Stop And Smell The Flowers

Oates actually had his sniff of the sidewalk flowers a minute before this picture, then Willie decided to take a whiff.

After this, we had dinner and Willie found a new tennis ball that he got for his birthday. We played our version of catch, where I have to wrest the ball from his mouth and toss it past him while he plays "goalie" trying to block it, then chasing it if he misses it or deflects it.

This game was never for Oates, who seemed to lack both the attention span or the jaw span to play catch. But when he was younger, he'd play an aggressive side game of "defense" trying to thwart Willie and otherwise disrupt his game. Often, Willie would get angry and then attack Oates, who would retreat and start over.

It's not that late but Oates was too tired to play that, and with his arthritis and age kicking in, those days of "defense" are few and far between.

But Willie played with the same enthusiasm and agility he always has.  I'm especially delighted when the ball goes somewhere difficult and he figures out a shortcut or clever way to retrieve it.

I was struck by the fact that this blog, not much more than a month old, started right after Willie's sudden illness, which looked possibly fatal.  It's so beautiful to see him back.  I haven't taken one day, one moment for granted. I had the odd thought that if he had indeed died, I'd be so overcome with grief that I might have imagined this night, this game of catch, just to deal with the hole he would leave in my life.

Hudson Sunset

Here they are on a beautiful Monday night, the sun is setting but these two old dogs are not done yet.

We have the whole walk back east to our home.

Vertical

I am still not very adept with my phone camera but trying to keep it simple. The rule is to get a great picture of the monkey and the fox together every day. Forever. All of them have been horizontal by default but this was my favorite of the day so it is the first vertical picture. They are begging for bacon.

Rainy Saturday

Here they are lounging on the bed right before the rain started coming down Saturday afternoon. I like when Oates juts his chin out like the tough guy he is. You're gonna mess with Willie? You have to come through me first.

Brothers

It's funny to refer to them as brothers, given how disparate their breeds are. Yes, they are both "designer" dogs and Asian breeds: Chinese and Japanese, a funny coincidence that has no greater meaning in how or why I chose them. As my dry cleaner suggested, the historical antipathy between these two cultures would suggest a fractious household.

Indeed, when they were young, it was hard to tell what was fighting and what was playing. Oates had seemingly bottomless energy, much of which seemed focussed on annoying his extremely reserved and quiet "brother".

Oates' general neediness and love for everyone made me think his feelings for Willie were unrequited. But a few years ago, maybe the first time Oates was seriously sick and hospitalized, I saw the panic in Willie. He hated seeing Oates sick or gone. He'd run around the house looking for him. Once, his front paw was cut because he sat so anxiously immediately by the front door when I took Oates away to the vet.

In fact, I feel like Willie is more attached to Oates than the other way around. Oates rolls with anything and anyone, seemingly happy with whatever situation he's in. Willie is highly sensitive and thinks too much and needs consistency. Having Oates gone for any amount of time really throws him.

When I have my moment to scan through whatever pictures I've taken of them during the day for my posting, I'm always partial to ones where at least one of them is looking at the other.

Obligation

This was very late night with a spry Willie looking straight at me while Oates licks his paws on the couch behind him.

Now over a month in I can feel what a challenge it is to take a satisfactory picture and post about them every day. Today I was barely around, went out with friends who came over after dinner and just left. I need to go to bed. But I needed a quick photo session and post.

I'm reminded of how I explain my commitment to them to others, especially those who don't own dogs: it never feels liken a burden or obligation.

Late Afternoon Goodbye

I find that I feel busier when I am not "working" than when I'm working a job in the office. Today is one of the former, and as I ran out to a couple errands I caught the boys at "goodbye".

When they both look at me, which is often and not for pictures, it always gets me. Lately, every long look pierces my heart.

The Birthday Boy

Willie turned 13 today. We had planned a party for him with other dogs, bringing their people, but that fizzled like the rain which poured down much of the late afternoon and early evening.

We still all ate outside for lunch, where Willie enjoyed French Fries that Oates, with his severely decreasing eyesight, did not seem to notice.

Then we picked up a batch of toys, bones and other birthday treats at the pet store.  Then we revived a tradition that includes not only birthday toys but a dinner of chicken and rice, followed by a cupcake.

All these years, we've usually enjoyed the cupcake at home but tonight we found a street side park across from the shop. Willie and Oates took over the chessboard-decorated table and we all had our cupcakes.

Milestones likes this make me do funny math and tonight I realized I have now lived with these two longer than my mother, father or any of my siblings. Longer than anyone I've ever known or perhaps ever will.

Looking Ahead

Here's a quiet moment on the couch tonight after I came home from a Hudson River run. It looks like Willie is looking to his older brother on what it means to be 13.  Oates turned 13 this past Valentine's Day. Willie becomes a teenager tomorrow.

