Febuary 15, 2004

She came into my life like a hurricane on Febuary 15, 2004. She was 50% Yellow Lab and 50% Husky, according to the vet…her name was Toki and she was 100% mine. A good friend and coworker from Binghamton University adopted her from the Ithaca ASPCA and the back story was that she was found starving, abandoned and tied to a tree by her previous ‘owners’. She lacked all the basics you would think a house dog would have and just required more attention and training than my coworker could give. So on Febuary 15, 2004, Hurricane Toki, which is Japanese for ‘Time of Opportunity’, made landfall into my lap right in the nick of time…she was days from being put down at the ASPCA….and my life would never be the same.

I remember the exact date because it became her birthday. The best guess was that she was 2 years old and because there is no way to know her exact birthday, Febuary 15 (2002) became her day. We celebrated each off her birthdays with ‘Cheeseburger Delight’ and cupcakes. Not exactly healthy..but I had to put some weight on her. She only weighed 35 pounds when I got her.

Now when I say Toki didn’t pocess any of the basic skills of a house dog, I wasn’t lying. Just about the only thing she knew how to do was not go to the bathroom in the house. She didn’t really know any commands and had no manners. If she wanted to look out the window and you were in the way, she would very simply climb on you and stand on you to see. She barked at everything sometimes for hours at a time until you threw something at her or she got tired. She hated the water, literally ate tennis balls when thrown to her and tore up my brother’s hardwood floor in his house. She was the classic pain in the ass dog. Many many times I asked myself if I knew what I was doing. I kept reminding myself of the ‘home’ she had before she was rescued, that she never was taught how to be a family dog and that she just needed time. So I enrolled in classes, worked hard together and we both learned how to live with each other. She discovered she loved the water (after I simply threw her in), would play ball for hours and was very much a cuddle-bug.

She loved her family. She was very loyal to me and later my wife and daughter. I remember the first time she ever met Liz. I was worried that Toki wasn’t going to handle a new person in her pack very well, so I decided to take Liz and Toki on a walk through Queens to get to know each other. Of course Toki made a great first impression by taking a large dump on some lady’s lawn. And of course that lady was home, saw her take that dump and screamed at me as I was picking it up. So here we are, Toki getting me in trouble, I’m carrying a sac of crap, all while I’m trying to introduce Liz to her. Great first impression Toki. But when we got back to the apartment and Liz and I were sitting on the sofa, Toki did something I’ve never seen her do before or since…she climbed up on the sofa and fell asleep in Liz’s lap. From that point on, Liz was part of her pack.

She adored Olivia. You always have to be careful when a newborn comes around a family dog. You hear of horror stories once in a while of a dog attacking a baby for whatever reason, so we were a little nervous when Livvy and Toki met. It was as if Toki already knew who she was. Toki knew something was going on with Liz when she was pregnant especially towards the end. She would be on edge around the house when Liz was home, especially when I was traveling with my teams. She would bark at everything and run from one end of the house to the other almost as if she was standing guard. If anything didn’t seem right, she would let us know, and more times than not, she was right. When Livvy arrived home and the two of them met, Toki almost said to her with her eyes ‘so you are the one she was carrying..welcome to my pack’. Toki was always at her side. She would get real worried when Livvy would cry and would get real nervous when some one she didn’t know wanted to hold her baby. I can remember one day while living in Long Beach, NY a real creepy guy was staring at our house. When I went out to see what he wanted, Toki got out and I literally caught her as she jumped over the fence to get the guy. She apparently thought he was a threat to her family and her baby, and that guy took off….I literally heard him say ‘oh shit’. As Livvy got older, Toki let her do whatever she wanted to her. There were plenty of times where Toki let her poke her eyes, pull her ears and slap her head. Toki took it and loved it, I think, because she was just happy someone was ‘petting’ her.

To my beat guess, she got infected somewhere around September 15, 2007. That Monday, September 17th I took her the ER vet’s office after work. She had some diarehha and bruising on her belly that didn’t make sense and I wanted it to get checked out. I knew something was terribly wrong when she was unable to jump up on the exam table like she usually does for her annual physical. The vet looked at her and drew some blood for some tests and we just waited. Another thing that tipped me off as to something being wrong was that she actually layed down on the floor as we waited. Usually she would be going nuts trying to figure out a way to get out to see the other dogs. So I layed down with her and we waited. The vet came back and said Toki had some sort of autoimmune disease (where the body attacks itself) and that her platelet level (things that make blood clot) was dangerously low. It was to the point where if she got cut, she could bleed to death. They admitted her and ran other tests and gave her drugs and a transfusion. The next day they called and told me I could pick her up to take her home and to follow up with our normal vet asap….we got an appointment for Wednesday, September 19th. That morning I knew something was very wrong. She couldn’t control her bodily functions at all. She would vomit everytime she drank water and she didn’t want to eat, which was strange for her. I had to practically carry her outside to get her to go to the bathroom. As I was getting ready for work, we both had a feeling this would be the last time we would see each other. I climbed into her crate with her, layed down with her and we said our goodbyes. To that point in my life, that was the hardest thing I had done. I told her it was ok to go, she licked my nose and just put her head down.

I got a phone call from Liz when she got homefrom work, giving me an update on how she was doing and she got her ready to take her to the vet. Liz’s dad came with her becuse we all knew this wasn’t going to be a good vet visit. The vet gave Liz the options and the reality of a full recovery and I got the phone call at work to make the call. Putting her down was the only right thing to do. She wasn’t respsonding to the medications and she was getting worse with every moment. I got the phone call after it was done.

Toki died on September 19, 2007, kind of an ironic date, of Lyme Nephritis. It is a type of Lyme disease where there is no vaccine and no cure. It is only found in the North East and the only treatment is putting your dog to sleep. The science for this disease is so far behind, that the test takes longer than the dog has to live to get results. We found out the next day. Her death was both a relief because the suffering ended and a great tragety. I give Liz alot of credit. She did something I’m not sure I could have done in person. She was my strength when I needed her the most that day and she probably doesn’t realize it.

If it wasn’t for Febuary 15, 2004, things would be really different. It is because of Toki that I am where I am now and the changes that she brought on. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have the job or the family that I’m lucky to be apart of today. It all started with her.

It’s going be great to see her again at the Rainbow Bridge (if you are reading this and are an animal lover…google it). For now though, she sits in the house, cremated, right where she can keep an eye on her family.

We all miss and love her. To this day, Livvy still loves to look at pictures of Toki and she really remembers her quite clearly which is a testament to the kind of dog she was. Livvy was was only 1 when she died. She impacted all of us.

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