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But that was before I knew about The JOB.
I’d never thought about being a working dog. Especially when my health started going downhill. First I lost my appetite. Then I lost weight. Lots of weight. I could hear the anxiety in my folks’ voices as they petted me. For the first time ever, they could feel my ribs! (Hey, I’m a black Lab — we like to eat!)
Anyhow, the vet diagnosed diabetes, gave me special kibble, and gave Mom permission to jab me with a needle twice a day.
“Here’s your insulin,” she’d tell me in that happy voice that even a dog recognizes as fake.
“It’s all good,” I’d tell Mom, thumping my tail.
I wag my tail a lot. I always have. I’ve got an upbeat attitude, even when things aren’t going my way.
I wagged my tail when I got the insulin shots, and when Mom stuck me with another needle to test my blood sugar. When I started getting diabetes side effects — first cataracts and then glaucoma — I still thumped my tail. By then, my eyesight was getting pretty bad, so I was bumping into walls and doors . . . . But it could have been worse. So I wagged.
It did get worse. The glaucoma gave me a killer headache and destroyed my left eye. So the vet had to take it out. Worst thing about that? Wearing the dreaded cone for a couple of weeks. But I got to sleep on the bed with Mom and Dad, so that made up for a lot. Wag!
It wasn’t until surgery failed to save my other eye that the folks started to get it. I could have had a last-ditch operation with a small chance of saving the eye, and Mom, Dad, and my human sister Shelby were agonizing over what to do.
Once again, though, I was wagging — and at last, they noticed.
“Pepper is handling this way better than we are,” Mom said.
What a great message for kids, the folks said: When life gets RUFF, keep wagging your tail!
And after way too many people addressed me as “the poor dog” because of my blindness, I got another slogan: I’m not my disability; I’m ME!
Fast forward a few months. I’d lost both eyes but found a new purpose. As mascot of the Plattsburgh, N.Y., Lions Club, I go with my folks to schools, libraries, nursing homes, and other places. They talk about wagging, and I demonstrate.
And Mom reads the book she and Shelby wrote about a dogged blind dog who learns to see a new way — with her ears and nose. The kids laugh when they see the picture of me “accidentally” sitting on the cat. And they love the part where I turn the wrong way and end up in the closet instead of the living room.
In every single illustration, my tail is thumping.
“What does dogged mean?” Mom asks the kids after she closes the book. Even the littlest ones remember. “Never give up!” they yell. “And what do you do when life gets RUFF?” “Wag your tail!”
I still get “poor Pepper” when people meet me for the first time, but Mom quickly quashes that idea.
“This ‘poor pup,’” she’ll say, “has been petted by thousands of little hands over the past few years. She has an important job, and she loves every minute of it.”
Way to go, Mom!
Time to go to work! Wag, wag!
[…] another Walkin’ Pets blog post written from the viewpoint of a diabetic dog that you might find […]
[…] another Walkin’ Pets blog post written from the viewpoint of a diabetic dog that you might find […]