Father's Day

Today is Father's Day and I hope it's not my last with both of my "children". Once, many years ago when they were young a woman suggested that having them was a dry run for kids. But, I never had kids and I almost can't imagine doing so while they're still with me. I'd hate for them to feel displaced in any way.

While people, friends or strangers on the street, refer to me as their "daddy" it makes some kind of funny sense. But years ago, I realized as I have raised them on my own that I am at least just as much their mother.

Saturday Night Goodbye

Tonight I had a date in Fort Greene. Both the boys have their own unique ways of expressing, respectively, sadness and outrage at this plan.

Brownstone

Willie and Oates do not live in a brownstone, but here they found a moment to stand on one for their photographer. They're getting very good at posing.

Bones

Here they are this evening with new bones to chew. Willie will always try to steal Oates' bone and hoard them both to himself. I usually have to police it to make sure Oates has his bone too.

The Limper

These sorts of weekday bed naps depend on the bed owner being home.

I wish I could remember if Oates could jump onto my old bed...probably not? As a puppy he was an Olympian. He certainly was once a sprinter, tearing through the house for the dog park like lightning.

Now, he's a limper and on this especially high bed, he needs help up. I bought a felt dog stepladder and verified the cliche about old dogs and new tricks.

So, while Willie leaps into the bed effortlessly, whether I am home or not, Oates needs to be lifted.

He will often run to the bedroom if I'm reading in bed and patiently wait until I look down and see his silent pleading.

Then, when I reach for him, he does a little bob and weave, like a punch-drunk boxer, until he lets me trick him into getting trapped around the shoulder by hands above and behind.

Then, I have to, lying from the side of the bed, hoist him with the crane of my hands underneath his rubbery and lumpy underarms all the way up to the mattress. All along his expression is half joyful lottery winner and  half frightened bank hostage.  When he gets dropped, hw will run chaotically across his new universe rather than stop and visit with its inhabitants.

Then, he will drop and sleep. And snore.

Tied Up

Almost every picture of them outside my house involves them being tied up. Here they are outside my local sandwich shop.

Years ago a woman I dated, who I met in therapy dog class (training to volunteer your dogs for nursing home visits and the like) made fun of their chain leashes, as if they were part of some bondage outfit.

When they were puppies, I used to bring them into a bar where I d-jayed. Willie would chew through his nylon leash and spring loose.  The chains ensure they won't ever do that. It's heavier to walk them with these, but I'm used to it.

I wish I could just leave them loose on the street.

Pills

This is their pre-dinner waiting pose. A bit unusual because Oates would be much closer to me, and the food. Willie would maybe not be in the picture at all since he rarely gets excited about dinner. But he's sitting very seriously.

Oates is probably a little gun-shy because I recently "pilled" him. Given his recent ear infection, he's back on pills. He won't take them in his food, he has figured out "pill pockets" the delicious treats that secretly hold pills, and won't take those.

I learned from Willie's recent hospital visit that the word "pill" is used as a verb in the veterinarian community for shoving a pill with one's finger all the way down a dog's throat. Sadly, this is the only way either of them will take a pill. Willie is less violent in his resistance, as if the whole thing is too undignified to endure. Oates rocks his head, bites my finger and generally acts as if I'm trying to kill him, rather than take care of him.

So, here he is hanging back after our newly-resumed nightly pill ritual.

He hasn't had an easy day.  This morning I had the bizarre task of collecting both their urine, for a test on Willie where Oates was the "control".  But Oates ear infection is causing a head tilt that thrown off his balance, so when he kicks to pee he falls over like a bicycle with a broken stand.  When I could not collect his urine, I had to leave him with the vet so they could find another way to collect it from him instead.

I hope they know I'm just trying to take care of them.

Nap Time

Here they are on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Like the Kinks song. I wonder what they're thinking about.

Yawn

I hope Willie wasn't reacting to the blog this morning when I caught this moment on the couch.

While these guys were lounging on the couch this Saturday morning, the cable guy was over for a couple hours, fixing all sorts of problems.

I wish our vet visit right after that was just as successful. Oates had a check-up for his infected ear and also was showing slightly disturbing signs of his vertigo spell from a  couple months back. It now seems possible that this episode, which sometimes recurs, is not the cause of his head tilt and that he is just suffering from a severe ear infection. For which I have to shove pills he won't eat down his throat and drop liquid in his ears.

That's before I have to capture his urine on Monday as the "control" in an experiment for Willie, whose captured urine will be analyzed for a potential disease.

After dropping a few hundred at the vet today, I asked the young woman behind the counter if she got employee discounts and if they are hiring.

Synagogue Steps

This early evening, Oates and Willie are posing on the top steps to an old synagogue down our street.  I have never seen these doors open.  The old rabbi comes out the side door occasionally, and we've chatted. He once ran back in and brought me cookies while I walked the boys. They have a weekly bluegrass night there.

