At nearly 13 years old, Martha has come into her own.
Until last year, this 39-pound lab/pit bull mix had lived all her life as the goofy little sis of noble chocolate lab, Aquinnah. She took his death hard in February 2020, as did my husband, Paul, and I.
A silver lining is that I have been given a chance to see that Martha is a more interesting dog than I had thought.
Quinn, as we called Aquinnah, came into our lives in 2007, after we lost our dog, Jack, in a horrible and mysterious way. Quinn rescued me from my grief. He was the dog I needed, loving but aloof. If I cried into his fur, he just slept on.
I was convinced back then that we needed a second dog, a few years younger than Quinn. Being without a dog had not been a good situation for me.
In late 2008, the Kennebec Valley Humane Society had a litter of puppies available for adoption. We chose “Olivia.”
And promptly changed her name to Martha. Since Aquinnah was named for a town on Martha’s Vineyard, Martha seemed appropriate.
She was tiny. We stopped at the pet store on the way home to buy supplies. We placed her in the seat of the carriage and she fell right through. I was horrified but she was unhurt.
Martha immediately attached herself to Quinn and began sleeping on top of him when he slept on the couch. Quinn tolerated her possum-like behavior for long stretches, but then would shake her off and head to his dog bed.
He never lost patience with her, though, even when she grew into a medium-sized dog.
She was a handful. Martha has a lot of energy. Even as a senior dog, she gets up on her hind legs as we carry her food bowl across the kitchen. When she was a pup, I would have to take her out in the yard every evening to let her run in circles around me until she was tired. Well, sort of tired.
Her veterinarian called her “crazy good,” manic but not aggressive. A typical vet visit — before the COVID-19 pandemic — involved Martha dragging me across the lobby. The recent months of curbside drop-off actually came as a relief. One time, Paul and I, waiting in the car, could see her running around the examining room.
We looked at each other and smiled, glad we were not in there.
Martha is my eighth dog, yet all my attempts to train her to behave in public have failed.
Luckily, she has always behaved at home. I do not remember her having a major chewing incident as a puppy.
Martha’s combination of frantic energy and general silliness stand in stark contrast to Quinn’s solidness. This is true even physically. Quinn had light-green eyes, a shiny brown coat and an intelligent, narrow face. Martha is cute, while he was handsome. She has improbably skinny legs and tiny paws. Sometimes, instead of walking, she prances.
Martha’s role as the clown of the family has not changed completely since Quinn’s death, but she is more of a watchdog now. Martha had been content to let Quinn scare away the mail carrier. Now, she will go into the downstairs bathroom, where she can push the curtains aside to keep an eye on the street.
Martha also fancies herself as the warden of our four cats. She has become friends of sort with Ted, a friendly Maine coon cat. Ted sleeps with Martha in the living room when Paul and I go out. She will also gently nudge Annie, a sweet, gray ball of fur, and sometimes lick her head.
Quinn was a strict follower of routine. If he headed to his dog bed after dinner one day, he headed there every day. Martha always followed his lead, but there was one thing she did differently. Every day, the dogs practiced a variety of “tricks” that were rewarded with treats. First, give one paw. Next, two paws. Quinn, without fail, used his right paw. Martha sometimes used her right paw, sometimes her left and sometimes her right and then her left. Or vice versa.
I always found this interesting. Now, I notice Martha chooses where she is going to sleep. For example, if on a weekend afternoon I go out to the family room to read, she does not always go to the same place in that room to sleep. Sometimes, she chooses her blanket on the couch, other times the dog bed or the floor pillow.
Martha also learns quickly. One day, Paul brought her along to pick me up from work. That was it. The next day, just before it was time for him to leave the house, she was ready to go.
This was cute until the weekend, when she decided she needed to go for a ride. It was raining and we had no intention of going anywhere.
She whined. She would not settle. Martha was such a brat that day that she was grounded. But it did not last. She is so “crazy good” I cannot say no to her for long.
Liz Soares welcomes email at lizzie621@icloud.com.
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