Friday, May 7, 2010

Kismet


This is a repost. This morning I woke up to find that Kismet had passed in the night. I knew it was coming, he was old, missing teeth, deaf...but it took the wind out of my sails, so to speak. So this is to commemorate the life of a dog I'll miss very much. RIP Kismet 199?-2010.


The calendar says its March, but every time I look out the window I think "January". It seems to be a winter of extremes this year, its either snowing, raining, sleeting, or the sun is shining so bright it brings tears to your eyes and triggers a huge headache. I find myself jealous of people travelling to Florida or other warm places for the first time in years (I lived in Florida and didn't really like it) and find myself really looking forward to spring and all that it brings, yes, even the hay fever and allergies. I am really looking forward to walking barefoot in the grass, i think that's what I miss the most. I hate wearing shoes :-P lol.

There is one member of our family that is truly loving this weather though. Our 10 year old husky mix, Kismet. After 10 years, he continues to surprise me. I truly thought that age would slow him down some, boy was I wrong.

Our first introduction to him should have given me a clue. We found him running down the middle of the road toward Barton the year that we were moving into the house we're in now. Apparently he had jumped the fence at the humane society where he was being held. He had been a stray in the town of Barton that winter, and finally some older woman called and had him removed from under her porch because she was afraid of him. Anyway, I fell in love with him and decided to adopt him. They told me I had to wait a couple of weeks because they were to neuter him before they could put him up for adoption, but I was free to fill out the paperwork and give them a call later if I still wanted him. In those 2 weeks he escaped at least two more times.

I really should have named him Houdini. Once we got him home we found out that canvas leashes could only be used if you were walking or looking at him the whole time, because if you made him sit for too long and weren't paying attention, he would bite through the leash with amazing stealth. You could be standing there for 5 minutes before realizing he was gone, he was so quiet. And vacuums and thunder could throw him into such a panic he would jump out of a window or dig his way through a door to try and get away from the sound. Oh and lets not forget his separation anxiety....this was worse when he was younger and we were unaware of it...he destroyed pillows, blankets, shirts..anything he could get a hold of. Once we stopped at a yard sale when he was in the car, and even though we were only 100ft away from the car, he chewed through the seat belts!

During the early years we leashed him with a cable when he was outside. It was just easier. The few times he got out were usually because he ran past our legs and through the door when he was inside. We cured this by using a crate when we were leaving or when the kids were going in and out and we knew the door would be open for long periods of time. This helped with the escaping AND with the separation anxiety, thankfully. After awhile

This last year has been difficult though. I think he's losing his hearing so thunder storms have become something akin to the burning depths of Hell to him. He's destroyed every crate we had, chewed through chain link fences, tried digging his way through the floor, or walls to get away from it. Its been hard. Because of the chewing, he's broken his teeth, and the only way I can get him to stop is to run the vacuum. This year I'm going to have to drug him as I can only see this behavior getting worse. It makes me sad. That's the part of spring I'm not looking forward to.

For right now though, he's enjoying the snow. Not only because its cool and fun to dig in, but because in the pen he's in out back, the snow is so high he can, once again, jump over it and escape. We've tried digging it out, but he's such a smart dog once he figures out he can do something there is no stopping him. Last time I let him out, I watched him use our black lab as a spring board to launch himself over the the 6ft fence. So until the snow melts he's on a lead out front where he's enjoying laying on top of the 8ft snow banks or rolling in the snow acting like a puppy. No, age hasn't slowed him down at all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

He was a beautiful, and, from the sounds of it, an amazing dog. I'm so sad for your loss, Stace.

AiringMyLaundry said...

What a beautiful dog. I'm sorry for your loss.