In thinking about what to write here at Love Bytes this month, there was only one subject I could write about. Love. A love that is very real these past couple of weeks. And it’s a love that’s a little bit…different.
Now, considering what this blog is all about, you might think I’m talking about gay love. Maybe a story about the first time I fell in love with a guy. Or maybe my husband.
But, no.
This is about someone who loves me completely and unconditionally. Who trusts me beyond any trust I’ve ever known. Someone who—when I’ve had a rotten, terrible, horrible day—will greet me at the front door when I get home with such total uncontained joy that everything that happened before doesn’t matter.
It’s the love I share with my dog, Sarah Jane.
My husband, R, has been known to say, “You love that dog more than you love me!”
And I say, “Well, when you meet me every day at the door when I get home trembling with excitement, your butt wagging so hard it looks like you’re doing the twist, wanting nothing except to be touched and held, that’s when you won’t be able to say that!”
Not to say I don’t my man in ways even my most polished (and edited) romantic writer skills can hope to say.
Dog is “man’s best friend.” Why, there are anthropologists who believe that dogs have lived with humankind for as much as 32,000 years! That’s pretty amazing.
So, why though, in a blog about gay romance, am I writing about my love for a tiny little mixed-breed dog named Sarah Jane?
Bear with me. To paraphrase Ellen, I do have a point. I’ll get there!
I met the dog that would become one of my life’s greatest joys at Gay Pride nearly eleven years ago. I love Gay Pride and usually get there first thing in the morning, ready for the gates to open, and I stay until they kick me out. R is not nearly as social as I am and crowds can really get to him, so he always joints me later in the day.
So, there I was, at Gay Pride, alone, and I lost my heart. Not to another man, but to a little dog.
I was shopping and got to where the animal shelter tents were located. I looked, knowing full well R would object to me getting us a dog. I couldn’t help it though. I was ready. It had been too long since I’d had a pet. I was very disappointed though because none of the shelters had any small dogs, only big ones. I like big dogs, but only other people’s big dogs. I want a dog I can hold and carry and cuddle. Not one that will knock me over or send things flying off of coffee table with their wagging tails.
The lady at the last tent walked up to me and said she could see the disappointment on my face, and we talked and she soon said she could tell I was just the kind of people they were looking for and asked what my dream dog was.
After asking if I could have two dream dogs, and she said that was okay, I told her either a Yorkie or a dachshund. Well, she started laughing and asked if I could come back in an hour. “Sure,” I said, and as I left, she got on her cell phone.
An hour later, I returned and she met me right away. She said she has a dog she wanted me to see, but warned me that the dog didn’t like most men, then led me to an open-topped cage and for the first time I laid eyes on my dog to be. And to all the volunteer’s surprise, the little girl went bananas, barking, jumping up and down, wagging her tail to beat the band. I was lost in her big brown eyes! All the ladies were thrilled and I was asked if I wanted to start the paperwork.
“Oh no!” I replied. “If I surprise my husband with a pet, fait accompli, I’m dead.”
So, they agreed not to let anyone else have her for an hour or two and my man finally arrived and I led him to the tents.
“Why are we going to the animal adoption tents?” he asked.
“Oh? Are we?” I asked innocently. “Ah…no reason….”
And then he looked at Sarah Jane. Again, she went bananas. And apparently, they’d had to cover her cage with a blanket after I left to calm her down. She had been very upset when I left.
R’s shoulders sank in almost immediate defeat. “Oh my God,” he said with a sigh. Then: “Ben, have you seen if she’ll play with you? If we get her home and she doesn’t want to be with you, you’ll be very disappointed.”
“No way,” I answered. “If I’d laid one finger on her, I would have been lost. I was waiting for you.”
So, we sat in the grass and they opened her cage to see what would happen. And what actually happened was too crazy! This is the truth! Ask my husband!
She ran out of the cage, dashed up to me…looked me right in the eyes…and then she nodded twice (no lie!). Then quick as can be, she turned around, scrambled into R’s lap, flopped on to her back, and looked up at him adoringly.
All the ladies burst into laughter.
“Well,” said their boss. “She knew who she had to suck up to.”
Needless to say, we adopted her. By the way, the reason we named her Sarah Jane, was after one of Dr. Who’s companions. R is a huge Dr. Who fan.
