HomeSpunHealers

Nowhere is there place

To stop and live, so only

Everywhere will do:

Each and every grass-made hut soon leaves

Its place within this withering world.

~ Saigyo (1118-1190)

Just when life was on an even keel, maybe too serene for a couple who at some points in our lives have thrived on chaos, Elvis came into our lives. This was not Elvis the King of Rock and Roll, although our lives have truly been rocked and rolled by his presence, but another quite small package of mischief and fun and turmoil and serenity, just about the way most things in life are. Elvis is an almost seven year old male pug, whom we adopted from the Mid-Atlantic Pug Rescue on December 21, 2007. So, Elvis has been with us for about four months. Elvis came to us with a history and his name. The name suits him well, and the history is a little vague, but we are learning that life with Elvis is never boring.

Elvis was surrendered in early December and had been in the same foster home from the time of the surrender to the day we adopted him. According to what the previous owner told the foster family, he had been owned by her family, a husband and wife and two children, since he was a puppy. Her rationale for surrendering him was there was an impending divorce, the children were older teens and had busy schedules of their own, and she didn’t have much time for Elvis either. He was kept crated a good deal of the time. She thought it was the most humane thing for him to have the pug rescue find another home for him. I agree with her decision. The crate in which he was kept for long periods of time was very small and hard to see out of. That must have been uncomfortable for Elvis, who just loves to sniff and explore and roll around furiously before he naps.

So, that is how Elvis left his home of six and a half years to go on an adventure to find another home, this time, hopefully, a forever home. He adjusted fairly well to the foster home where he resided with six other dogs and a busy family. They discovered Elvis has food issues and doesn’t like to share food with others, or for others to have food that he is not sharing with them, or to be honest, stealing from them. So, he was crated at meal times in his foster home, but that crate was a large one that he could move around in and see out of easily, and he never minded going into the crate. All that was required was to put his dish of food in there, and he happily followed it. After everyone else had been fed, he was let out again. At bedtime, the family dogs were allowed upstairs to sleep with the family, and the foster dogs that came through their home were again crated for the night to sleep alone. That was just SOP for that foster family, and Elvis abided by the rules. He just attuned himself to the new family and the new ways of being and made the most of it. He was given free run of the house most of the time. He even got used to all his foster sisters and brothers as he at first only watched them play and then later joined in a little. There were a few scuffles over minor things like the communal water dish, but overall, Elvis seemed pretty happy at the foster home, and he didn’t cause too much trouble.

After three weeks of his new, freer life, he was locked up again in the smaller crate and taken away. He had to ride in a car for several hours, from Maryland to North Carolina, although his transporter did stop frequently to let him out of his crate because he cried so pitifully in there. There is one thing we’re all sure of: he does not like that little crate. He had bonded with his deliverer, probably because she had talked kindly to him and tried to reassure him, and on one of the frequent stops, she had even treated him to a couple of French fries, which is enough to win any pug’s heart. Pugs do love food! When they finally arrived, Elvis was a little fearful of us, approaching us cautiously, tail wagging warily. My guess is that he was not sure what was going to happen next or who would be the master of his fate. When his transporter left, he watched the door for a good while to make sure she wasn’t going to come back and get him and perhaps give him some more French fries, but eventually, he ventured around our house, sniffing everything and everyone to within an inch of our lives, including our smaller and older pug, Kojak.

He noticed that Kojak was a little weak and didn’t seem to walk very well, so he could establish himself as alpha dog because Kojak was easily intimidated by his exuberant personality and would let him take charge. After all, he is the King, isn’t he? This is normal among dogs to establish a pecking order, and although I wish Kojak would have stood up for himself and assumed the alpha position (and rightly so since he was here first and for a very long time, over 10 years) it was Kojak’s decision to let Elvis dominate. I was a little hesitant about Elvis at first, and I had ambivalent feelings when I first saw how much bigger he was and how much more robust he was than Kojak, who has a degenerative spinal disorder, which is causing him to become slowly paralyzed in his hind quarters. Kojak looked so frail and small and ancient next to Elvis, and Elvis had him scurrying away from him at first, and when he couldn’t scurry quite fast enough, he’d just topple over from the wake of Elvis’s gallop. But as I became reassured that he was not going to harm Kojak, and as Elvis began to seem more and more at home with us and a little more careful of Kojak, I settled down and just started to love him almost as if I had always had him with me.

He has the most enthusiastic way about him, and makes his presence known in a big way for such a little dog. He hurls himself into my lap, weighing twice as much as Kojak does and taking up twice as much room, too. I lovingly call him my chubby puppy, and I rarely forbid him to jump into my lap and sprawl over me. His exuberance has even infected Kojak, and my little lame dog has gotten stronger and more energetic since Elvis has come to live with us. It’s funny how when things come along in life that seem at first too overwhelming and make life too unsteady can eventually be just the jolt we need in our lives. I guess we are likewise Elvis’s jolt.

The important thing is that we are a family now, all four of us, humans and animals alike. And we have stories to tell that illustrate the ancient Chinese Tao, the yin and yang of things, and the serenity of the Zen. I guess it is acutely appropriate that pugs can help tell the stories of Taoism since they are themselves from ancient Chinese tradition, bred to be solely companions of humans. And there is nothing more simple or peaceful than just being what you’re designed to be and doing what you’re intended to do. So, although Elvis has been uprooted a couple of times, he always finds that wherever he goes, there he is being a pug, because after all, a pug is a pug wherever he goes.