Meet Reggie

2020 was really hard.

Oh, sorry! This wasn’t supposed to be a breaking news story, was it? It was supposed to be a fun, fluffy piece about my cute dog.

Don’t worry, I’ll get there.

He’s seriously cute.

But first, let's recall that 2020 was really hard for hundreds of millions of people. For my little family, 2019 was one of the most challenging years we’d lived through, and then 2020 came in, and seemed to cackle “hold my beer” with a mighty YAWP!

Yet we really need to start with 2019. In January we took a trip to a romantic, tropical location. After an idyllic week, my spouse and I were seated in front of a trio of children that coughed on us for the entire return flight. We both contracted H1N1, pneumonia, and were severely ill for weeks. Then in July 2019, my husband was in an accident at work that changed our lives.

I don’t want to talk about that. Let’s skip that part so we can get to the cute dog part sooner, okay?

To briefly summarize, my husband suffered a traumatic brain injury and spent the latter part of 2019, and all of 2020 in therapy to help restore his body, mind, and speech. He’s doing much better, but he remains disabled and our lives are forever altered.

We live in a very expensive real estate market, and in February 2020, less than a year after my husband's accident, we found out that we had to move. No amount of pleading or explaining would influence our landlords to allow us stay. At the same time, my adult son was looking for housing, so I asked him if he would consider staying with us for a month to help us move. Thankfully, he agreed. Then COVID hit. We got the keys to our new house on March 13th, 2020, and our state’s “shelter in place” lockdown went into effect on March 16th. We were fortunate to find a house that works well for three adults, and what we figured would be a one or two month cohousing situation has lasted nineteen months so far.

Trial under fire doesn’t even begin to describe the process of moving, with a disabled spouse, during quarantine. I hadn’t lived with my son in eight years, and he had never lived with my husband. By Christmastime, we had spent nine months in nearly complete isolation together. We only went out for doctor visits and monthly grocery runs. Like so many others, we were lonely, bored, terrified, depressed, and playing far too much Animal Crossing. As winter holidays approached, we did our best to think of ways that we could celebrate – just the three of us.

Thanksgiving took place via Zoom, and my spouse and I puzzled over what to get my son for Christmas.

For some time, I had been considering the idea of getting an emotional support dog to help give my husband a companion, walking buddy, and something positive to focus on. Truth be told, I thought that we would all benefit from having another creature in our home for companionship and socialization. Also, my son absolutely loves dogs.

I talked to my husband about possibly getting a dog for our household, or getting one as a Christmas gift for my son. He expressed a willingness to possibly get a pooch, but wisely insisted that we needed to talk to my son about it, that a pet was too significant a responsibility to be a surprise gift. Our son loved the idea of having a dog, but remorsefully listed several reasons for his not getting one for himself – mostly unknowns with housing, work, and income. He didn’t think it would be a good idea for him to become a solo pet owner at that time.

Christmas included a masked, outdoor, campfire meetup with my sister-in-law and her family. Due to various rescue situations, her family at the time included five dogs. We enjoyed our visit with our human and canine kin, and a few days later, after talking it over, I reached out to my sister-in-law and asked if she had a dog or two that we could borrow for a while. She offered that we could take the pugs.

Which is how Reggie and Rosie came to stay with us.

We weren’t planning on two dogs, but as a bonded pair, they needed to be together, and they soon brightened our glum home with their silly, snorty antics.

I asked my sister-in-law if they were siblings, and she said “no, they’re married” as if they had had a fancy pug wedding. They hadn’t, but we like to imagine that they did before they came to her.

During her time at my sister-n-law’s farm, Rosie had earned the nickname “Mama” because of her tendency to boss the other dogs around. She outweighed her “husband” by about eight pounds, and it didn’t take us long to realize that she was preventing Reggie from eating his food until she had gobbled up what she wanted. This meant that Rosie was often getting double meals while Reggie went hungry.

We started working on poor manners and bad habits right away. Reg was a sweet boy who needed a lot of encouragement to come out of his “beta dog” shell. He came to us as a bit of a shy guy who would cower and hide whenever he was spoken to, or when his lady pushed him around. They both needed to break some bad habits.

Having emotional support animals that needed obedience training actually turned out to be positive for us. It gave us something to focus on and occupy our time during lockdown. We enjoyed puppy snuggles and play time, but we also started taking walks, worked on food aggression, and trained them to follow basic commands like “wait” and “leave it.” The food aggression issue was resolved within a few weeks, and all pooches went on a doggie diet.

My spouse insisted that they weren’t coming to stay, but his sister encouraged us to keep them as long as we wanted. Soon days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months.

Sadly, Rosie passed away unexpectedly in June 2021.

Suddenly, Reggie, who had come from a pack of five, became the only dog in our household. He continues to work through some depressive-type behavior, but for the most part, he seems to revel in his role of King.

He’s gotten good at riding in the car and often travels with us.

He loves to “roughhouse” with my husband and play on the bed.

He will sit under my son’s office chair when he works from home, and helps us with the recycling.

He's the perfect companion for watching sports and movies.

He doesn’t bark at airplanes nearly as much as he used to.

He’s a sweet, gentle, soul who has developed a really vocal and charismatic personality, and instead of cowering and hiding, he now frolics and romps.

We have all been struggling to adjust to strange and uncertain times these past few years. Having a sweet and eager pooch to care for, who showers us with love and affection, has been a wonderful and therapeutic addition to our family.

Good job, therapy dog. Good boy.

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