Tirtza was a spaniel like mutt with short, white hair and
large brown patches, long nose and floppy ears. She and Marcu were inseparable,
and so was Marcu with my then boyfriend, Tibi. The three of us lived in the
same building, a ten story building filled with mostly single immigrants, a few
of them from Romania, like myself, like Tibi, and like Marcu.
Marcu was a thin, tall man who walked hunched forward,
almost like a bracket, eyes pointing down, a cigarette smoking between his
fingers most time. He spoke slowly, his voice and intonation revealing a
chronic displeasure with the world, an unhappy man. He took care of Tirtza as
well as he took care of himself, which was good enough to survive, not to
thrive. And one day, not long after his losing another race to the
neighbourhood male dogs following Tirtza, he jumped on a plane to Romania, to
bring himself a nice woman who’d hopefully do a better job in caring for him
than himself. Subscribing to the principle of the grass being greener on the
other side, there were plenty of women in Romania who would happily marry a man
established elsewhere, so they could pack, dreamy-eyed, and start a new life in
the Promised Land of Not Romania.
Marcu left his house key to Tibi, and off he went. Tibi was
to walk and feed Tirtza. And I took over.
I bought Tirtza special dog food for expecting mothers. I
walked with her, fed her and loved her. Tibi and I bought a doggie basket-bed
to prepare her nest, an expensive one too, which she ignored and one hot
Israeli summer day, on July 27 1992, Tirtza brought eight puppies to life in
the floor-cleaning bowl, in the bathroom.
That was the day when my teen-age life-style ended.
Honey, We’re Four Now!
Tibi and I moved the puppies to the nesting basket and lined
the floors with newspapers for the little guys to play, pee and poo on. The newborns
were clean – their mother bathed them with her generous tongue – and smelled
like milk. They were tiny, pink, hairless life forms that squeaked when piling
up searching for a free tit, eyes still closed, finding their way by following
their nose. They were a wonder to watch and touch, and my heart was captured.
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| Tirtza and the newborn puppies |
One day we found one of the puppies dead. We’ll never know
what happened – was he born ill? Did Tirtza sit on him by mistake? The mother
was very careful and sensitive to her pup’s high-pitch sounds, quick to lift
herself up when her body weight brushed too heavily on a little one. I could
not deal with death and turning my head away, I asked Tibi to take the dead
puppy away. He did, and I don’t remember if we spoke about what he did with the
tiny body, whether he buried it or not – death was taboo, not something to pay
attention to, let alone speak of.
The seven remaining wonders unfolded under my watchful eyes,
the miracle of life taking form from pink bald mice to furry round-faced
puppies with sand-brown coats and sparkly eyes, blue-ish at first, brown later,
bouncing about, playing their own dog versions of superhero games, growling at
each other with what they may have thought was fierce, menacing growls which in
fact came out like tiny high-pitch vibrations which I interpreted as “Pick me
up and quickly kiss me!” sounds. The puppies’ schedule was simple and
straightforward: eat, play, sleep. Food was followed by wrestling, then by
siestas. And I was in love.
And loving the little fellows made me concern myself with
their fate. The pups’ brothers and sisters from previous litters met a cruel
fate: Marcu would gather them in a cardboard box when they were just a few
weeks old, too young to even wean, and leave them outside in the scorching heat
where children would pick them up, or not, take them home to parents who would
welcome a new pup, or not, very likely meet a soon and sad life end. I could
not, and would not let this happen to my new seven loves.
Tibi and I took some pictures of the puppies, and made a
hand written announcement to distribute and find loving homes for them. Timing
did not work for us, and Marcu returned from Romania too soon, displeased with
the disorder in his apartment, and determined to get rid of the puppies as soon
as he could. My heart sank and my belly tightened with anxiety: I told Tibi
that I’d take the pups in my home, a small bachelor’s apartment. I’d take all
of them, care for them, then find them homes.
