We weren’t always “dog people.”
Two years ago today you could have said we were people who loved dogs, sure. Sort of like how the cool aunts and uncles love other people’s kids. But we were baffled by terms like pawrent and furbaby, and a little incredulous that the former sometimes opted to feed the latter fresh chicken that required special trips to the grocery store.
To us, dogs were adorable and deserving of unwavering love and protection from all humans, always. But they were still…dogs?
We got our puppy on a gorgeous summer Friday following a long drive through the countryside. We understood life as we knew it was about to change. We were braced for sleep deprivation and well-stocked on vinegar, paper towels, puppy care manuals and patience.
And none of it prepared us in the least for the weekend that lay ahead.
At eight weeks old, our three-pound pup had the sort of fur you just wanted to brush your cheek against and a white-tipped tail that waggled so hard it could power a grid. She was a frenzy of love and kisses (and the occasional earlobe nip), and even when she was being a pain in the butt we couldn’t look at her without smiling. We called her Paisley Hope — Paisley after music legend and prolific creator Prince, and Hope in honour of Canadian hero Terry Fox, whose Marathon of Hope is as inspiring as it gets.
Friday and Saturday were a dream. She slept through the night. She waited by the door and did all her business outside. She entertained the neighbourhood with goofy bursts of activity in her backyard pen, then fell asleep on a dime.
The next day, she slept a lot. But puppies do that, right? Especially when adjusting to a new home. It’s normal, right?
As the hours passed, it was clear something wasn’t right — though the reasons were not clear at all; we barely knew this little creature, much less her baselines. And yet my gut spoke as strongly as if she were my own child.
(Did I mention it started speaking at 5pm on Sunday, on the August long weekend? The one weekend where all of Canada pretty much shuts down?)
Every vet clinic within a three-hour radius was closed or at capacity. My husband ended up spending the night in the parking lot queue of an animal hospital ninety minutes away, Paisley tremoring in his lap and me on the other end of the phone, our child sleeping fitfully in mine.
By 4am on the holiday Monday — a day known to many as Terry Fox Day — our sweet Paisley was admitted to hospital with pancreas off the charts, anemia, liver function in question, a cataract forming in one eye, and precursors for kidney failure. She was running her own Marathon of Hope, and the name we’d given her took on chilling new meaning.
The craziest part was if you’d asked us prior to those 48 hours, we’d have said with 100% confidence that our home was complete and there was nothing missing from our family. Suddenly the water in the pawprint bowl was a stalemate, the nubby plastic ball wasn’t jingling, and the pet bed my little girl chose (after carefully pressing her face into every other option in the store) was the only thing emptier than our hearts.
It took less than 48 hours for our dog to become SO much more than . . . a dog.
Another full day and night passed. Still no cause identified, or a prognosis. The prayer chain stretched in all directions, to people we’d never even met. Paisley turned neighbours and friends into family as our beautiful village rallied around their newest, littlest member, distracting our daughter with ice cream and extra park time and baseball well past dark as we cried around corners and tried not to think about a conversation we desperately hoped not to have.
On Tuesday, after Paisley had been gone longer than we’d had her and dinner had once again been returned to the fridge, I looked out the window and gasped. The pen in the yard was streaked in brilliant orange and red: cardinals — eight or ten, maybe? — perched in a chirping row along its edge, then gone as fast as I’d flinched.
The phone buzzed in my hand.
Paisley was coming home!
We could go get her in a couple of hours. Meanwhile, my daughter made a welcome home sign. My husband positioned the dog toys just so in greeting. Me, I mostly wept uselessly in circles.
The nights were sleepless for awhile and the accidents many (along with the dietary restrictions and the miniature syringes for administering meds). But by age one, Paisley’s labs were perfect (and our carpets cleaned). Today, her second birthday, she graduates from puppyhood at target weight and the day feels big for all of us.
Our fighter pup who is all love enjoys the paddleboard, spreads joy prolifically, and won’t settle until all three of her hoomans are accounted for. She’s an expert at wriggling between pillows and keeps a dutiful watch over that mysterious window above the fireplace where funny animals tend to appear. She’s an ongoing reminder there is always hope, and we routinely exchange wry but grateful smiles over her furry little head as we make yet another special trip to get chicken from the grocery store.
Rachel Stone 