by Larry Johnson
I really didn’t think I needed another dog after the painfully sad experience of putting down Mara, a 15-year-old Rottweiler, in the spring of 2021. She was a great companion, a gentle giant. She accompanied me on my daily half-mile walks to the corner store to get my coffee and bear claw. Though there were no sidewalks in our subdivision, she guided me perfectly along the curb and across the residential streets, sticking close to my side, tethered by just a short leash. I missed her.
So, when the local AARP sponsored a webinar about a program called “Silver Paws, Senior Hearts,” in the spring of 2022, I was intrigued. The director of Charming Pet Rescue, a local pet rescue organization, explained that the purpose of the program is to match senior dogs with older adults wanting companionship. The program, financed by donations and grants, provides the dog free of charge, pays for all its medical expenses for life and even offers to provide the animal’s food. Well, it sounded too good to be true. So, I thought, what the heck, I’ll apply.
And, by golly, I received an email the very next day telling me that I qualified and to come out to the facility to check out a couple of dogs that they had available. I went with my daughter. The first was a 9-year-old Rottweiler named Dolly. She had been seriously abused. She had burn scars all down her back, and feeling her neck, I could tell that she had been mercilessly chained as there was a huge scar all the way around her neck. It made me feel sick and angry that someone could mistreat a dog so brutally. I couldn’t take her. I knew I would constantly be thinking about the cruelty of her previous owners.
The other dog they showed me was a Great Pyrenees/yellow lab mix, creamy white with yellow on the bridge of her nose and the ridge of her back. They told me her name was Callie. She was found wandering around a park in Kerrville, picked up by animal control, and had been scheduled to be euthanized, when the people from Charming Pet Rescue picked her up and decided to try and find her a home. So, I squatted down to meet Callie. She immediately sat and gave me her paw. They handed me her leash and suggested that I try walking with her. She stuck right by my side, and we walked a hundred feet or so. That did it. I decided to bring her home.
What I didn’t know then, and the folks at the rescue facility probably didn’t either, is that Callie suffered from separation anxiety. The first day I left her alone in the house to go to a meeting, she bolted through a venetian blind and window and raced around the neighborhood looking for me. A friendly neighbor took her in and returned her to me. She had suffered a few cuts on her paws going through the window but was generally OK. So I got a kennel. The next time I left, I put her in the kennel and thought I had secured it well. But no. When I returned, she was standing at my front door, having again jumped out the same window and again cut up her paws. I have tried a number of medications recommended to calm her anxiety, but so far none of them work. I am very careful now about securing the latches on her kennel.
Callie had a confrontation early on with one of my granddaughters’ young golden retrievers. He got too personal with her, and she laid him on his back and took hold of his ear. He whimpered in surrender. It was then I decided to change her name to Queenie. She definitely has the royal bearing and is the dominant alpha dog within our canine family.
Queenie rules me, too. She lets me know when it’s her breakfast and dinner time, when it’s time to go for a walk, when she wants to go out and when she wants some ear scratching and neck rubbing. Like Mara, Queenie is a great walker. Tethered with just a short leash, sensing I suppose that I am blind, she easily guides me around parked cars, garbage cans and recycle bins. Mostly she will ignore other dogs as well as the wild ducks which roam our neighborhood.
But besides her anxiety at being left alone, she has one other annoying characteristic. She has a voracious appetite, and will eat anything that is within reach. She has swiped a loaf of rye bread off the kitchen table, chewed up two leather leashes, devoured a bottle half-full of Dasuquin tablets (which she managed to unscrew the top, empty out the contents and eat all 50 remaining tablets, thankfully with no ill effects). But her greatest feat, however, was to lift a pan of soup off the stove, carry it apparently by the handle into the living room without spilling a drop, set it on the floor, and slurp up all the chicken noodle soup.
Her buddy is my daughter’s 29-pound, tri-color, Pembroke Welsh Corgi named Lorcan. It is absolutely hilarious to watch them wrestle and chase each other around the dining-room table. Three times his size and weight, Queenie plays with him with such gentleness while emitting a serious of ferocious growls. Lorcan has no fear of Queenie and totally loves his playmate.
There is nothing like a dog to give you joy, companionship and love. If you, or someone you know, is a senior and in need of a little companionship, I encourage you to find out if a “Silver Paws, Senior Hearts” program is available in your area.