Heart condition aside, Zuni was a spunky seven year old when we first adopted her. Every day when I arrived home from work, she was at the top of the steps, wagging her tail so fervently that her entire butt went along for the ride.

After quickly verifying that it was me at the door, she’d hook a 180 and start trundling down the stairs, her butt still wagging away.  I was endlessly entertained by watching her go down the short flight of stairs, her back legs alternatively landing to the right or left side of her front legs, depending on what part of the wag her butt was on.

From the bottom of the stairs, she beelined to the snack cabinet for her afternoon treat. (OK, one of many afternoon treats.) Then, the real fun began!

Zuni was always so wound up when we got home that we’d typically get right down to some good playtime. And, somehow the game of “Ready-Set-Go!” was born.

We’d chase her over to her red couch (yes, that’s right, it was her red couch), where she’d jump up and get into play pose. After rough housing on the couch for a minute, Nick or I would say,

“Ready?”

Zuni froze in place.

“Set?”

She tensed up and looked at us in anticipation.

“GO!”

Like a shot, Zuni pushed off the back of the couch, dashing across the living room, down the hall, into the bedroom, and under the bed. We’d trot behind her into the bedroom and lay on the bed, where we could reach below to tickle her. Then, it began again.

“Ready,” you could almost feel her quiver under the bed. “Set?”

“Gooooo!”

Zuni tore out from under the bed, back down the hall, across the living room and up onto the couch, where she’d gracefully bounce off the back to turn around midair.

After a little more rough housing on the couch, the Ready-Set-Go game began again. Over the years, the number of round trips slowly dwindled and, near the end of our stay in the South End, the game ended altogether. But I always think back to those spry days and smile.

The Ready-Set-Go game also educated us on how easily Zuni embarrassed. For the first few months, the red couch was along an inner wall with the side facing the hallway. The Ready-Set-Go game began with Zuni leaping off the couch over one of the arms. The return trip saw Zuni race down the hall, into the living room, and then take a giant leap to clear the arm and land on the couch cushions.

Now, the couch sat on an oriental rug, the kind with fringe along the edge. (I hate that fringe..it’s never tidy and is impossible to clean. But, I stray…)

Zuni had completed a couple runs of the Ready-Set-Go game with Nick, and was currently under the bed. When Nick called her back, she came predictably running down the hallway.

This time, however, when Zuni tried to launch over the arm of the chair, her back feet pushed off of the fringe. Lacking traction, instead of neatly flying over the arm, she unceremoniously face-planted into the side of the couch. Luckily, the side of the couch was still pretty soft, and she bounced off with nothing injured but her pride.

Tail tucked, head bowed, she slunk away in embarrassment as we ungraciously laughed. It was a pose Zuni pulled out whenever she did anything she thought was below her stature. And, it never ceased to make us smile.

I’m terribly behind on my posts, but please still consider donating to my 2014 Boston Marathon fundraiser for the Animal Rescue League of Boston! There are still plenty of stories to tell!

Zuni standing near the carpet fringe that became her Ready-Set-Go game nemesis.

Even after the trip to Angell, Zuni’s incessant licking didn’t stop. (Oddly, her puppy brain didn’t link the vet visit to the licking, curious…) Her new favorite trick was to tuck in her chin and lick her chest, to the point she developed an irritated bald spot.

Thankfully, we were old hat at this licking thing by now! So, instead of dragging her to the vet, we creatively wrapped her torso in an ACE bandage. It stopped the licking, but she was definitely not a fan.

Even being old hat, as we were, it wasn’t long until yet another licking extravaganza landed Zuni at the vet. (Or, more accurately, put us in a panic, which landed her at the vet.) This time, she obsessed over one of her front legs to the point she’d given herself a hot spot that resembled a little cyst.

My first terrified thought was, “Ohmigod, she has skin cancer.” (I was really quite paranoid in those first few months. Seriously, if she fell asleep too deeply, I’d put a hand on her chest to make sure she was still breathing.) We calmed down just enough to take her to our normal vet in Belmont, instead of rushing her to Angell.

They looked at the spot, told us it didn’t seem cancerous, and recommended we keep an eye on it. Most importantly, Zuni must stop with the licking! Yeah, easier said than done.

