R.I.P. Pokey

Suzie and I were having an evening of hashing out differences last night. We still struggle occasionally with offending each other by use and non-use of possessions--Favoritism and things like that. Anyway, we had just reached a good point of understanding after a couple hours of talking about things when this text message came in from Sarah:

"Pokey just had a heart attack and died"

I stared at my cell phone in disbelief. Not even an hour earlier Sarah and I were talking on the phone about her upcoming transition into college life and things we were going to to this weekend.

"What!?" I shouted at the phone. Suzie was sitting next to me and asked what it was about. After telling her, we both were numb with disbelief.

Pokey was a special dog. Pokey was a weird dog. But most of all, Pokey was someone's dog.

Teresa came home with Pokey as a little puppy only a year and a helf ago from one of her annual trips over to visit her friend, Karen, on the other side of Washington. Yes, Pokey was very, very young. Karen can be very persuasive, and when you couple that with the fact that Teresa can be easily swayed, she might come back with anything. Several years ago she came home with Cream, a kittycat they still have. I might add that neither of these animals were "first choice" picks. Cream was always a little more "stand-offish" than most cats, and also tended to pee on things. I figure that one of her parents was probably a feral farm cat. Anyway, Pokey was odd from the start. There was just something about her that seemed "not quite right" to me. Sarah was less than impressed with her mother's choice of a dog too, and tended to make less than favorable comments about how stupid she was or whatever. That was in the early days. Sarah and Teresa both grew to love that dog, and I also went straight for the dog whenever I stopped in for a visit.

Pokey took over their house as many dogs do. Hair, toys, and all type of things dog related were strewn about. Pokey loved tossing floppy toys into the air and catching them. She wasn't a "ball" dog--She liked things that had swing and sway to them. She was perfectly happy entertaining herself if she had to. They told me once about going to a dog class with her, and she spent the whole time playing with a toy that was given to the dog owners--Oblivious of everything else around her. The other dogs sat and watched her tossing the toy into the air and catching it all by herself.

One day when Pokey was only half grown she broke one of her front legs. Apparently she was tied up in the back yard and was near the fence where the next door neighbors also dogs-Two big, burly ones. Near as they can tell, even though the fence is solid, they did something against the fence that scared her, and in her haste or movements, she self-inflicted a spiral fracture or something on herself. Teresa apparently paid a lot of money to have her leg fixed, but her walk was never the same. From that day on she had a sort of "hopping" limp whenever she ran or played. We thought it odd at that time that a dog could break a leg so easily, but dismissed it.

One day last summer I visited Sarah and she was out back with Pokey. She was having the time of her life chasing bubbles that Sarah was blowing. She could have easily done it all day long (click to see them full size)



Last night Teresa and her friend, Noelle, took their dogs for a 4-mile walk as they had done so many times before. It wasn't a run for the dogs--It was a walk for the ladies. It was what they liked to do, and gave them exercise, a time to socialize, and also afforded their dogs a time to get out and get the same. When they got back to Noelle's house, Teresa said Pokey got a "second wind" and started jumping and running around, then all of a sudden had a seizure and folded up and died on the spot. When we think back, it's apparent that she had some sort of developmental issues with her body. It's like she grew too fast or something.

Sue and I went down there right after getting the message to give them support and talk with them about it all. Noelle's husband Kurt was just finishing up the burial when we arrived. It was a sad, sad evening.

Although it's very hard on both Sarah and Teresa, it came at a bad time for Teresa especially because Sarah will be away at college starting next week.

We're all animal lovers, and were (and are still) devastated. Rest in peace, Pokey.