Saying goodbye to the “baby”

He is with us every day. We cannot, will not, ever forget him. There isn’t a corner of the apartment where we don’t see him, or on the many spots on the floor he claimed for his naps.

His loving, playful, happy spirit was with us every day for almost 11 years. Now, his ashes are in a beautiful rosewood box, next to a photo of him, and his paw print. They are precious to us, as are our memories of him.

Every day was a happy day, for us and for Chamorro, who was a 20-pound, black-and-white mostly Shih Tzu. Also a drop of Pekingese, and an ounce of Lhasa Apso.

In print, for fun, I called him Nut Bag. I never used his real name as I never use my wife’s name. There are too many anti-social trolls on social media.

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The first time I saw him was at a 13th Street fair, where food, clothing and other merchandise was on sale, along with a Saved Me rescue booth.

Because I love dogs, I stopped to look. My eye was drawn to a small ball of black and white fur, with huge dark brown eyes. It was a Saturday and I was on my way to work, but I could not help myself. I slung my bag over my shoulder and bent down to pick him up, slowly.

He did not resist, and I had someone take this picture.

My girl friend, who was to become my wife, fell deeply in love with him the first time she saw him and immediately started calling him “the Baby.” She has a very deep maternal well. 

When we adopted him, we became “parents” of the “Baby,” using the terms “Mommy” and “Daddy” — which is common among those who live with dogs — because the responsibility is much like parents. 

I don’t like the word “owner.” I much prefer "guardian," because that expresses the reality of the situation. He was not “owned.” He was a family member.

While I called him my “little boy,” I never called him my son. I have a son, who is human, but Chamorro would be my forever little boy. He remains so today and forever, in bittersweet memory.

He was not always an obedient little boy. He could be head strong and self-directed, and not always amenable to Daddy’s commands.

Just like a human 2-year-old, which is the approximate level of a dog’s intelligence. And with small breeds there can be SDS — Small Dog Syndrome — which causes them to be stubborn with guardians and sometimes aggressive with other dogs. Chamorro had no dog friends.

When approached by other dogs, especially larger ones, he would bark, growl, lunge — put on an offensive display.

Fortunately, most large dogs in Center City are well socialized. They ignored him,  and I usually warned Chamorro that one of these days he was going to get his ass kicked.

There are several small breeds in our condo building, which made friendly approaches to him on first meeting, which were returned with his snarling hostility.  

A neighbor dog, Kirby, is a purebred Shih Tzu, who tried the friendly approach only to be attacked with barks, lunges, and snarls. It didn’t take Kirby long to respond the same way, and I didn’t blame him. 

Chamorro acted like a bully to every dog in the building except Benjamin, a smaller nervous yellow mutt. My bully got along with him, possibly because as a tiny dog he was no threat.

If we were in the lobby, other guardians would wait outside until we got in the elevator, to avoid dog fights — or at least insane barking because all the dogs were leashed and couldn't get at each other. I found the howling of the pint-sized pooches laughable, each aggressive while in the safety of the leash. Had the leashes been dropped, would they actually have attacked one another?

I doubt it.

As much as he despised other dogs, that was how much Chamorro loved humans, every single one.

I don’t know the root of his canine phobia.

We adopted him almost 11 years ago from Saved Me, a rescue group then located in Northern Liberties, now closed. Saved Me took him out of the ACCT Philly public shelter, where he had been held for three weeks. 

During that time he was confined in a small-dog cage, surrounded by the terrifying barking cacophony of the shelter. Not ACCT’s fault — the shelter must take in every dog presented to it, and there is simply not enough room, and never will be until pet guardians become more responsible.

ACCT Philly had found him on the street as a stray.

He had no collar, no ID, no microchip.

It’s hard to believe anyone would discard such a sweet, well-trained dog, but it happens in life. 

Was he a runaway or a throwaway? We never would know about his previous life.

When we had our vet examine him, his age was estimated as 6, and he also was suffering from pneumonia. We agreed to allow Saved Me to keep him until he was cured, but we visited the baby once a week in his cage at Saved Me. We were allowed to take him out for a walk. Here he is with Mommy taking a break during a walk in Northern Liberties.

Staffers there had named him Mario, and the volunteers who walked and played with him said he had a lot of “personality.”