Now, we chose this particular vet in Belmont simply because they were located directly on my drive to work. Zuni went there a few times, getting her special food and her echo cardiograms and her various medications.  But, Nick and I never became comfortable with them. They were very “by the book”, which wasn’t nearly good enough for our little fur-kid. Worse, they had zero bed-side manner.

The latter became very evident when they strapped the cone-of-shame around Zuni’s neck.

I can’t be sure, but I’d swear Zuni never wore a cone up to that point in time. At first, she refused to move with the hard plastic contraption around her head. I scooped her off the examination table to carry her into the front office.

In the lobby, I put her down while I paid, and then coaxed her out the front door. She promptly and unceremoniously rammed the edge of the cone directly into the door frame, ricocheting back into the office.

After regaining her composure, she treated me to a withering glare over her shoulder and refused to move an inch. I once again scooped her up and carried her to the car. Once out of sight of the vet, I immediately removed the cone.

At home, we realized just how futile the cone was, anyway. With Zuni’s long Dachshund body and freakishly long neck (not sure where that came from), she could twist around the cone and continue licking her leg without even a minor inconvenience.

Unless he got a cone sized for a German Sheppard, all it really did was piss her off. We clearly needed another solution to keep her from licking the spot.

We tried regular band-aids, but they wouldn’t stick. We tried super-stick band-aids, but those stuck too well. We ended up having to lube Zuni’s leg up with canola oil to remove the band-aid without taking off her fur. (A process she seemed to find mildly entertaining, if not tasty.)

Finally, we settled on gauze and ACE bandages. Zuni sometimes managed to wiggle out of them, but at least the time spent fighting the bandage kept her from licking the hot spot. Eventually, the spot went away, non-cancerous, after all.

Unlike the trip to Angell, the bandage made an impression. Zuni’s hot spots all healed, the hair on her chest grew back in, and she never had another vet visit resulting from licking, again.

Next up, Zuni’s trip to the Franklin Park golf course, much to the confusion of one particular golfer. Please, donate to my 2014 Boston Marathon fundraiser for the Animal Rescue League of Boston so you can read more! Every time the money raised goes up $100, I’ll add a new chapter to the Zuni’s Diaries. And, that one is next!

Zuni munching on a pig snout, her consolation prize for being wrapped in an ACE bandage.

We adopted Zuni with a heart condition, so you might be thinking that within weeks we were at Angell because of it. Rest assured, that was thankfully not the case.

What we did learn within weeks was that Zuni was an incessant licker. I don’t know if it was genetic, a neurosis she picked up from her previous owner, a stress-related behavior she started when she moved in with us, or what.

Wherever it came from, it was something we never got her to stop. She would lay peacefully in your lap, licking her paws, her legs, your pants, the couch, anything in reach of her insistent tongue.  We got so used to the slurping sound that it wasn’t until you felt the slobber working its way through your jeans that you would think to stop her.

Occasionally, however, the licking got to frantic proportions.

Zuni and I had just returned from a trip to our garden plot in the South End community garden. I was busying myself around the house, when I zeroed in on the licking sound. This time, instead of the typical paw licking, she was wandering around the house licking the floor, the wall, the fireplace (gross), you name it.

And, she was inconsolable. I tried picking her up to make her stop, but she just squirmed to get back on the ground and resume her mopping. Of course, being new to this puppy-thing, I freaked out and assumed something was drastically wrong.

While she went around the house licking everything her little Dachshund legs could reach, I called the emergency line at Angell Animal Medical Center in a panic.

Me, “Hi, I’m sorry, but my dog is acting very odd and I’m not sure what to do.”

Angell, “What is she doing?”

I pondered how I could verbalize her affliction without sounding crazy, and realized I couldn’t. “Well, she’s licking the walls. She’s licking everything, actually, and I can’t make her stop.”

They graciously did not laugh at me.

Angell, “Does she seem bloated?”

“No.”

“Well, it could be a number of things. You should probably bring her in, just to be safe.”

Thankfully, Nick used to live near the MSPCA so even with my limited knowledge of Boston roads, I knew how to get to Angell. I scooped up the little licker, grabbed my keys, and raced out to the Miata (my all-weather rescue vehicle…).

Now, it’s a pretty straight shot to Angell from the South End, and only a few miles. Of course, getting anywhere in the Boston area requires a half hour, no exceptions, no matter the distance.

Zuni licked away in my lap as I cursed traffic, convinced she was going to die on the way to the hospital. As I passed the Boston police headquarters, I worked out my story for the cop, in the event they pulled me over for driving like an idiot. “My dog is dying! I must get to Angell.”

