For V-Day, A Love Story

A lot of people think Paco was a rescue. He wasn’t. I actually bought him from a backyard breeder.

The story goes something like this:

My friend Mara used to live in a house commonly referred to as “Hamilton Place.” It was located on Hamilton Court, a cul-de-sac off Harrison Street in Oakland, near the north end of Lake Merrit. It was an extremely large Victorian that housed six Mills undergrads and a huge storage space beneath, a space filled with the belongings of many people, as the girls upstairs often volunteered its capacity to friends that were in transit. I was one of those friends.

One day during May, 2001, I was either moving stuff into or moving things out of the space, I can’t quite recall. Their street was so tight that, in order to get out, you had to drive up the steep hill, make a three point turn in the cul-de-sac, pray you didn’t tap someone’s car, and then go back down the hill. On this particular day, while making the three-point turn, I noticed a red-nose pit bull with extremely large nipples sitting on a porch.

Two days later I returned to Hamilton Place with manpower in the form of Davon, one of the corner kids that used to hang out on Vallejo Street. This time while making the three-point turn, we saw a woman and a teenage boy sitting on the steps of the porch I’d seen before. D'angelo jumped out of the car.

“Hey, ____, long time no see!” he embraced the other teenager. They started gabbing. So I started small talk with the woman I assumed to be the boy’s mother.

“So, I noticed that dog the other day had really big nipples,” I said, though I’m pretty sure I didn’t say it quite that crudely. Or maybe I did.

“Oh yeah, she just dropped eleven pups yesterday,” the woman informed me.

We started talking and I told her about my situation. At the time I was living in a punk flophouse with motorcycle messengers, skaters, and construction workers, which is no place for a dog. But soon I was moving into a new place, one where I would actually have a room with walls. Once I was settled, I wanted to add a dog to my life ASAP. I had lost my old dog, Ajax, the previous fall and working at the dog day care every day just made me miss having a dog more and more.

She told me I was welcome to come back and buy one of her puppies when they were ready. I politely said, “Sure, I’ll check them out,” but in my head I knew there was no way. I’d never own a pit bull.

Fast-forward several weeks.

This time it was Jake’s stuff we were moving into the basement of the Hamilton Place. And he had a lot of stuff, so my truck and I were asked to join the moving posse.

I dropped off a load and headed up the hill to do the three-point turn. I wrestled the truck into the first part of the maneuver (no power steering) and that’s when I saw him. A little, dark puppy waddled its way across the porch, stuck its face in the corner, squatted down, and took a piss. I was hypnotized, absolutely frozen behind the wheel of my immobile truck. The spell was broken by a woman’s voice.

“Hey! Hey, you! I remember you. Didn’t you want a puppy?” It was the woman I had met a few weeks earlier. Despite my initial protests, she finally convinced me to turn off my engine and come out and meet the dogs.

For over an hour I sat there with the family and their dogs, both mesmerized and horrified by what I saw and heard. Mama Dog had dropped eleven puppies, they told me, but only 8 survived. Two died shortly after birth and the third somehow broke its leg and they ditched it at the vet after they learned how much it would cost to fix it. “We just left,” she bragged, then laughed and mimicked talking to the vet, “’Hell, now you gotta deal with it!’”

Of the eight surviving puppies, four had been sold already (I later did the math between the first time I saw Mama Dog to the day I met Paco… the puppies were only 5 ½ weeks old). Two of the puppies were female and brindle. They were lively and wrestled with each other incessantly. The two boys were much more lethargic, and Paco, the runt, was about half the size of his chocolate brother. “We’re gonna take the rest to the flea market tomorrow to get rid of ‘em,” they informed me.

All the puppies had huge bellies, swollen from worms. I held Paco and scratched him behind the ear and felt something crunchy under my fingers. I looked down and saw dozens of fleas scatter. Mama Dog keep circling and growling at me. If she got too close they’d take a wire coat hanger and shake it at her, threatening to whoop her with it. Daddy lived out back, and was so happy to have a visitor he nearly knocked me over with his enthusiastic “hello”.

The sun went down and I was still sitting on the porch with the puppies. At this point I’d been dog shopping for weeks. I’d been to every shelter in the area many times over but I just hadn’t found “the one”. In fact, I thought “the one” would be female and a border collie cross. This little dark pit bull was about the furthest thing from that I could find, but I couldn’t deny the bond I had felt instantly when I saw him waddle across the porch and take that piss.

