Welcome, Ziggy
After Masai and Bodhi died, we swore we’d never had dogs again.
We let go of most of our dog possessions, including beds, clothes, collars and leashes (but kept their special collars, tags, and some leashes, one fleece coat), food dishes, and all the other items we accumulate when we have pets. I was never able to write about their deaths, it was just too painful and heartbreaking.
We turned on electric candles near their photos, and never turned them off for over 2 years (only sometime after Ziggy came home). We took turns recharging them, and keeping them “burning”. We have photos of them all over the house still. They were such a part of our lives, and I felt them around us all the time. Their energy never left really.
Masai and Bodhi in 2022
After we adjusted to the quiet, I did appreciate the clean house, the time to ourselves, and downtime, the option to leave the house for longer stretches. Months passed, and of course Astro kept us company; he is the king of the house after all, as all cats are.
I mentioned to Todd sometimes around October of 2024 that I missed having a dog, and was thinking about adopting again. He agreed right away! Ha. I am not sure what changed, maybe the house was too quiet. Later I realized we missed the energy of fun, silliness, going for walks, and the variety of energy, emotions and activities that dogs compel us to do and feel.
I started looking and sometimes in November I zeroed in on Ziggy. Of course the process of looking is always so hard because there are SO MANY dogs in the shelters. So hard to choose.
He had been found as a stray in Georgia, picked up by the shelter…. only 8 month old in October, he was barely 30 lbs (now he is a good 50 lbs). A rescue quickly stepped in and brought him to Maine. He was skinny, shy and in the video from the shelter he was literally crying, begging for help. Somehow his demeanor pulled at my heartstrings, but I also could see the kind of dog he was to become.
Adopting a dog via a rescue is a big deal now, did you know? Major inquiries about your life, long applications asking all kinds of questions… Maybe to dissuade the ones who are not really serious about adopting. After several weeks we finally got approved, and we picked up Ziggy in a nearby town.
It was mid January 2025, and he had been in a foster home in Maine for a month by then. Still very shy and timid (he also got car sick on the way to the meeting point), he shook all the way home. I sat in the back with him, and by the time we got home he had his face in my lap.
He made himself comfortable at home though, after saying a very polite hello to the horses. He decided that night that he was going to sleep with us under the covers, and that’s been the way since. We never had our prior dogs in bed with us, partly because I really like to sleep without turmoil, but mostly because we had older cats back then, and the bed belonged to them. So it’s been an adjustment for me for sure. Ziggy likes to curl up under the blankets, but inevitably he gets warm, so then he turns belly up with his four limbs stretched out, pulling the covers in all different directions. Then he stands up, still under the covers, before deciding which position he might take next….I might have to sleep in the other room sometimes!
Early morning in bed.
Because we adopted Ziggy in January, it was not easy to go out and walk around. Living on an island, there are very limited places to walk or hike with a dog, especially in the middle of winter. There are no dog parks or sidewalks to walk on (I do appreciate living rural, but it does have some disadvantages). So we took walks on the property adjacent to ours, bundling Ziggy up, or spent a few minutes running around the veggie garden, the only place back then that was fenced in.
Walking Ziggy when he first arrived
Ziggy was and still is car sick if he’s in the car for more than 20 mins or so. We are going to finally test him with some meds soon, because it has been very limiting to not be able to drive further to go for hikes. In the early days, we mostly walked around in the snow, and then we had a deep freeze, and the snow was frozen solid for weeks! So that limited our outings even more.
Todd playing with Ziggy in our enclosed veggie garden.
When spring thawed us out, it was time to explore! It took a few days for Ziggy to like to get in the car (lots of treats and me sitting in the back of the car with the back open, while the car was parked of course), but even after that, we realized that Ziggy was very nervous in any new place, to the point of drooling, having diarrhea, and vomiting even on a short drive home. Poor guy!
Walking with Ziggy on the beach
We knew he did not have a lot of socialization prior, but we really don’t know if he ever lived inside, or what his life was about at all…. We wanted him to feel more confident, but not push him, so going back to the same place several times helped him get more comfortable. He loved other dogs and played when he met anyone who wanted to play.
Ziggy and Astro in the early days
As summer came along, Ziggy was definitely feeling more settled and starting to really ground into our day to day life, our activities and us. He loved water, so we stole the horses trough and used it for Ziggy to play with water on warm days. He did after all bring the silliness and goofiness that we needed more of in our lives. He is also very calm and relaxed, unlike a lot of young dogs, so that makes him such an easy companion around the house.
Over the months, I saw how quiet and almost sad he looked when he was home; he slept a lot, and was very quiet (he does not bark, unless he wants something, like food, or has to go potty, and then it’s not really a bark, but more like he’s speaking) and how happy he was when he met a dog, any dog, and I became convinced that he needed a playmate. Not just a friend to see once in a while, but another dog to live with….and Todd was game, again. Now, you must know we were absolutely very happy with just Ziggy. We know how much having two dogs is. But I was sure he needed a friend. So I proceeded to start looking for a friend for Ziggy.
Oh my. Next, I will share how Lola came into our lives…. like a tornado….
Ziggy on the top floor of our barn
