February 18, 2020
It began with a phone call, Mom called me from the Humane Society on October 13, 2001 by telling me something “told” her to go to the Humane Society that particular day to “see” those up for adoption. As I talked with Mom, I could tell in her voice she was convincingly sold on adopting this runt of the litter, which she described as a small, dirty black dog. Dolly, as the Humane Society named her, the dirt she talked about was not dirt, but Dolly being riddled with fleas and ticks, possibly mange and covered in her excrement. She was a confirmed “Sato”, in Puerto Rican slang for stray street dogs. just arriving from San Juan just before Mom got there.
Barely off the plane and put into a kennel, my Mom’s eyes made contact with this disheveled, undesirable mess and fate met its match. It was Mom’s wishes to provide Dolly even one week of love and support. Mom decided to give her love so if she not to make it, she would have known there are humans who love and spoil their four-legged furry family members and not throw them out to the street and expect them to fend for their own survival. As a family we had no intention to bring home an addition to the family so soon after we helped our 15 year-old, Cuddles cross over the rainbow in July of 2000. After a rather quick family conference, we decided to adopt Dolly.
I met Mom after work at the Humane Society and we began the paperwork and check her out again. She was definitively going to be our puppy … now it was up to the Humane Society to allow us to adopt her. Once finalized, she stayed a couple days to be given a thorough health check up, get her identification tattoo and get spayed. Those couple of days couldn’t pass fast enough to bring her home. We unanimously decided the name Dolly would have to go and she deserved a new name for her new lease on life. Once we arrived at home, we began rattling different names, Blackie, Lucky, Gombóc (after a Hungarian plum dish), Bear, Mackó (bear cub in Hungarian) and countless other names. It wasn’t too many days after she came home my cousin, MariAnne took home the winner’s trophy by naming her.
MariAnne came up with KC (to be pronounced Casey), with the word in Hungarian for little, Kicsi and paying tribute to our previous dog, Cuddles. KC became her official name, however; she had many more nicknames; Rooney (for the Andy Rooney eyebrows), Queso (Spanish for cheese), Dogo, Dudley, Bodacious, Little Girl, Puppsico, Kicsi (little) Cuddles, Bow-Legged Dudeley, Brat, Lovebug, Rata (Spanish for rat) and Pulgosa (Spanish for flea bag), hmmmmm I think I could keep going by adding Hungarian names, some more English and Spanish ones too. Ironically, she understood most of the names which were aimed at her with loads of love and affection. She even answered to a couple of the more often used ones outside of her own name of KC, but never Dolly.
Unlike our previous dog, Cuddles, KC was welcomed into the house immediately – with no barriers of only in the garage, then only in the kitchen, then only in the living areas, then only the bedrooms but not the bed. KC won our hearts fast enough to bypass most those and by the time she was house-trained she ruled the house and took full ownership of the couch and bed. KC was stubborn, free spirited and filled with a fiery personality from the start. From the first day we brought her home, when we took her outside to relieve herself, her awkwardly unbalanced-self fell over, but kept trying until she got it right. It was her lifting her leg to pee, we even questioned her gender. She was so small, that her tail was longer than she was for quite a while.
As a puppy she acquired the name Ms. Enron for the speed she was able to shred a full Sunday newspaper into bits. It wasn’t just the Sunday newspaper but anything paper, she became our personal cross-cut shredder for any paper products for what seemed like forever, but probably lasted only through a her puppy phase. With the exception of chewing up Christmas lights one year, she really was not much of a chewer. But for her love of shredding paper was never seen until the aftermath of the storm was completed. When she did wrong, she definitely knew it, she would give you the stink eye and sheepishly walk away from you as you tried to discipline her cuteness.
She was gifted more toys than she ever played with. Some squeaked, some honked, some croaked some just did nothing. But her favorites was her green animal squeaker affectionately called Squeaker, Lamb Chop or Lamie, Tigger and Froggie. She played with each in a distinct way. Squeaker she would put her mouth and squeak it while she too squeaked with it, almost in stereo, Lamie she liked to lay on top of as if it were a pillow and Tigger and Froggie both had parts that she obsessily licked until they were soaking wet with her drool. She was not too possessive of her toys until her canine friends began playing with her toys. Her prized possession was my Dad’s gray sweater, Dad would often have KC sit on his lap and wrapped them both into it. After Dad passed away, KC was comforted by laying on his sweater and being wrapped up into as if grampa was holding her once again.