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| Love for Sale! |
So one hot, sunny afternoon Tibi went to Marcu’s home and
started bringing the pups to my place, two by two, in his cupped hands, like small watermelons. The puppies were four weeks old, and still suckling. I ran to my
vet friends’ clinic, Graciela and Natasha, and brought back an animal feeding
bottle. Then bought a baby formula food from the grocery store, and started
bottle feeding the pups, one by one. At first Tibi protested at the
inconvenience, then, soon enough, his captured heart put a huge smile on his
face when he bottle-fed the pups in his folded arms. The dogs were placed in a
cardboard box lined with a blanket, and they proceeded to escape and run in all
the directions. Those who couldn’t escape cried loud and insistently on high
pitch voices: “Pick me up! Let me out!” and got away with it. They cried for
food at night, and Tibi obliged by waking up, warming up the milk formula, and
bottle feeding it to the pups. Something we did must have worked, because the little
miracles kept growing, and they soon graduated to eat real dog food, and then we fed them
meat.
I was in my early thirties and eager to have a family. I
started to talk to Tibi about marriage, and for a short little while, I got his
attention. During the two weeks we discussed a future together, we also
discussed keeping a dog for ourselves, and like with all our other topics, we
could not agree on which one. He wanted a boy, and I wanted a girl. Eventually
we took our best shot at harmonious conflict resolution, and chose one of each.
The other pups went to new homes. One alpha guy we named Rambo went to my
banking colleague Rivka, and lived to his name by jumping high to pull down
fresh laundry hanging on the line, and doing such other mischief that I would
hear about every day at work, together with the regular threat: “I’ll return him
to you!”
After two weeks of talking marriage, I noticed that I was
talking alone. The future plans were gone, but the dogs stayed. Tibi’s choice,
the male, became my favourite, and was named Dubi (pronounced Doobee), Hebrew
for Teddy. My choice, the female, became Tibi’s favourite and was named Pupi (pronounced
Poopee...hey, don’t even start that, okay!) because ‘pupi’ is one Romanian name
for kiss, sort of a ‘kissy’. Dubi and Pupi became family and I was a dog
guardian again.
Doggie Karma?
I have no way to say how much of what goes on in a being’s
life is dictated by karma, or the law of cause-and-effect, and how much by
chaos, some kind of cosmic randomization of events; I have no evidence to confirm either one. At the same time there are strings of events which
point towards karma, or fate. One of the seven puppies was the misfortunate
one: he was the one constantly being stepped upon and getting hit by furniture,
and when we handed him over to his new family, he only lasted that long in his adoptive home before
he ran away, never to be heard of again. Another puppy was the winner: things
seemed to go his way; he always had good health, and good temper. That was
Dubi.
Seven dogs born of the same mother and, judging by the shared color and shape, same father, had seven different personalities. At
least the two that Tibi and I kept had two very distinct personalities and
karmas, and you cannot attribute the strikingly different traits to genetics,
given their shared heritage, or to astrology, given their shared birthdate, so
what is it then that causes such differences? Dubi was easygoing, always taking
pleasure in life, licking his hand-fed ice cubes, a hot weather treat, while lying
down, eyes half-closed; chewing his toys with sheer happiness, bouncing about
to show appreciation. Pupi was always cranky and jealous, wanting her brother’s
toys, or food, or bones, and jumping at him when he was halfway running back to me
at my call, to keep him from getting his “good boy” praise. Physically, Pupi
was flexible and agile, able to jump high enough that she could make it in my
arms when I was standing, without me bending at all; Dubi was heavy-bottomed
and unsuccessful at mimicking his sister in the high jumps: I had to stoop to
lift him up. The pair was inseparable, acting often like a two-dog terror
commando, one (Dubi) opening the closet door to drag clothes out on the floor
(Italian ones first, in the descending order of value, from the most expensive
first), Pupi helping him redesign them with holes. Pupi would see someone to
bark at, and Dubi would go bite where his sister pointed at. The neighbourhood
children always knew that one barks and the other bites, and since the dogs
looked very much alike, they’d always inquire which one is the barker and which
one is the biter, to know who to pet.
