A Sad Tail

I was in the middle of interviewing a candidate for a physician's assistant job over lunch when I got the text from the nanny.

"Finn is going to be late for school."

"He slammed the door on Vader's tail."

I responded: "Is Vader ok?"

"Hold on. Um, no. He's going to need the vet. There's exposed bone."

The whole story (which I heard hours later, after I dealt with a plumbing issue that manifested in one of my patients almost getting a load of dirty toilet water from the office upstairs dumped on her head, saw some patients, stood as moral support and official photographer at the birth of a friend's baby and then delivered a 1 hour dinner lecture on diabetes management) was that Finn had been told to close the back door when it was time to leave for school.

"Close the door, Finn!" Finn complied by slamming the door just as the dog was running through.

Nanny M said she could tell something was wrong by the way the dog took off running.  She went to check on him, and when she opened the door, a one inch piece of his tail fell to the ground.  Nanny M got an upset Finn to school, and then took Vader to the vet, where the verdict was surgery.  So the next day, they cut off the exposed bone, sewed it up, and sent Vader home to heal.  And I'm pretty sure Vader is even more convinced that he was a horrible dog in a past life to deserve us as his forever family.

A few days later, I had some friends over and we held a small funeral for Vader's tail.  Finn said a few words, "Vader used to have a longer tail, a nice tail. But now part of it is gone. I will miss it," and then dropped the tail in the hole. I planted a forsythia bush above it, and we stood in a circle around the bush while I said a brief prayer. "Dear God, please help Vader heal well from this tragic accident, and not be in any more pain. Please help Finn to remember to never slam a door. Please let this forsythia bush grow big and healthy, so we can look at the beautiful flowers every spring and remember when Vader's tail was whole." (I might have giggled a bit at that last part.) There was an enthusiastic "Amen!" from all the attendees, and then we headed back inside to eat cupcakes brought by one of my friends who said, "I wasn't sure what to bring to a tail funeral, but I figured you could never go wrong with cupcakes."

The remaining part of Vader's tail has fully healed and he seems to be doing fine.  Though I've noticed that he now refuses to go out a door if Finn is standing anywhere near it.

A New Addition

Last weekend we added another family member when we brought home 3 year old Vader - a 60 pound black dog who we adopted from a local rescue group.  More than once in the past week I've wondered "what the hell did I do?" even though I've though long and hard about the pros and cons of dog ownership for a very long time. We had some home break ins a few months ago that scared the entire neighborhood and terrified Finn - it was that fear which led me to decide it was time to have a dog in the family, even if I wasn't quite ready for one.  The first morning after he came home, Finn said, "I wasn't scared at all last night.  Do you know why? Because we have a dog now!"

Vader looks fierce, but is actually quite timid - and of course he still needs time to fully adjust to his new home and his new life. While I knew the adjustment period would be hardest, I still didn't quite expect it to be much of a challenge, and so I'm trying to readjust my expectations of the next month. He is very good with the boys, and very patient with their initial nervousness around him, but now that they aren't nervous anymore, he's the nervous one as he has to get used to the sheer volume of noise the two of them can create (it is amazing how much noisier my house is with two boys instead of one - I swear the noise level has quadrupled, not just doubled). I can tell he's going to settle in eventually, though.  Last night we were playing "Kissing Monster" and Vader joined in the fun, with wagging tail and lots of licks for the Kissing Victim.

Then there was the night this weekend when he got away from me after being scared by fireworks our neighbor set off and was gone for 3 hours. That was drama I did not anticipate as the rescue group and some neighbors came out at 9 pm to help me look for him while the kids slept.  It was sometime after 11pm when I was sitting out on the front porch, wondering what I was going to tell the boys, when he came walking up to the house, all on his own.  So clearly he now knows where home is - and so I guess we're stuck with him.  And him with us.

Right now - this time in my life - feels like the start of a new chapter. It's not just the dog, though Ifee like he's the start of it all. I've been making some changes over the past few weeks and I'm feeling really good about them.  I think I'm just about ready to share what I'm doing, but still figuring out how to put it all down in words.  In the meantime, I'm going to get to bed at my actual bedtime tonight, because someone is going to be waking me up for our morning walk at 6am, and it's hard to say no to that sweet face of his.