That’s what I’m called here but I can’t hold a candle to Caesar. My first dog and I arrived at the shelter in 1991 together. I was giving a gift to my family’s Collie who had recently died. Yes, I arranged for her death and sent her owners (my brother and youngest sister) out with her, sent my mother to pay the bill and I went back and collected her bed and toys then brought everyone together.
Unfortunately I’ve had to do that alone and help others do so over the years. Before Caesar came on the scene, I was running at and leaping over my abused and scared dog who I got after she was at the shelter for a year and hated men and children and they talked once, yes once, about putting her down. She was my girl and I’d spent a year with her, even with me in a neck brace, sitting in her enclosure.
She was home with me the next day. She’d been abused by a deputy sheriff and was wary of any man in uniform or even in a baseball cap. Whenever I walked toward her she jumped up as if I was going to kick her. None of that for me. First I started walking over her, then running and jumping over her and all she did was roll her eyes and ask “what is this crazy woman doing?”
We were together for ten years. She bled out and I rushed her to the vet and held her and she fought it every step of the way as I knew she would. Her ashes are in her favorite park and all the neighbors bought the city a tree in her memory. It has a better view than my homes there ever did.
The next time we got a pup at six weeks, adopted from a shelter in Texas. She was a mess, coccidia and hookworms and I had to get a vet to give her sub-q fluids three days in, after she vomited all over the car.
Then she was diagnosed with the worst hip dysplasia our vet had ever seen so I researched for weeks then had her hips taken out at six and nine months and she had to grow her own from cartilage, which she did and she’ll be nine early next year.
I told my husband I’ll still adopt strays but no more puppies. Then I met Charlie yesterday, a water spaniel pup, and told Jim OK when Zoe goes peacefully, I have the wherewithal to raise another shelter pup. I can do the training and eight walks per day. I have the food thing down and don’t have to cook for our Zoe.
Caesar is the master of “the walk.” I do the walk, and have a loose leather leash in my hand with a bag attached to the handle, in case I have to take care of her business.
I do hope that his storied career has been beneficial to others. I’ve worked with shelter dogs and spayed and neutered over 2,000 feral cats and created volunteer projects and worked with volunteers for over 20 years. Teaching dog owners to be responsible is an invaluable asset for all of us.
What is he going to do after Dog Whisperer? I can only hope that he’s not going to try herding cats, feral or otherwise! Dee
Cooking with Dee 
Zoe ran around the house like the proverbial Tasmanian Devil the other day. I’ve not seen that kind of energy in years, after a long walk. She is eleven now, and passed her first 10 year senior blood panel with flying colors. She likes to give new 8-week old pups “the stare” to say, “do not try to milk me, I’m 80 years old, leave me alone.” Sort of like Old Eagle Eyes (my father with half glasses, reading) gave my high school and college boyfriends. It scared them to death! Maybe that’s why I didn’t get married until after age 40! Not for any lack of proposals. I have been true to my husband, dogs and cats.