When we walk by at night there is usually a young homeless woman sleeping on the top of those steps where the guys are standing. That's essentially, with a sleeping bag, and a tarp she puts up, her bedroom.

She favors black leather, moon boots, and a mohawk that changes color from time to time. I've seen her reading everything from The Wall Street Journal to a Joe Strummer book.  She has never talked to us but for some reason I've filed away that she's Canadian.

Right before this, we met a woman on the street with her dog, a miniature Husky. I grew up with a Siberian Husky, that's a story for another time, but had never heard they came in small sizes. She said she had just lost her other dog at the age of 18, for which I told her I was both sorry and encouraged.

Going Out

This morning's picture is the opposite of last night, as they are inside the front door, waiting to go out.

Pre Treats

This morning, after returning from the gym, I found Oates on the living room couch where he'd slept last night and Willie was still in my bed, where he had spent the night.  Willie's hearing must be going a bit because he used to leap off the bed as soon as the apartment door opened. Now, sometimes he doesn't know I'm home until he sees me. Then he leaps for me.

I walked them down the street and had the idea for a picture of them sitting on the steps of one of the brownstones down the street. But the steps had less depth than I realized and sitting two old dogs on them just seemed unwieldy in the morning rush.

My small apartment building doesn't have steps up to a grand front door, just a small step down and then the red door pictured here. They were antsy to get back home and Willie as usual was more anxious than Oates. I tried a few pics but after a couple Willie refused to look up and back at me for the camera. In this pose he looks tired and maybe a little annoyed.

Minutes after this, I dropped treats in their bowls and ran out the door.  I can't remember when I started the ritual of giving them treats every time I left the apartment, it must have been when they were very young. Maybe from the beginning.  But they expect it now, in their gentle and polite way. They don't bark or act out, nothing more than a long look if I've forgotten. I almost never forget, in fact I do it almost without thinking now, as instinctive as leaving with keys.

Sometimes I've left the house and gone a ways before I turn around and go back to make sure they have their treats. I'd hate to leave them wondering even just once whether they had done something to not deserve them.

My Best Friends

I am trying to challenge myself each day to take a decent picture. Days like today are tough, I was rushing out the door to a job when this was snapped and when I get home I will be rushing to feed and walk them before I leave them again to meet a friend in town.

They are are my friends who are always here. Just look at their gaze for the man behind the camera.  Of course, he's holding treats.

Thugs

I came home late tonight to find that the little throw rug that occasionally doubles as Oates' bed was thrown into the middle of the living room and rumpled into a lumpy pile.  I am secretly amused by their little tantrums that are no more than playful stunts with no greater meaning or purpose.

Of course, when I come home I never know for sure who did what.  This picture with the rugs between them is funny to me for their respective pokier faces. Who looks more guilty?

Studs

These are two happy old men by the Hudson River on a glorious sunny afternoon today.

Willie is probably smiling from all the compliments he got earlier. At one point, a woman left the bar she was sitting in, and watching him across the street from the window, just to come meet him. Several other people stopped to ask about him. "What breed is he?" "Does he get along with cats?" And so on.

Even late last night when we saw our neighbor down the street with her Pug, she called Willie "Snow White".

Does Oates mind that Willie gets most of the attention? The picture above would seem to indicate that no, he does not. Besides, he gets plenty of attention. Starting from his brother.

Hump

This is Willie chasing Oates at the dog park this afternoon. Willie sometimes gets excited and starts humping everything in sight at the dog park: my leg, other dogs, even his brother Oates.

Infinite

If I keep this up daily over the next thousand days, certain photos on this blog will start to look like close cousins sooner than later. Perhaps with repetition more subtle than the repeated shots of my living room carpet, the boys will soon reveal a finite number of poses and expressions.

My love for them, however, is infinite.

Guilt

This morning I had to summon Oates to the door to join Willie for their daily picture. Willie is spread out on his belly as he often is, especially when chewing a bone.  He looks a little sad, perhaps because I'm leaving him.  Oates has his mouth slightly open in a way I would never see except for the brief instant captured in a photo.

Not long after this picture I got a call about Willie's all day test. The good news is that he was negative for what they were looking for. The bad news is that he may be positive for another disease, but what confuses them is that he has no outward symptoms of it, just internal signposts.  Even if he has it, it doesn't sound like a terminal disease, but it may require surgery, which is what we were trying to avoid in the first place.

So, a few more days for the doctors to mull over what happens next. It's very likely he needs more tests.

A Pyrrhic victory, perhaps, but that's the nature of these things. I've tended to not only anticipate the worst but see them through a black and white lens. He's going to live, or he's going to die. Forever or right now. Of course, both of these things are true in the big picture, but maybe I'm looking for immediate certainty when it's really just a long process.