Of all the dogs, he was the least outgoing and wanted the least interaction with people. In fact, he didn’t want to be handled *at all*. He was the smallest, and the sickliest. He was so flea infested that the parasites had managed to burrow their heads under his skin like ticks (at the time of his first vet visit he weighed 3.2 lbs and, when he was dewormed, he pooped solid worms for days on end).

I imagined him being sold to some kid at the flea market the next day, living in a backyard tied up, and then getting dumped when he was deemed to be a nuisance. And the kid probably wouldn’t care since the dog didn’t want anything to do with him, either. I imagined a mother’s voice booming out the back door, “I told you, git rid of that damn dog!” Internally, it made me cringe.

“So, you want one?” They were trying to close the deal.

“Well,” I finally said, “if I was going to pick one it would be that one.” I pointed at Paco.

“That one? That one?” she asked incredulously, “Shit, you can have him.”

I thought that was pretty generous, considering she originally had asked for $250 per puppy, but then she thought it through more.

“Let’s do this, give me $40 because I at least need to cover the cost.” The pups had not gotten any shots or dewormer but they had been taken to the vet for a preliminary visit. I believe the broken leg puppy was dumped during that visit.

I agreed to her terms, telling myself I would just nurse the dog back to health and then find him a real home. But who was I kidding, it was love at first sight.

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Paco at 6 weeks wearing a sombrero that once adorned a tequila bottle. If you notice his fur looks grey or blue because it was dead, and his forehead is suspiciously bald, a feature that almost earned him the name "Grandpa"... I'm kind of glad "Paco" won.

Letter to a friend

A few months ago my good friend/customer/possible soulmate, Shanda, envisioned the perfect collar for her dog, Lemonhead, and contacted us. This is the result (and that's the Lemon himself modeling it).

Coincidentally, Lemon and Paco had the same exact neck size, so I took the completed collar home that night, had Paco wear it, and then promptly made him an identical one the next day.

Shanda and I are a little in the same head space right now. She works in the animal industry, lives in Florida and, on this past Christmas Eve, had to make the difficult decision to put down her dog, Lemonhead (aka. Frodo). While it doesn't necessarily help you heal faster, somehow it's helpful to know you aren't the only one out there feeling the way you feel. Here is a letter I sent to Shanda today:

Actually, you are bonkers, but more so for carrying your own bags [the trend of bringing your own bags to the grocery store has not yet caught on in Florida] rather than grieving like you are. I was thinking about you all night last night and this morning. Like you said, not that it really helps, but it kind of does to know you're not the only one out there.

There has been so much change in a short amount of time that it almost seems like Paco's death was a lifetime ago. Frankly, I was not able to go into work until after we found out that we got the new studio. The old place was just too depressing. It was seriously bumming me out when Paco was alive, and the thought of going there after Paco died was just too much. The only way I could stomach it was knowing that we were able to jump ship soon.

Since every routine in my life hinged around Paco, it was vital to break that habit. If everything was still exactly the same as it had been before he died, I don't think I'd be handling things nearly as well.

It's kind of like quitting smoking (which I've done more than once). You have to change your entire lifestyle. In fact, in one of the only activities that remains relatively the same, driving, I lose it almost every day. That's actually where it hits me the hardest, but I've gotten really good at navigating traffic through blurry tears and have decided I don't give a shit if other people see me cry.

As dumb as it sounds, the first day I was blaming the collar. I figured it was cursed. I mean, first Lemon, then Paco... then I realized that was an insane theory, but sometimes you're just so angry you have to blame something. And then I blamed The Roach. In theory, if we hadn't gotten her then our landlord wouldn't have insisted we fix the fence, Paco would have still had his trick board, and never would have tried to go over the fence. But that line of thinking doesn't get you anywhere, either.

I know you feel directly responsible, but even if you hadn't been the one to make the decision or Lemon had died a natural death then you would probably still find either some way to blame yourself or blame some insane theory. That's just part of it. I can't even imagine carrying the weight of that burden, but at some point you'll have to forgive yourself (now you see why most people wait for their veterinarian/behaviorist to make the decision for them... too bad you're both rolled into one).