Which he did.

We know he was never abused by people by the way he cheerfully ran up to any human, tail wagging in happy greeting. Male, female, young, old, Black, white — none of that mattered to Chamorro. If you were in his home and sitting on the sofa, he’d be beside you in two shakes.

There was nothing he ever wanted, other than to be with family. Whenever my wife walked from room to room, he was at her heels. When she sat in her chair, he became her backrest. He was a Mama’s boy.

He wasn’t really crazy about going for walks, unless we were both leaving. He always wanted to be with us.

He was outgoing, and happy, every day of the life he shared with us.

And not a too-short life. He lived beyond the years allotted to his breeds, but still left us too soon. The apartment cries in loneliness at his absence.  

That is the heartbreak that binds all pet guardians. He aged gracefully, always seeming more like a puppy than the little old man he actually was. 

Speaking for dogs, someone once wrote that dogs are a chapter in humans’ lives, “but you are the whole book of ours.”

And there was nothing Chamorro wanted more than to be with his family, whether at home or travelling. He loved road trips, and was beautifully behaved in the car, spending hours in Mommy’s lap, or at her feet, or sometimes stretched out across the back seat.

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When we first adopted him, we learned he had severe separation anxiety. 

We tried crate training him, because the experts say dogs will come to view that as their lair.

Not Chamorro, and not my last dog, my beloved Cheech, who was a 50-pound Doberman/retriever mix who my then-wife and I adopted as a 6-week-old puppy from the suburban Hope for the Animals rescue.

Chamorro was my first small dog, and my first male dog, and the first of a “cute” breed. The small breeds tend to have large, round eyes, much like human babies, and short snouts.

To me, he looked like an ewok.

He would often stand up on his rear legs and offer me his head while I was sitting in a chair.

I would pet his head, and rub his ears — he loved that — while crooning, “You so ugly.”

We both loved it.

Over the years, he fought off several illnesses.

He lived with Cushing’s, a disease that turned the fur on his back into something that looked like a scab, but was not painful. 

About three years ago, out of the blue, he was diagnosed with a cancer that would kill him in 3-9 months, we were told by the vet.

Mommy wouldn’t accept that, and posted this in the living room.

With great cancer medicine, he did. Happily, the medicine did not make him sick, as sometimes happens. He remained cheerful throughout.

Then, recently, it was diabetes, and Mommy had to give him daily insulin injections.

Veterinary care, tests, and meds, are extremely expensive and I was extremely aware of the many guardians who could not afford to treat their four-legged family members. Earlier in my life, I couldn’t, but I could now, and did.

One thing my wife and I agreed on — his last day would not be his worst day.

We would rather let him leave a day early than a day late, if late would bring him pain.

Our emotions wanted to keep him until the very last instant, but that was selfishness on our part because he was so loved, so needed, so much a fabric of our life.

It was in his interest to let him go when he needed to go, and he told us when the end was near.

On his last day, as Mommy took him for a walk, he collapsed at the elevator. She brought him into our apartment, back on his feet.

As he walked across the room, he was suddenly flung three feet into a wall.

I had never seen anything like that, and it struck me as if he had been grabbed by the hand of death.

Because I was recovering from surgery, Mommy took him to the open-all-night pet hospital, a place he never liked because it meant staying overnight in a cage, and Chamorro never wanted to be away from Mommy and Daddy.

Staff reported he always spent long periods barking in the cage he hated.

On this night, he did not bark. He was put in the cage, he laid down, and surrendered. There was no fight left in our little boy. I think he knew.

Doctors discovered a huge mass in his chest, after he had beat cancer for three years, and was now fighting diabetes. He had always been strong and happy. He was never “sick.”

I remembered a Hemingway line about something happening gradually, and then suddenly.

With tears in her eyes, Mommy whispered in his small drop ear that it was OK if he had to go. She gave him permission, with a breaking heart. 

It was time for us to assume the awful and thankless role of guardian as God. 

From the place he loved most, Mommy’s lap, he painlessly went to sleep even before the needle was inserted, and he  left our aching hearts and crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

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The Rainbow Bridge (author unknown)

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor. Those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when your pet suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent. His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special pet finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress his beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together….