Bindi: A Eulogy
Aug 10th 2001 – March 22nd 2017
I married my wife in June of ’01, we bought our first house
in Aug of ’01, by the end of Oct ’01 we had our first child, a 2 month old lab
mix. My wife, on a bit of a whim, stopped by the Seattle Humane center and
there was this litter of puppies – but they all had holds on them for adoption.
As my wife was looking at them, one of the holds was removed as if fate had
decided this little puppy should be part of the family.
I came down to play with her and make sure we would be a good fit for her (you may think it is supposed to be the other way around…it isn’t). She was full of energy and kisses. We filled out the paperwork and got her ready to get fixed and we would pick her up the next day. A lot of money was spent in the next 24 hours buying all the supplies you need to go along with a dog.
I picked her up from the shelter’s vet office, where they
warned me she might be a little groggy and lethargic….they were very
wrong. Even post op she was full of life
and energy, and chewing, lots of chewing.
At the time of adoption, my wife and I were big fans of Steve
Irwin, Crocodile Hunter – specifically The Crocodile Hunter Diaries featuring
his then 3 year old daughter Bindi. When it came to choose a name for our
puppy…yes we named our dog after Bindi Irwin.
She took a long time
to potty train. During the day she got really good, but at night it was tough.
We started out by laying newspaper all over the bedroom floor and slowly
shrinking that spot and it was working but she was taking her sweet time. She so badly wanted to sleep up on the bed
with us, but we wanted to make sure she knew her place in the pack and were
determined to keep her sleeping on the floor. One night we finally relented and
allowed her up on the bed to sleep – and she slept through the entire night
without an accident. I’m convinced she was so happy to be up there with us that
she was worried if she got down to go potty she wouldn’t be allowed back up –
so she held it.
Bindi was so eager to please and receive praise and she
loved people, her double curl tail would wag when meeting folks or whenever
anyone ever came over (In later years, this double curl tail was especially
adept at clearing every glass and dish off the coffee table and onto the floor
with a mighty wag). I only ever heard
her growl and bark at a stranger once and to be fair that woman was wearing a
HUGE wide brimmed hat topped with fake flowers..and a fake bird, honestly she’s
lucky I didn’t growl and bark at her.
She was part lab (we never did figure out what the other
parts were – although with the double curl tail we suspect Basenji) and that
part of her shown through whenever anyone came to the house. Friends, family,
repair folks –all were greeted with a wag and her very obvious thoughts that
they were there to see her. We had a basket full of dog toys, which did get some play, but were mostly for her to take out and show to people when they came to visit.
Walks were always a treat, especially the Marymore off leash
dog park, she would run and run. The kind of dog that didn’t really chase the
ball, but chased the dogs that were chasing the ball. And she would find other
canine friends to play with. Occasionally she had an issue with other dogs,
mostly with boy dogs trying to do what boy dogs try to do – she would spin
around and snap at them, no time for their shenanigans.
She was never a big swimmer, she loved to wade though. She
would walk around in the chest high water, picking up leaves with her mouth,
and occasionally sticking her snout underwater.
One of the few times she did go swimming was during a family trip to
Bank Lake. Susi went out swimming and Bindi became very concerned, she swam out
to Susi and would circle her – as soon as Susi grabbed onto our puppy, Bindi
would make a beeline straight for shore. Obviously her owner was drowning and
needed rescuing.
My in-laws used to live on Lopez Island, and Bindi used to
love to visit and chase all the wild rabbits. She never caught them, but she
loved to chase them. We would walk onto
the ferry and Bindi had her own little doggy backpack to carry her stuff, she
would get so many compliments.
It was a good life and then it became better once we found out Ethan was on his way. We were very concerned about making sure bringing a baby into the house with Bindi went as smooth as possible. We read articles – I came home early from the hospital bringing a blanket so Bindi could get used to the smell. Either we didn’t need to worry, or we did things right cause Bindi was fantastic with Ethan. She would come get us whenever Ethan started crying. And once Ethan started sleeping in his own room, Bindi went from sleeping on or next to our bed to sleeping on the landing in front of our door, but with Ethan’s bedroom door in line of sight. A practice she continued through to a new house right up until recently when she couldn’t handle the stairs and she would get better sleep by staying downstairs.
Before it became too much of a burden on her, we used to
take her with us everywhere. Portland, Sun Valley, Banks Lake, Birch Bay,
Bellingham, Long Beach (and many other local beaches) – she was always up for a
road trip. When Ethan would wander off
to explore the woods or the sand, Bindi would follow, just kind of keeping an
eye on things.
It started with her desire for cat food – we tried everything
to keep her away from the cat food, but too many times we came home to find her
sprawled on the hard wood kitchen floor (and we would curse ourselves for
forgetting to put up the baby gate we bought to keep her out), until one last
time she messed up her legs. The vet was
pretty sure her knee joints were made of scar tissue for years as they slowly
wore down.
Then a little less then a year ago, out of nowhere she got
really sick. Turns out in her later years she really wanted to try gym socks,
cross it off the list. Although we did
surgery, and she recovered well (and we got precious more time with her) – she was
never quite the same.
Eventually age and all the pain and suffering that comes
with a body not working the way it was supposed to caught up with Bindi, and we
made that toughest of choices to give her some peace.
