Four-legged Bambino

After losing our 13-year-old cat to cancer in the fall of 2009, I wasn't prepared to be back at the vet's office in just over a year looking at another ominous x-ray, this time for our dalmatian, Tino.

Unlike the year before, we thought there was something we could do. Wonderpup had surgery, started chemo in October and I started looking forward to his ninth birthday in March. But alas, he only made it through two rounds of treatment before he too, was gone, before we even unpacked his xmas stocking.

It's different this time, because G-man is a year older and a year wiser than when Timothy cat moved on. But still, I don't think he's quite old enough to carry memories of Tino very long. And that hurts, because even though this is a blog about the G-man, he might not be here at all if it hadn't been for Tino.

You may recall that for most of my life, I didn't want a kid. And the same held true for dogs. I was a cat person through and through - they are smart, self-sufficient, mostly clean. Oddly enough, the reasons against both baby and puppy were the same: they smell, they always seem to leaking some sort of fluid, you have to clean up their poop, they require a lot of work, you have to hire someone to watch them and they make a general overall mess.

Then Tino came home. He was everything I hated and became everything I loved. I learned that cleaning up poop isn't the end of the world. Hiring a sitter seemed like a natural thing to do. I caught the paparazzi bug and took pictures of him just being cute. We bought teething toys and worried about potty training. He was clingy and needy and nicknamed Captain Underfoot. We puppy-proofed shelves and installed baby gates. We carefully selected a daycare to make sure he was happy and well cared for when we weren't home. I became friends with people in the neighborhood just because they had dogs. We had birthday parties, complete with canine guests and doggie cake/ice cream. And when he was about 3 years old, we sent him to camp...where he earned merit badges. Upon regaling his week to my mother and admitting he had spent a day there dressed as a cowboy, she finally said, "You need a child."

Maybe she was right; it turned out I had a pretty strong maternal instinct and Tino got the first benefits. Through him, I learned more about myself and who I could be. He taught me patience and selflessness. When it was finally time for "the real thing" I wasn't nervous to be a mom because it seemed I'd been one already. In fact, when I quit my job to work at home, spending more time with my dog was definitely a leading factor in the decision. It's like I was a SAHM before I was a SAHM. I was hooked.

I've heard that dogs are practice kids. I always sang to Tino on our walks and made up songs just for him, so when I got pregnant and started thinking about lullabies and kids music, he simply got more added to his playlist. He listened to me as I pondered names, curled up on baby-to-be's play mat the moment we took it out of the box and saw every ball that came into the house for our new human kid as his own. And after G-man arrived, I secretly loved that if we went out and hired a babysitter, Tino got the company, too. It was sort of like getting two for one.

The G-man spent a lot of time with Tino - daily walks, sharing my lap with him and constantly telling him to go to his bed instead of playing with us. So right now, he still knows that he had a dog and what his name was. He knew that Tino was sick and differentiates his doctors between the kitten vet (one had kittens for adoption in the waiting room) and the fish vet (the other had a fish tank) and remembers the buildings when we pass by. And he knows he's gone. That took a few days to sink in - some questions about when he was coming home or if we should pick him up or when to get the stroller out to take the dog on a walk, and once he assured me that Tino would come back - but then it was so complete that I was shocked at how quickly G-man could move on.

A late 2-year-old/early 3-year-old doesn't really grasp death, but when I think about it, what more does a 37-year-old like me need to know other than our loved one is not actually coming back? They say that when pets die, they go to the Rainbow Bridge where they are happy and play and are never sick and are reunited one day with their owners. So when G-man asked where Tino was, I simply told him he was gone and now in the sky. He accepted that without question.

Then last week, one of G-man's leftover birthday balloons, his favorite train one, accidentally escaped out the back door, into a tree and then on up and away. When he asked me where the balloon went, I said, "Into the sky." My little guy looked at me and solemnly replied, "With Tino."

I'd like to think that somewhere on the Rainbow Bridge, Tino is excited that a train balloon found him. And I hope that he knows he was never my practice child, but a real big brother.