In the meantime, take a vacation, get a dog, or institute some sort of change. I'm going to be doing all 3, lol! Don't get me wrong, I love The Roach to death. It's hard to keep crying when she does something adorable or hilarious, but, from the get-go, she was never supposed to fill the role of "dog"... she was supposed to be the bridge between Paco and Pirate. Right now the house is feeling a little feline heavy, so we need to get a dog in here soon. I think I'll start the search later this month. Every day with out a pit bull in the house just feels kind of empty. I know I'm not quite ready yet, life is still a little too jumbled, but as soon as the new routine starts, I'm adding a dog to that ASAP.

Okay, need to get a move-on. I've gotten into the routine of staying in my PJs until about noon every day, not the most productive of habits.

Barely keeping it together

Last night I had my first dream about Paco.

I think I've been relatively lucky in that I've managed to avoid it so far, with the exception of the night he died and my dream about him and Xochitl (So-Chee) having the same forehead and, therefore, she was really his love-child. That night I woke up sad, but Paco had appeared as a ghost or presence, and it was obvious he wasn't coming with me when I woke up.

But last night I dreamed that I had arbitrarily set a euthanization date for Paco and it was the day before I was to put him down. As I looked over my porch railing onto my country estate (my dream house was totally pimp), I saw Paco running the acreage with my friends' dogs. His front leg was stiff and reminiscent of his actual dead body pose, but the rest of him worked just fine. I wondered aloud why I had chosen to put him down, and began rethinking my decision.

"I don't care if his front leg doesn't work," I told my friends, "I just want Paco. I'm not going to put him down anymore. I don't care if he's old, grey, and his body doesn't work. I just want Paco."

When I woke up I thought he was still alive. And then I got really sad.

This whole week has been an eye-opening experience for me. I realize that I'm not yet ready to go out in public and make small talk (as demonstrated by my colossal demonstration of water-works at the Burning Man party... well, I'm assuming from the age and general tendency of the guests to rub me the wrong way that it was a Burning Man party), I'm one step away from rage (pouring paint into the metal pan versus the disposable liner will invoke a fury worthy of the WWE ring), and if I cry a number of times less than the fingers on one hand, then I can call it a good day. Basically, I'm barely keeping it together.

In vocalizing my emotional state to Aaron earlier this week, I realize that I'm kind of constantly on the verge of breaking down. If things are going normal to good, then it's okay. I feel and act fine, though it's hard for me to get truly elated. But if something goes wrong, I feel stressed, or if the conversation turns toward a topic that reminds me of Paco, I kind of lose it. It's like I'm walking on a tightrope and the slightest breeze of negativity forces me to lose my balance and go spiraling down.

Perhaps the best thing that this week has offered is the chance to build the new store. It's given me something on which I can focus and meditate. At first it started out as a group project, but that stressed me out beyond belief. Once I realized I had to take sole ownership of the endeavor, it became the cathartic experience I needed it to be.

With silence and space on my side, I have been able to visualize, plan, and build. I taped a photocopy of Paco prominently on the fireplace for inspiration and it's been working. I was an apartment painter for years and later a mural painter, but have been burnt out on painting since the '90s. However, with this project I've regained my former zen and am taking joy in the process, rather than feeling a haste to get to the end. I pay painstaking attention to the details. With every brush stroke I feel like I'm building it for him, and that has been the therapy I so desperately need right now.

Today we purge and pack the old studio and tomorrow we move. Before/after pictures will be posted later... I'd hate to give away the surprise makeover before it's time.

Fence Destruction 101

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is the photo essay of Paco's fence tear down/rebuild wake. We began Friday afternoon. Linda, her husband Bill, and Donyale came over to tear down the fence and put in the posts.

The fence before:

This is the view looking out from the house. The other side is the really disturbing one, as you can clearly see Paco's pre-death struggle, but I will refrain from posting pictures of it. I've had over a week to get used to it, you haven't.

The tear down took about 5 minutes. Here I am getting aggro:

And this is what our yard looks like without a fence:

We had to break up the cement so we could dig the post holes down far enough. Linda, who was initially scared of the sledge, learned to really like it:

We mixed cement in a wheelbarrow and set the posts:

Admiring the work:

Paco managed to leave his mark:

The job ended up going way faster than we expected, but we had to halt work and let the cement dry overnight before we could go any farther. So we took "Soche the Roach" out to the bar.

The next day we got an early start. Volunteer labor began showing up. Even my parents made a guest appearance:

We measured twice and cut once...

... put the planks in place...

