My First True Love
True love sometimes means a pill right up the bum
We always had dogs and cats growing up, but this was the first dog that was just mine.
My late brother rescued Rocky as a mutt puppy, running wild near a dangerous highway in Tennessee. Part Lab, part Chow, all personality, it was love at first sight for me.
I loved my brother, but I didn’t think he was good enough for Rocky.
I would often arrive to find him tied to a tree. He would leap five feet in the air in excitement to see me, and I thought he was starved for attention, neglected, and lonely. When he came to live with me, I realized he acts this way when you’ve only been gone for two minutes!
I sort of stole him and changed his name to Raki. (Same pronunciation, different spelling) Ridiculous, I know. It confused everyone who read it, and dogs can’t spell.
He was so sweet, and he loved me to death.
When I took him, he was about three (no one can remember exactly), and he was with me for 14 wonderful years. We lived in five places together, in the city and the country, and he helped me find my dream home in the mountains of East Tennessee.
He went nuts the first time we drove up to see the cabin. We spent the next 10 years together there, blissfully isolated and free, nestled in the woods on a mountainside in the Appalachian Mountains.
Early on, Raki developed a seizure disorder that required constant vigilance. In his later years, he got diabetes and had to have a shot twice a day. He eventually went blind and nearly died from pancreatitis at least three times.
Never once did his spirit flag. Even blind and losing his fur, he blundered around full of enthusiasm. I still try to be like him.
Our lives together were enhanced by little rituals around preparing for seizures or cleaning up his many accidents, and a sacred ceremony to help me say goodbye.
