The Original Gretta

 Grettalulu

My dog Gretta was a very special girl, a beautiful sable and black German Shepherd. She came to me as a rescue dog when she was around five years old. She'd been found wandering in traffic, lost in downtown Durham, NC, with a wounded hip and leg. A nervous wreck is what she was. When her stress was high, she started spinning, just running in a tiny circle until she was exhausted, as though she were chasing something invisible. It upset Duke, my other Shepherd, and he would sometimes step into the circle to stop her.  She had problems when she first met people, and had been in foster care for a year, not easy to place, but when she met me, she ran right to me as if to say, "Hey, where have you been?" We hit it off immediately. I was even able to open her mouth and give her her vitamins and nutrients that very first day.

Gretta loved to go places. When she realized she was going with me when I was leaving the house, she'd get so excited that she'd dance on top of Duke, literally leaving the house on his back. Into the garage we'd go, and Gretta would jump into the Jeep and head straight for the driver's seat.  I have always loved to see dogs sitting at the steering wheel of cars - as long as the cars are parked - and Gretta got that seat whenever she was in the car without me. When I would come out of the grocery store and approach my car, there she'd be, sitting at the wheel, waiting patiently, looking as if she really could drive.

But Gretta had serious problems. Whenever people came over, I'd put her outside first, then seat everyone and give each person several dog treats. Then I would let Gretta back inside. She would investigate each person and if she accepted the dog treat from you, you were in forever. She almost always accepted. We did it this way because if you rang my door bell or knocked on my door, Gretta began barking hysterically and her hair would stand on end. I would go to the door, but very few people had the courage to come in with Gretta in full guard dog mode. And she never obeyed me when I told her someone was ok and to stop barking. So I devised a plan that worked perfectly.

No plan worked at the drive-through at the bank. As much as Gretta loved to go for rides in the car, there were few places she was happy when we got there, and the bank was at the bottom of her list. The teller and I could barely hear one another for Gretta's furious barking, while Duke stood in the back with that calm he always exuded. The teller would always send out 2 dog biscuits, one for each dog, but Gretta would be so agitated that she'd take her biscuit, then let it fall from her mouth as she continued barking. I stopped taking her to the bank.

The sound of my voice was calming to Gretta. If I could catch her eye when she was spinning, I could speak to her and begin to tell her stories. They all started the same way: Once upon a time there was a crazy little girl named Gretta. I'd have her going to the day spa, in the sauna with a towel on her head to protect her perm, taking trips to the Outer Banks, running on the beach, whatever popped into my mind. Her eyes looked so troubled and seemed to say, "Help me." As I talked, she would begin to calm down and stop spinning, I could go to her and get her to lie down and then I would massage her, stroking her firmly with long, long strokes. She loved this. I always promised her I would never give up on her. We were made for each other.

Miss G came with a grocery bag of stuffed toys. She loved her stuffed Jack Rock, her rabbit, her squirrel, her unicorn. My mom and Mom's best friend gave her more stuffed animals. She never destroyed them, just played with them, carried them around, hovered over them, chased them when I threw them. She slept with me on my bed every night starting the very first night I had her until her bad hips and legs made it too hard for her to jump onto the bed. Then she joined Duke on the pallet I had laid for him beside the bed on the floor. She always slept partially under the bed. When my mom came to visit, Gretta would let me know that she wanted her Grandma to get up in the morning, but she would not bother my mom. When I gave the ok signal, Gretta would jump onto the bed and begin kissing Mother's face to wake her up and then she'd lie beside her until Mom was ready to get up. Mom would sit up and caress her and talk to her before leaving the bed.

Gretta came to love me very much. She loved my mother, too. And she loved Luke, the college student who worked as my handyman. She loved everybody once she got to know them. She wanted and needed love so much and yet she would push it away. I sometimes felt she was me in fur. Gretta Looney became Grettalulu and my alter ego. She was a handful and could be hard to handle if you didn't know how, but the rewards far outweighed the struggle. She is gone now, and I feel her absence so greatly. I always will.

Duke, boy dog

I saw him on the local Humane Society's website two weeks before Christmas, a beautiful black and tan German Shepherd called Duke, available for adoption, and I hurried there to get him before he could get away. When I drove up, the sound of barking was unlike anything I had ever heard. Scores of dogs all barking at the same time. The din was almost unbearable. I walked over to the fenced-in area for adult dogs where the barking, playing, fighting dogs were romping, and there sat one dog in the midst of all that chaos as serene as could be.  My first thought was that if anyone could get along with Gretta, my nervous Shepherd at home, he could. When I called his name, he stood up and came to me at the fence. I caressed his head through the chain links. He licked my fingers and looked into my eyes.

