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Lilly - A rememberance

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    1017
    Submitted for you approval here in the TW Creative Writing Zone:

    Lilly - A Remembrance

    Melody Anders

    I first met her almost twelve years ago. I was walking my Golden Retriever, Rocky, down the street in my East
    Bay suburb. She began walking along with us. Rocky was very excited, she was a black Labrador Retriever. I
    noticed at the time she seemed to be more interested in me than my dog. After a long walk she stayed with us
    right up to my front door. Rocky obviously wanted to let her in, but since she had a collar I wanted her to go
    to her home so she was left on the porch.

    We'd had other dogs follow us home and after the door closed they'd get bored and wander off, but not this dog.
    She took up residence on the front porch and went with us every day when I took Rocky for his walk. This caused
    some problems, like when she followed me into a local Chinese restaurant and market while Rocky was tied with
    his leash outside. The Chinese lady owner was very upset and I don't think she believed me that this wasn't my
    dog.

    This went on for a week. I put out water for her but no food. She scrounged food around my cul de sac and
    from the park behind my backyard wall. She had taken up residence and when the guy who does my lawns was due I
    finally let her in as she was getting protective of her new yard. It had been a battle of wills, and it was
    pretty obvious hers was stronger than mine. She had no tags on her collar and the Humane Society had no reports
    of a lost dog that matched her description.

    She was jet black all over except a small patch of white on her chest at the base of her neck. She weighed
    about 60 lb. and wasn't that big for a Lab. Her hind legs were slightly shorter than her forelegs which gave
    her a slight rake toward the rear. I took her to the vet for a checkup and vaccinations and the doctor told me
    she was about three years old and in good health.

    Rocky soon came to regret wanting to take her in. She was not at all interested in being his female toy. In
    fact she destroyed all of his beloved dog toys. There began an ongoing conflict to determine who as the Alpha
    Dog. By virtue of his seniority at the house, his 100 lb. size and the fact that he was the male, Rocky assumed
    that was him. She was having none of it. Battles would ensue over seemingly minor things like who would go
    first between the bookcases in my narrow hallway. She didn't always win but she gave as good as she got. This
    time she lost a half inch chunk out of her left ear. I broke them up and put them in the back yard. By the
    time I had the blood cleaned up, they were playing together in the yard. In another similar altercation, I
    tried to break them up, but I was barefoot and one of them bit my foot and I fell between them and got bit
    again on the chin. I have the scars to this day.

    Eventually they sorted things out between them. Rocky had gained a healthy respect for her. I'd taken to
    calling her "Little One" since she was only about two thirds of his size. She had to be fed on the back porch
    because she would raid his bowl while he was still eating. I think she had been tormented with or denied food
    before she came to me. It was always very important to her and if you tried to feed her out of you hand risked
    losing a finger or two. It wasn't aggression, I think she was afraid it would be pulled back from her. You held
    treats for Rocky, you tossed it to her.

    After a couple of months, she went into heat. Rocky found he wasn't rebuffed anymore, she was very, very
    interested in him. One morning I fed him and let him out while I fixed her food. He had mounted her and had
    somehow remained joined after he'd gotten off her. I put down her bowl and she began to eat totally oblivious
    to the fact that she was joined backside to backside with him.

    Before she adopted us, I'd bought Rocky a Dogloo. It's a white heavy plastic doghouse shaped like an igloo. He
    only used it once when he was caught out in the rain. When she saw it, it was instantly hers. She even
    decorated it by chewing a pattern into the entrance. Her litter was born in it. She had six pups, five females
    and one male. Three, including the male, looked just like Rocky, little Golden Retrievers with long wavy coats.
    Two were miniature versions of their mother, jet black with short straight coats. The last one, the runt of the
    litter, was chocolate brown with a medium slightly wavy coat.

    Mom wouldn't let Rocky anywhere near the pups, he was no longer necessary. The little gold male died after
    about two weeks. When they were old enough I found homes for the other two little "goldens" and the two little
    "labs." I kept the the little chocolate pup and named her Choca. It was that or "UPS."
    Lilly, as I now called her since "Little One" didn't seem appropriate with her tiny daughter dog around, was a
    dutiful mother, but when she felt the pups were ready to be weaned she let them know in no uncertain terms. She
    even let Rocky play with them, something she herself never did.

    When I took the dogs for walks, Lilly was very aggressive towards other dogs who crossed our path. She was a
    natural leader of dogs. Pretty soon she had formally hyper friendly Rocky and scared of her own shadow Choca
    growling and trying to get at the other dogs. Once I had taken Lilly and Choca with me for a quick trip to the
    store in my Toyota. My practice was to thread the shoulder belt in the back seat through their leashes to
    restrain them. When we got home I opened the car's back door they shot out into the street, one of them must
    have stepped on the release button. Off leash across the street was my neighbor's Rottweiler, easily three
    times Lilly's size. She went right for the other dog, Choca in tow. In about a half second, the rottweiler was
    on it's back with it's belly exposed in doggie total surrender. My neighbor and much of the neighborhood and
    his friends were there to witness the spectacle. I'm pretty sure he got the dog for the macho factor, he rides
    a big Harley and drives a 4x4 "monster truck." As I pulled Lilly off his dog, he didn't look happy. His dog was
    gone shortly afterward.

