Goodbye Sweet Guinnea Girl

Our sweet Guinnea Girl, who came into our lives and grew into our hearts when MGJ was just a toddler died last night. She was nearly 11. She was bumped by a car, and went immediately. She was in good health for an animal her age and breed, and amazingly more puppy like in the last weeks than in the last year.

There is a terrible sense of agony and loss ...

and there are reminders of her everywhere ...

The still full food dish, her leash on the back porch, her notable absence when I look out the kitchen window thinking I'll see her looking back at me ...

We got the call just after the girls had fallen asleep and we made the agonizing decision to get them up. To let them see and feel the fullness of death, up close and extremely personal, in the hopes that it would help them grieve more fully. And, so they could say good bye.

It was a harsh reality.

They cried, and then after waking fully and with more clear minds, sweetly prepared their good byes. We took off her collar and tags (one from the US and one from China). They crouched over her on her bed and wept, and petted her, their tears dripping on her still warm body. We clipped some locks of her hair. We thought of things that we wanted to bury with her.

Then Mr Johnson prepared her grave under the budding magnolia tree. And he placed her, paws crossed (the dainty way she often kept them), and buried her.

We are so sad.

We loved you

Miss Guiness, Guinnea Pal, Good Old Wet Nose, Puppins, Guinnea Girl.

We loved you all the way to China and back.

{Nesting}

My friend over at gogovivi.com began a photo challenge a few weeks ago called The View From Here. (Be sure to click and follow her links in my sidebar). The photo entries have been beautiful, often coupled with thoughtful prose on the week's topic.

My blogging style is relaxed to say the least. I often write as an outpouring of what I've been ruminating on, and thus, posts come weeks after the actual event, and never daily. Yet, the idea of an assigned topic was interesting, and this weeks topic of "Nesting" correlated perfectly with the increasing autumnal feel of Qingdao's October weather.

As I started thinking of what to try to capture with my "point and shoot" style, I saw our sweet old pup, exhausted at the day's end, stretched out in the awkward way she favors. Something about the way she relaxes at the end of the day (and in the middle of the day, and in the morning just after the bustle of activity trying to get three girls out the door on time) makes me feel like she has the idea of nesting figured out perfectly.

Most days, she chooses to take her lazy snoozes in a space closest to wherever the nearest family member is. (As I write this, mid-day on a Thursday, she has plopped down on the hardwood floor, directly behind my computer chair.)

But after the girls go down at night she fully resigns herself to her proper nest. She paws at her bed as if digging, and gives the fabric cover a tug with her teeth... before finally declaring it properly feathered.

Then she lays down, often with her head dangling down on the cool marble floor ... and nests.

Pondering Poo

"Where does Guinnea pee?" our ayi asked me, rather randomly, the other day.

"Um, outside, in the garden," I replied. (Although I must sheepishly admit she has also peed on the stairs leading up to our building... twice... and Bei Bei made a mad dash, both times, for a bucket of fresh water to purge the situation.)

"How about poo?" she asked.

I learned the Chinese vernacular for toileting words when I enrolled Bei Bei in a Chinese Kindie. I had an inkling that I would need to learn these words when my language teacher helped me fill out the multi-page kindergarten entry form, which was entirely in Chinese, and which devoted many questions to food requests and toileting needs.

What is your child's favorite food?

What foods will your child not eat?

How often does your child use the bathroom each day?

How often does she poo?

These were questions I wasn't sure I would always know the answer to. So, even though she would only spend three mornings a week there, I learned the toileting words.

There were two squat toilets in the bathroom of her three-year-old classroom. Bei Bei quickly learned how to use them.

And I learned that at a Chinese Kindie a normal answer to "How did she do today at school?" might be, "Her poo is a little dry."

"Yeah," would reply, without missing a beat, pleased as punch that I understood a response that was not a normal contextual response in my culture, "She eats different things at home than the Chinese kids."

I once bought my brother-in-law five kitsch knick knack figurines of Chinese boys. The were called, "The Five Things Boys Do" which were:

Chi/He/Shui/Niao/La (Eat/Drink/Sleep/Pee/Poo)

Each cheap figurine was posed doing one of the five things, traditional split crotch pants rounded out his outfit to accommodated for the last two of the "Five Things."

There is a certain practicality to Chinese culture, life and speech. Especially about the stuff of daily life. Until very recently, it was more common to see a baby without a diaper than with one. Baby poo or pee in Chinese culture is as common and acceptable to discuss as a gassy or colicky baby in my home culture.

"She poos in the the garden, usually in the back corner," I responded to ayi.

And then, a little worried, I asked why she wanted to know. (The dog had been on her watch for the two weeks before the girls and I arrived back in QD this summer.... Had the dog been doing "The Five Things Dogs Do" somewhere other than the garden?)

"Did you have a problem with her when we weren't here?" I asked, trying to be nonchalant.

"No." she said. "I just never her saw go the the bathroom, so I wondered where she did it."

And just like that the conversation ended. Matter-of-fact. Not a big deal. The practicality of daily life addressed. And the pondering of poo passed.

