This is the fourth goodbye I’ve had to say since March of 2008.  It’s sad.  First, Charlie, my best friend from my morning jog.  And then Ishka, Jamie’s best pal, whom I only got to know a little.  And then Okie-Dokie, the wonderfull black cat who taught me more than I wanted to know about cats.  And, now, Samantha, Jamie’s best friend from Puppy Kindergarten.

Samantha was a lovely black lab.  She and Jamie got along really great right from the start.  I wasn’t there to know this; Jamie tells me from her special swimming and frisbee-retrieving place in doggie heaven.  Jamie liked Samantha a lot.  So did Barbara and Fred.  Actually, it was Samantha’s skill as a frisbee dog that prompted Fred to work so much, with me, on catching our “Chuckit” flying squirrel toy.

Samantha served as a therapy dog, visiting nursing homes in the San Fernando Valley, so she spent a lot of time cheering people up.  Goodbye, Samantha; Jamie and I will miss you.

Fred’s favorite web site for people who have lost their pets is the collection of poems at petloss.com.  Clink on this to see it.

His favorite, by Rudyard Kipling, is “Dinah Goes to Heaven.”

She did not know that she was dead
But, when the pang was o’er,
Sat down to wait her Master’s tread
Upon the Golden Floor,

With ears full-cock and anxious eyes,
Impatiently resigned;
But ignorant that Paradise
Did not admit her kind.

There was one step along the Stair
That led to Heaven’s Gate;
And, till she heard it, her affair
Was — she explained — to wait.

And she explained with flattened ear,
Bared lip and milky tooth–
Storming against Ithuriel’s Spear
That only proved her truth!

Sudden — far down the Bridge of Ghosts
That anxious spirits clomb–
She caught that step in all the hosts,
And knew that he had come.

She left them wondering what to do,
But not a doubt had she.
Swifter than her own squeal she flew
Across the Glassy Sea;

Flushing the Cherubs everywhere,
And skidding as she ran,
She refuged under Peter’s Chair
And waited for her man.

There spoke a Spirit out of the press,
‘Said: — “Have you any here
That saved a fool from drunkenness,
And a coward from his fear?

“That turned a soul from dark to day
When other help was vain;
That snatched it from Wanhope and made
A cur a man again?”

“Enter and look,” said Peter then,
And set the Gate ajar.
“If I know aught of women and men
I trow she is not far.”

“Neither by virtue, speech nor art
Nor hope of grace to win;
But godless innocence of heart
That never heard of sin:

“Neither by beauty nor belief
Nor white example shown.
Something a wanton — more a thief –
But — most of all — mine own.”

“Enter and look,” said Peter then,
“And send you well to speed;
But, for all that I know of women and men
Your riddle is hard to read.”

Then flew Dinah from under the Chair,
Into his arms she flew –
And licked his face from chin to hair
And Peter passed them through!

I just lost my best animal friend — Okie-Dokie, the black cat.  She was just fine a few days ago, but then she had some serious kidney problems, and within a few days she was gone.  Poor Okie-Dokie.  She was a good pal to me — after teaching me some dog-cat manners.  I’ll miss her a lot.  I guess, though, that her 17 years were pretty good cat years.

Okie-Dokie adopted Fred and Barbara about 10 years ago.  She just showed up one day, in the front yard, hunting for gophers, a few of which had migrated across the street from the golf course.  She hunted gophers for a few days, and then she started to check out the front doorstep.  Eventually, Fred and Barbara put out some cat food, which the strange black cat gobbled down.  Next, she started to explore the inside of her house.  All in all, it took Okie-Dokie about two weeks to decide to adopt Fred and Barbara.

A few years earlier, Fred and Barbara had dinner at a restaurant in Cabo San Luca, Mexico, where their waiter was just always saying “Okie-Dokie.”  “Okie-Dokie, I’ll bring you another Pacifico.”  “Okie-Dokie, your enchiladas are coming right up!”  So they decided that they would name their next cat “Okie-Dokie.”

A few years later, Fred and Barbara learned the true story about Okie-Dokie.  Okie-Dokie, who was originally named Maxine, was a ferel cat that had been adopted by a  young couple that lived a few blocks away from Fred and Barbara.  When the couple had their second baby, Okie-Dokie decided she wasn’t getting enough attention, so she started scouting for a new place to live.  It turns out that some of the couple’s neighbors saw this happening, but Fred and Barbara didn’t learn about it for several years.

When Okie-Dokie adopted Fred and Barbara, Jamie (my predecessor Golden Retriever) was about two years old (which is what I am now!).  Here’s a photograph from “My Doggie Says… Messages from Jamie,” that shows Okie-Dokie and Jamie having their daily afternoon nap in the hallway.

When I arrived at Fred and Barbara’s house almost two years ago, Okie-Dokie was about 15 years old.  At first, Okie and I didn’t get along very well.  I was a fluffy little puppy, and I kept thinking Okie-Dokie would want to play with me.  But everytime I jumped at her, she swatted my nose.  I finally learned that Okie-Dokie was in charge and that we could play on her terms, not mine.  We didn’t actually “play” a lot, but we got to be very good friends.  We enjoyed sniffing noses.  Sometimes, Okie-Dokie would lick my face, or my coat.  Sometimes I would lick Okie-Dokie’s fur.  We never shared a nap in the hallway, like Jamie and Okie-Dokie, but recently we napped a lot on the futon in Fred’s office.  Sometimes, I used Okie-Dokie like a pillow.  She seemed to like that.