... and trimmed off the excess...

... bam!

Everyone had a job. This was the puppy brigade (see if you can spot a sleeping Xolo):

The fence was topped off with a 2"x6" and a 1" trim. Everyone grabbed a paintbrush, battled the insane fumes, and the fence was sealed and complete in no time. The results:

You can see the puddles of sealant:

By the light of day:

Already the change is profound. Just to not have to look at that fence makes a huge difference. And it was quite touching to see everyone who came out to help celebrate Paco's life.

His ashes arrived Thursday, so he was able to attend as well. His kitchen table shrine kept getting bigger and bigger as people added to the cards and gifts that have been arriving all week. More than a few tears were shed, but overall the mood was positive, which is how Paco would have wanted it. In fact, I think he would have rated it a "two-bowl" party.

And it's a good thing so many folks showed up to help as our in-house Mexican labor was not up for the task.

Alone time

So we're slowly moving forward in the grieving process. The pain is not 24/7 anymore, like it was. Now it just comes in waves, and usually when you least expect it.

Like yesterday at the bank. I wasn't ready for that.

In general I find it's easier talking to people who already know about it. Breaking the news is nearly impossible, and usually ends with me bawling and telling them to go read the website because I simply cannot bear to tell the story any more. I'm still not answering my phone unless it's someone with whom I'm immediately coordinating plans.

But the happy times are peeking through. I can laugh with my friends, have a decent dinner with Aaron, and go on a dog walk successfully. In fact, so long as I'm in the presence of other people I'm pretty much fine. It's when I'm alone that it really hits home.

I realize that I haven't actually been alone for nearly 8 years now. Paco was not just my dog, he was my sidekick. He went everywhere with me, literally. When he was 5 1/2 weeks old and needed to be fed every few hours, I wore him in a papoose behind the counter at the junk store I worked at. When he was 12 weeks old he would come with me to work at the dog day care every day. When he was 4 years old and I quit the daycare to pursue Paco Collars full time, he came along with me. Vacations were planned around his inclusion and my avoidance of public transportation was on his behalf (except the one time I snuck him on BART in his therapy dog vest when my car broke down).

I went out of my way to get him his CGC and Therapy Dog title so that he would be accepted everywhere. In places other dogs were not allowed people made exceptions for Paco.

Just a few days before Christmas this year some friends had a get-together at their house. The hosts were pregnant (well, the wife was) and had invited all of their "baby friends." In fact, it was primarily a "baby party." And, guess what? They went out of their way to invite Paco. They knew Paco was as important to us as any of the children were to their parents, so they asked if Paco could come. Visually he was a little out-of-place, being the only four legged guest, but he was happy to perform tricks for latkes and allowed the children to walk all over his back.

I was away from him for a week two summers ago when I went to New York. Most recently, we were in Mexico for two weeks. That was by far the longest I'd been away from him. Part of me wonders if this recent extended absence prompted his desire to squeeze out the cat door and follow us that night. Or maybe my fears were true and his seemingly increased ravenous demeanor of the late was the presence of a new, budding disease, one that prompted him to check Pirate's feeding spot for leftovers on the other side of the fence.

All I know is that now I feel alone. I can be surrounded by other dogs, and there's still a giant hole. Paco was my other half, and I wonder if another dog can ever fill that hole.

Today we tear down the fence and build a new one. Folks will be coming over to help. In essence, it will be a two day wake for Paco.

New Leaf

The saying goes something like, "When one door closes another opens." I think that's the polite way of saying life has a twisted sense of humor.

Yesterday afternoon we found out that we got the space. *The* space. It's the space we've been hand-wringing about for two weeks. The space that was too perfect. The space that required the preface, "I don't wanna jinx it but," whenever I mentioned it to the handful of friends I knew would share our pain if we didn't get it.

Several different events, such as the lease running out, our 24 hour security guy moving to Oregon, and the lack of insulation combined with the roof leak directly above my desk (it's not the biggest of the roof leaks, might even be the smallest, but it's the most annoying) prompted the desire to find a new place, and we were hoping the move could be an upward one. Given our meager budget, our options were slim, but one day we found a posting on Craigslist that was too good to be true.

Formerly a blacksmith shop, the building was one of the oldest on Shattuck. The space is as long as our current studio and about half the width (which is totally fine since, if you've ever seen our current studio, you know half our space is just full of junk).

It also includes a small office.

