***Good doggies! Bernie and Poochie waiting patiently (for a treat???) at the kitchen door. Lake Tahoe; January, 1995***
So Poochie was gone, and for the next two years it was Bernie and I living in the patio apartment of Sandy's house, her two dogs keeping Bernie comfortable and active at times. I have fond memories of these days in regard to my relationship with Bernie, not so much because of what we did--biking in the Sierra Nevadas, goofing around in tons of Tahoe snow (it once snowed six feet in 24 hours), play fighting with Sandy's dogs--but more so because after Poochie left, it was Bernie and Chad's time to jive and bond. And jive and bond we did. Poochie had a stroke one night after I'd come home from work, about 4am, and by sunrise that morning she was gone, put to sleep. I was 28 years old, and I'd never had to make such a decision before. I felt like god, in an incredibly uncomfortable way. I remember laying in bed that morning completely mesmerized. I tried to tease my brain into resting upon, "Well, I have Bernie yet," but that thought was always quickly followed by, "Yeah, great. She's not Poochie."
Fast-forwarding for a sec to the twelve years forth, this is why you don't piss and moan and dwell on the inevitable "bad" things that surely happen in everyone's life. Mourning is okay, thinking everything sucks and always will hereafter is not okay. There are really great things at your feet, sometimes literally. Always.
So here we went, Bernie and I beginning our one boy, one dog adventure. Dogs revere their masters. And I think most people who have taken a dog in revere their dog. It may take time, much like they say it takes a lot of fathers a full year before they bond with their newborn, but the inevitable result is you fall for them hard, just as they have for you. You love their innocence, their purely pleasant dispositions, their absolute elation when you verbally relay good news in your life to them--even though they have no idea what the hell you're talking about. Watch your dog, how he or she responds and the soft tone of your voice. It's everything you need to know about how your dog feels about you.
So Bernie would be outside while I worked late into the night on swing shift. Sandy worked swing shift too, but her shifts would often end an hour or two before mine. At some point, she told me about Bernie's behavior when I was coming home from work. "Yeah, she goes crazy," I said, assuming I knew what Sandy was talking about. "She loves it when I come home." No, Sandy said, I'm not talking about that. Whenever you're gone, at some point Bernie starts prancing back and forth, barking, whining. I always know that in two or three minutes your car will pull up. Somehow, she knows you're on your way home before you're even in the neighborhood, it's amazing.
Magic ears. I didn't know what to say about that then, I don't know what to say about it now. It's part of what makes dogs "kids" and masters "parents." It's why dogs love you, and why you love dogs. It's why only dog loves/owners understand, when non-doggie people roll their eyes.
It's a part of the dog-human connection you and I can't explain, even though we understand it completely.
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