Taken on the day I brought him home in Sept '98.
He's not even the one I've been expecting to put down; Gracee is literally on her last legs and I've just been keeping her mobile with Glucosimine for the last couple of years, but she'll be having to be put down soon enough, because now she's not able to get up on her own anymore. I got her about a week after my ex-husband moved in with me back in April 1993... she'd been discovered as a wee pup wandering around in the ice storm that struck here that Spring and somehow she managed to survive. She's definitely a fighter.
Chaucer, on the other hand, was a different kind of fighter... he'd attack any strange dog in sight and even attack the ones he lived with fairly often, which was how one of his eyes wound up getting popped out of his head, leaving him half-blind 5 years ago (and cost me $1200 for the vet fees). He also happened to be the only dog of mine actually from a breeder. All of my other dogs and all of my cats were rescues, but Chaucer was different. He was my $1500 engagement ring.
Back in 1998, my ex-husband and I had been together for over 5 years and had created 3 kids together, but had only just gotten married the previous October. I was feeling a sudden need for a puppy to bring some more joy into my world, but I was worried about what risk it would bring to the puppy... see, my ex was a dog abuser. Just dogs, not any other creatures. And I never turned him in, because I was afraid to... but I also felt that I could help him overcome his aggression. Oddly, then Chaucer turned out to be an aggressor of sorts.
Please try not to judge me for living with an animal abuser. I had been a PETA member for years before I met him and never imagined that I'd ever be with such an abusive person, much less have babies with one. It's not a time that I am proud of... I was just in survival mode and until you've been there yourself, you can't really know what it's like.
So that summer, I located a breeder nearby raising Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, a breed that I'd been in love with since I was 10 years old. I knew that the adults looked like puppies, which would work in the dogs favor, and that such a steep price tag would make my ex think twice about laying a hand on the dog. He met with the breeder and admitted that they were too cute to hate, and because he'd never bought me a ring or anything really in all that time (other than the house we lived in), he agreed to pay half. (Yeah, I paid the other half. Romantic, huh?) Chaucer's breed is used as therapy dogs in hospitals, and whatever it was about him did work... my ex never laid a hand on him.
I just discovered recently that it was his own littermate who'd given birth to a Westminster Dog Show all breed winner... you know, the dog that wins for his breed and the whole enchilada... then sadly his sister got hit by a car a few months later. Now my Chaucer is dead too... he was just 8 years old.
The timing of all of this makes me wonder though... I've been saying for some time that I must've broke a mirror when I met my ex, then broke another when we split... due to all the bad luck that I've had in those 7 years during our relationship and in the years since. I'm now closing in on the end of my 7th year A.D. (After Divorce) and that's why the timing of "losing" my engagement ring/therapy dog strikes me as a bit ironic.
Cyclical things are coming back in mega-doses right now. I still haven't told you why I had to change most of my blogs to "Friends" only... this was so immediate, I had to write about it right now. The other thing... also big and emotional, though somehow not as much of a shock... is still marinating.
More soon... bear with me.
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