Departures

The most important personality in my Cairo life right now (since Thomas is now safely "under the watch of the VIP/Presidential guard unit" in Marial Bai, Southern Sudan) is my roommate Marisol’s dog, Galleta. Some of you may remember her from the reeeaaaallly adorable picture I posted of her on the blog months ago when she was feeling sick and made herself look extra cute to get more sympathy. She has grown up now and we have really fallen into step this past month.

Marisol moved out officially a couple weeks ago but she was already spending most nights at her new boyfriend’s apartment for another couple weeks before that so I’ve been in charge of the dog for about five weeks now on my own. I was always the one to spend the most time with her but Marisol, for the most part, took care of the day to day responsibilities (food, water, fresh newspapers). I got the benefit of the constant cuteness and the only price I had to pay were nightly walks a few times around the block so she wouldn’t be too hyper in the evenings and would stop eating the furniture. Thomas was here to help me out with the walking and furniture protection duties until he left for Sudan on the 20th but it has been just me since then.

I was crushed when Marisol decided to go back to Mexico way earlier than expected and I had literally two months less dog time than I thought I would. Galleta has been my constant companion this week and, since Marisol moved out and Thomas left within a week of each other, she has been my only company at home in the evenings.

I have had to say goodbye to dogs before. As a one-lab family for my entire life, we’ve seen pets pass away. I haven’t always handled it well. When our yellow lab, Kelsey, died in 2004, I was living in New York and only found out afterwards that my parents had had to make the tough decision to have her put to sleep or else suffer through bone cancer. My mom, who didn’t have the hang of the whole answering-your-cell-doesn’t-mean-you’re-somewhere-appropriate-to-receive-bad-news thing told me while I was on a public bus coming back from the movies and I bawled the entire 20 minute walk home (which New Yorkers didn’t seem to think was that crazy), then drank a bottle of Yellow Tail shiraz and nearly fell down my Grandma’s stairs.

But this departure is different. Unlike my other dogs, I have raised her from a puppy and been her primary caregiver during that time so it is a totally different kind of awful than losing dogs who saw my dad, much more than me, as their parent. Plus, Galleta is going to a (hopefully) happy life in Mexico (Marisol’s sister is a vet, she has a young son and Galleta LOVES kids, and her parents have two little dogs who have the run of their yard) so I cannot really grieve for her. Meaning that there is a tinge of selfishness to my sadness because except to the extent that she loses me as a mom, my loss is mostly her gain (who wouldn’t want to live in a sunny yard in Guadelajara?). It makes it even harder to let go with a good bawling fit without feeling like a melodramatic moron (which hasn’t prevented me from crying every time I imagine Monday, when I come home from work and she’s not here, it just ensures I feel like a drama queen during the crying).

Either she is reacting to my emotions or she senses something is about to change (we do have a travel crate in the house now, which she has been eyeing suspiciously) or she is starting her heat cycle again (despite my objections to a dog that has her period in the house, Marisol refuses to have her fixed because she thinks some female dogs can experience “a trauma” if they don’t have puppies) but this weekend Galleta has gone from preferring to be in the same room with me to needing to be four or five feet from me at all times and preferring to be in contact with one or both of my feet. Even to the point of kicking in the bathroom door (yes, she is like 2 feet tall…it is a flimsy door) to come sit at my – somewhat surprised and embarrassed – feet.

By Wednesday, it will be all over. Marisol is leaving early Tuesday morning so I should hear by Wednesday that Galleta survived the SEVENTEEN HOUR flight and arrived safely at her new home. The vet here sold Marisol a travel crate so short the dog had to duck to even get into it and couldn’t sit or stand up straight or turn around once inside (leaving her no option but to lie down the whole time). I found this unacceptable-bordering-on-insane and took the drastic action of spending over $100 of my own money to buy her a size-appropriate crate so she’ll be comfortable. I’ve also been wearing the same gross old tanktop all weekend so I can put something that smells like me into her crate with her to comfort her since she will be traveling alone in the cargo hold with so many other unfamiliar smells. I feel like I will have done all I can and just have to hope the airline treats her well and she makes it through the ordeal okay.

The question I am grappling with now is, should I get another dog? I thought it was grossly irresponsible when Marisol first bought Galleta because we were sharing a two-bedroom flat and neither of us were home much but she turned out not only okay, but a really wonderful, good-hearted and well-behaved (except for the furniture-devouring) dog. This was largely due to my willingness to prioritize her by walking her each night and spending a lot of time with her on the weekends, which I would also be willing to do with another dog. Plus, now I have the whole 2 bedroom place to myself so there is more room for a dog to roam and one less person to work around. There is a Sudanese high school student I can hire to come by each day during the day to play with or walk the new puppy so I won’t feel as guilty about being at work for so long and the puppy can get some exercise and play or training time and socialize with someone else.

But on the other hand, I know I lucked out with Galleta, and her little heart of gold, and I don’t know that another dog would be as sweet. I don’t know if I am just reacting to the loss of THIS dog and just want to fill the hole I know I will feel in my life (i.e. get a Galleta-replacement) and how much I would be buying/raising/loving the new dog for its own sake. Is this just a philosophical question that doesn’t really matter as long as I am giving a new dog a happy home in a country that ostracizes and abuses dogs as religiously “unclean”? Is there something secularly unclean about the fact that if I could find a dog that looked exactly like Galleta, I would prefer that dog above all others? Am a walking freakshow for spending my Friday night drinking a beer, baking biscotti, listening to country music, and pondering these questions?

Speaking of, I am signing off to attend to the bi (twice) part of biscotti (twice-scorched) and take my own little Cookie (Galleta in English) for one of our last walks together.