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| Top: Dubi and Pupi sleeping and playing; bottom: Pupi suckling on her tit-surrogate toy. |
Dubi and Pupi were two dogs, with two personalities, and two
karmas. As healthy, playful and happy as Dubi was, Pupi was always afflicted
with illness, from early age. She did not play at all, the only toy she had
adopted, a white stuffed Poodle, was turned upside down, and she would suckle
on its legs like on her mama’s tits, carrying what looked to me like an
unfinished business with the mother, given the early age that she was separated
from her, and whatever other predisposition she may have had towards suffering.
 |
| Top left: Dubi shaking a new toy; Top right: Pupi at rest; Bottom: two dogs are happier than one! Bottom right photo taken during a noisy rough play |
Homeopathy for Dogs?
By the age of ten months, Pupi was scratching so bad that
she had bald patches of skin, having lost fur around her nose, eyes and
genitals, revealing a skin that was wrinkled and hardened like an elephant’s. The pigment around her eyes and lips was diminished, and what was black contours in Dubi's facial features had turned raw pink on her skin. She was withdrawn and unfriendly towards strangers, clearly unhappy, and even
though the two vets and I were close friends, and both my dogs had V.I.P. (Very
Important Puppies) status at the clinic, none of the tried treatments worked to
cure her. Pupi was give steroids, both internally and topically, on her skin,
and the best results were a temporary relief of the itch, paired by a worsening
of her mood. With no medical or pharmaceutical education, I only instinctively
reacted to the meds going into my pup, and every time I heard of another steroid
prescription, I cringed.
One day, Graciela threw her hands in the air and said: “Why
don’t you go and see a homeopathic veterinarian?”
“What’s that?” I asked, hearing the word “homeopathic” for
the first time.
“It’s a different approach.” Graciela explained, and that
was good enough. I was desperate. There is something in me that makes me suffer
more when watching someone dependent on me suffer, much more than my own pain
and suffering. I had to do something about it.
“How do I find a homeowhatever?”
“I’ll help you.” That was before Internet, and Google, when
veterinarian listings were printed in paper. That’s right, that’s how old I am!
I went home with a list of homeosomething vets, and called. The
first one to answer was a woman, Miri Shragenheim, who lived in the North of
the country. Yes, she would be available to see me. Yes, she might be able to
help my dog. Yes, I could meet her closer to my town Ashdod, in her parents’
home in Rishon LeZion.
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| Fun! The three of us played often and shared a great deal of affection. |
One weekend evening Tibi and I met with Miri the homeopathic
vet and sat outside, in the pleasant garden of her parents’ home. Miri waited for us with pen and paper, and she proceeded to write down my answers to her questions. She
wanted to know everything about Pupi, whether she preferred hot or cold, did
she drink lots of water or not so much, how social was she, what she liked
eating and what she disliked. Some of the questions did not make any sense
to me: why would she want to know those kinds of details just to help with an itchy skin? We must have talked for a couple of hours about Pupi, all the while
I was sneezing and blowing my nose, and gasping for air, my nostrils so clogged
with allergies that my mouth had to breath and talk at the same time, and that was not easy!
It was springtime, and the citrus orchards were in bloom,
warm wings of breeze sending enchanting scents throughout the land, perfume
that I could neither smell, nor enjoy. I suffered with allergic rhinitis for
years, it worsened in time, and I now felt and sounded like Miss Piggy. I
sneezed machine-gun style, my sneezing propelling me forward, making me teary,
dizzy and irritated. I took anti-histamines, which made me drowsy, sleepy and
dry-eyed; they helped for a while and then their effect ceased. Then I saw Doctor
Kurlat, a specialist in allergies, who injected substances under my forearm
skin and waited to see which of them caused an allergic reaction by watching where my skin flared up, and where it hadn't. He then announced me that I was allergic to dust and weeds, then prescribed a vaccine I
was going to inject myself with for a few months. I returned to him teary-eyed
with my nose still clogged, and he repeated his tests. This time around, my
skin didn’t flare up, and Doctor Kurlat exclaimed gleefully: “You are not
allergic anymore!” My response to the great medical news was a profuse teary-eyed "thank you" followed by a noisy set of sneezes! My skin was not allergic anymore but my sinuses, nose and eyes didn't know that.
