Sixty-eight days ago, Otis came to live with us. Seems more like 68 lunar cycles ago. 

When he first arrived at our house from the vet on February 18, it was a totally one-sided love affair. I was already smitten with him from our long distance encounters on the side of the road. Otis was not at all convinced about his new foster parents. I do think he remembered my voice, but that was about it. He jumped at every noise and movement. Cowered when we reached out to pet him. He was a nervous wreck. From the outside, Otis may appear simple-minded, but he was a complex man with complex thoughts and problems. Layers of issues would need to be addressed.

We don’t have a fenced yard, so I had to keep him on a leash when he wasn’t in his kennel. Without having any kind of bond with us, I knew if he ever got away from me, he’d be gone and right back where he started. For weeks, Otis and I were like that Bible verse where Ruth tells Naomi, “For whither thou goest, I will go.” And so it was, for many, many weeks, he and I would goest a lot of places together. We walked around the yard and down the street and around the yard and down to the lake and around the yard and down the street. He pulled me here. He pulled me there. He pulled me everywhere. A few times, when I was airborne, I wondered if, “Where thou diest, I will die,” might also be a thing we’d do together. But, he seemed happiest and most relaxed when we were walking. And so we did. I suppose it was what he’d been used to doing all day on the streets. And so we walked. Up to 18,000 steps a day. My Garmin was certain it had been stolen by a much more active person. “Joni, is that you?” 

Otis was so happy walking, in fact, that when we’d stop and I’d put him in his kennel for a much needed rest, he’d start singing hound dog songs. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard a coonhound baying. It was sort of a mournful mix of a bark, a howl, and a poor attempt to form words. Words that would belong in a country song if, indeed, they were actually words. I texted the nearest neighbors to assure them we weren’t slaughtering anything over here. And Otis just kept singing and singing and singing. Verse after verse after verse. It was like the hymn of invitation at an old country church revival. He was determined to sing verses until someone came. 

I tried to apply the same principles the pediatricians gave us to use when we were trying to get our kids to sleep all night. I mean, how much different could a baby and a hound be? I asked around and googled what to do because the noise was starting to get to me. If we weren’t walking, he was barking and I was feeling like the mother of a colicky baby. Not to mention, he still needed rest to recuperate from his procedures. If I was going to help Otis, this was a battle I had to win. We ordered a bark collar for “rest” time and it worked like a charm. 

After all those weeks of feeling like the ball on the end of Otis’s chain, we decided he (and I) needed more freedom. A little more autonomy. A lot more autonomy. We were starting to lose our identities. I wasn’t sure where I stopped and where Otis started anymore. We’d become this one strange hound person. So, we put in a wireless fence and he learned how it worked right away. He’s a very smart boy. Finally, I was actually able to come inside and get some things done and he could explore the premises like hound dogs do all by himself. I felt like a bird out of the cage. 

The longer Otis was here, the more he started to love me. At first, not Davis. Not the neighbors who’d come speak each day. Not my family or friends when they’d visit. Not our kids. Just me. Only me. Like George Jones, Otis was a one woman man. And perhaps love isn’t a strong enough word. This is an obsessive kind of all-consuming amore. Like if I had to pick who loved me more- Otis or Davis- it would be really hard to say. Let’s just put it this way- if Otis was a person, I’d be calling the police. 

I suppose you become emotionally attached to anyone to whom you’re literally attached all day long for such an extended  period. Kind of like the strange attachment you hear some kidnap victims have with their captors. The love had gotten so possessive that Otis couldn’t relax when I wasn’t with him. He’d go from the front door to the back door to the kitchen window like a peeping tom. His dog friends would come in the yard to play and Otis would be pacing from the front to the back looking for his mama. Now listen, there are a lot of things that a man can rebound from, but being pegged a mama’s boy by the other neighborhood dudes isn’t one of them. So, Otis got a prescription for Paxil to help him not be such a clingy baby and to calm all of his overactive alarm bells. I think it could, may, might possibly be starting to take the edge off just a tiny tad, but he still wants to know where I am at all times. 

