Sam

Sam was a confused pound puppy when he came to me. Well, I say puppy although the age is uncertain coming from an orphanage. He might have been two then.

From what I can put together, Sam had been adopted from the pound, brought back, adopted again and again brought back.

By the time I came around, I thought his demeanor was “what did I do wrong?” His method of communication in that cage was to simply walk up and lean on me.

I guess some type of cocker mix, but who knows what else. He had this big droopy mustache. Therefore, Yosemite Sam. Yosemite Samuel P. Puppy for formality.

The day I was to pick him up for adoption, they opened his cage for cleaning and he made a break for it. They pinned him against a fence and grabbed. Just as I would have, he bit them.

That earned him several weeks of isolation, allegedly to ensure he didn’t have rabies. (If he’d been previously adopted from there, and they require inoculation, didn’t that mean they knew it wasn’t possible?)

When he’d served his time all alone with no visitors, he was greasy and angry. In fact, I believe psychologically damaged. He wouldn’t allow anyone to pick him up. To go home, we had to fight to put him in the back of a pickup for the ride.

We stopped at PetSmart for some type of cleaning materials to at least make him not smell. We walked through the store and as we checked out, he looked up at me. And in his mouth was a yellow ball he’d pilfered from one of the bottom shelves. Guess he’d made a choice.

That type of dichotomy never left. He was thrown out of two grooming places for bad behavior. But he wouldn’t touch a trash can or walk out a front door unless you put a leash on him. Even I could not pick him up. But I was essentially only one he ever “kissed” in a decade.

Sam and I rode quite a roller coaster. Lots of people coming and going in our lives. There was one lady he grew used to coming to his home most early evenings for awhile. There was a couch in front of a big window out front and just about 6, he’s hop up there and watch for the vehicle to arrive. When she and I ended, he continued watching from about 5:45 to 6:30 for about two weeks. But then seemed to decide it was he and I again, and that was okay.

The last couple of weeks were harder on Sam. He’d always had a heart murmur and that condition worsened. Like many cockers, his hips were so weak I don’t think I’d ever seen him run. They began to betray even his interest in walking into the yard, much less farther.

When he reached that point, the slightest stairs or slick floors were too great a challenge. After more than a decade of maintaining pride and independence beyond even most pets, he let me pick him up and get him to the places he needed to be. Even seemed thankful.

When Sam and I joined forces, we were damaged. But we each gave each other little bits to try and work on that. Despite being betrayed so many times through his life by people, in the last days he gave me the ultimate trust of carrying him. And despite being a 52-year-old Texan man who has some belief you need to stand strong and deal with your emotions, I’ve cried more in the last week than possibly in the majority of my life.

Sam found trust and I had to deal with my heart. I think we’ll both take those gifts and hold onto them.