Later on, a brave young doctor decided to solve my problem
the radical way, and operated on my nose and sinuses. I breathed well for a
short while, between the time when I healed after the post-op bleeding, and the
time when the allergies resumed. Sooner than later I was as ill as before, if not more.
Miri Shragenheim looked at me go through paper tissues, and
said: “And you, Tana, you are going to see my professor”. She then scribbled a
name and a number on a paper, and handed it to me. The name was Shmuel Shalev, homeopath.
Miri took a few days to do her homework and went to search through a
big, fat reference book that homeopaths consult, Materia Medica, and then
prescribed a remedy for Pupi. Following that, I witnessed something that I had
never seen before, a kind of transformation so comprehensive that I could not
recognize my own dog: Pupi stopped scratching, her skin became soft and the bald patches filled up with fur; black pigment returned around her eyes, mouth and nose, and her
behaviour changed! She became playful, jumping and bouncing about
happily, with a smile on her puppy face, friendly to other people, and to her
brother. She looked like a different dog! Later on when otherwise big-shot
winner Dubi displayed unwanted aggression, Miri prescribed a remedy he only
took once, and became peaceful like a lamb – well, sort of. I was amazed.
When I went to see Shmuel Shalev for my own health, I was suffering with so many symptoms, and I was being so unhappy, and so hypochondriac, that I was convinced that
whatever illness I had was terminal. The first, initial visit was lengthy, and
my new homeopath wanted to know what seemed to me the most bizarre details of
my personality, preferences and life habits. An outgoing extrovert who has a
harder time keeping quiet than talking, I happily answered all the questions,
some of them through tears, actually, many of them through tears, and in the
end of the session, after a few minutes of staring at his computer screen,
Shmuel went to the other room and returned to a post-it-note paper folded in
four, inside a couple of tiny sugar pellets that he placed under my tongue.
It took some time and patience before I was able to notice improvements – apparently it is easier and faster to heal puppies than human
adults – and when I did, when the allergies disappeared, I threw away the nasal
drops and spray, and proceeded to breathe fully and freely; the next citrus
blooming seasons became a treat to my senses, for a change. Chronic food sensitivities disappeared,
together with other chronic problems, and mentally I became remarkably
stronger, more confident, more daring, more outspoken, able to make sorely
needed life and work changes, like getting a transfer to a better branch at the
bank where I was working at, negotiating better working conditions, and
winning; later I dared quitting my banking career to pursue healing arts.
The tiny little sugar pellets enabled me and my dogs to
enjoy life and each other better than I had thought possible.
Changes
The dogs slept in bed, over the cover, which left both Tibi
and I half naked at night. Then we switched to two separate covers. Little by
little we switched to two separate lives. We had poor chemistry and we did not agree upon anything except Dubi and Pupi’s wellbeing. When it came to the
dogs, we were both willing to give time, money, attention and effort and we were able to place
their happiness before our own differences. We babied the dogs. At first Tibi
complained to me: “You sneaked the dogs into my life through the back door!”
then later, not much later, he was head over heels in love with them, and happy
to have them in his life, as I was.
Ashdod is a harbour city south of Tel-Aviv, on the
Mediterranean coast. I lived walking distance from the beach, and the way to
the beach led through Gan Eli-Sheva, a park where dogs and people socialized.
