Loving the Unlovable

“You have managed to fall in love with the unlovable,” my friend Roxy said to me several months back.  Fortunately, she wasn’t referring to my husband, Jeff. 

She was referring to Jack, our bow-legged, halitosis-infested, benign-tumor-covered, foggy-eyed, mostly deaf, nasty-to-strangers (and sometimes us) rescue Dachshund who joined the family two and a half years ago. We already had two lovely standard poodles at the time, so why would we add another dog to the pack, let alone one with a built-in Napoleonic complex?

Wine. Too much wine.  All Jeff’s fault.

We were lounging in France after a leisurely midday meal in 2005 when Clare popped the question.  “Dad? Can we get a Dachshund?” Lying in a recliner across the room, I waited to hear my husband’s logical explanation as to why another dog would be impractical.  Instead, I heard, “Sure, honey. Why not?”

Enter Jack. 

Jack, Disgusting in So Many Ways

We’d figured that adopting a puppy would put our carpet over its canine urine limit, so we sought out an older, calmer dog that was already housebroken.  Instead, we got the Danny DeVito of Dachshunds with broken bladder control. 

Like a Ziploc bag of urine that’s not fully sealed, Jack scooches across the carpet drizzling a little pee here and a little pee there.  His voice—channeled by all of his humans—is harsh and raspy, like that of a pack-a-day smoker and quart-a-night whiskey drinker.  His mouse-eating average is impressive: one every eight months (and those are only the ones we’ve personally witnessed). Jack is disgusting in so many ways, not the least of which, his propensity to mount our 60-pound poodle whenever Duke is having one of his seizures.  I know, right?

And yet, we have fallen in love with the unlovable. 

This past Saturday, we noticed our little Jack was unusually lethargic.  He didn’t try to steal Duke’s food at breakfast, barely ate his own. When we held him, he felt hot, feverish in fact. We’d suspected that Jack wasn’t long for this world within weeks of adopting him as his medications - and our vet bills - increased, and we’d often joked that getting Jack was not so much a rescue program as it was an extended hospice.

But having lost one of our poodles last month to food poisoning (she'd raided the countertop and ingested a small amount of the sweetener xylitol), we were not prepared to lose another of our pack so soon after.  Instead of taking the “wait and see” approach, we loaded Jack in the car and drove to the emergency vet clinic where we ran up a $400 tab only to learn that Jack’s blood panel reflected a remarkably healthy little guy.

Now feeling the pinch on our wallets, we declined the suggested x-rays and drove Jack back home.  We cancelled our evening plans and instead opted for a DVD and onion dip, and Jack curled up on my daughter’s lap the whole night.  At bedtime, Jeff slept with Jack in the guest room, and at 1 a.m. when Jack woke him with his whining, Jeff returned to the emergency clinic for those x-rays we’d cheaped out on earlier.

While waiting in the examination room for the test results, Jeff noticed Jack moving about the floor in obvious discomfort. Jack then squatted, farted, and shot out what Jeff would later describe as “the offending plug” followed by a small amount of goo.  The vet tech returned to show Jeff a set of “normal” x-ray images before giving him another $200 tab. 

By the next morning, Jack’s fever was gone and he was back to being his usual obnoxious self.  The diagnosis?  A bellyache.  A 24-hour, six-hundred-dollar bellyache.

What can I say? We're head over heels in love this little unlovable guy. 

Jack Larsen

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Download a PDF of the first 4 chapters of Lauren's memoir, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances, free.  Click here and go to the link below the "Buy the Book" button.  Zuzu's Petals is also available on Kindle and Nook.  Hardcover copies are available at amazon.com, or signed copies can be ordered at www.laurenwardlarsen.com. Happy reading!