RIP: Princess Jasmine 1995-2007

Had our neighbors been peeking into our yard tonight they may have thought BassMan and I were up to no good.

Earlier in the day BassMan dug a hole. A large one.

This morning, Princess Jasmine Amedea Leroyce Bass, our 12-year-old collie, who's been ailing for several days, let us know today would be her last. We made her comfortable on her sleeping pad, massaged and petted her, nestled and nurtured her. She drifted to sleep and by nightfall she was gone.

So there we were, patio torch blazing over the hole dug and ready, laying deep our Princess in the waning moon. Should the sheriff come a'knocking we'll have a story to tell. It begins here.

Princess was the most gentle of dogs, as smart as Lassie, and loyal to the end. We got Princess from a man whose aging breeding pair of collies produced a surprise litter of two pups. The first pup died, but Princess survived. Her mother wasn't able to produce milk, so the owner bottle-fed Princess. The owner was getting on in years himself and didn't have the energy to keep a collie puppy around, but he didn't want to see Princess on the dog market. When Princess was four-months-old, he advertized for a special family to adopt her, listing criteria that would have made the Ellen DeGeneres rescue center proud. We passed the test and this generous man gave Princess to us. His only charge: that we love and care for her.

Several things come to mind when I remember Princess. It was tradition for our kids to name the pets. On the way to our interview with Princess's breeding owner, we discussed what we would name her. Elisabeth (then eight) and Jonathan (then six) were unanimous that she should be called Princess. In tribute to one of their favorite Disney princesses, they insisted she be Princess Jasmine. On top of that, they insisted on each of their middle names tagged on. She would be Princess Jasmine Amedea Leroyce Bass. Divine synchronicity would have it that ever since the day she was born her owner had been calling her Princess.

We live in a region I call "wind alley." When Santa Ana winds blow in from the high desert we are usually hit with a double blast. Several times through the years the wind would pick up while we were gone and I'd drive up to find the gate blown wide open. The first time this happened, I panicked at the thought of Princess running away in the wind. I jumped from the van and ran through the backyard calling for her. She was nowhere. I rushed back to the front and began looking up and down the street. Elisabeth and Jonathan called me from the front porch. My heart broke wide open to see Princess laying unruffled on our front doorstep awaiting our return.

This year we sent our youngest child to college 1,500 miles away. Our oldest is planning for grad school in NY and London. We did this only a few months ago and here we are at the pet cemetary again. Life changes, we change, but love grows.

BassMan and I are going to plant an avocado tree over Princess.

Meet Buck

It's official. We have a new dog. We weren't looking for a new dog, nor an old one. It turns out our new dog isn't exactly new. He's been used. Used badly. Someone abused him.

I met Buck at my neighborhood Bark Park, where I take Tank to play almost every day. I arrived to see what looked like a yellow labrador puppy cowering outside the park gates. No collar. He scooted off when we approached. Once inside the park, I asked several of the people inside if they knew anything about the dog. Everyone was concerned about him.

Once Tank was happily chasing someone else's tennis ball, I approached the dog. He skittered away, his tail between his legs. Upon closer view, I could tell he wasn't a puppy, but an adult male, probably a beagle and lab mix. He wouldn't come to me, which is rare, because I can usually get the most timid of dogs (and cats) to trust me. Back inside the park, all of us dog companions discussed what to do. No one wanted to leave him at the park, as temperatures were expected to drop overnight. I decided to take him home and see if we could find his owners.

BassMan came out to the park with his truck and with much wooing with food and a steady hand, was able to load him into the cab. We put Buck in our backyard and brought our 12-year-old collie, Princess, inside along with Tank. Once we had him at home, it became clear to me by his behavior that he'd been abused. A sudden move would send him cowering away, hiding under the patio table or the BBQ grill. I gave him a jerky treat that he looked at like it was poison. As soon as I stepped back into the house, he devoured the jerky treat. We fed him. He ate. By the end of the night he was letting me pet him, looking up at me with sad brown eyes that broke my heart. He slept in the doghouse that Tank never uses and the next morning met me at the door with his tail wagging.