EHJ & her friends with Guinnea

Feeding the Dog

Miss Guinness, our 10-year-old collie makes the daily trip to the bus stop in the morning and again in the afternoon when the girls arrive home from school. The Three are clearly the envy of all the other uniform clad children, who press their noses against the glass of the tour coach and wave and point at our dog.

While I wait for the bus to arrive there are other people at the back gate doing their rountine 4:00 things as well. The lady who works at the recently opened dry cleaners and the lady from the China Welfare Lottery office are usually taking a little break on stools, outside of their places of employment, enjoying the afternoon sun.

The dog has become their topic of conversation, and I sometimes regret having admitted that I understand at least half of their banter.

"Does your dog eat apples?" The dry cleaning lady asks.

"No." I tell her shaking my head and trying not to make eye contact. (She's a person who likes to offer her opinion, pester and nag, and I've found limited communication most prudent.)

"You don't feed her apples?" she muses...

"No. No apples." I confirm.

"What do you feed her?"

"Um, food for dogs."

Side Note: I'm not sure the Chinese expression for dog food, so I just do a literal translation. I find this often works... providing a definition for the term I'm looking for when I'm unsure of the actual word.

Once, I could not for the life of me remember the Chinese word for "nurse." So I resorted to saying...

"You know, the person at the hospital who helps the doctor and wears the cute hat."

"Oh,you mean 护士 Hùshì," they said jovially.
I smiled with pride that my definition had worked, confident it was "the cute hat" clue that helped them make the connection.

(It's like playing Charades or the board game Taboo every single day!)

"Do you feed the dog tomatoes?"

"No... just food for dogs."

"Why not tomatoes?" she quiries. "You can feed a dog tomatoes," she insists. As if I really should have considered consulting with the dry cleaner at the back gate before committing to the Purina Dog Chow in the import section of the grocery store.

"Why not tomatoes?"

Did I mention she is relentless?

"I don't want her to get diarrhea." I finally admit. (Thankfully diarrhea is part of my Chinese vernacular and I don't have resort to a round about definition.)

"Oh," she says, nodding knowingly. And then for the benefit of all the other shop keepers in her strip and any passers-by within earshot, she proudly exclaims, "She's afraid of diarrhea, so she doesn't feed the dog tomatoes."

And finally she seems satisfied. My daily interrogation is over. But only for today.

Thankfully just then the bus drove up. The girls fought over who would walk the pup home, and then when we got there dished her up a cup of "food for dogs".

Bringing Our Dog to China

Sometime early last spring, when we were deciding about extending our stay here, Mr Johnson blurted out a proposal to The Three @ the dinner table.

"Hey... maybe we can bring Guinnea Pal," he said.

While I'm sure that he did actually say the word 'maybe', I am equally sure I was the only one who heard it.

The girls were ecstatic. And it was hard not to share their enthusiasm. (Although someday in the future, when we look down the long and blissful annals of our married years, this will no doubt stand out as "one-of-the-things-we-should-have-talked-about-before-telling-the-kids.)

For his part, Mr Johnson did the research and the running. To the USDA office. The airport. He made endless phone calls to the Korean airline. He did on-line research. And, he had an office assistant check out the details for the China side. (My mother-in-law, who not only kept our pet for four years whilst we lived abroad, also did a fair bit of leg-work on her end as well.)

Mr Johnson scoops the poop in the back yard (quite interestingly, the girls have volunteered for this job, but I, in my squeamishness, have denied them the privilege, fearful of a messy project becoming potentially messier!) He rises bleary-eyed 10 minutes earlier than before to escort the dog to the back corner of the yard for her morning piddle (who knew that female dog urine, especially the first pee of the day, kills grass?) When she was scared of the Chinese fireworks, he carried her up the stairs to our second floor bedroom "just this once" (until, of course the next holiday with fireworks.) For the record, she chose to sleep on the floor beside my side of our king size bed and periodically came over to be petted during especially loud explosions of fireworks.

The girls are chipping in too. They feed her and give her water. They brush her. And fight over who's turn it is to walk her to the bus stop. They sweep and vacuum her areas. They talk to her like she's a member of family. (Which of course, I, the-non-animal-person-of-the-fam, now realize she is.)

For her part, Miss Guinness stays in her designated areas. She walks to the threshold of the kitchen but not in it. She stands outside E's open bedroom door and wags her tail in a daily morning greeting, but sets not a paw into her room. She is adjusting to living with all of us again. To being inside more than outside. And to the loud swirl of a foreign language on her long walks. She is warming up to crossing the street, despite busy traffic and loud buses... to sea side walks and trips down to the water's edge.

Perhaps most enduringly, she comes over with her wet nose and nudges my elbow upwards. She does it to all of us. When we're on the computer, or watching TV, or reading or gathered on the couch @ the end of the day. So we indulge her, we take a break from whatever we are doing, and pat our old friend who is slowly finding her way in a a new land.

Old dogs, like old shoes, are comfortable.

They might be a bit out of shape

and a little worn around the edges,

but they fit well.

- Bonnie Wilcox