There are cultures who are biased against dogs, and fearful of them: “Lady,
keep your dogs on a short leash!” stressed, high-pitched voices would tell me. And then there
was the dog-loving tribe hanging out the park exchanging chitchat and stories while the dogs roamed
around. Most of the animals were intact, and freely flowing sex hormones together with that
extra competitive feel in the Israeli air made dogs often fight with each other, especially
dogs of the same gender. Dubi was half the size of Rottweilers, and eager to
pick up on them. One day this almost cost his life and my mental sanity: he ran
straight to a Rottie on leash to tell him who’s the Boss of the park and barked his little head off at him; the
Rottie said: “Oh, really?”, then picked Dubi by the skin of his neck, and shook him up in the air several times, while I was running and screaming. The big guy eventually placed Dubi down and I ran my hands on his body looking for anything damaged. To my huge relief, nothing was broken, not even the skin, so harm done, but something had to be done about the dogs' behaviour and
Tibi and I went to look up the newspapers for dog obedience schools. We found one and travelled to this jail-looking in-residence training place out of town, where we were supposed to
leave the dogs in with them, in a cage, until they’d return back to us all
well-trained. Tibi and I both cringed and returned home to deal with our dog’s
behaviour according to our own common sense, which was reasonable and not
sufficient. We proceeded to limit Dubi’s off leash time where safe, and Pupi
was able to go as she pleased: she never went far, never picked fights, and was
easy to walk with. Even on the leash, the two of them were a sight, each
pulling in their own direction, so walking with them looked like I was water
skiing, and they were the boat pulling me.
Summer time walks at the beach were early, around 6:00 or
7:00 am, before the day was too hot to be outside. Dubi and Pupi ran fast
through the water, growling playfully at the sea breeze, chasing each other in
large circles while I was walking barefoot on the wet sand at the water’s edge.
When I went in for a swim, the dogs dutifully guarded our towel and clothes, their fail-proof security method consisting of sitting with wet, sandy bums and paws on them. When she was one year old, Pupi was
terrified watching me disappear in the water, and would howl in despair. Then
she learned I’d come back. Both dogs were invited to join me in the water, but the Medditerranean sea is
always wavy and not appealing to small dogs, so they just stayed on
the very shallow edge and played.
 |
| Top left: Dubi with the TV remotes; Top right: Dubi with my friend Dana and her daughter Tamar; Bottom left: Dubi eating watermelon straight from the shell; Bottom right: Dubi finger-fed by nephew Eitan. |
One day I saw a young woman in the Gan Eli-Sheva park, who
was peacefully reading a book under a tree, a miniature black Poodle calmly sniffing
the grass, keeping close to her. I decided that I was going to do the same as the woman, and on next
trip to the park, I brought a book with me. I placed my back against a tree,
unleashed the dogs, opened my book, and took a deep sigh of delight. Then a
breeze brought a whiff of something that smelled not quite right. Did I step
into something? I checked my soles, they were clean. I looked around – Pupi was
close, checking the trees – so nothing there. I then turned my head and almost
fainted: Dubi’s hair was brown, wet and spiked in smelly crests; he had rolled
in a (drunken) human poop, and was highly pleased with himself. Letting Dubi loose and reading outdoors proved themselves incompatible. I ran home keeping the troublemaker at a distance from me and his sister, and at home I bathed the three of us. I didn’t kiss Dubi for a full two weeks.
At the time I was working at one of the largest banks in
Israel, in a branch that was sizzling with office politics and interpersonal
conflict, and I was miserably unhappy working there. I worked in the
import-export department, which made my life more bearable, because I liked
dealing with international payments and transactions, and most of all, I liked
working with business clients, and they liked me right back. The work week was
still six days at the time (we already established how old I was, didn't we!), of which three days were working a split-shift, and I was commuting
from my home in Ashdod to my bank's branch in Rehovot, leaving home at 7:30 am
and returning three days a week around 6:00 pm. My next door neighbour was the Romanian mother of my
family doctor, a friendly woman in her seventies who loved dogs; she came in daily to
check on Dubi and Pupi and she’d call me at work to tell me if there ever was a problem,
like the day when she went in to find the television turned on, and the TV remote in
bed, with Dubi. With so many hours on their own, a dog’s gotta do what a dog’s
gotta do! Dubi helped himself with the remote control device, and for as long as he didn't lit up a cigarette or pour himself a drink as well, I was okay with it.