Last night I had drinks with a friend who told me about her best friend, who I'm also friends with. This woman's cat, while old, suddenly died. As her cat became sick out of nowhere, her friend helped her deduce that the cat had gotten into some deadly pollen from flowers left on the floor. Despite the best efforts of the animal hospital, the pollen killed the cat. Something that was meant to beautify her home instead helped turn it into a house of mourning.

The relevance of this grim story to me is that Willie's kidney sickness of a couple weeks ago still has no explanation. Likely theories have been, thankfully for the most part, put to rest. So while we'll never know, it's very possible he ate an aspirin that fell onto the floor.  That could have easily killed him.

Of course even possibly coming close to accidentally poisoning him has me awash in guilt on this oddly chilly and overcast June day.  The fact that I was perhaps sloppy and careless in protecting him is almost too much to contemplate. I can't imagine what that woman is going through. Or perhaps I am doing just that. My guilt about not being a good enough parent to them is a topic I'm sure this blog will revisit more than once.

How They Got Named

This is from this morning as the guys wait for their breakfast. Right after that, I had to drop Willie off for a day at the vet.

It's getting harder to get good, original pictures of them every day. My goal is to get them together while they are still.  I've never used my camera on my phone much so am trying to get better at that.

I think it might be a good time to explain their names. Oates is named after the lesser-heralded half of the pop music duo Hall & Oates. Anyone who knows me knows how much I enjoy music.  The story goes that I was having some sort of inane music argument with a woman I was briefly dating.  I think she keep going on about Radiohead, who were reaching peak popularity at the time. The contrarian side of me came out, and I insisted to her that Hall & Oates had more good songs than Radiohead. At the time, she was aware of my plan to get two dogs, so I think she sarcastically suggested I name them Hall & Oates.

At least that's the story as it's been told. I'm not even sure it was inspired by her suggestion anymore. I do know I liked the idea of Oates as a name for my Pug.  I didn't realize how it would be something I'd have to explain for over a dozen years.  It seems to fit him.

Naming the other dog "Hall" seemed too cute and too much. Also not a name a dog can hear when called, so I am often asked this but it was never under consideration.  Instead, I liked the idea of another underdog from the 80s pop culture of my childhood.  A dog duo named after two underdogs from two pop culture duos.

So when I got my Shiba, he was named Willis, after the older brother from the television show Different Strokes.  But he soon went by "Willie", as that was easier to hear as a called-out name and seemed to fit his personality better. Like the animated penguin Chilly Willy, another beloved character from my youth.

It's an odd thing, names for your dog. I probably put way too much thought in it, in being clever or funny and less thought about what was practical.

I was in many ways a different person then. I dressed differently, I probably did a lot of things differently than I do now.  I made decisions governed by a different set of motivations, I am sure.  I went to see a friend's band last week and bumped into a friend I hand't seen since high school.  It was really great, and after only a minute of seeing me he said, "you're really different than high school". He didn't mean different-looking (I often hear that I look the same), he just meant...different. I wouldn't have minded if he had felt like explaining this impression, but I liked not knowing how I was different exactly, just knowing that I was.

Willie and Oates. They know their names by now. Sometimes, Oates is so eager for attention he'll come  running even if I call for Willie (who will often ignore my calling him if he feels like it).

I am not sure they know my name, which makes me a little sad. My Siberian Husky from childhood knew my name so well that my father and stepmother had to avoid saying it aloud when I was in college, or else he would run to the window by the front door and stare for hours, waiting for me.

I have no doubt my dogs love me just as much, but we've lived as a unit, with only the occasional girlfriend over the years, but not the same voice saying my name aloud over their lifetime to reinforce it in their minds.  I don't think they know it, but perhaps that doesn't matter.

My dog walker insists Willie can smell me from around a corner without even seeing me.  He has walked them and seen Willie suddenly pull urgently, only to turn a corner and see me coming down the block. Maybe someone knowing your scent is better than remembering your name.

The Night Before The Test

Here the boys are tonight, the day before Willie's all day health test at the vet. The test is to see if the mass around his adrenal gland is benign or malignant. I'm certainly anxious to get the test over with and get the results on Thursday.

I think they can read my anxiety, as they look up with such serious concern. They have always been able to read me better than anyone else.

Monday Morning Blues

This is from this rainy and chilly Monday morning.  Oates is barely awake and Willie is contemplating. My running around a bit must signal that the weekend is over and that I'll be leaving them home.

This is getting to be a challenge getting a good picture every day. This one seems to have a bit more melancholy than I'd like, but I was in a rush and it seems to capture the mood of the day.

I hope they're having more fun at home right now while I'm working.  I have idly thought over the years of installing a camera to follow them, but that seems weird and somehow wrong.  And maybe the reality is somewhat boring, as they are asleep much of the day.  I like to imagine them playing cards or arguing about sports or blaring music.