KC loved the outdoors. She was not much of a let’s play fetch. She would run after the ball, stop at it and look at it and if she could talk would say, “You want me to do what with that slimy ball?” She preferred to run around the yard doing her crazy eights until she was exhausted and then recharge and start right back up again. She remained healthy enough to do this past her prime years. She also tormented and teased dogs much larger than her size. One thing she took pure joy was fake chasing the boxer next door so he would run the length of the fence. KC’s eyes filled with mischief as she took her time walking to where the boxer ran to and then repeat it all over again. She also like to spook larger dogs with her ferocious yelp and bark at larger dogs as Mom and Dad walked the local park. As she got older, she slowed down but never really outgrew her need to explore the backyard and be fascinated by the wind blowing into her face and watching every minute movement occurring in her backyard. She made several trips with my parents to their cottage in Ontario. At the cottage she loved going on exploring walks and sitting on the porch or dock and enjoying the peaceful, cool breeze and meeting up with old friends.
Oddly, KC was not keen on going for a c-a-r r-i-d-e anywhere. Her trips to the veterinarian and groomer was like torture to her. She never learned how to lean in to a turn or put brakes. More often than not she would fall of the seat at the slightest tap on the brakes. Poor puppy, never got the gist of holding on like she should. If you can only imagine, for her the drive to Ontario, was like the longest car ride, one never seeming to end. She could never find her happy place for the duration of the trip. However; once she got to the destination, she was fine and greeted all dog loving people happily. Her uncanny sense to know who didn’t care for dogs, she knew to either stay away or bark at them as they approached her or her family. When my parents had extended hospital stays as well as to the skilled nursing facilities for rehabilitation, she was welcomed and showed off to everyone her cuteness and her uncanny ability to behave like the princess she knew she was.
KC was full of life and loved everyone with a personality like no other. She loved her Grampa, all 11 pounds of her protected him through the hurdles of his declining health. After Dad’s passing, she became Mom’s shadow and kept her on her toes with the constant begging for her meals and to snack on whatever Mom ate. She managed to demand her meal on time. Although she was a bottomless pit for food, she was a finicky eater. She was not very fond of most vegetables and fruits with a carnivorous zest for all things meat, especially her love of deli smoked turkey and deli roast beef. As she aged, like many of us do, when we have to pee, we have to pee right now, she would sit at the door to go outside what seemed like every 15 minutes. KC lived with my parents, as that was her home. I was only allowed to have her visit at my condo, by smuggling her in, as if she were some kind of forbidden contraband.
I often visited and checked in on my parents and she would excitedly wait by the front door for my visits and was my snuggle bug and loved giving and getting noses kisses as well as belly rubs and ear massages and ruffle ups. In the background, I’d hear my Dad say in Hungarian, don’t be so rough with her, she’s a little girl, she’s getting older don't be so mean to her. It didn’t seem to matter, the more I did it, the more he got agitated and the more KC seemed to keep coming back for more. This dog hated to bathe and would reluctantly go in the shower and even worse was the towel dry off afterwards. She would talk to me, grumbling under her breathe while I dried her and then she would take off begin her crazy-eight runs inside the house. She was nothing short of a blessing to our small family and kept us entertained for countless hours by her behavior and actions.
Her last Saturday with us, she had a seizure and by Wednesday night into early Thursday morning the seizures became more frequent and harder for her little body to recover from. The final ones began to take the quality of her life away. It was then Mom and I decided to not let KC suffer through these traumatic episodes. I knew then, I had to make the hardest call to the veterinarian to make her final appointment. Mom and I spent our last day with her to showering her with our love by filling her last hours with kisses, hugs, holding, crying and selfishly not wanting to let her go. Deep down, I knew it was the compassionate thing we had to do.
Upon arriving at the veterinarian’s, KC sat in Mom’s lap and me sitting next to her, we continued to love and hold her tightly like the very first day she came home from the Humane Society. I felt her last heartbeat and her last breathe taken before the veterinarian told us quietly she gained her wings and crossed over the rainbow bridge. With no regrets of a life well lived. she is in a better place, but I also know that day I forever lost another family member and a part of my heart and soul.
I know KC is at peace, running crazy eights and continues to be the bottomless pit for all food, making friends and being the forever grateful happy pup we affectionately called the KC the Wunder Mutt but to some, they would say, she was just a dog.
KC - 10.13.01 - 01.16.20
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