This page is dedicated to my Sweet Scooter Doodles.
Crystal, Curlybug at 2 years, & Scooter
Crystal the cat was 17 in this picture. She's an angel kitty now and Scooter is in heaven with her.
How Scooter came into my life
I sought out to find Scooter to heal my broken heart after I'd had to have my Irish Setter put down at the age of 15. He was a beautiful loyal friend and I missed him terribly. I was 6 month pregnant with Curlybug and all my friends thought I was nuts to want another dog at that point in my life, but I just couldn’t stand being dogless. It was just too lonely. All my friends said, "You'll have your new baby soon and you won’t have time for a puppy," but I thought maybe I'd just get an older dog. So I didn’t listen to any of my well meaning friends and I called a local organization called pets in Need that finds homes for pets that might otherwise have been taken to the pound. Pets in Need never puts any animals to sleep. They are a wonderful organization. They had helped me find homes for kittens in the past so I wanted to be able to adopt a dog through them. They asked me what I was looking for and I told them I just wanted a dog, no special breed, just a sweet dog that would be good with children as I was having a baby soon. They gave me some numbers to call of people that had dogs they were trying to find homes for and I started calling. I had only called 3 other numbers before calling the woman who had Scooter. Scooter was 6 months old and housebroken, although not trained in any way. It was love at first sight, on both sides I think. Scooter was a black and white wiggling fluffy ball of love and doggie kisses. The lady giving her up seemed very sad to let her go but explained that her husband was making her get rid of the dog because they were moving and couldn’t have pets at their new apartment. Scooter was afraid of men it seemed and didn’t even know what a leash was. I took her with me that night and she cowered and wouldn’t budge when I put the leash on her and cowered shivering on the floor of the car all the way home. She was terrified of the kitchen floor and of the stairs up to my attic apartment. I had to carry her across the kitchen floor and up and down the stairs for the first few weeks, but after that she was OK, although to the day she died she always hated walking on the kitchen floor. I don’t know what those people did to her but I had a feeling she was not treated well, at least by the husband since she seemed terrified of all men. They certainly didn’t ever take her anywhere on a leash or in the car. Eventually, with love and care, she learned to love both. She was wonderful with Curlybug from the day he was born. The worst she ever did was kiss him too much.
Scooter Doodles
Dec 7th 1986-Feb 4th 2001
Scooter Doodles went to doggie heaven on February 4th 2001 and it was one of the saddest days of my life. 2 weeks before that I'd taken her to the vet because she was refusing to eat and had lost a lot of weight. The vet did x-rays and blood tests and Scooter had to be at the vets on an IV for 2 days. The prognosis was that she had a tumor in her spleen that was probably malignant and the vet recommended euthanasia but I had to see her and wasn't ready to make that decision. She came home and seemed to be doing better but we knew she couldn't really get better. I fed her several times a day and she was eating again but she was still very weak. She seemed happy to be home and I was happy that I had a chance to baby her and to make sure she knew how much we all loved her. It was also our chance to say goodbye. She wasn't feeling very good the day before she died but still she had a pretty good day. It was a beautiful springlike day and she wanted to go out front in the sunshine. Curlybug and I sat on the lawn with her for quite a while and a couple of neighborhood kids came up and wanted to pet her. Scooter has always loved children and I'm sure that she really enjoyed the attention.
When the next morning rolled around she could barley get up. I managed to coax her outside and she did her business and then took a drink of water. When she tried to turn around to come back inside though she stumbled and then collapsed. She struggled for a minute to get up and then she just laid her head down on the cold ground and let out a big sigh and I knew it was time to let her go. I carried her in to the house with tears streaming down my face. Everyone else was still asleep. I put her down in the livingroom floor and I laid down right next to her and cuddled her and held her close while I told her how sorry I was that she was so sick, and how much I loved her. I stayed there with her for quite a while. I woke MrFunbug up and told him that we had to take her in. The hardest part was telling Curlybug who has never known life without Scooter. I had been trying to prepare him but it was still really hard. Curlybug opted to go to a friends house because he didn't want to see her die. I didn't either, but I didn't want her to be with strangers when she went. I wanted her to know how much I loved her. So we took her in to the vets and had her put down. She was so sweet and calm and it was very peaceful. I could barely stop crying all day that day and I miss her terribly. Even though we have these 3 great cats, the house seems so empty, but her absence is the strongest every time I come in the front door. Scooter always had tail wags and doggie kisses for us whenever we came home. Even if It had only been 10 minutes since we left.
