Standing in the shower last night I hear a dog howling. Without looking I know exactly who it is. Aboo.
We have never been owned by a Great Dane. First time for everything but does he push the boundaries…
He entered our lives in a very unassuming way, meant to be a foster but became a foster fail. Here is how it started.
July 2019, winter and just the worst time of the year. Six months into being the proud owners of a plot ( not…) and every night I crawl into bed hoping the next day will be an improvement on the last. Things are rather ‘tight’ at home. Christopher is suffering from serious buyers remorse, scared to death of his wife bringing every waif and stray home because now she has SPACE. Nevertheless I am hosting my first function at the plot and things are looking up. It’s a decadent chocolate celebratory evening with 40 seats booked.
We are going to P-A-R-T-Y…
Three days before the function my friend, Odette, a Vet nurse at a local Vet Clinic asks if I would help her out with fostering a puppy. The emphasis on fostering. I agree thinking what could the consequences be? I am already in the dog box what could the addition of one more animal do? In the frenzy of organization and execution of the decadent function I completely forget about the impending arrival.
The function went off very well and I was still recuperating from the night before when Odette rang and said I could collect my new house guest. Nothing prepared me for the pitiful sight that waited for me. The puppy was all bone. He was sporting a jacket that was too big for him and had a sorrowful look on his face. I picked him up and although he had long, lanky legs he had no weight on him, he felt like a feather.
Odette told me he had been brought to the clinic a week before, on death’s door. They estimated him to be 6 weeks old. He looked like a Boerboel but it was hard to tell. In the week at the clinic he had picked up weight but he was still very emaciated. Apparently he had been found in a suburb not far from the clinic, starving and dehydrated. At first they thought he had Parvo and wanted to put him to sleep immediately but lucky for him Odette thought a little further. She offered him a little bit of food and he gobbled it up. He was just starving.
I brought him home, Christopher took one look at his little thin body and before he could say anything I said:” This is an IGS dog…” IGS – I am Going Soon, code for all the exploits of the past brought home that were on foster status. Some never left and other found good homes (and let me tell you there were a lot of IGS) but we were well accustomed to new intakes in our family. Christopher couldn’t really say much as the puppy didn’t even have enough strength to stand for long so he just did the only thing he could do..accept, submit, turn around and leave the room…
The pup weighed 4,2 kg upon arrival and for his age it should have been double that weight. He was permanently cold and on the first night I went to Briony and said:’ If you keep this puppy with you tonight you don’t ever have to buy me another Mother’s Day gift”. I was kidding about the gift thing of course. The next morning Briony walked into the room and announced that the pup had never moved in the night. He had curled up next to Briony and went to sleep. His first night in a bed, snug as a bug. My mistake, I should have thought of that. Pawned my Mother’s Day gifts for nothing. The second night he found a spot on the bed between Christopher and myself, snuggling up to our warm bodies and then promptly went to sleep. That was mistake number two. Every night thereafter Christopher and I looked at each other and said:” One more night, then, he has to sleep in his bed.”
Night time would come, we would be getting comfortable in bed and Aboo would be getting more comfortable. Yes, we named him. Mistake no three.The little guy started putting on weight, week one went to week two followed by week three. Now Aboo owned the house. He got to know the daily routine and love the daily trips to the farm.There was no issues introducing him to the farm animals he just accepted everything we threw at him. Back at home he started showing favouritism towards one person…Dad. Dogs are actually so clever.
When Christopher moved Aboo would follow. That lanky frame that seemed to move on four stilts shadowed the tall guy that would become his best friend. There was no definite decision made about Aboo becoming a Wilde, it just happened.IGS turned into IS (I am Staying).
As Aboo grew we started seeing that he has relations in the Great Dane tribe as well as Boerboel, the mannerisms very apparent. He got bigger, winter turned into summer and he was still sleeping on the bed. By now Christopher and I would wake up sleeping on the remnants of bed left to us after Aboo had made himself comfortable at night. We started the Get Aboo In His Own Bed campaign. Every night I would put him in his own bed, rewarding him for being a good boy and every morning we would wake up with a dog in-between us. Four years later we are still hopeful that we will succeed in his training. In the interim he is appeasing us by going to bed where we want him to be.We wake up on a different page.
Aboo has very strong feelings about discipline. You can raise your voice but that’s all. Even raising your voice will bring out the fear biter in him so we work through different channels with him. I have a strong feeling that even though he was only six weeks when he came to us he was manhandled and he hasn’t forgotten. He also dislikes Oupa intensely and the feeling is mutual. I used to give them the talk saying that we are all family, we don’t have to like each other but we have to get along. After a few altercations ( started by Oupa) and stitches I have decided that is best to just keep them apart.. It is quite sad because I loved taking my dogs to the stables for the whole day but unfortunately we can only do visits now. Oupa has to be locked in Lennie’s room when Aboo is visiting on the farm. Oupa doesn’t really mind, he loves lounging in front of the tv late afternoon, watching his soapies and this gives us time to walk the dogs and sit under the big old tree, peacefully. Sometimes you just got to roll with the punches and those two will definitely do each other previous bodily harm…family at war and all that.
