THE DEAL WITH DOMINO
Hey! What about me?
Without too much trouble, all the
recent hubbub about the condition of Heidi’s health could easily overshadow
the fact that we have another Dalmatian, Domino.
In fact, we had Domino first. Let
me ‘splain it to ya!
Turn back the clock to 1997. It was a momentous year, 1997.
Sara and I got married and she relocated from Juneau
to Anchorage.
I went down to Juneau over the Fourth of July weekend to help Sara clean
up her house and make the physical move to Anchorage.
What this all has to do with Domino is admittedly not readily apparent,
but give me a minute.
At the time, Sara had a 2-year
old female Dalmatian, Kona. Sara
had Kona from the time she was a pup. She
watched Kona being born. The two
were inseparable. But there wasn't
enough room in the car for everyone, so our
plan was to drive from Juneau to Anchorage while Kona made the trip by air.
All plans were in place and the
day before we got on the ferry, Sara took
Kona out to the vet’s to be boarded for two days while we made the drive.
This is when tragedy struck. While
admitting Kona to the kennel, the vet did a cursory exam and felt something not
quite right in the bladder area. A
urine specimen revealed that Kona had a massive, irreversible kidney or bladder
infection, I can’t quite remember which one.
The end result, however, was clear – Kona would have to be put down. I could not believe it myself.
I had taken Kona for a walk earlier that day and everything seemed fine.
But the vet had the facts and instead of Kona taking a one-way trip to
Anchorage in two days, she took the inevitable trip to the Next Phase later on
that afternoon.
Needless to say, that was
indeed a sad day. Not only was Sara
leaving the place where she had spent most her life and given birth to her two
kids, now she had lost her beloved Kona.
Somehow we managed to take a
deep breath and move forward. The
trip to Anchorage was otherwise uneventful.
We got married on August 30, and it was about a week later, while we were
driving in the neighborhood, that we saw a lady with a baby carriage walking a
male Dalmatian.
Of course, we had to stop the
car so Sara could talk to this person. Turns
out that the dog she was walking, Domino, had just been rescued and was up for
adoption. Sara was ready to sign on
the dotted line then and there, but I was a bit more reserved. After all, we had just gotten married and I wanted some time
to catch my breath, quite frankly. So
we bid the lady good-bye and went on our way.
A few weeks later, Sara got a
phone call from the lady who was hosting Domino.
She said that she had to find Domino a home right away, and wondered if
Sara still interested? Sara said
yes. So.
Imagine my surprise upon returning home from work
to find a dog barking at me as if I were an intruder in my own house!
Any perturbations on my part
were quickly overcome by Domino’s charm.
And the details of his rescue tugged somewhat at the strings of my heart
(yes, I do have one). It seemed
that Domino was left abandoned in a house on the Anchorage Hillside, while his
owners were off in Hawaii on a two-week vacation.
Imagine that! They provided
him with a 40-pound bag of dog food and a trough of water, and otherwise left
him to his own resources. Domino’s
persistent barking was the key to his rescue.
I guess someone – Animal Control or the police – broke into the house
and got him out of there.
In addition to the
“emotional” trauma”, Domino’s previous owners left him with a permanent
scar on his left rear leg. Domino
has a steel rod in the big leg bone, the result of someone having sat on him at
the tender age of six months. We
thought we’d have it taken out when we adopted Domino, but our vet took x-rays
and said it’s in there to stay – the bone has grown around it.
It doesn’t seem to bother him, but the scar is quite impressive.
Domino has proven his worth as
an effective guard dog. When the
door bell rings, he goes ballistic. When
I was out of town in February 1998 and an unknown man came to our back door,
claiming he was “looking for his girl friend”, Domino almost crashed through
the barrier. Sara claims he was in
full attack mode. She called 911
and the fellow was apprehended shortly thereafter.
The police found a handgun on him. Apparently,
he was casing the neighborhood for future unsavory exploits.
I am glad that Sara had him to protect her.
Compared to Heidi, Domino sports the “classic” lines of the breed – capacious chest, built for speed. He is truly a handsome dog. Were he not scarred and neutered, it is possible he could be show material. When a stranger comes to the door, Domino puts up an impressive fit of barking. But as long as either Sara or I are there, once he gets to sniff and otherwise say 'hello' to whoever it is, he is fine. And he does not suffer the health problems that Heidi has experienced. He’s basically as healthy as a horse. As Heidi is a good companion for him, he is the same for her. We are lucky to have him in our lives!
Heidi, right, and Domino out for a romp in the snow