All Good

First, let me apologize for the length of this post. Some folks who've read this blog have commented on my long-windedness. (Okay, complained, not commented.) And rightfully so. But this isn't about economics, or politics. It's a good story, one that deserves to be told. And if it's going to be told, it deserves to be told right. I promise not to post any more this week, so if you want to read it in chunks, you'll have several days to wade through it.

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My daughter is a senior in high school, and trying to keep up with the latest slang is like learning a new language at times ("facebook-official," for example). But one of the terms that I've come to understand perfectly well is, "It's all good."

See, I have an acquaintance - a family member, actually - who is truly all good.

His name is Dominic - Dominic Kohl Hague. He's eight years old. And he's a miniature schnauzer. He's one of three in our house; the other two are litter-mates - Max (Pixie's Maximilian) and Kramer (Baron von Kramer, but really named after the Seinfeld character, because he acts just like him). We love them all, but Dominic ... well, he's just special.

My wife and I both had dogs growing up, and I had an aging mutt when we met, but he had to be put down at the age of 13, shortly before my wife and I got married. Our daughter loves animals, and always pined away for a dog, but all of our allergies pretty much prevented it - my wife's being the worst.

But being the trouper that she is, she went through several years of allergy shots (not just to get a pet), and a little over eight years ago, we decided we could get a dog for our daughter for Christmas, in 2000. We researched breeds extensively to find one that isn't too big (big dog = big poop), is easy to train, is good with kids, and doesn't shed - as near to being hypo-allergenic as we could find. We settled on the mini schnauzer.

Next, we researched breeders, and found a good one in Oklahoma, a few hours south of us. We checked out her website, and she had a litter that would be ready for adoption in January 2001. We contacted her, and picked one, and pulled a picture of him off the website.

On Christmas morning, our daughter opened a package that contained a schnauzer wall calendar, a certificate of adoption that we'd made up for her, and a picture of the pup. At first, she didn't understand that she was actually getting the dog, but when she did, her excitement was uncontainable.

She went upstairs to the computer and spent several hours - this was Christmas, mind you, and her other gifts went entirely ignored - researching dog names. She wrote down the ones she liked. When she was done, she had filled a page front and back.

She told us that she had considered "Algonquin," but when she imagined calling, "Here, Algonquin!", it just didn't sound right. Thank God.

So she settled on Dominic - Dominic Kohl, the middle name's spelling an homage to her favorite store at the time.

(Funny aside on dog names - one of my wife's dogs when she was growing up was named "Hey You." One day a repairman came to their house, and he went out to his truck to get some tools, accidentally letting the dog out. My wife's Mom opened the front door and yelled, "Hey You, get back in here!" The poor befuddled repairman looked at her like she was the most demanding customer he'd ever had.)

When Dominic was old enough to bring home, we made the trek to Cookson, Oklahoma, near Tenkiller Lake. We found the breeder's house. It was like a trip to another world - the lady was in the shower when we got there, so her two little kids, one of them running around in diapers, let us in, and we waited (rather uncomfortably) for her. Rescue dogs were running around the house, eating out of the kids' cereal bowls that were still sitting on the floor, etc. The little guy in diapers wanted to take our daughter into his room to show her his toys, which freaked her out a bit (she was 10 at the time, at least).

Finally the breeder came out, and took us into the yard. Now, Sydney, our daughter, was free to pick any other pup she wanted, not necessarily the one in the picture. But when she stepped over the low fence into the pen, one puppy ran ahead of the others and jumped right up on her, and she recognized him.

It was Dominic, and it was love at first sight, for all of us.

We took care of the paperwork (by now the little diaper-clad guy was completely naked and running around indoors and out), and were on our way. In spite of the third-worldliness of the place, she was a good breeder, and Dom's bloodlines included show dogs.

It didn't take long to figure out that this was the smartest, strongest, fastest, and best-behaved dog any of us had ever known. Oh, he had his moments, which I'll share below, but he's always been just the best dog.

Smart? He's always known when supper time is, and he'll come sit in front of you and bark - just one short bark at a time - until you feed him. Loyal? If I'm upstairs in my office, and my wife is downstairs watching TV, he'll lie at the top of the stairs, to be in between us. Sometimes, he'll come over by my desk and do the sit-and-bark-once thing until I get up and go downstairs - seemingly saying, "That's not important - we need some family time." He uses that bark to tell us all manner of things - if we don't know right away what he wants, we get up and say, "Show me," and he does.

Strong? When he plays "tug" with one of his toys, he can practically pull my arm out of the socket. He never loses at "tug," he just eventually feels sorry for us and lets go, so that we can throw his toy again. He can also do a flip in the air to catch a ball, landing perfectly on his feet every time.

