He was only ours for about 10 days. I took about 100 pictures, took him to the vet, bought toys and clothes and walked him religiously. And then he couldn't be ours anymore. We weren't ready. It wasn't the right time. I loved him almost immediately. He was almost perfect...and then he wasn't, and he had to leave. It kind of broke my heart again.
This is what I wrote about him that 1st week:
He came to us as Finn. He immediately became Finnegan Waddington McMaster. This is the first moment he came into his new house, wearing his new Hufflepuff hoodie.
We weren't ready.
I still carry the loss of Lukas and Zuza like a carefully bandaged wound. Most of the time, the bleeding is controlled and the pain muted, and then something rips off the Band-Aid and I feel like I am hemorrhaging grief. Carolyn, too, is struck with days when the grief simply will not let her go. Yet, for both of us, there are mostly good days, where we remember the incredible joy that our babies brought us.
We weren't ready.
It's 1 degree out today. Real dogs need to be walked. My hands won't close to a fist.
He was a lover, had some really odd quirks that were funny and incredibly cute. He was obsessed with light--like the reflection from a watch that moved around, or a laser pointer, and he pounced on them like a cat! It was adorable! Zuza and Lukas did the same thing with the laser, but they were a third of the size of our smallest cat. It looked different on them. We have a projector that puts dots on the living room ceiling which are sometimes still, and at other times, move. He would sit, staring, transfixed by these mysterious, untouchable bits of light.
And he had a flaw that, as Not Really a Dog Person, I didn't recognize in time, didn't know how to fix, and frankly, scared the crap out of me. If Carolyn wouldn't have been preparing for a total shoulder replacement which would knock her out of being able to train him, it might have worked, but she was. She was in constant pain. He was 30 freaking pounds and pulled like a Malamute. And he bit me twice, Carolyn once, and failed in his last attempt when he lunged for my face but, miraculously, I leapt back in time. He did resource guarding, which I get, but I had no idea what he was guarding. It turned out sometimes to be bags of recycling that weren't immediately near him, but in the same small area, and I just couldn't read the signs in time.
After that, every time he pressed forward to express his undying love by licking my whole face, including my eyes, which was often, I flinched and leaned back. He was a light chaser, something I need in my life to keep the darkness at bay, but I couldn't let him in anymore.
I wasn't fixable. And I wept when I let him go.
He lives with someone who loves him and can train him out of that behavior, and I am so happy that he is loved as much as he deserves. He has a job visiting people in a nursing home.
I miss him.
