About Spike

About thirteen years ago my eldest fur-child came by to live with me. We (my first husband and I) adopted him from the local animal shelter, apparently he kept running away from where he was living. Of course I have no idea why he kept leaving - all I know is that aside from a few “walkabouts” hé rarely wanted to leave my side after he came home.

Spike was my first dog, and he is the love of my life. My husband gets that- and he loves him just as much. But Spike also had a very special relationship with his Granny.

Mom used to live about a 15 minute walk from my house before we both moved out of Quebec, and when I went through my divorce Mom and I spent a lot of time together, and Spike bonded with his Granny. He would get so excited to see her that he would stop whatever he was doing and run to the front door when Granny arrived. 

This caused a few “situations” - that I get to hold in my mind as fond memories. 

When Spike was a puppy, he heard Granny’s voice in the house and as per usual he bolted from upstairs to the entranceway. He jumped (or tried to) into Granny’s arms, but missed and hit her face, breaking her glasses. We got them fixed really quickly but I can still remember being mortified that he did that.

Many many years later after training Spike not to jump on Granny ( and people in general), Mom was visiting my current home, with Sir Steve, and Spike heard his Granny, in fairness she did call him - and he ran down the stairs which happened to be parallel from our couch, so Spike ran down the stairs at full speed and lept from the stairs about 6-7 feet straight into Granny’s lap. She lived to tell the tale with maybe some sore muscles, but we would laugh about this for a long time.

While we were at the trailer, Spike who has great recall by this point, so we left him off his lead, would hear Granny talking at her trailer and just walk across the street and go for a visit. On more than one occasion we caught him walking over to get some good Granny love. He’d get some pets, then he’d lay on her feet and wait for me to come get him.

I remember him sitting by Mom on the bench by the fire pit, and she’d be giving him scritches behind his ears and whisper secrets.

Spike and his Granny were very close. 

His health has been having some challenges since we lost Buffy last year. He developed cancer which we found out has spread to his lymph nodes, right around the time Mom got really really sick. We joked with Mom in the hospital that he was “trying to keep up with Granny”. A week later Mom died, and Spike had a major flare up of the tumor (Mast Cell tumor) and we were so sure he was going to die the same day as Mom. 

Luckily he did not die, and we have had him with us through all the crazy stuff with Mom, her loss, the celebrations of her life, but he’s been slowly getting closer to the end.

I don’t know how much longer he will be with us, but I take some solace that he can go find his Granny (and Buffy) and wait for me to join them in time.