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| Sharing the love and affection with Vanda's Mother |
I always knew myself as fearful and shy, and all my attempts
at receiving a work transfer to a branch close to home were failed. I kept
asking my manager to transfer me, and approached him not too often, always in a sweet,
people-pleasing voice. My health had been failing, and I suffered of migraine
headaches and back pain, and I wanted an easier life, less travel, more
pleasant work culture, and more time to be with my dogs. I felt guilty for
locking them away in my apartment for so many hours. When
a Tel-Avic headquarters highly positioned director visited my branch and talked about
the importance of saving the bank’s money, I surprised myself and everyone else
by standing up, and speaking up loudly and clearly, with strength and
confidence: “If saving is so important, why does the bank employ people from
out of town and pay them travel expenses?” The homeopathic remedy was working,
and I was finding a kind of strength and courage that I hadn’t know before. I soon moved to
a smaller branch with friendly, welcoming atmosphere, still a commute from
Ashdod, but I negotiated and won working straight hours, no more split shifts,
and I went home early every day, early enough to have time to live life and love dogs.
Soon after moving my workplace, I moved home too. The new
place was a more spacious apartment, with one bedroom and a balcony out from the
living room, both of them facing East, so I would walke up with the early morning sun bathing my face in golden warmth. It was a pleasant little place with an open view
to tree tops and a road, and the dogs adopted their new home quickly. Tibi and
I naturally drifted apart, and our relationship switched from being a couple to being friends, which worked much better for all of us. He moved to a
different place a bit before I did, and the dogs went to stay with me, but he
helped caring for them like a loving dog dad: bought them food, took them for
walks, and our dog care remained joined effort.
Time to Say Goodbye
Tibi started dating. We still spent lots of time together,
and he was driving me to work every morning, and picked me up in the afternoon, which gave us time to
chat more than when we were a couple. When he dated a woman who worked as an art
therapist, I was intrigued. It sounded like she was helping people somehow. I
remember pondering on the stark contrast between the profound dislike banking
clients had towards the financial institution, and the possibility of doing a
different job, a kind of work that makes people happy. I started telling myself
and others that I’d like to do some kind of work where I'd be able to help people. I asked my
doctor friend, Iudith, what she knew about art therapy, and when she told me that the training took about four years, I was disappointed. I was in my late
thirties and wanted to learn something that helped me change my work faster than that.
My prayers were answered soon with my discovering of Reiki, and I became initiated and
trained in the Japanese healing art. Within two short days I was able to place my hands
over others’ bodies, people and animals, and help them relax and reduce pain. A distance
relationship with a Canadian man pointed towards a possible future with him in
Canada, and foreseeing the end of my banking career with an expected life change and
relocation, I quit my job at the bank, printed business cards, put a sign on
the door saying "Tana Saler, Holistic Therapies", bought a treatment table with a chair, and became a healer.
Tibi found a woman with whom he shared chemistry; she was a Romanian journalist divorcée who had a son and shared my love for animals and romance, and they got married. When Tibi married Ramona, Dubi and Pupi moved
with him, his new wife, and his step-son, Darie. We did what we always did,
whatever was best for the dogs. As Graciela the vet once told me, dogs need
stability. Tibi was the first one to get married, and his wife immigrated to
Israel and moved in with him. I got to visit the dogs and dog-sit when needed.
We were still an extended family.
And then one day I married my Canadian long-distance boyfriend,
and in June 2000 I said goodbye to my family, my friends, and to Dubi and Pupi,
and flew away to Canada.
 |
| Dubi with his young human, Tibi and Ramona's daughter Maia |
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