Major

Born: January/Unknown

Died: April 13, 2002

It was the first time my husband and I got a dog. Why choose a Dalmation? Primarily because I was always told that I was allergic to long-haired dogs. We were also Disney fans in every way. So when we saw the animated 101 Dalmatians, we kind of made our decision. When we walked into the breeder’s home, she told us that she had two, a male and female, both a year old. I remember our first meeting as if it were yesterday. I was a little afraid of dogs, so when she let both of them in and they stormed through the room, I noticed that the male was less hyper than the female. The female was very hyper. We chose the male. We knew nothing of getting or having a dog. We didn’t even know enough to bring a collar and leash with us.

The breeder told us that she had him for a year, but that she could not “show” him because his nose measurements were a little off from the regulations, and he was too short. Although she never said it, both my husband and I got the sense that if we hadn’t chosen him, he wouldn’t have survived.. It was obvious from the way she spoke of his sister that the guardian enjoyed having her around, even to the point of her commenting, how nice it is that she watches TV with her. The guardian also told us that because he could not be shown he had been kept outside for the year in a run. She then commented that “he will love being in a cage, he’s used to it”.

As we drove home from the breeders, I remember commenting to my husband how quiet and calm he was. Little did we know that this was the last time, for a very long time, that we would experience quiet and calmness from him.

We named him “Major”. Why? My husband loved the show “Major Dad.” I had just retired from the Army as a Captain. Since he was kind of running our lives we gave him the higher rank and called him Major. The future would show just how appropriate that name was for him.

Upon arriving to our house, forgetting that after a fairly long ride in the car he might need to go, and excited to have him see the house and the great pet bed we had gotten for him, we opened the door. The first thing he did was run through the house and relive himself. The second thing he did was chew up the pet bed. I remember how happy he seemed, but then why not, he was free, maybe for the first time in a long time. Having no experience whatsoever we decided to put him in the cage for the night. The cage was located in the laundry room, two stories down from the bedroom. I remember feeling very guilty about this, while my husband on the other hand couldn’t understand why I was having difficulty with it. I took a radio to the laundry room so that he would have company. The next day my husband went to work and I was with the dog.

The day was somehow different from the previous night. “Major” didn’t seem as nice, calm and shy as he did on the way home. And he barked and barked and barked. I would keep him in the laundry room to feed him breakfast because he was not housebroken yet. For the first several months I cried when trying to feed him because he wouldn’t eat that much and all he did was bark at me. I took it very, very personal to the point where I didn’t think he liked me. I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong. As a rule he was much calmer with my husband around, and while he didn’t listen to him any better than he did to me, he was less anxious being with him. Later on I came to realize that “Major” had a thing, a dislike, if you will, for women. I’m certain it had to do with the relationship he had with the breeder.

My husband and I transformed the laundry room into his room. It was very nice. There was just one problem, Major tore it to smithereens, to the point that the floor, etc. needed to be taken out and redone. At the time my husband and I believed that he did this because he hated the room. Now that we have some experience we also realize that “Major” did this as a way of transforming this area, into “his” area and in fact may have indeed liked the area.

It took Major and me approximately one year to bond. One year of barking at each other, one year of him ripping at my clothes, one year of him refusing to listen to me, etc., etc., etc. After the year however we were not only friends, but inseparable friends. Training? When my husband and I think of training now it’s much different from how we thought about it in regards to “Major”. The name “Major” was a misnomer. We should have called him “General”. During his early “teenage” years, he was the boss and every now and then he’d allow us to think that we were. He was, however, an absolute pleasure to have although he gave us a run for our money in terms of time we took with him, devotion, attention, etc. Would my husband and I do it all over again? Yes, without a doubt. “Major” was a free spirit, an untamed spirit. We admired this. However, as we all know, most aspects of life are like a double edged sword. There was indeed a trade-off for having a dog who was a free spirit, and who was “his own dog” so to speak. It created many difficulties for us, for instance, when we would take him on walks around the neighborhood or in the car or in the park or to the vets. Since we didn’t know what we were doing, we didn’t realize that it is important to socialize dogs immediately.

The following are just a few of the life and times of “Major” we will always remember:
-How the kitchen became his second home
-The way he always let us know when it was time for his treats and meals
-The way he was a fierce protector of my husband and I and yet, as gentle as a lamb with us and our closest friend
-How he loved chocolate chip cookies and ate an entire plate of them left out for clients
-How he followed me from room to room, always at my side
-The way he let me know that he wanted my attention “immediately”, even to the point of spilling coffee all over my desk, etc.
-That after he bonded with me he allowed me to pet and cuddle with him. He was great to cuddle with.
-How he greeted me whenever I arrived home from being out
-The way he trusted us when caring for him whenever he was sick or injured
-The way he looked at us in utter amazement when we put dog shoes on him to protect his feet from the snow and how he staggered around as he tried to walk in them.
-The many bones I cooked so that I could remove the marrow that upset his stomach and which at times made me sick to my stomach. But it was the only way he could eat them
-The times that the only way he would eat was to be hand fed.
-The way he protested when we introduced him to our second dog, Junior, and our third dog Koko.
-The way in which he did not defend himself from other dogs. For example, on one particular walk soon after we got him, a small dog ran out of a house, came up to us, bit “Major” and went back in the house. And the way “Major” stood and took it when “Koko” bit his ears. It seemed at least to us as “lay people” that he had a high tolerance for other dog’s “rudeness”, and for “pain”.
-The way we had to carry him when he got deadly sick in order for him to relieve himself.
-Carrying him into the Vet’s office, and then to the emergency clinic where he had an ultrasound.
-The numbness, (yes it’s still numbness in thinking about it now) when a Veterinarian who was a total stranger to us and to Major and whose only role was to take the ultrasound, came in the room where my husband and I were waiting and announced that Major had end-stage cirrhosis of the liver and that nothing could be done about it.
-The leaving him at the Vet overnight for IV’s
-Struggling to give him IV’s at home, never having done this before
-The process of trying everything under the sun in regards to food to entice him to eat
-The giving of insulin and checking sugar twice daily since he developed diabetes toward the end
-Taking turns sleeping downstairs with him because he could no longer do the stairs
-The carrying him upstairs because I wanted to make sure that if he died during the night that he was with all family members
-Talking to him, holding him and pleading for him not to go, “that I need him”
-Seeing him have seizures, and not realizing they were seizures
-Laying on the floor of a vet’s office on a Sat. morning when they close at noon watching as “Major” lay helpless and deciding whether or not to end it. Fiercely wanting Major to die a natural death in our arms with us, but not having the means, the Hospice measures, i.e. morphine available to us, to allow for this to occur.
-Comforting my husband while he was crying and “Major’s” life was ended
-Bringing “Major” home and placing him on his favorite couch so that “Junior” and “Koko “ would know what happened, that Major was now in another dimension.
-Burying Major in our back yard.
-The night of the day
-The days after
-The weeks after
-The months after…
-The one year, 1 month and several days after (up to the present time)

Mary Elizabeth Van Everbroeck