One thing I noticed about the Walk of Hope, very much to the dismay of Elliana, was how many dogs were present.
Elliana has had an awful phobia of dogs ever since an unfortunate incident when she was little, and one of my parents’ black labs jumped on her and accidentally pierced her leg with a paw nail.
There was a mini-meltdown at one point, but thankfully the bounce castle provided a shield of protection that kept her occupied and entertained until the last pet left the park.
I guess I had forgotten how comforting our pets can be during the infertility journey.
Two years ago, our first furry baby, a cream colored Pomeranian name Sandy, went to the yappy dog beyond after faithfully helping us through some of the hardest times of our life during his 17 year scamper on this earth.
Seeing all the canine kids reminded me of how important he was to our mental health during that time.
For the most part, Sandy hated people.
All people except for us and a few family members, that is.
He was fiercely protective of Lisa.
She had him trained to attack the pizza guy’s ankles if he was unfortunate enough to come to the door with a rude attitude.
He nipped at many a neighborhood kid who was dumb enough not to heed our warnings that he was not a friendly dog.
He angrily complied with our request to sit, beg, play dead, knowing that the treat was worth it, but being entirely pissed at the indignity of having to do the occasional dog trick in order to get it.
We were always convinced he didn’t know he was a dog.
There were times when he would sing as I played piano, would do a frustrated yappy whine bark when he couldn’t seem to tell us what it was he wanted, and was humiliated when he peed in the house.
Of course then there were the temper tantrums when he purposely peed on everything to let us know his dissatisfaction with how long we were gone.
He was the consummate escape artist as a puppy, and I had to build massive structures to keep him from getting near our Christmas tree where we feared he would ingest pine needles which would understood would cause fatal damage to his insides.
Sandy was our first miracle baby, too.
He wasn’t supposed to survive puppyhood. Days after we bought him from a pet store, he became very sick.
The vet had told us not to hold out hope–he was malnourished and sick, but there was always a slight chance he’d survive.
We kept a late night vigil and suddenly he emerged from his blanket cocccoon staggering around like a fluffy drunkard, and from that point on, was the satan dog.
I had to learn dog discipline to make him obedient, and put him into submission pose to make him stop his little nasty biting binges. He was a little psycho, and there were many times when he was on his yapping binges about every possible sound within a 2 mile radius that I wondered how long he would survive in our house.
I don’t know how we would have survived infertility without him.
When things got really rough, and cycle after cycle was failing, Sandy always seemed to find his way onto to the perfect spot on Lisa’s belly, or would go crazy giving her kisses for no reason, making her laugh no matter how sad he was.
We began to bring him everywhere–every family event with kids, every holiday, every family trip–our furry baby had to be allowed there, or we simply wouldn’t go.
Seeing all those other dogs made miss our little Sandy, but it also made me smile.
I know he’s probably up in doggie heaven, yapping his head off and getting as many treats as he wants without having to beg once.
If you’ve got a pet infertility story, I’d love to hear your comments.