Six years in

 

Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, please stop right now, just for a few seconds, and celebrate with us. We made it. Sgt. Thomas Tibbs, my quirky, wonderful, problematic, sweet dog and I made our goal of six years.

Six years ago I brought him home from Upland Animal Shelter. He'd been listed upon intake (by San Bernardino County Animal Control) as being five years old. When I told my vet his age, he smiled and said, "They were being kind."

"So... six?" I responded.
"Six... ish," he said.

So my deal with Thomas (of which I would remind him from time to time over the years, usually at night when I sat beside him, brushing or petting him to calm him before bed) was this: Give me at least six years, Pal. Six years to show you that humans really can be kind. You need at least as many years with kindness and comfort as you've had with starvation and deprivation and the stars only know what else you've endured.

As of January 4th, we've made it. Thomas has given me six years of daily walks, incredible hikes, contented dog sighs, floppy trotting ears, post-bath victory laps around the yard, and tail wags. (Oh, I am so grateful for all those tail wags, which took sooooo long to finally see in the beginning.)

He still loves Purrl, who was only four months old when I brought Thom home,

 and his stuffy friends

and riding in Cloud, my 2003 Ford Ranger,

an activity which is now a daily sojourn to pick up mail in the afternoon, but often it also means a mid-morning break to drive around the park and look for people out walking their dogs. Well, not the people--Thomas is only interested in spying on other dogs from the comfort of his man cave in the backseat of the truck. I think he is fascinated by how happy they all seem, trotting along in broad daylight with their people attached, seemingly without a care in the world. We still walk before the sun comes up, which is when he feels safest.

That is, unless we're going off into the hills to hike. If we head out where the coyotes sing, Thomas relaxes, trotting along the dirt trails and fire roads beside me, occasionally stopping to sniff--something that took years for him to feel comfortable doing.

And I gotta tell ya, this boy has hiked everywhere with me--up steep hills, over boulders, through fields so thick with wildflowers the trail was lost to us, across streams and past a very beautiful but amorous female coyote who thought Thomas was The One she'd been longing for.

We still walk every day, logging 350 out of 365 days for 2019. (Sciatica and a couple of short vacations out of state account for the 15 days we missed.)

With all that walking and the years gone by, has Thomas calmed down, grown out of his quirks? Absolutely not.

I still have to warn him when I'm about to print something, so he can trot out to the garage and jump into the truck, as the sound of the printer absolutely terrifies him. Not the sound of the vacuum cleaner or the garbage disposal or my blow dryer. The printer. And my cell phone, which is still always left on Do Not Disturb mode when I'm at home, as it sends him tearing through the house in a panic if it so much as quietly dings to notify me of a text message.

He still flinches when I touch him if I don't let him know in advance I'm going to do so.

Of course, he is showing signs of aging. We no longer walk miles when we hike together. He's good for a mile and a half, though. He will always have Pemphigas, the auto-immune disease, but it is currently well controlled, and only flares up when he is particularly stressed. Every few months, he has severe gastro-intestinal issues, so he's on a probiotic and gets tasty organic pumpkin added to his food.

Most days he is active and happy, and he has gone from barely tolerating my bedtime routine of petting and singing to him to eagerly anticipating it--so much so that, as soon as I begin my flossing and brushing routine, he camps out on the floor just outside the bathroom door, ears up and waiting for his ear scratch + back massage + belly rubs. Spoiled? Yes, absolutely. I can't begin to imagine the horror of his life before, having to scrounge for food and water in the desert, being literally eaten alive by mange--not for days or weeks or months, but years. Oh, my poor boy! But he's safe now. And hopefully, I have a few more years to spoil him.