But the best part is that it includes a fireplace. Having worked in warehouses, basements, cargo containers, and garages for the past 7 years, this is downright luxurious.

The facade. Yes, we can affix signage and yes, we have both windows. Note the hitching posts.

It's just $50 more than the rent we pay now and across from the Berkeley Bowl, the best grocery store in the entire bay area. Just 2 blocks from BART, the location is beyond perfect.

In a way, the timing couldn't be better. We all sorely need a project to get our minds off the recent tragedy, and what better project than creating a physical tribute to Paco in the form of a store that honors his memory. It all seems so bittersweet, though.

We start to move in this weekend and, in the meantime, we're totally taking design advice. The one bad thing about all of this news is that we cannot change the colors of the facade. The Paco palette is pretty earthy so we'll have to find a compromise. We can do whatever we want to the interior so goodbye, sunset wall.

Pet Cemetery

Yesterday we took Paco up to Napa.

It's fortunate that the one pet crematorium that was open on a Sunday also filled the desire to get the f- out of town. While making the reservation the woman on the other end of the phone asked me, "Do you have someone to carry him? Because I'm the only one here."

"Of course," I answered, "we can carry him."

"Are you sure?" she asked, "Because I'm the only one here."

It seemed strange to me that she didn't think we could handle carrying a 48 lb dog (actually 47.5... I had just taken him in last week to get his rabies booster and was shocked to discover he was a pound under his ideal weight). But I dismissed it.

We hopped in the car and went to get Paco. Carolyn had taken away his body the night before. She's an ACO for Contra Costa County and, therefore, the one I called to find out what to do with the body. When we discovered Paco, his extremities were cold but his core was still warm. By the time Carolyn took him away his core was cold as well. But as we took Paco out from her trunk to put in ours, I pulled back the quilt to expose his elbow and rib cage and was shocked to feel how utterly chilled his body was. This, of course, sparked a fresh crying session.

We dried our eyes, picked up Donyale and headed north.

The drive was absolutely beautiful. The air was chilly but the sky blue and full of moist clouds that threatened to rain at any moment. The wine country made a beautiful backdrop to distract us, as the mood in the car was somber. As we climbed the hill to the Bubbling Wells, I was amazed at the scenery. I mean, check out the view.

Inside the office/chapel, things were... um... creepy.

The woman instructed us to drive around the side to the refrigeration area. She pointed to the astro-turf covered bench and told us to put the body there. We carried him out in the quilt and placed him on the bench.

She produced a large, black trash bag. "Okay, and now you need to take him out of the blanket and put him in this bag."

We peeled away the blanket, lifted up his stiff body, and that's when we all started bawling. I realized then why she had stressed so much about asking for help. Carrying him wasn't the hard part, this was.

"Oh my," she said, "he looks so young." As the three of us stood there sobbing, each with a hand on Paco, I tried the best I could with what little oxygen I had to explain what happened. While she had seemed a bit hardened before, I could see that the story impacted her generally tough demeanor. "Oh dear, how tragic," she kept saying over and over.

I don't know how long we stood there petting Paco. Somehow his mouth had closed during transport and his lip was hung up on one tooth, which was always my favorite facial expression of his.

We lifted him up and slid the trash bag around him, sobbing and following her instructions about pushing him to the bottom.

"Now twist up the end," she said. I was staring at Paco's face and reaching toward the bag but I couldn't do it.

"Now twist up the end and tie it in a knot," she instructed again. But I couldn't do it. I was, literally, frozen in shock staring at his little snaggle-tooth.

"You don't have to do that," Aaron said, as he bear hugged me and pulled me away from the scene, breaking the trance. And that's when I really lost it. I was crying hysterically and couldn't stop. All the pain came crashing down in that one moment, and I felt the loss in a way I hadn't experienced before. The reality of it all hit me, and I just let it all out.

Eventually I pulled it together and we lowered Paco into the fridge. Stacked on top of those other bags he was indistinguishable. We took a few minutes to pull ourselves together and potty Xochitl, who was doing a really good job at distracting us with her puppy-antics.

Randomly, Leslie and Nickie were up north, so we met up with them at one of their favorite wineries to toast Paco. This is the view from the winery (and also what I look like with a purse dog... this is only until she gets all of her shots, I swear).

It was on the drive home that we decided we'll be tearing out the fence. We just can't look at it anymore.