Fast? We have a 20-acre woods behind our house, so we get squirrels, rabbits, birds, and all kinds of other critters in the yard. Even a full-grown rabbit doesn't stand a chance. He's scary-fast, and can turn on a dime. Every summer I get to play "carcass removal" a few times. He's even caught two full-grown robins on the ground, before they could take off.

There are many more examples, but this post is going to run long enough. Maybe I should write a book, a la "Marley and Me."

Some of his "moments":

On his first birthday, my wife made plans to spend the entire day just hanging out with him (she's like that). So, on this particularly nice mid-November day, they were in the back yard, and my wife was going to plant some hyacinth bulbs. Her mistake? Setting the bag down. Dominic grabbed it, and took off running, scattering bulbs all over the yard. My wife tried to catch him, but remember how fast I said he was? If he doesn't want to be caught, it's not happening. And this was his game.

During the chase, he also managed to ingest a bulb or two. So my wife called the vet, and they said, yes, they can be toxic. So in to the vet's office she went, and he spent the rest of his birthday there, getting ipecac squirted in his mouth so he could throw up.

One Wednesday night a little before Christmas, when Dominic was two, I worked quite late while my wife and daughter went to youth group at our church, where my wife volunteered. I got home after they did, and my daughter met me at the door, in tears. When I asked what was wrong, she sobbed that Dominic had gotten into some candy, and had made messes all over the house, and my wife was cleaning them up. Now, this dog never got into much of anything (okay, we found him on the kitchen table once, eating everyone's pork chops), and he was housebroken in about a week, so this was unusual.

My daughter's tears led me to believe that my wife must be pretty mad at the dog - it takes a lot to make Sydney cry - so I went upstairs to find my wife, treading cautiously all the way. I found her in the hallway, outside the laundry room, scrubbing the carpet - apparently he'd had some major explosions from both ends. She was crying, herself. When I asked her what was wrong, she sobbed, "I killed my dog!" (He wasn't dead, but she knew dogs aren't supposed to have chocolate.)

It seems he'd gotten into a dish of Hershey's Kisses that was on an end table in our living room, next to the sofa, onto which he climbed to access the candy. When my wife and daughter got home, the dish was empty. There were four Hershey's Kiss wrappers on the floor. Apparently he'd unwrapped the first four - I said he was smart - then decided, "Screw it," and just ate the rest, wrappers and all. I figure maybe that saved him, as the foil irritated his stomach enough that the stuff came up - and out - right away.

Later, we re-filled the dish to its previous point of full-ness, and counted the Hershey's Kisses. There were 50. He's on the big side for his breed, but still weighs just about 20 lbs. That's a lot of chocolate for me, let alone a dog that size.

When I say he never got into anything, I should mention that when he was a pup and we'd leave him home, he did enjoy going into our half-bath in the entry hall, and grabbing the toilet paper, unrolling it out into the foyer. But that was about it. Oh, we did keep the candy dishes out of reach after the Hershey's Kiss incident.

He also enjoyed getting up on one of the spare dining room chairs, to look out the window at the neighbor's back deck, where they would tie up their dog - he'd sit their and bark that yappy schnauzer bark, indignant at the invasion of his space. After all, he was master of all he surveyed.

On one such occasion, my wife walked to the dining room doorway from the kitchen, and yelled at him to stop barking. Realizing he was in trouble, he took the path of least resistance to get to her - which involved jumping onto our nice inlaid-wood dining room table. When he hit the slick, polished surface, he slid across it, and fearing the fall off the other side, dug in his claws to arrest the slide. Now, our table has "character."

Another time, my wife called me at work. Dominic had gotten out of our fenced back yard, and she couldn't find him. I won't say she was in a panic, but ... my office is just three miles from home, so I left and headed that way. As I was driving down our block, toward our house, there was Dominic, soaking wet and trotting home. Guess he'd had his fill of playing in the neighbors' fountains and so forth, and was ready to come home. So I rolled down my window and yelled, "Dominic! You get home!" He looked at me like, "Where do you think I'm going? Sheesh!" and continued on his way.

When we arrived home at the same time, there was my wife, standing on the porch, trying to be mad but crying as she scolded him: "You little shit!" He ran to her, and she took him in her arms and hugged him, impervious to the mud, while he kissed her tears.

At the risk of getting too long-winded, Dom's story isn't complete without telling how Max and Kramer came into our lives. We had thought for a while that Dominic might like a playmate, but we never really got serious about it. When he was two-and-a-half, my wife accompanied me on a business trip to Phoenix. We were fortunate to stay at the Biltmore, where my conference was. We spent a few extra days there, since we had a suite at the hotel.