After a while, I was sure our bond was strong enough to try giving him some freedom on our walks. I mean, he’d become my little stalker, so I didn’t think he’d run off at this point. I felt like I was spending most of my day keeping Otis from doing things he wanted to do. Things he was born to do. After all, a coonhound is not a sissy, little house dog. They’re working dogs who love to do what they do and I wanted him to enjoy some freedom to explore and run. After all, we needed to find an outlet for all of his energy. He had a national reserve worth of excess energy from only walking as fast as I could walk with a leash. 

We live on a quiet, dead end street, so we ordered a GPS tracking collar and nervously tried a free range family walk, one day. When he realized he wasn’t at the end of a leash, he sprinted off like a gazelle. He was like the wind. Behind every house. Down every hill. Around every tree. He treed squirrels. He chased geese. He would run ahead and come back to check on us and head off again. It was a sight that should have been set to the theme of Chariots of Fire. It was just that beautiful. (Sound of record scratching.) He only needed 10 minutes of freedom to come back and offer me an extravagant gift of an oozing squirrel corpse to show me his undying love. He came home happy and exhausted and now he runs free twice a day on our neighborhood walks. He’s so much more content. I’m more content knowing he can follow his natural hound dog tendencies for a little while each day. 

Otis was our foster dog. We’d agreed to keep him while he got well and stronger. We agreed to give him love, a warm place to sleep, good food, and a lot of patience. We’d keep him until Amber could find the perfect home for him. After much blood, sweat, tears, thought, prayer, a prescription of doggie Paxil, a bark collar, a wireless fence, and a gps tracker- Davis, Ruby, and I decided to keep Otis here with us. We want to be his happy ending. The family who won’t ever leave him or let him down or put conditions on their love. 

When we got Ruby from the pound, she was all over us, but Otis had spent too much time alone. His heart had already retreated to a place where it was convinced he was better off by himself. A place where people didn’t amount to anything but disappointment. When something that reluctant to love finally trusts enough to give it another go….my goodness, I knew I couldn’t mishandle that. Even if he was passed off to a wonderful home, he would have to go through a lot to get to this point with a new person and I don’t want to put O through any more hard things. The boy’s had more than his share. Davis knows when I start referring to myself as anything’s mama, it’s game over. Besides, we’re in a rhythm over here and have found solutions to most of our problems. He’s made me way more active, five pounds lighter, a much earlier riser, more productive, and my cholesterol ratio has never been better. 

So, we’re keeping our boy, O, here to be a Miller. Otis and Ruby Miller. They sound like an old married couple who drive a blue Crown Victoria and stop in at Hardee’s for breakfast on Fridays between Ruby’s hair appointment and shopping for groceries at the Piggly Wiggly. Whether you like dogs or not, you have to admit they’re awfully cute. 

Otis is getting more and more attached to Davis everyday and runs to his truck when he comes home from work. The two of us make up his exclusive circle, but we hope he’ll allow others in with time. Ruby is the the typical older sister- he gets on her everlasting nerves, but nobody better mess with him or she’s on it. She’d like everyone to know she’s still receiving the highest level of five-star attention that she’s always been accustomed to and remains atop her throne as Queen of the manor. 

So, we say welcome to the family, Otis. 

You’re our boy forever. 

And they all lived happily ever after. 

I can’t close out Otis’s story without mentioning Amber again. She was the one who finally caught him before he died from his injury. Since catching Otis, she and also James, Pam, Tracie, and Teresa have all moved on to more dire situations and gotten dozens of other dogs and even litters of puppies off the streets. It’s a never-ending, disheartening stream that seems to indicate a growing societal problem. The people who do this are all exhausted and overworked and emotionally depleted from seeing the cruel ways humans can treat animals. I’ve only had to deal with the happy endings. That’s the easy stuff. They have to navigate the heartbreaking parts on their end- the parts they take home with them at night and can’t get out of their heads. Help, encourage, support your local rescue people. And if you’re looking for a pet, please adopt. They do make the very best companions. It’s like they know- and they spend the rest of their days trying to show you that they know. 

Y’all have a great weekend!

JONI