WHITTAKER

I came home for a visit and Mother told me that she had found the perfect dog for me.  "He has that 'look' in his eyes."  She described what she had picked up off the street.  Scruffy and covered with ticks and fleas, she had dropped him off at the groomers and we were to pick him up.  For my Mother to pick up a stray was totally a surprise.  Mom just didn't do those things.  But apparently this little puppy was begging outside the bank where she worked, and when she saw him, she knew that he was the one.

He looked nothing like what she had described.  What I saw was a puppy, shaved of all but the barest of hair in every color imaginable.  He was a stick dog, all skin and bones.  In fact, one look allowed you to count every rib on the undernourished thing.  And when he sat on my lap very patiently, I could feel how his skin was covered with bumps and sores from the feast of the ticks and fleas.  Mother suggested calling him Scruffy or Scraps or Rags or Ragamuffin.  But he didn't look like that to me.  "No, his name is Whittaker."  Whittaker looked up at me, came as if called by name, and sat at my feet.  Dad complained "That's too hard of a name to remember."  By day 2, I knew that I had a dog.  And this friend worked his way into my life, and my heart.

When he was young, he would dance on his hind leg like many poodles that I have seen.  And yet, he also had terrier traits, like shaking socks and squeak toys fiercely from side to side as if to break its back.  He was incredibly intelligent.  Whittaker owned around 20 toys, each with a name.  And I could call out, "Where is Whale?"  He would run to his little box, and promptly retrieve the whale shaped toy that made sounds when attacked.  He knew the difference between his yellow ball and his orange ball.  Whittaker loved fall because I would buy 3 miniature pumpkins and set them up on the shelf.  All I had to do was ask him where they were for him to point to them almost like a pointer dog identifying doves.

Whittaker had an incredible sense of smell.  He knew immediately whenever I opened the container of freeze dried liver, and would come running to seek it out wherever it was hidden.  Any time that I had a migraine, he seemed to know and would jump up on the bed and sniff around my head until he found the sore spot and would then proceed to lick it as if to try and sooth the pain.  

Whit knew to bark only when necessary, so depending upon the tone, a bark meant someone is here or I hear a suspicious sound or I need to go outside now.  He was allowed to speak, and people that he was glad to see often received a "sentence" that consisted of sounds almost like a cross between a growl and a moan.  And I only 3 times actually heard him growl while baring his teeth, and I knew that he really didn't like the person it was aimed at.

Because of the abuse, mistreatment and poor nutrition that he received during his puppy formative months, he did suffer through several major illness and health problems.  I was adopted by him when he was around 7 months old, but the previous abuse did take its toll on him.  He had a ruptured disc in his neck, various bladder stones, and enlarged prostate, etc., all of which required surgery at various times.  And yet, each and every time, he would bounce back and still be the funny little stinker that I loved.  

And then, one day, he seemed to age 10 years.  To me, it seemed that he went from puppy to old dog in a 24 hour period.  My best friend seemed tired, and he didn't bounce back so quick from illness to illness.