Not eloquent, but it would suffice. I was dreaming of a police escort, even. Of course, in reality, it was probably the first time my driving blended in with everyone else’s on the road.

By the time we hit Angell, Zuni had calmed down and was enjoying the lap-time and ride, to the point that I felt a little foolish taking her in for an emergency checkup.  But, in she went, and she checked out just fine.

The vet’s theory is that she got a hold of a bitter melon at the garden (the South End community garden has a number of Asian gardeners, one of which happened to abut our space.) She believed Zuni was simply trying desperately to get the taste out of her mouth.

Whether that was the cause, or not, Zuni wasn’t a fan of the garden from then on.

Zuni hated clothes, but would tolerate a little neck decoration.

Zuni’s next over-zealous bout of licking landed her in “the cone of shame!” You know the drill, to find out how she handled that, please, donate to my 2014 Boston Marathon fundraiser for the Animal Rescue League of Boston! Every time the money raised goes up $100, I’ll add a new chapter to the Zuni’s Diaries.

When we brought Zuni home, and for a number of days thereafter, she was as quiet as a mouse. We should have realized she was going through an adjustment period, but instead we congratulated ourselves on finding a quiet, small dog.

It was just a matter of time before the Dachshund in her came out. The day it did is the day that, in my mind, Zuni officially adopted our house as her own.

The windows of our tiny garden level condo were at sidewalk level, giving Zuni a front row seat to any person, dog, or outdoor cat that strolled past our corner unit. When Zuni moved in with us, we didn’t have air conditioning, so the windows were often wide open to the outside sounds and smells.

Zuni broke her silence about a week after we adopted her, on a day a golden retriever trotted past our window. Zuni let out one loud bay more reminiscent of a hound dog than a Chihuahua.

Nick and I froze in our spots and just stared at her; even Zuni looked a little surprised.

As the days went by, one bark turned into a couple barks, turned into occasional howls, turned into some crazy bark-a-thons. She barked at dogs, people, the mailman, cars, anything that threatened to come through the window or door, or at least come near it.

I once returned from the gym to find my neighbor peeking in the window to see if I was OK. (Another big “bonus” of those sidewalk-level windows!) Apparently, while I was at the gym, Zuni had been inconsolably barking, something she wasn’t actually prone to do. Zuni barked with a purpose.

My neighbor had peered in the window while I was away, trying to calm Zuni down, but Zuni would have nothing of that. My neighbor was almost certain something must be wrong with me, so had come back to check, only to find I had returned from the gym.

(Thankfully, we never needed Zuni to sound a real alarm, seeing as she had just cried a proverbial wolf to the nice woman across the street.)

We were, however, more than a little glad that Zuni sounded like a bigger dog than she really was. In her way, she was protecting her home. Of course, that was assuming you didn’t actually walk through the door and expect her to leave the warmth of her cozy afghans to chase you out.

When we moved her red loveseat below the window, Zuni was in heaven. She could sit on the back of the couch, one of her favorite places, and lay facing the window, waiting to surprise unsuspecting passersby.

This was also where she sat whenever you left the house, waiting by the window to watch you return. Every day I left for work, I waved goodbye to Zuni through that window and promised to be home soon.

Waiting to ambush unsuspecting passersby!

Next up, Zuni’s first trip to Angell or, “How easy is it to panic a new puppy mamma?” Please, donate to my 2014 Boston Marathon fundraiser for the Animal Rescue League of Boston so you can find out! Every time the money raised goes up $100, I’ll add a new chapter to the Zuni’s Diaries. And, that one is next!

The “What’s up” look, as Zuni chills in the Berkshires.

The unfortunate reality of any love story involving a pet is that it inevitably leads to a certain amount of sadness. I’ll be up front about that aspect of this tale. If you really want to avoid the sorrow, skip the last chapter, although I think it includes some of Zuni’s most shining moments.

Zuni had congenital heart failure, and it wasn’t long after getting her that we began doing yearly to bi-annual echocardiograms, followed by a host of medicines, homeopathic remedies, special diets, and more. As a small dog, we hoped we’d have ten years with her, at least. In the end, we were blessed with just over four and a half.

