being my favorites ... sorry cat lovers, but cats are my least favorite. If you look at it like chocolate: my favorite is dark chocolate and milk chocolate is my least favorite. But chocolate is chocolate and it’s all good. Well, the same for dogs and cats; they are both animals so I would protect both equally. Hopefully you cat lovers are at peace with my explanation and we can move on.

Last Tuesday I came home to find my guy, Max, in distress, belly distended, lethargic, ears and head down. Anyone who knows this dog, knows that personality abounds in this pooch, but not on this day. This day my guy was not well, so my wife and I scooped him up and took him to the veterinary clinic where he needed emergency surgery. They removed an eight-pound tumor from him. Yikes! We just thought he was getting chubby. So this poor guy was carrying this thing around and we just put him on a diet. I felt bad about that one. He had to spend two nights at the clinic but when we took him home we had our giraffe-necked, big-eared pooch back. It was amazing the difference two days and a surgery made.

At some point this summer, Max will be 13, and he’s had a charmed life. He was rescued from a shelter in New York City, just hours shy of being euthanized. He spent his first five to six years in New York before coming to live with us in Vermont. He’s definitely a bit countrified now and doesn’t much

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care for the leash; he would much rather run out into the middle of a field and not come when I call him (I’m convinced that brings him immense pleasure). He loves to hang in the shed with me or on the back deck and sun himself. He loves other "Buddies" (as we call other dogs), and loves to play. He is great with kids, as gentle as gentle can be. He is truly a rock star in the world of dogs. So you can imagine that the very thought of losing him rendered me inconsolable. It’s not the first time he’s done this; last summer we had an episode that found us at Tufts School of Veterinary Medicine.

Many years back my wife had a dog named Sophie and, after a while, Sophie became one of my best buddies. She was a lab/pointer mix and snorted like a pig when she wanted something. When Sophie was about 18 years old we had to have her put down. It broke my heart. It was the first time I ever heard this: "Getting a dog is signing up for heartache." It’s so true, but when you have them, it can be so rewarding. I’ve never really understood the people who get them and chain them up outside to live. To me, a dog is a family member and should be given the same comforts as family members. And yes, there are certain family members I wouldn’t mind chaining outside, but you can’t, so I don’t.

I know dogs are built for the outdoors, so I’m not being critical mind you ... I’m just saying I don’t understand it. So needless to say, Max has a bed on every floor of our home and he certainly lives the good life. We did get the lab results back from his biopsy and they weren’t good -- malignant! But the funny thing is when you look at him, you can’t see it. He’s spry, he’s bouncing around and moving a whole lot better. But then who doesn’t, if they have about 13 percent of their body removed over a few hours. So we’ll just take it day by day, and love him up as much as we can. My wife and I are good at loving him up, he’s actually kinda spoiled, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

What the hell is up with that?

Fish is the morning talent on Classic Hits 92.7 FM. He also offers up his opinion on-line at www.whatda hell.net. E-mail him at fish@wk vt.com.