Driving in the Goanywherevehicle with Aboo has also had its challenges. I hardly every use the back seat of the car. The entire back area is rigged for the comfort of the dogs. Once afternoon I had guests and I was preparing the seats at the back for them when I noticed that the seatbelt was broken. Upon closer inspection I found that it had been chewed. Then I started noticing the gnawing marks on the door handles etc. There could only be one culprit… Aboo. I don’t know when he found the time to desecrate my car like that because his favourite pastime when I aim driving is standing with this face out of the window, ears flapping in the wind, right behind me. I had to devise a plan to stop the car carnage and quickly. Aboo found the solution to the problem before I did. One afternoon I was travelling back from the farm and I had bought a bag of butternuts. One of the little suckers must have escaped and Aboo got hold of it. He ate that butternut with relish. Problem solved.
Now every time we travel in the car there is a half eaten butternut rolling around in the back. If not a butternut then a carrot. Aboo loves vegetables and will lie in the back of the car keeping himself busy eating a raw butternut or carrot keeping himself entertained and my car in one piece. Saved by a butternut. I always fill my car at the same petrol station. I know the staff there and may dogs are a constant source of amazement to them. When I stop there I have dogs hanging out of each window and the staff, although apprehensive in the beginning, now greet them like family. One afternoon I stopped to fill my car and the attendants all started cleaning my windows whilst the pump was running. One of the guys came to me and said;” Your dog is eating a pumpkin in the back of the car.” Hmmm, yes. The things we do to keep that dog entertained.
During lockdown in 2020 we noticed that Aboo was struggling with his back legs. Things were rather ‘tight’ at home as we had to shut our business for three months. Whilst we were not generating any income the expenses kept piling up, it was just the worst timing for Aboo to break.
After much deliberation we made an appointment with a specialist vet, hoping for a small miracle in the form of a few tablets and a manageable account. Armed with the credit card I made my way to Johannesburg in the Goanywherevehicle and a dog gnawing on a butternut in the back. X-rays were done and then the specialist gave me the prognosis. It wasn’t good. Aboo’s cruciate ligaments in both back legs were shot. The vet calmly looked me in the eye and told me he could do both legs ( in separate operations) for the price of a small car. I looked at him in disbelief and my face must have registered my shock because he quickly added: “and that’s with quite a generous discount, Mrs Wilde..”
WTF? Really… I stood there thinking that we are going to have to make the decision to put Aboo to sleep. There was no way we could afford the cost and we couldn’t let Aboo walk around in pain either. The vet told me he would give me time to think about it and with that I called Christopher to give him the outcome.
I remember standing in the examination room, phone in one hand, dog’s leash in the other and saying:”What should we do?” There was a long silence and then with a big sigh my fabulous husband said: ” Put it on the credit card, we will make plan.”
Thats how Aboo got two bionic legs on the same year the we were all placed under house arrest. The operations were done one after the other with a recuperation time in-between. Aboo was a terrible patient but somehow we made it through 2020 . To be honest it wasn’t my finest year. Thats all I will say about that.
Every night Aboo lies and waits for Christopher to come home. He waits in the passage although he is scared of the dark. That’s real love. Every morning we wake up with a Great Dane X lying splayed over the bed and the two of us on the edge That’s after we go to bed putting him in his bed.
I feed my dogs twice a day, morning and evening. Without fail Aboo will run and sit on his space where I feed him, upright like a sentinel. I don’t need to look at the time, Aboo will tell me.
He can curl himself up in the smallest ball when he is cold or lie belly up, legs in the air when he is really comfortable. He has the knack of reversing his bottom onto the couch or bed when he wants to get up which makes me giggle. He is by far the most complexed dog we have ever had but his quirks make him more loveable. He is the leading chorus when I sing the Happy Birthday song, his howling reaching epic proportions. I have to import his godmother Odette to come and cut his toenails because he wants to bite me when I want to do it. It’s ok, I have learnt to work with his idiosyncrasies.I might have forgotten to mention that he is also allergic to dog food and has to have special food which costs a fortune. How lucky are we with this dog?!
I often wonder why he crossed our paths. Was it because we were still reeling from the loss of our big boy Gaston? Is there something like reincarnation for dogs? Could it be that when you love an animal so much and they cross the rainbow bridge they see how sad you are and then somehow come back? I like to think so because I can see a little bit of DJ, Delilah, Buddy and Gaston in this dog. I like to think they managed to come back to me albeit in this cantankerous dog’s body.
Aboo continues to amuse us with his idiosyncrasies. May this last for a long time.