I needed a haircut, and for what little hair I have, I just go to Great Clips. So we found one in Scottsdale. There was a wait, so I put in my name, and suggested we go to the grocery store in the strip mall and get some snacks for the suite.

My wife wanted to visit the pet store next door instead.

We went in, and they had some pens set up on the floor with puppies in them. One of the pens had two adorable mini schnauzers and a boxer, and they were fighting like mad. We picked up the schnauzers and petted them for a while, then put them back in the pen and left.

A couple days later, we went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch and had a couple of margaritas, which I blame for everything that followed. I kept saying to my wife, "You're thinking about those dogs, aren't you?" She points out that I wouldn't have kept saying that if I hadn't been thinking of them first. She's smart like that.

Of course, we wound up back at the pet store. When we walked in, the schnauzers were no longer in the pen, so I thought maybe they'd been sold. But my wife inquired about them.

The next thing I knew, we were in "the bonding room" with the two little fellas, and my wife was asking me what would be the $2,000 question (before the vet bills, etc.): "Which one should we leave behind?"

I'm a total softie when it comes to that kind of thing. One of them was just this adorable little guy with long eyelashes, who'd look at you and literally will you to take him home. That was Max, whom we've since come to learn is all about two things: food and attention. He's like Roly in "101 Dalmations."

Kramer, on the other hand, was this happy-go-lucky, ADD-suffering loose cannon of a pup who made you feel that if you didn't take him home and love him, nobody else would appreciate him. His favorite game now is chasing a ball (or a piece of ice - we call that "hockey" across the hardwood floor, sliding all the way; at least he doesn't run head-first into the wall anymore).

So my wife, who is masterful at making deals, said "Maybe they'll make us a deal." They did, and we were suddenly the owners of three miniature schnauzers.

A brief aside here, in the way of a lesson: think about the stuff the grocery stores put on the racks by the check-out line. Those are impulse buys. Chewing gum is an impulse buy. Magazines are an impulse buy. Altoids are an impulse buy.

Pure-bred schnauzers are not an impulse buy. At least not for most people.

We inquired as to our options to get them home. Flying them back to Kansas was discussed, but we learned that we couldn't get them on our flight, and it would be expensive to boot. So the next thing I know, we're planning to cancel our return flight, keep the rental car and arrange to drop it off in Kansas City, and drive three days back home with two eight-week-old puppies in tow.

You know this is all true; I'm an imaginative guy, but I could not make this up.

So, we're back at the hotel, and I'm on the phone with my secretary, making the travel arrangements, while my wife is checking in with her Mom, who's keeping Dominic (my wife's parents live about a half-hour from us, and they have three fenced acres, so they're our babysitters - the dogs know "Grandma," "Grandpa," and "Do you want to go to the farm?", and saying any of those things will work them into a cacophonic frenzy).

Then came the news: my Father-in-law had had a heart attack, and was in the hospital.

My wife had to fly home right away, but I still had to speak at the conference, so I couldn't leave. Now, I was darned if I was going to drive, by myself, three days back to Kansas with two little puppies. So my wife got an early flight, and I made arrangements to fly the pups home (which ate up the savings we'd gotten on our "deal," and then some).

At the Kansas City airport, my wife and Dominic met Max and Kramer's flight, while I took the shuttle to their terminal - a harbinger of things to come, it seemed. When their kennel came up the freight elevator, Dominic stood in front of the kennel door, refusing to let them out. That, too, was a harbinger of things to come. It was as if he was saying, "You've GOT to be kidding me! I'M the dog around here!"

The next day, we put the pups in a laundry basket and went to pick Sydney up from middle school. When she opened the back door, she had this wide-eyed look, thinking that perhaps we were dog-sitting. Nope, we told her, they're ours.

We then learned that our city requires a special permit to own three dogs. You have to fill out a multi-page form stating your qualifications and ability to care for them, show that your house will sufficiently accommodate them, and that they won't be left outside all day to bark the neighbors crazy, etc. Then, after submitting the form, an animal control officer visits your house, meets you and your dogs, then interviews the neighbors two doors on either side of you before giving the blessing.

I could be a 17-year-old single mother on crack with eight kids by six different fathers, and the city of Overland Park would not care one whit about my qualifications for or ability to care for my brood, nor the sufficiency of their environment. But by God, have three dogs, and you get the third degree. Plus the privilege of a $100 up-front permit fee and a $50 annual renewal fee to keep them. The crack mother just gets more tax deductions.