So that makes three really good pals I’ve lost in my two, young years.  Charlie, my Golden Retriever friend that I used to see on my morning jog.  And then Ishka, Karen’s (Fred and Barbara’s daughter) Golden Retriever.  And now Okie-Dokie.  Okie-Dokie is the toughest to deal with, because I spent time with her every day.  I’ve been making up for the loss of Okie-Dokie by spending lots more time with “Stinky,” my one-half stuffed puppy security object.  I don’t know what I’d do without “Stinky.”

Fred says losing a pet is really hard for people, too.  They love their pets very much, and it’s hard for them to understand that dogs and cats just don’t live as long as people usually do.  Here’s a collection of poems that have given Fred and Barbara lots of comfort when they’ve lost pets.

Goodbye, Okie-Dokie.  You were a great cat and a great pal, and I’ll always love you.

Callie

Here’s a fun people & pet social networking site you should check out. Lots of cute photos of pets, and they have a photo contest running right now.

Here’s the picture of Callie and Okie-Dokie I submitted for this week’s contest.

While you’re visiting the site, be sure to vote for this photo to win the contest!

You know, I don’t usually have to make a lot of decisions. Barbara and Fred decide a lot of stuff for me. Like when I get to eat, when we go jogging, what time we go to bed, and stuff like that.

Sometimes, I do decide to take a nap. And sometimes it’s hard to figure out which toy to play with, because I do have a lot of toys.

So yesterday I’m walking down the hallway and Okie-Dokie the black cat goes walking by. That cat can be really arrogant. It walks with a swagger, and I swear it’s always telling me, “ha, ha, I never have to be in a crate!” Or “cats are better than dogs.”

Actually, Okie-Dokie and I have become pretty good friends. We like to rub noses, and sometimes I lick Okie-Dokie’s head. She seems to like that. But I really like to pester her sometimes, so it only took me a millisecond to decide to run down the hallway and pounce on Okie-Dokie — just to see how loud she would “hiss!”

But just as I started after Okie-Dokie, Barbara showed up at the other end of the hall in her jogging clothes and wearing her jogging fanny-pack. Uh-oh! Slam on the brakes! Given a choice between annoying Okie-Dokie and going jogging, I’ll always go for the jog. It’s much better exercise than pouncing on cats. Besides, I can go cat-pouncing just about any time I want.

So I stopped myself in mid-pounce and ran over to Barbara so she could put my leash on.

It wasn’t a real hard decision to make, because I really like to go jogging, but it made me realize that my life is pretty simple most of the time. Eat, sleep, pounce on cats, pee, pooh, and eat some more.

But you know what I really look forward to? The times when Fred and Barbara play with me and make me feel part of the family. Lots of times, I start the play by presenting them with one of my favorite toys. Then we play a game of “let’s both hold this for a while.” It’s my favorite game, next to playing soccer with Fred.

I’m getting to spend lots more time out of my crate, so I do have to make more decisions than before. But mostly it’s deciding NOT to eat the rugs. Things seem to work better that way.

Next time!

Okie-Dokie, a really neat black cat, adopted us about eight years ago. Okie-Dokie is neat because she’s a very worldly indoor/outdoor cat. She has a bit of a sordid history, starting life as a ferrel cat. She was adopted and neutered by a family in our neighborhood, who later had a baby. When their second baby arrived, Okie-Dokie (whose name, we discovered later, was Maxine) decided she wasn’t getting enough attention, so she started hunting gophers in our yard. After a few weeks of feeling her way around, she decided to move into our house, and she’s been here ever since. She’s a good indoor cat, but she is also savvy about cars on the street, and she’s a good mouser.

When Okie-Dokie was checking us out, we did not know who she was, or any of her history. We learned it later, when someone from the neighborhood saw Okie-Dokie and said, “That’s Maxine.” So then we got the whole story, and Maxine’s parents are glad for her to have a happy home.

Okie-Dokie has a nice sheepskin bed on one corner of the sofa in our den. She doesn’t always sleep there, but she does sometimes and it’s a great place to hang out.

Last night, Barbara washed Callie’s sheepskin puppy bed and put in in the hallway so she would remember to carry it in to Callie’s crate. (Callie is a five-month-old Golden Retriever puppy, still crate training.) We turned our backs for just a minute to get dinner ready, and when we walked into the den, Callie had carried her puppy bed into the den and put it on top of Okie-Dokie’s bed on the sofa!

Where do puppies get ideas like this?

I don’t think the wolf pack taught them where to put their puppy beds, did it? Is this a way of competing with Okie-Dokie for the Alpha position in our family? Maybe she just thought the sofa was the place for sheepskin beds.

Our pets’ behavior often mystifies me. I try to understand, but there are times when I get frustrated and wish I could look inside their minds. Callie seems to have had some kind of reason for putting her bed on top of Okie-Dokie’s. We thought it was incredibly cute, but we also wondered what she was thinking.

Callie has been confronting Okie-Dokie a little lately. When she first arrived at our home, she was an eight-week old puppy weighing seven pounds. But now she’s five months old, and she weighs about thirty-five pounds. At first, Okie-Dokie showed Callie who was boss with a few pokes at Callie’s nose. And Callie became very submissive. But now much larger than Okie-Dokie, Callie seems to be saying either “you can’t beat me up any more” or “let’s have some rough play.”

So maybe Callie put her bed on top of Okie-Dokie’s to prove her superiority. Or maybe she just did it.

It’s a mystery.