Almost from the start, she turned my heart inside out. She taught me a new level of love. She taught me the sacredness of all life. I can’t step on a beetle now. She taught me responsibility. She because my soul dog. My familiar. She taught me to really love, humans and the many animals of the world. Hey! She even stared in my novel, Hound Dog & Bean.
But then, two weeks ago, and then again last week, I almost lost my little girl!
She began…honking. She couldn’t get her breath. Once she even fell over…on her side!…and couldn’t get up!
The first time I rushed her to the vet, the X-rays revealed she was suffering from a disease called tracheal collapse, a condition apparently common for small older breeds. You see in the X-ray that at first, her throat looks normal, then “collapses” to almost nothing, then opens again. This makes it very hard for her to breathe, and if such an inflected dog goes into an anxiety attack, they really can’t breathe and can even have a heart attack. The vet warned me I might only have a few days.
I think the only reason I didn’t lose it completely is that I knew she was getting older and frailer. She couldn’t leap up in the bed anymore. She could barely get up her little steps on the bed. She’s partially deaf. Her face has gone white. And more. But damn.
I was given a medication to keep her calm and sedate. So she wouldn’t have another attack. But she had one anyway, this one far worse.
This time I went to a different vet, in tears, preparing myself for the worst.
Imagine my surprise when this vet, without taking X-rays, immediately figured out she had pneumonia. He gave me two meds, doxycycline, an antibiotic, and prednisone, a steroid for her to take. And he told me not to give her the other medication, that is wasn’t necessarily good for tracheal collapse.
He did warn me I might have only a few days left though.
But…
Since I believe in telling stories that are at least HFN, let me make you smile.
Sarah honked for several hours after I got home, but finally slept, and slept well. She had a good night’s sleep, and within twenty-four hours was doing better than she’s done in a year. She is downright bouncy. She’s being Little Miss Bossy Pants again, ordering our other dog, Oliver, around, and me and R as well. I imagine the steroid is helping a lot.
She’s happy!
She’s cuddly!
My mother was telling me it might be time to have her put to sleep, but everyone I’ve known who has done so has felt confident their dog was ready, even giving them signs.
But Sarah hadn’t done that! I don’t think it’s selfishness on my part keeping her alive! Yes, her hips hurt her. Yes, she’s more delicate. But so was my grandmother in the last few years of her life.
This is what I’ve learned. I mean, I knew it already, but now I KNOW it.
Love is precious. Love is not to be taken for granted. Love is to be cherished. We must be grateful for the love in our lives.
Relationships are temporary. We never know if we have a lifetime, or years, or hours. Never leave those we love without saying, “I love you,” even if we’re mad.
Because who knows what “lifetime” means?
Sarah Jane is still with me.
And I will cherish her, and care for her and love her with all my might and not forget how precious she is.
And I will cherish my husband, and care for him and love him with all my might and not forget how precious he is. And I will cherish my friends, and care for them and love them with all my might and not forget how precious they are.
And I will be determined even more, that when I write, to tell stories where love is cherished and precious.
And I will never ever again kill the dog in one of my stories.
That’s a promise.
Namasté,
BG “Ben” Thomas
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B.G. Thomas lives in Kansas City with his husband of more than a decade and their fabulous dogs Sarah Jane and Oliver. He is blessed to have a lovely daughter as well as many extraordinary friends. He has a great passion for life.
B.G. loves romance, comedies, fantasy, science fiction, and even horror—as far as he is concerned, as long as the stories are character driven and entertaining, it doesn’t matter the genre. He has gone to literature conventions his entire adult life where he’s been lucky enough to meet many of his favorite writers. He has made up stories since he was a child; it is where he finds his joy.
In the nineties, he wrote for gay adult magazines but stopped because the editors wanted all sex without plot. “The sex is never as important as the characters,” he says. “Who cares what they are doing if we don’t care about them?” Excited about the growing male/male romance market, he began writing again. He submitted a novella and was thrilled when it was accepted in four days. Since then the romantic tales have poured out of him. “It’s like I’m somehow making up for a lifetime’s worth of story-telling!”
In 2015 he made and entry every day in his blog “365 Days of Silver,” where he found something every day to be grateful for. You can find it right here: https://365daysofsilver.wordpress.com/
“Leap, and the net will appear” is his personal philosophy and his message. “It is never too late,” he testifies. “Pursue your dreams. They will come true!”
Website/blog: bthomaswriter.wordpress.com