Memories of Scooter
Scooters first trick was to stand on her head and smile. I know that sounds strange and she wasn't actually standing on her head but when she was a puppy she'd put her head on the floor and grin, totally her idea to begin with but I'd say "Stand on your head Scootie, smile Scootie" everytime she'd do it and then after a while she'd do it when I told her too. She quit doing it on command after a while when she got a little older cuz nobody encouraged it anymore but she'd still do it when she was being silly or playful.
When Curlybug was a tiny baby I had to tie Scooter up sometimes to keep her from showering tiny baby Curlybug with doggie kisses for 20 minutes.
My Dad called the morning after we lost her with condolances and he was telling me some of his good memories of Scooter. He told me something cute that I never knew. When my dad used to babysit for Curlybug he'd always let Scootie up on the couch with him while he watched TV. Scooter was never allowed on the furniture and she knew it. She would only come up on the couch if she was invited. She was such a good dog.
I asked MrFunbug if he thought they had remote control cars in doggie heaven. Ya see, MrFunbug has this remote control car and Scooter used to love to chase it down the street. One day MrFunbug got this brilliant idea and strapped the camcorder to the remote control car. It is the funniest home movie we have. He tried a few different angles. I so much wanted to watch that tape the night we lost her but the camcorder was broken and we only had it on high 8. I swear if my credit card hadn't been totally maxed out right then I think I woulda run out and bought a new camcorder that night!
Here's my first puppy picture of Scooter.
The Sad Tale of Scooter's Tail
When I got scooter she had a long beautiful fluffy tail with a white tip. She wagged it heartily most of the time. She was a very happy dog. So here’s the tail of Scooter’s tail. I was engaged to a man for about 6 months who I thankfully didn’t marry and he was living with me. This was after I was divorced from my first husband but before I met MrFunbug. I guess you shouldn't marry the rebound relationship. Anyway, Scooter had been doing this Houdini thing where she kept escaping and running around the neighborhood. Naturally, I didn’t want her running around loose so I asked my then fiancé if he could build a better fence to keep her in. He built a fence, but I knew it still wouldn't keep her in. I was afraid to tell my fiancé that it wasn't good enough so she still was able to escape, and one day she didn’t come back. I was so worried about her. I looked for her for 3 days. I put up flyers everywhere and I went to the animal shelter everyday. She’d had no tags so I couldn’t just call. No matter where I looked, No Scooter. I was beside myself with worry. Meanwhile me and Mr. ‘Wonderful’ were not getting along at all and I was questioning my decision to marry the guy. He had no understanding at all about how distraught I was about my missing dog, and was mad at me for every little thing. He was also very possessive and jealous. He’d been acting real funny since before Scooter disappeared. Anyway, the third day when I took my lunch break from work, I first drove down to the animal shelter to look for Scooter again, then I went home to see if she’d gotten herself back home. I walked into my front door and at first I thought I’d been robbed because half of the stereo components were gone and my CD’s were all over the floor. Slowly, I came to the realization that it was just HIS stuff that was gone. He had pretended to go to work, and waited till I went to work and then come back and moved out! I was very upset. I sank to the floor and started crying and then I heard it, a little scratch at the back door! I ran to the back door and opened it and there was my poor little Scooter and she was hurt! I was never so happy to see an animal in my life. Her foot was bleeding and most of the skin was ripped away from the bone and you could actually see the bone in her foot! So now I was crying for my dog. With tears streaming down my face I called the vet and then picked her up and put her in the car to take her to the vets.
After I dropped her off at the vets I went to my dads house and just cried all over him. Later I realized that leaving me was the best thing that jerk could have done for me. I realized that I had never truly loved him, and I also realized that There was no way I wanted to be with a man that would do what he did. Leaving me like that. What a coward. He came crawling back a week later and wanted me to forgive him and I said no way dude! Get lost!
We never did figure out where Scooter was or how she got hurt so badly but the severity of the wound on her foot was such that nobody noticed right away that there was also something wrong with her tail. I noticed the second day she was home that she was just hanging her tail down and that was not normal so I closely inspected it and it didn’t feel right, and it looked and felt as if half of her tail had no circulation. I took her back to the vet and the vet said that half of her tail had ‘died’. They weren’t sure why since nobody really knew what had happened to her, but they had to amputate it. They left it as long as they could but the beautiful white tip was gone. She healed up very nicely. I had to change the bandages on her foot twice a day and the vet bill was astronomical. It took me almost a year to pay the vet off.
So, that is the sad tail of Scooters tail. Her tail turned out to be too long to be a short tail and too short to be a long tail. One benefit of the shorter tail is that she could wag it twice as fast as when it was long. And she did. Frequently! Scooter was a very wonderful friend and the sweetest dog I have ever known and I miss her terribly.
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