    Lilly was smart, too. She figured things out. If something like a pole or tree came between her and me on the
    other end of the leash, she'd back up and go around it. Rocky and Choca would either try to use brute force to
    keep going forward or get themselves tangled up by going round and round the obstacle.
    Despite being a Retriever, she never would play "fetch." But she liked to run along side her daughter barking
    with excitement as Choca chased a ball. She loved to chase flies around the house. If she lost sight of them,
    I'd follow their position with my finger and she'd go off in that direction barking. Another favorite of hers
    was having plastic packing bubble wrap popped close to her face. She loved that.

    She wasn't the most affectionate dog I've ever met. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times
    she licked my hand, and each time I had just been preparing food. She did, however have empathy. If I was
    feeling down or angry, she'd come to me and put her chin on my knee and look up with her deep brown eyes as if
    to say, "Don't be sad, I'm here for you." She didn't care if I was in drab, andro or en femme, I was the head
    of her pack.

    About five years ago, Rocky died at age twelve of a heart attack. His end came quickly. I had taken an early
    retirement from the corporate world a couple of years before and Lilly and Choca were now my only family.
    Not long after Rocky's passing, Lilly began to show signs of Arthritis in her hips. Mild at first, it got
    steadily worse. The vet suggested Glucosamine/Chondroitin which I gave her daily. She was also suffering from
    renal disease. Up to this point she had been amazingly healthy, one mild ear infection and a bit of
    malnutrition when she was nursing her pups. It got to the point that I'd have to get her to put her front paws
    into the car and I'd lift her rear quarters into the vehicle. Walks had to slow to her pace which meant Choca
    had to be constantly held back so mom could keep up. I tried walking them separately, which Lilly didn't mind
    at all, but her daughter wanted to go with her mother so we walked shorter distances with longer times.

    Despite the obvious pain, she still got excited at feeding time, loved the popping bubble wrap, but she gave up
    chasing flies. Even after I had to lift her hind end up to get her started, she loved going for daily walks.
    For years I would "wheelbarrow" her up the stairs at bedtime so she could sleep with the rest of her pack. Her
    dog bed was placed at the doorway of my bedroom so she monitor comings and goings.

    While I was aware I had an elderly animal, how far she had gone downhill was brought home to me one day when we
    were out for a walk and a pair of off leash Pit Bulls ran towards us. Instead of the aggressive Lilly of prior
    years, she was helpless and one had grabbed her neck in his jaws and was attempting to break it by shaking her
    violently. Luckily he was a young dog and I was able get her loose by hitting him with a "snake Killing stick"
    I carry when walking the dogs. If the pit bull had been full grown, I think it would have been her end right
    there in front of Choca and I.

    There came a day when she wouldn't let me help her upstairs any more, she wanted to stay on ground level. A
    couple of times I'd found her legs spreadeagled sliding down the stairs on her belly. It would have been funny
    if it wasn't so sad. I moved her dog bed to the center of the living room where she now slept.

    I took her to the vet and he prescribed 50mg of Tramadol twice a day. It seemed to ease the pain, if not her
    lack of the ability to get up onto her feet by herself. She still enjoyed her meals and wanted to go for a walk
    every day. She had relatively good days and not so good days.

    In August of this year we were walking near the local marina and she was moving especially slowly and
    repeatedly lost her balance. I cut the walk short and when we got home she had diarrhea and was pretty quite
    the rest of the day. She didn't want to eat but I got her to eat a few bits of chicken breast.

    She apparently had a very bad night. The diarrhea was back and she'd thrown up what little she ate. My living
    room was a mess.

    I got her into my truck and had her at the vet as soon as they opened. They had to take her out of the truck on
    a gurney. He said she had a dietary tract infection. He feared she also suffered from peritonitis, which could
    not be treated. He needed to do tests and get the results back from the laboratory. I left her in his care
    overnight. There was some hope that the dietary tract infection might be treatable.

    The next morning he called to say that the peritonitis was a false alarm but the infection was too far along to
    be treated. Painkillers weren't helping and she'd never sit up again. I didn't want her to suffer, so I asked
    him to put her down. I gave him permission to do a post mortem before she was sent off for cremation.

    When I went to pay the bill and retrieve her collar, he told me that not only did she have severe renal
    disease, the debilitating arthritis, and the infection that did her in, she also had three large cancerous
    lumps in various parts of her body. Lilly was one tough old dog.

