My first bath

Last night, Daddy gave me my first bath. I am a labrador. We like water. The bath was fun. Daddy poured smelly stuff (Coconut Verbena!) on me and rubbed me all over. Then he poured warm water on me. It felt really, really good.

Then we had to get out of the tub. Daddy started rubbing me again, with my big "foots" towels. That part was okay, I guess.

But then Daddy took out this purple thing and turned it on. Hot air blew onto me, and it made a funny sound that I did not like at all.

I asked my mommy to help me, but she just laughed and took more pictures. I thought she loved me.
I hope I do not have to take a bath again tonight.

In your face

My mommy says that this picture tells you everything you need to know about me right now.

I am cute!
I am fun!
I am busy!
I am saucy!
I have a lot to say!
Did I mention I am cute?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Mommy tried to take this picture of me on Sunday. She told me to stay, but I could not do that. I thought about how much fun my mommy and I have. I ran up and gave her a big, old puppy smooch. She was still taking my picture, but that is okay. I kissed her, anyway (and I bumped her camera).

This Sunday, I will be nine months old. I think I am a big boy. Daddy says I will have puppy brains until I am four years old. Mommy says I will always be her puppy, even when I am an old, gray guy.

I bet I will still be cute...

Becoming Dewey

There were lots of labradors living in my first house, and they all had names: Sassie, Sugar, Star, Tank. My first daddy had a name, too: Baxter. As I grew bigger, I wondered: what is my name?

Last time, I told you that Mommy visited a lot. I did not know what her name was, but I knew her. She did not know who I was, or if I would be a boy or a girl, but she knew my name: Dewey.

Mommy picked my name before I was even born. She had been reading about these old guys while she was getting ready to write her big book. One of them was named John Dewey. He was really smart (like me). She knew others, but "Dewey" just sounded like a really good puppy name. Daddy liked it, too. I had a name; Mommy and Daddy waited for me to be born.

Whenever Mommy came to visit us, she said to herself, "Dewey is here..." She would look and look, and see if she could find me. One day, my human grandma called and said, "It is time. Come find Dewey." Mommy and Daddy drove to her house. We were waiting for them, playing on the big wooden porch and being cute. We all were cute. We made it hard for her.

Mommy had decided that I would be a boy. (Daddy was glad; he was not sure he could see a girl Dewey, even though lots of people said that would be okay.) Papa Baxter's dad picked another boy, so Mommy had to choose between me and four other brothers.

Two brothers were awake and running and trying their hardest to say, "Pick me! Pick me!" My sissies already had names and places to go, but they were busy bodies. They liked being where the action was. My other big boy brother and I liked to sleep. We also did not like to be stomped on or bitten, so we huddled in a corner and napped.

I almost slept through the biggest day of my life!

Luckily, Daddy said, "Hey, what about those two?" He pointed to me and my brother. He did not want to miss meeting me, I guess. I am glad he asked. They woke us up. I cuddled up next to Mommy, then Daddy, then Mommy again. It felt right. I became Dewey.

Here I am, right after I got my name. I was a little scared, but being held by them felt really good. I decided that maybe being Dewey would be a good thing, after all.

That was August 9, 2008. I went home to live here forever on August 15. I am glad I am Dewey.

Stuff about me: Early days

Tonight, I will tell you a little bit about my first weeks, before I came home to live with Mommy and Daddy. I will show you some pictures, too, so you will know that I have always been cute. (But then, you probably already knew that.)

I was born on June 29, 2008, with two sissies and six brothers. We were born a few days early, and we were all black. Mommy was really happy when she heard we were born: June 29 is her Baby Royko's birthday, too (and she was black). That made her very happy. She says it showed we were meant to be together.

Mommy was not my first mommy. We came out of a pretty yellow labrador girl named Sassie. She was really nice and warm and fun. She had a lot of help from my human grandma and aunt. They stayed with Mama Sassie when we were born and after. We kept her busy. They loved us and took really good care of us when we were tiny little babies.

Mommy came to meet us when we were one day old, and she visited us every week until we were ready to come home. She had fun watching us grow. She laughed when we did cute labrador baby things. We always did cute labrador baby things.

Mommy took lots of pictures. Even though she did not know who I was for a long time, she knew I was there. I did not know she would be my mommy until later, but she seemed fun. I liked the attention; so did my brothers and sissies.

It can be hard to tell one cute black labrador baby from another. Mommy looks at our baby pictues and tries to figure out. She looks for the little white whiskers on my chin (Grandpa Bull had them, too). She thinks this is me; I think she is right.

For lots of weeks, we lived in a big box in the house. When we became bigger, we got to go outside, onto the big wooden porch, to play in the sun. I also liked to sleep in the big cloth puppy house that was there, or in a corner where my pesky sissies would not bother me.