Dominic tolerated the little guys pretty well at first. He'd engage in their several-times-daily brawls, even. It was always Kramer and Dominic picking on poor little Max. Kramer's a classic, cowardly in-and-out fighter, waiting for Dominic to pin Max before grabbing a hind leg, then darting to safety when Max squirmed free.

But one day, "poor little Max" pinned Dominic, and that was the end of his participation in their little games.

If you've ever had a schnauzer, you know how deafening the high-pitched, yappy bark can be. Try it with three. Every time we'd come home, they'd all wail - led by Dom - as if we'd been gone for months. Even if we'd just been to the mailbox and back. We even taught them to "sing" - sitting and howling in unison, Kramer throwing his head back in full, lusty howl so far that he nearly topples over backward.

Not long after we brought the little guys home, our vet expanded his office to a larger space. I'm sure we funded it. I told my wife it was like endowing a chair at Harvard - the least they could do is name an examination room after us. "The Hague Wing for Schnauzer Research" - has a nice ring to it, don't you think? They've all been to the emergency clinic, and they've all been x-rayed. About a year and a half ago, our daughter went to work for our vet. She loves animals, and was thinking of going to vet school at one point. We get an employee discount, and with the tabs our three rack up, we keep thinking they'll figure out that the discount costs them more to employ Sydney than they pay her.

But enough about the whole brood. Fast-forward to last summer.

Dominic hadn't seemed his old puppy self for a while. He'd gone through various bouts of this and that - whipworms, viruses, etc. - but we could never pin anything down. Then, last summer, he was diagnosed by our vet as having diabetes - not uncommon in dogs of his breed and age.

That means twice-daily insulin shots to regulate his glucose levels, just as with a diabetic human. We were in the process of getting his glucose levels regulated with the right dosage of insulin, when he developed this impacted bowel problem. So we took him to the vet, and they cleaned him out.

Then, one Saturday morning a few days later, I came downstairs and found my wife lying on the couch, holding Dominic.

I'm no vet, but I could tell he was dying.

My wife asked what we should do, and I said we'd better get him to the vet. We did, and he took blood and ran some new tests, then came out to tell us Dominic had pancreatitis and keto-acidosis - basically, stuff that's as bad as it sounds. He told us to take him to a 24/7 doggie ICU place (which, as it turned out, is owned by a guy in my small group at church), because he'd need around-the-clock care that the vet couldn't provide.

We took him there, and it didn't sound good. They put him on a pain medication patch, and gave him an IV with fluids and meds. His abdomen was bloated, full of fluid from the pancreatitis (he's a lean dog), and that had to go down before he could start getting food, and then he'd have to be eating solids before he could start getting better.

Later, after an internal medicine specialist had examined him, my wife talked to her on the phone. She asked her what she would do if it were her dog. She said, "Well, he's in a lot of pain. I'd give it 24 hours, and if he's not getting better, I wouldn't prolong the agony."

My wife is a pragmatist. I'm eternally hopeful, in a blindly stupid way. So I figured, there's no way at seven years old (as he was then) he's going to just die. We talked about it, and I said that if a couple of days of pain could give him several more years of a good, healthy life, it would be worth it. My wife pointed out that his life hadn't really been good and healthy for a couple of years now; we just hadn't known what the problems were.

We went back to visit him that night. He was in a very large cage on the lower level of their rows of cages, in the ICU. It was nice, in that we could visit him pretty much whenever we wanted, and the cage was big enough that we could both sit in it with him, Dominic lying in between us.

We sat there and petted him. He was obviously in a great deal of pain, and his breathing was very labored. He didn't look good at all - he was going downhill, in fact. We stayed a long time, and when we told him good-bye, it didn't feel like, "See you tomorrow, boy." It felt like good-bye.

I made it to the car before the dam broke. Then I completely lost it, I don't mind saying. This good, good dog - smart, fast, funny, unconditionally loving, patient, forgiving - was slipping away from us. And we were going to have to make a very hard decision the next day. I wasn't ready for it. Every moment that I'd told him to wait until I was finished doing some stupid thing before I was ready to give him attention, all the walks I'd meant to take him on but had some excuse not to, all the beautiful spring and fall days he'd stood in the yard, smiling, tail wagging, imploring me to come outside and play with him, and I'd gone back in the house to watch TV or play guitar or some other selfish thing - all of it ran before my eyes like a guilt-ridden movie. My wife offered to drive home, but I knew the only thing that would keep me from breaking down altogether was to have something to concentrate on. When we got home, I prayed and prayed for him.