    She was my canine. I was her human. We were friends. I miss her terribly.
    <p><span style="color: #800080;">Girls will be boys and boys will be girls It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola Lo-lo-lo-lo Lola</span> - Ray Davies, The Kinks</p> <p><span style="color: #3366ff;">(S)he's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction</span> - Kris Kristofferson</p>
      October 20, 2009 10:33 PM BST
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  • Moderator
    734
    Ok melody,

    Two little things initially - firstly, thanks for letting me see just how much text you can wallop into a post! It's good to see posts are quite elastic little critters. Secondly the formatting in the post needs a spec of tidying. (I had to quickly check your txt file in case that's how you wanted it presented), only a very minor niggle...

    ... and a niggle I quickly forgot as you expertly absorbed me into the story. Everything about it said 'quality'. Right from the start you set an easy going tone that sucked this reader straight into the narrative. The interplay between all the dogs was sketched out effectively and individual characters deftly painted. As the text advanced, obviously, an emotional ending was on its way. And because of how the work was developed I felt I needed to follow it to the last word. I knew it wouldn't be happy but you had built up in me a requirement to share a little sisterly grief.

    An evocative piece that neatly hits the target.

    xx
    www.raekelcou.com
      October 26, 2009 8:51 PM GMT
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  • Moderator
    1017
    Hi Rae,

    If you think what I posted was long, you should have seen the original novella length first draft...
    I hadn't intended to dump everything into a huge post, I intended an intro of a couple of lines and then the attachment.
    Cristine shared how to do an attachment and it obviously worked but I expected to see it in the "message" box before hitting the "post" button. Since I thought I'd screwed it up somehow, I decided to just paste the damn thing into the post. Then I looked and the attachment was there too in the thread. Live, and hopefully, learn.

    Not quite sure what formatting you meant, but I know there are some wrong words ("formally" for "formerly", "quite" for "quiet" and a missing "could".) Choca refuses to proofread my work. But hey, at least even the wrong words are spelled correctly.

    Thanks for the kind words.
    Melody
    <p><span style="color: #800080;">Girls will be boys and boys will be girls It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola Lo-lo-lo-lo Lola</span> - Ray Davies, The Kinks</p> <p><span style="color: #3366ff;">(S)he's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction</span> - Kris Kristofferson</p>
      October 26, 2009 9:14 PM GMT
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  • Moderator
    734
    Oh, I didn't think it was long hunni. Nobody seems to be able to say how much text a post can hold - so I was thanking you for helping towards the answer!

    Wasn't interested in the little typoo's. Now, it might just be the gremlins sitting in my monitor or it might have been that TW generously interpreted your format when you pasted. What I was referring to is the numerous places where a sentence has been split across two lines with a gap to the line end in between. Just looking at the text block, without reading, gives it almost a poetic feel. Which you may have wanted - so I had to check the original.

    Melody, my words weren't kind. Your piece hit the spot.

    Note to all: I haven't yet set up a method of seperating work people would like to share and work people would like a critical assessment of. But that'll be on its way. As such, for now, I keep my comments short and general. But I won't use flattery. If the piece needs attention, believe me, I'll let you know - in the nicest possible way of course.

    A little about me: The written word has been a part of my life since I used to read dictionarys for fun at primary school. But you won't find any of my verse in anthologies, none of my plays in a theatre or on the radio, nor any of my texts in a bookshop. I've turned down commisions from theatres and rebuffed advances from radio. Why? To be honest, I don't know. Just part of the artistic complexity that makes me Rae. And, yes, I've been taken to task for that attitude many a time! :(

    xx

    www.raekelcou.com
      October 26, 2009 9:42 PM GMT
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  • Beautiful,Melody-animals are just like us aren't they? Nearly cried-loved the format-it could so easily have been a Walt Disney type story but it wasn't!Don't know how you achieved it!
    Would it be in order to reccomend other books one has read on this site-excuse me I,m a bit lonely at the moment-my first Xmas on my own for 15 years. Between feeling sorry for myself and fighting back the tears I have read 2 fantastic books by women-one British,one American i.e. Hilary Mantel and Marylinne Robinson.The latter,the second in her 'Gilead' series is the best and most moving i have read since being a very young man-'Home'-I had to keep putting it down,choking almost with sobs-what a writer! That sort of deeply religious writing has died out in my country!
    The second-'Wolf Hall' is not perhaps to American taste,being about English history at the time of the Reformation-Henry the Eighth and etc. was brilliant although with its gruesome bits,being Tudor England.It was colourful,humorous,tough and not at all the stereotyped gentility one would expect from a mere Woman writer.
    Sorry if I bore or exceed the brief of this site-hugs'n xxxx's,Nina Papillon
      January 6, 2010 12:58 PM GMT
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  • Moderator
    1017
    Hi Nina,

    Thanks so much for your comments.

    Have to admit I was crying pretty much the whole time I was writing it.

    Best,
    Melody
    <p><span style="color: #800080;">Girls will be boys and boys will be girls It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola Lo-lo-lo-lo Lola</span> - Ray Davies, The Kinks</p> <p><span style="color: #3366ff;">(S)he's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction</span> - Kris Kristofferson</p>
      January 6, 2010 6:37 PM GMT
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