That said, the fortunate reality of any love story involving a pet is that it always includes a great amount of joy. And Zuni was always a joy. Amusing, stubborn, silly, surprising, loving, amazingly empathetic, I know it’s anthropomorphizing to assign any of these emotions to a dog, but, wow, anyone who knew Zuni knew these things to be true.

Zuni was our first fur kid, the center of our universe. She taught me to care more for others than I did for myself. It all began in that first week.

Zuni’s documentation from the ARL called her a Dachshund-Chihuahua mix. We hadn’t set out to get a designer dog and can’t really tell you if we did. Knowing nothing about dog breeds, I assumed any dog from a “pound” was a mutt and, to me, her genetics was never really a concern. (After she passed away, Nick lamented that we’d never done a DNA test on her, just for curiosity’s sake.)

What we did know was that she was twelve pounds of short brownish-black fur, with eyes the size of globes and ears that expressed a gamut of emotions. Over time, we assigned names to the different positions she could work her ears into, each giving us a clue as to what she was about to do or wanted.

For example, when she spotted a squirrel, or was otherwise inclined to explore or investigate, she’d toss back her “business ears”. In business mode, her floppy ears slicked so far back that they appeared almost to be attached to the back of her head.

Often, when the ears snapped into “business” mode, her typically curled tail shot straight up into the air and she strutted off with a purpose. You didn’t try to divert Zuni’s attention from whatever was causing the business ears. She wouldn’t listen to you, if you tried.

“Triangle head” was a more quizzical expression. Her ears perked straight up, but their shear length caused the tips to fold back down, leveling the top of her head and shaping her face like a triangle. (If she was looking up at you, or was seriously intrigued by what you were doing, she could actually force her ears straight up, into what we affectionately called bat-ears.)

Zuni often paired triangle head with a head tilt, that amazingly human-like behavior all dogs have mastered, which indicates that they haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about, but are curious to find out.

We could trick Zuni into triangle head with one simple word, “time”. There was “breakfast time”, “dinner time”, “couch time”, “outside time” (not necessarily a favorite if the weather was anything but perfect), “treat time”, and more. Most “times” were some of Zuni’s favorite things, and her head tilt expressed her excitement, while imploring us to explain which time we meant.

“Is it ‘time’?”

Tilt to the right.

“What ‘time’ is it?”

Switch to the left.

Nick got a particular kick out of this trick.

Then, there were her concerned ears, which slid down the sides of her head and hung limply around her face. Zuni applied the concerned ears when when she had that gut feeling that something was amiss, either to you or to her. Zuni, like many dogs, was incredibly in tune with our moods and needs. She didn’t always deign to take them into account, but if you were really hurting, she would come to your aid.

The most outstanding show of empathy was after my rainy marathon in Delaware. I’ll spare you the pictures, but by the end of the race I had two large blister, each covering about a third of each foot. (No joke!) At work the next day, I hobbled around on the tips of my toes, preferably without shoes.

Zuni was her usual bouncy self when I returned home from work, ready to go on a nice long walk. We walked out the door and she zipped to the end of her leash, heading out on one of her favorite paths. I staggered behind.

We made it only to the end of our block when she looked back at me, tippy-toeing my way down the street with a grimace on my face. Her ears instantly slid down the side of her head to their concerned position; her tail sank.

Zuni slunk over to the edge of the sidewalk, did all of her business, and then slowly turned back towards home. Bless her soul, she knew I wasn’t going to make it and we returned home for some good couch time, instead.

Lastly were Zuni’s pathetic ears, which she invoked for those moments she really hoped to avoid, whether that was a bath or going for a walk in the rain. Pathetic ears drooped so low it was like they were attached to her cheeks.

Zuni increased the “I’m so pathetic” factor by bugging out her already bulging eyes to the point that you almost saw the white around the big brown orbs. If she was going for maximum pathetic-ness, she would hop up onto the couch, sit up on her hind legs in the crook of the arm, and pull one paw up to her chest while leaning slightly to the side. It was classic.

If every indicator wasn’t that Zuni had always lived a privileged life (absent those two months in puppy-jail) you would wonder if she was bracing for a blow. Instead, we giggled at her efforts and said in little voices, “Oh, I’m sooooo pathetic. I can’t possibly walk outside in the rain!” as we scooped her up and dragged her outside anyway.

Classic “I’m so pathetic” pose. This time, she was feeling put upon because we had to bandage up a hot spot on her leg.

Concerned that we might try to take her treat-filled ball away!