I don't recall whether we talked to the internal med doc - Dr. Grigsby, or "Grigs" to us - before we went to see him the next day. But I know I was expecting the worst.

When we got there, he sat up and was happy to see us. His breathing was still strained, but vastly improved. He was better. We were guardedly optimistic.

We went back later that day, and it was time for him to go outside. My wife asked if we could take him, and they said yes. So we put a leash on him and took him out. He practically dragged my wife around the building. He was getting better.

For the rest of that week, he got better every day. Yes, it was a very expensive week. But it was worth every penny. Besides, after a couple of days, what were we going to do, say, "Sorry, but we've hit our limit - we'll have to put him down now"?

When he came home, he was the old Dominic - playful as a pup. He played tug again, strong as ever. In fact, he wanted to play every night - it was part of his routine again. And it had indeed been worth it - a couple of days' pain for what looked like several more years of the old, healthy Dominic. We got his insulin dosage right to regulate his glucose, and while it imposed on our routine, it was more than worth it. At every follow-up visit, he was just fine - our old Dominic, only not "old" at all, but a spry puppy again.

Last Sunday morning, I started a new music gig: leading worship with three other guys from our praise band at a local assisted living facility for the elderly. A bright young seminary intern from our church leads services there the first and third Sundays of each month, and we committed to play one Sunday a month. So at about 8:00 am, with my wife still in bed and the dogs in their kennel, I loaded my guitar and gear into the car and went to play.

On the way home, I called my wife to ask if she wanted me to pick up breakfast. No answer. I got home, and her car was gone. I went inside, and Max and Kramer met me at the door - frantic, as they always are when Dom gets to "go bye-bye" and they have to stay home.

I tried my wife's cell. No answer. I figured it was no big deal; I knew Dominic was out of the special diet food we have to feed him now, and I thought she was out somewhere trying to buy some. So I went down to the basement and started straightening up my studio, getting sheet music put away and setting up my guitars on their stands, etc.

My wife came home a bit later, without Dominic. He was back at the doggie hospital. When she woke up, he couldn't get out of the kennel. She carried him downstairs and outside, and set him on the ground. He just lay there. So she picked him up, put him in a blanket-lined laundry basket, put it in the car, and took him to Mission Med Vet. They said he had the impacted poop issue going again - we didn't know why - so they were going to clean him out, then run some tests and see what the problem was.

They were very busy with emergencies, and didn't call us back. So we went to see him Sunday evening. The doc on duty said that the enema was successful - "very productive," as she put it. He sat up and whimpered when we got there. This time, he was in a smaller, upper-level cage, so we couldn't sit with him. We petted him, and he just sat there with his head down, panting, and I noticed he didn't seem to want to look up. When I lifted his chin, his eyes were closed. When he opened them, he was squinting.

We left, and I tried to think of anything but Dominic. I didn't want to fear the worst. He could have another bout of pancreatitis. We had already agreed that we wouldn't prolong things if he did - with a diabetic dog, that stuff can recur, and we knew that while a few days' pain for a few years' health was worth it, running through that cycle every few months was not.

The next day, they called in an eye specialist to examine him. He had uveitis, an inflammation of the eye. They said it could be cleared up, but that it could also lead to cataracts. I did a little google-searching, and found that cataracts for dogs are operable, as they are with humans. It's not cheap, but again, I'd do it for him. Blindness just wouldn't be an option, not at eight years of age. If he were 13 or 14, it would be different; I could opt to put him down.

My wife brought him home Monday - yesterday. When I came home from work, he was excited as ever to see me, but then he just laid on the couch, resting his eyes. They'd dilated his pupils, and the sun was very bright yesterday, so he didn't want to be outside. I can understand, having had my own pupils dilated by the optometrist, then going outside on a sunny day without sunglasses.

He's on a regimen of various meds - taken both orally and in the eyes - that keeps my wife treating him about 18 times a day, not counting the insulin shots. He's eating fine, and she told me that today he went out in the yard in the bright sunshine and rolled in the grass on his back, as he loves to do.

So we'll see. I'm hoping - and praying - that he recovers from the inflammation, and it's nothing more than that.

I had wanted to post this last fall, after he recovered from the pancreatitis. But I never got around to it, as is typical for me.

Well, I couldn't possibly write any of this if he were gone. It would be too painful. But Dominic is the best dog ever - he's ALL GOOD - and his story needed to be written. So here it is.

He's too good a dog to have to suffer this way. So I hope this goes away, and he has several more years of great health, with no more trips to Mission Med Vet, as wonderful as the people are there.

And I hope that, if that happens, I never take him for granted again.

Dominic, you are all good, buddy. All good.