Lilly doesn’t like her photo taken. Her eyes and muzzle are now mostly gray and she is predominantly deaf, with terrible cataracts. What kind of dog is this, BTW?

This is the last post I’d have thought to write this week. But after the last interaction, I suppose it had to come out.

I’ll admit it up front. My wife is the Dog Person. I am the Cat Person. My mantra has been that dogs are for people who require cheerleaders in their lives. My life has predominantly been precisely the opposite. Trying my best to stay out of the limelight in law enforcement. As people are wont to say, cats don’t have owners. Cats have staff. The last thing I need is a cheerleader. I like quiet.

Cats have historically fitted my lifestyle because they’ve been units that I can toss out when necessary and then place on Ignore Mode when also necessary. Cats are very independent. Just like me. As such, they resonate. I’ve always had a cat in my life, until I met my second wife and until I lost Mose. Back to that in a moment.

I didn’t really begin to appreciate dogs until I was asked to try out for the SSD Canine Unit. I was given an older German Shepard dog named Ehren by Bill Lipshin, who trained our dogs in the 1980s. Bill had the final say and didn’t care for my yard layout at home so nixed me as a handler. I spent a few weeks as an agitator and then left. A major regret for me because Ehren was one older, lightweight Mach III neutron bomb.

I’ve always had cats until my second marriage in 2007. My wife is a Dog Person and, as such, had five dogs when I met her. All rescue animals. A cat was right out. That is, until I found Mose, whom I acquired in 2008 at a Placer County cat rescue facility. Raised with the dogs from a kitten, he would play with them until one day he exited through the dog door and never returned. He was my last cat. Ten + years ago.

Mose as a kitten. I raised him from the proverbial Palm Kitty.

In Winter he would also jump up on the bed and nose himself under the covers, and sleep at my side or at my feet. If I lay on my side, he would curl himself up between my arm and my body. He knew where the Heat Generator was located.

I had a few feral cat buddies for a while, but they are gone now.

Because of my inconsistent schedule, I cannot have any more animals at my cabin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Sometimes I’m at my house three days a week; sometimes I’m here two days a week. Sometimes I’m at my house for only one day. Sometimes, schedule-dependent, I won’t hit my house for two weeks. That’s simply not fair to any animal. The fact that I cannot have another cat disappoints me greatly. But at least I’m smart enough to realize it.

Then we came across Teddy. But that’s a story for another day.

In the meantime, the schedule is something like this. I leave the house to broadcast on SHR on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. I get back at about 10:30 PM.

The Damaged Dog is waiting. Everyone else has gone to bed. Lilly is the Damaged Dog.

The Damaged Dog brooks no love. Until and unless she wants it, which is seldom.

But tonight, at least ten years later, something has happened. She padded into the office as I was writing a post, pushed my left leg and placed her muzzle on top of my left knee.

I responded with patting and beating and smoothing her fur. She loved it. For once.

She is a rescue dog.

She is a Damaged Dog.

Maybe after ten years we’re finally beginning to connect?

BZ