Girls.

Next time, I will tell you about the day that I became Dewey.

Missing Emma (1996-2008)

(A note from Dewey: My mommy is very sad today. One year ago, my great-aunt Emma went to live in heaven with Baby Royko. I told Mommy that she could use my blog to tell you about her.)

I lost my heart in the very early hours of March 9, 2008, when my dear chocolate lab, Emma, left our world and joined her sissy over the Rainbow Bridge.

Loving Emma was an active process. We chose to love her, even/especially when liking her was not easy. Our commitment extended beyond the marginal obligations of pet ownership. Our commitment was persistence when things were tough – and they were tough – and bringing this life to successful, happy membership in our family no matter what it took.

I'll say it outright: lesser owners would have given up before her first birthday.

Em wasn’t a typical lab puppy that everyone finds easy to love. She wasn’t cute or cuddly. She smelled funny. She was big, brash, and more than a little mean.

Our precious baby was powerful enough to cause injuries that raised the suspicions of my physician and the family veterinarian. To say that we all merely survived Emma’s puppyhood would not be an overstatement.

We suffered through her first two years, but what followed made it all worthwhile. Adult Emma was a pleasant, eager, fun loving family member. Nothing brought a laugh quicker than Emma bounding toward us with the biggest, longest tongue in the world hanging out of her wide smile. She lived life fully, and her zest for living was contagious.

My girl was the ultimate rule follower; once she learned them, the case was closed. Em lived to please, which definitely made life easier for Mommy. More important, though, it cleared a path for a friendship that would last forever. We could relax and enjoy life’s big and little bonding experiences.

She was my obedience champion, but her inability to play well with others left that a largely private phenomenon. Emma's brilliance could be used equally for good or evil. On the "good" side of the equation was learning the tricky "finish on recall" by simply watching her sissy. (During one of Royko's training sessions, my baby marched right up and did it. Hmph. Piece of cake, she said...) She rang the jingle bells to let us know she needed to go potty on her first night home. Brilliant.

Emma loved every member of her family, but she was Mommy’s girl. If there was activity on my agenda – a ride, a fetching session, a Greenbelt workout -- she was there. If Mommy said it was time to hang, she’d hang. Everything was good, so long as we were together.

Full enjoyment of each other’s company would not come until Emma’s later years. As our relationship (and Emma) matured, her aging sissy’s needs increased in both quantity and intensity. Emma was loved wholeheartedly, but she didn’t always get the quality time she deserved -- tending to Royko’s physical challenges and dementia became increasingly complicated and demanded more of our attention with every passing day.

Eventually, that sad family chapter closed. With Royko’s August 2005 passing came the opportunity to place Emma at the center of our universe. Given her robustness and apparent good health, we assumed that we would have many years as a trio, time to spoil her and appreciate her.

What we would not know until that awful night last year was that inside a silent killer was waiting to take our girl from us. Emma’s quick decline began with an apparent late night stroke. She struggled in the days that followed, her appetite and energy level diminished. She simply wasn’t our Em.

An infuriating Saturday (3/8) morning follow-up with the veterinarian yielded nothing more than the urge on Mommy’s part to punch the creep in the throat and race to the vet school ER in the next state. (I didn't do that, a source of tremendous regret. But I did locate a specialist -- myself -- and made an appointment for further tests.) We returned to the clinic several hours later, in the middle of the night, with Emma in deep physical distress. She made it just inside the reception room door before collapsing. That is where my girl left us.

Our decision to not bring a second dog into the family after Royko passed was the right one for Emma. She needed our undivided attention, and she deserved it. But leaving the clinic in the night’s darkness and returning to an empty house was the most difficult experience so far in my adult life. The one thing that kept us going after Royko’s death was knowing that Emma needed us to be there to tend to her daily needs. When Em died, we had no such helper.

Choosing to bring home a puppy is never an easy one for someone who’s shared her life with many a shelter dog. Ultimately, we made that decision; and it was the right one, because it gave us time to grieve and prepare to welcome our boy to our family. He wasn’t merely a quick fix for the gap in our lives. Discovering a direct link to Emma on Dewey’s pedigree confirmed the rightness of the choice.

Sometime in Emma’s later years, I heard the song, “For Good,” from the Broadway musical, “Wicked,” for the first time and was touched deeply by the lyrics. The phrase “handprint on my heart” became “pawprint on my heart” in my mind, emblematic of the way in which Emma touched me. More to the point were these words:

“Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
Because I knew you
I have been changed for good.” *

Emma changed me for good. I am a different, better person for loving her.

*Lyrics at http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/wicked/forgood.htm