Titan and I had a love/hate relationship. This started
almost immediately because I felt like I was sold a completely fake bill of
goods when we chose him.
Promise #1:
“Dogs and cats really do get along.”
My husband promised me that Titan would get along with my
seven-year-old tabby cat, Belle. I believed him. He was wrong.
Promise #2:
“He’s already big for a Dobe. He won’t get any bigger.”
Titan was 75 pounds when we got him. He topped out at 105.
Honestly, the name should have given him away.
He was a rescue dog, so we didn’t know anything about him
but an approximate age (2 ½) and that he was found wandering around Gwinnett
County, a suburb of Atlanta. He was taken in by Doberman Rescue, and lived in a
loving home with several other Dobes waiting for a forever family. He was my
Christmas present to my husband in 2003.
I was pregnant with our third boy when we adopted Titan. Our
baby Joshua was born the following summer. Herb loves to tell the story about
how Joshua and Titan bonded one day when Joshua was about nine months old. Joshua
was teething and crawled around looking for something to chew on. Titan’s
un-cropped ear fit the bill. It was silky and floppy and just the right size
for a baby’s mouth. Herb and I walked into the living room, and Titan gave us
this pitiful look that simply said, “Help?”
So if Titan was so gentle and sweet, where did the “hate”
part of love/hate come from? Oh, dear. Where
should I start?
Titan’s bark registered on the richter scale, and the
barking got bad when people came to the door. Or walked by our house. Or
breathed in our general direction.
He was worst when Herb wasn’t at home and I was. Did I mention
that my husband travels for work? So I’m at home… alone…a lot. My nerves were
frayed a good bit of the time.
Titan also seemed to reserve his mischief for me.
·
He ate my slippers, but never touched anyone
else’s.
·
He ate a loaf of bread and 16 hamburger buns off
the kitchen counter as I was preparing for our youngest boy’s first birthday.
·
He ruined my very first Coach handbag because he
smelled a package of Oreos in it. (Ok, so
it was a total Coach fake bought from a street vendor in Shanghai, but that’s
beside the point.)
·
His favorite trash can to turn inside out was
the one next to my side of the bed.
·
The night he chewed on the bone from a smoked
pork roast, I let him out to get sick every 15 minutes from 2 a.m. – 5 a.m.
Everyone else slept right through it.
 | |
| Belle hiding in the sink |
But the worst was his relationship with my cat. Herb ended
up in the emergency room on December 26 — two days after Titan moved in — from
the bite he got from Belle when he tried to force them to be in the same room.
Titan had tried to eat Belle.
You think I’m kidding.
We had a baby gate at the bottom of our stairs ostensibly
for the children. Only the gate went up before the baby was born, when our only
children were 6 and 8, and stayed up for eight years. The gate was necessary to
keep Titan and Belle apart. If the gate was open, Titan would hunt for Belle. I
use the word “hunt” purposefully. He once ripped apart the mattress on a
trundle bed trying to get to Belle who huddled underneath it, literally fearing
for her life.
It was six years before someone finally suggested to us that
Titan really did see Belle as food. He was a rescue dog. He had wandered the
streets for who-knows-how-long. He probably ate small, furry animals to stay
alive. Maybe … just maybe … he really saw Belle as his next meal.
In the spring of 2011 we found out that Titan had bladder
cancer and a mass in his spleen. We didn’t know if the cancer had spread
elsewhere, but the doctor suspected so. After long, agonizing, tear-filled
discussions, we decided not to operate or do chemotherapy. The doctor said the
cancer probably wouldn’t take him; the mass in his spleen would. It could burst
tomorrow or it could burst six months from now. But that’s what would probably
take Titan from us.
We debated what to do about our summer vacation. Dogs were
not allowed. We decided to board Titan with the vet, so if anything went wrong,
the doctor would be right there. If we left him at home with a dog sitter, no
one we knew would be able to move a 105-pound Doberman if the need arose.
It happened a week after we left. I had just dropped off our
13-year-old with his dad in Chattanooga. He was leaving vacation a few days
early to attend football camp. On the way back to our condo in Sevierville, I
got the call from the vet. Titan was lethargic. He couldn’t stand up. It took
two men to get him out of his crate and into the examination room.
“Did we have enough time to get back?” No. He wouldn’t last
another 5 hours.
I thought about Sandy…. He was back in Atlanta by now. I
called my ex-husband to speak to him. Titan was dying. He was the only one in
town. Would he be willing to go to the vet’s to be with him when she put him
down?
“You don’t have to,” I remember saying.
He paused. “No, I want to.”
His father drove him to the vet, where Titan lay motionless
on the examination table. When Titan saw Sandy walk in, he lifted his head a
little. When Sandy put his hand on the table, Titan lifted his paw and put it
on Sandy’s hand. Sandy cried.
We did a three-way conference call: Herb back with the other
three boys at the condo, me from my cell phone on the side of the highway, and
Sandy at the vet’s. We were all “there” when Titan passed, but only Sandy got
to hold his hand. He still says it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done.
After Titan died, the house was quieter. We could leave food
out again. But the kitchen floor was messier. (You don’t realize how much a dog cleans up after four children until
he’s not there to do it.)
But I didn’t really know I loved Titan until I realized I
needed another dog. For me. The best way I could show Titan that he was loved
was to recognize that he left a dog-sized hole in our family that needed to be
filled.
We have Brenna because I finally realized that I loved
Titan.
No comments:
Post a Comment