I called the shelter to report him, then put signs up at the two local pet stores, the vet offices in the area, and around the bark park. Two people called me, but their descriptions didn't match Buck. By the third day BassMan and I were in love with the little guy. We knew we couldn't take him to the shelter if no one called for him, and began hoping no one would.

By the second week, he'd come out of his timidness, but still lurches if someone moves too suddenly around him. I kicked the tennis ball one day when he was nearby and he ran with his tail cowed so fast, you would have thought I'd kicked him. These are sure signs he'd been abused.

When no one claimed him by the second week, we took him to our vet and had him scanned for a microchip. Nothing. That's when we decided to make a claim on him. We had him immunized, given a physical, chipped, and... neutered. He's all ours now. Buck is already house-trained, sleeps on a pillow on my side of the bed, and snores. Have you ever heard a dog snore?

Our Pet Cemetery Grows By One

In the wayback of our half-acre yard we have a substantial pet cemetery. The ground was consecrated only a few weeks after we moved in when our fluffy white rabbit, Snowball, didn’t make the transition from his comfy cage inside the air conditioned house to his custom-built hutch on the side of our yard. In the years since, we’ve buried Lady, a four-month-old German shepherd mix who drowned in a freak accident in our spa (and I mean freak accident); an amazing alligator lizard with a tail 12-inches long who couldn’t adapt to life in a reptile habitat inside the house (the only thing my kids learned from this was that outside critters live best outside); my gorgeous rooster who strutted and crowed like a prizefighter; two sister cats we’d had since they were kittens (Funny Face and Mariah); and my beloved Bichon Frise, Handsome, a rescue dog who became my shadow and dearest companion.

Yesterday we had to put down our beloved, 18-year-old cat, Neesa, mother of Funny Face and Mariah. Anyone who has loved a pet can understand the waves of grief and sadness we felt yesterday and will continue to feel in the days ahead.

Neesa has been a part of our family since we lived in Orange County immediately after returning from our years in Japan. Like the best cats, Neesa, adopted us. She came to us in a family way and gave birth to six kittens in the attic of our house. Only days after her litter was born, good mother Neesa, found an opportunity to move her litter to upscale digs inside the house. Here’s what happened.

My daughter, Elisabeth, only three years old at the time, had a cradle full of stuffed animals on the floor of her room. The two kids and I had just returned from a large grocery shopping trip and I’d parked my van inside the garage and left the door into the kitchen wide open while I shuffled bags of groceries from the van inside the house. The phone rang, so I paused my unloading, leaving the door open. A moment later I saw Neesa run through the kitchen and disappear into the back of the house. Back in 1991 I didn’t have a cordless phone, so I stayed yakking into my wired handset in the kitchen. A moment later Neesa ran back into the garage and I didn’t give it another thought until I saw her run back in. This time I noticed a tiny black kitten hanging by the nape of the neck from Neesa’s mouth. I put the phone down and followed her.

Neesa, in her motherly way, had taken the open door opportunity to move her kittens, one at a time, from the attic space to a comfy spot inside the house. She dropped the little black darling right into Elisabeth’s stuffed animal sanctuary where the little mewers blended right in.

Smitten with this little example of animal instinct, the kids and I watched as Neesa moved all of her kittens into Elisabeth’s room and nestled in among the stuffed animals to nurse. I moved some of Elisabeth’s special stuffies from the new kitty nursery and we let Neesa and her litter stay there until it was time to find homes for the kitties.

Elisabeth gave Funny Face her name because she had a black dot next to her nose that made her look, well, funny. The three all-black male kittens we gave away to friends. My sister, Robin, took Mariah for her daughter Darah. After Robin found she was deathly allergic to cats, we took Mariah back and kept her until her death about a year ago at age 16. Funny Face preceded Mariah, passing peacefully at the age of 13.

We weren’t exactly sure how old Neesa was, as she was fully grown when she adopted us. When we had her spayed right after she weaned her litter, the vet said she was young, probably about a year old. This makes her about the same age as my son, Jonathan.

Neesa has been a part of our family for so long that Elisabeth and Jonathan don’t remember life without her. She’s buried now in the pet cemetery where her two daughters lay.

The photo above shows (l-r) Neesa and Mariah posing on their thones in front of our house in early 2005. RIP: Neesa, Funny Face, and Mariah.

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