He had the most beautiful face I have ever seen. There was one scar on his nose, suggesting hard  times, but he had the biggest, deepest, brownest eyes in that noble head that there could be. I immediately went inside and completed the paperwork to adopt him. It turned out that he had been abandoned when his owners pulled out their mobile home in the middle of the night, absconding, leaving behind Duke and a horse. We rode home with Duke standing in the back of the Jeep right behind me sniffing my hair. So beautiful in appearance and disposition was he that I had him for almost a week before I realized that his legs were somewhat bent and crooked.  Most likely the result of malnutrition in his puppyhood, the vet said.

Duke acted like a guest in my house for two weeks. He didn't seem to realize that this was his home, his house, his yard, his car. But after two weeks, he began to settle in and take possession of the place and of me and Gretta. He became our protector and guardian. Once Gretta slipped out the front door and ran down to the road. I looked at Duke and said, "Go get Gretta," and he took off running to her and herded her back to the house. He clearly loved her and wanted to protect her. He even tried to talk to her, making a sound that sounded like nothing so much as a donkey braying. As he realized that this was home, his delight became apparent. He loved his house. His Jeep. The back yard. Dog biscuits. He loved everything. I have never seen a person or animal as happy with his world as Duke was.

Except thunder. Duke did not love thunder. Whenever there was a storm, he wanted the whole family to go upstairs to the master bedroom to join him so that he could ride out the storm on his bed. He would not go alone. He would come to me, then turn and run to the foyer to the foot of the stairs and wait, and then come back and do it again, like Lassie trying to lead Timmie somewhere. I usually gave in and gave him his wish and we would all trudge upstairs to wait out the thunder and lightning. Gretta of course barked at each thunderclap, but in time even she learned to be peaceful upstairs in the bedroom all together.

Duke loved my mother, and she loved him. When she visited, she loved to work in my yard, and he always sat nearby watching the work proceed. In the evenings he lay at her feet while she read. My front porch ran the whole width of the house and Mom would try to exercise Duke by going onto the porch with him and saying, "Run, run, run!" And believe it or not, that dog would run back and forth from one end of the porch to the other for her.

Duke and my mom

Duke had separation anxiety. I learned this the hard way. After the holidays, when classes started again, I left Duke and Gretta together free in the house. That first day when I got home, I pulled the car into the garage and entered the house through the kitchen. There was sofa stuffing on the kitchen floor. All over the kitchen floor! I walked into the breakfast room, where there was even more sofa stuffing. I braced myself and continued on into the living room. The devastation was complete. The sofa was dead. Gretta had never touched anything when left at home alone. It had to be Duke. I took him back to the Humane Society to give him back. I simply couldn't afford this dog. But when I got there I just drove past and came home with him still in the back of the Jeep. Three times I left the house to go and give him back, and three times I couldn't turn into the Humane Society's parking lot. So Duke and Gretta had to be separated when they were home alone, and Duke had to spend his days in the garage, which was a very nice heated room with a window, or go to work with me. In the garage, I'd give him  cardboard boxes to tear up and he would, so I'd give him the pieces to tear up some more. He would, and he was happy.

One night four years later, a sound awakened me at around 1:30 am. I sat up and turned on the light. Duke was on his bed in convulsions, having a seizure. His toenails were hitting a chest of drawers and that was the sound that woke me. "Duke," I cried and jumped out of bed and put my body over his to protect him from hurting himself as he thrashed about. Finally, the seizure ended and for a few moments, Duke lay still. Then he got up and ran from the room, running into the door jamb on his way out. I called his name and though he came back to me, something was very strange about him. It took me a while to realize that he had lost part of his vision. I called our vet's emergency number and told her all that had happened, but she said only to bring him in first thing in the morning.

No one in our town knew what to make of it when seizures had effects that lingered after the seizures were over. Each time Duke had a seizure, he lost more of himself, so I arranged to take him to the Veterinary School at North Carolina State University at Raleigh. I boarded Gretta, and Duke and I set out on I-40 for a six-hour trip. We got as far as the Guilford College exit at Greensboro when Duke began to have another seizure in the back of the Jeep. I'll spare you all the details, but thank God for cell phones. There turned out to be a specialty vet hospital at that very exit that had a board certified neurologist. It was clear that Duke wasn't going to make it to Raleigh so that is where we went. We called ahead so the wonderful staff was expecting him. They came out with a gurney, for now his back legs were paralyzed, and carried him quickly inside. His care began immediately with a phenobarbitol drip to prevent any further seizures.

Well, you probably already know what happened. I was told that the testing had shown that no matter what was done for Duke, he would never regain his sight or the use of his legs. We never learned the cause of the seizures. I had to let him go. I sat with him and talked him out of this world saying all of his favorite sayings, telling him he was a good boy, that we were going home. I only had him four years and he was very young. I cried so much my mom considered slapping me. Well, the only thing to do was to go home, get Gretta out of boarding and bury my face in her fur.