Karma is, well you know, even for Susan

We’ve all heard it….Karma is a …… well you know. Or Karma is the best kind of revenge. Karma is the universal law of cause and effect. People who create their own drama deserve their own Karma. And on and on…there are dozens if not hundreds of them. As I’ve aged though I’ve seen it over and over again. Karma is real and it can happen to anyone.

Take Susan for instance. Susan, for those of you that don’t know, is my 5 year old Yorkie. That’s her in the picture incase you were wondering. I love this picture because it’s so classic Susan. She’s six pounds of 100% attitude. She loves me, my socks, preferably dirty ones, and food in that order and that’s about all she will tolerate. She’s the Queen of our home, she tells everyone else what they are doing and don’t you even try to walk by our house because she will literally scream (and she does scream, not bark) at you from her spot in the big picture window in the living room, until you have passed on by. She is a woman in charge and she has full command of everything.

That is until we brought Douglas home. But before I explain that, I need to back up to 2018 when we first brought Susan home. See back then we already had another dog. His name was Remy and he was a Maltese. Remy was six years old when we thought, and it was our idea not Remy’s, that he was lonely. Not really sure now what led us to believe that he was lonely, but we somehow got on that idea and clung to it. Remy had a great life. He was an only dog and he was spoiled rotten. He slept in our bed, rode in a basket on the front of my bike, went to work with me on occasion, got a Halloween costume every year and went Trick or Treating (true story!) and even had an underground fence that encircled not only our yard but also the neighbors. He was free to roam back and forth from our house to theirs, couch surfing, eating more treats or even staying for sleepovers if he decided he didn’t want to come home when I called for him at night. He’d sit on their porch and just stare at me. “No mom, I’m good, I’m staying here tonight.” And he would, sauntering home in the morning whenever he felt like it. He truly had it made. The thing with Remy though is he never quite looked happy. Maybe that’s why we thought he was lonely. We used to say he was a grumpy old man in a dog suit.

So in 2018 I brought home this one and half pound little ball of fur that you could hold in one hand. Susan. She was so tiny and cute. I remember we set her on the floor and Remy just stared at her. “What am I supposed to do with that?” From that moment on he did everything he could to avoid her. He sat up on the back of couch when she was to small to get on the furniture. Once she had mastered the furniture he would move from one spot to another to try and get away from her. Or better yet just go to the neighbors. As Susan grew bigger she realized he wasn’t fond of her. Didn’t matter to her one bit. She had already made up her mind that this grumpy old man was going to have to take a back seat to her. For the next four years all I can say to describe it was that she made Remy’s life a living… well you know.

First of all was the bed sleeping arrangement. Susan at first slept in a crate until she was house trained, but after that I thought we could let her sleep in the bed with us, just like Remy did. No that wasn’t happening. She would fight him to the death for any spot on the bed that he tried to lay on. It didn’t matter how many times he moved, she wanted all of the spots! So at the ripe old age of 7 Remy had to learn to sleep in a crate. Why didn’t we just crate Susan and let Remy sleep in the bed? Susan screams. No one was getting any sleep. She had seen the glory of the bed and wasn’t letting him have that luxury above her. So crates for everyone! Then there was dinner time. Susan would eat her food so fast I don’t think any of it actually touched her lips. Then she would go after Remy’s dinner. And on and on it went. She fought poor Remy for everything. Toys. Space on the couch. Even the beloved neighbors. Worst of all was the race to the door to be let out to go to the bathroom. She had to be first. Always. If she thought Remy was in any way getting a little bit of a lead on her she would attack his face. Growling and snapping. Once outside she would do her business quickly and then run back up on the deck. Guarding the door, not letting him even come back in the house. To pass her he had to face a gauntlet of screaming and snapping of teeth.

Now before you think I just let all of this happen and never advocated in Remy’s defense, don’t worry I did. When Susan was a year old I enrolled her and Remy in an 2 week training course with our much loved (and truly a life saver) dog trainer Chelsea at Peace and Unity Pet Services. Susan got an attitude adjustment!! Which she needed because the first dog trainer I took her too she bit on the first night! We didn’t go back. But Chelsea wasn’t taking any attitude from Susan and at the end of the two weeks Susan had been taught there were consequences to her actions. She didn’t become an angel but her and Remy settled into a kind of tolerant way of living with each other. She still had to be top dog. And she still nipped and bit at him occasionally but it wasn’t as bad as it had been.

Last year in February of 2022 we lost Remy to heart disease. We decided right from the beginning no more dogs. I wasn’t going to put another dog through what Remy had endured having to live with Susan. No way! Susan was an only dog. And at first that seemed to be working. Honestly at first I don’t even think Susan noticed Remy was gone. And if she did it was probably something along the lines of “Well I finally got rid of him!” And then six months after we had lost him, Susan dropped into a deep depression. I mean real deep. She was just so sad. It was like all of a sudden she realized Remy was gone. We went back and forth on if we should get another dog. I even talked with Chelsea about the idea and was it a smart decision. In the end we decided to go ahead and give it a try. We would get a puppy.

Enter Douglas. He’s a poodle mix and about three times the size of Susan. He was adorable as a puppy and Susan has loved him from the day he arrived. Infact the day we brought him home she was so excited she ran around and around the back yard until she made her self sick and had to stop to throw up! I have never in my life seen two dogs that LOVE each other like these two do. And I mean LOVE!! They snuggle. They cuddle. They share toys. They even kiss each other! It’s the cutest thing.

But with Douglas’ arrival came another visitor that Susan never saw coming. Karma. See as much as Douglas loves her, and he does, he’s just a big old goofy teenage boy. And how do goofy teenage boys let girls know they like them? They tease them!!!

Douglas nips at Susan’s legs when she walks by. He takes toys from her only to fling them back at her face. And when he does I swear I hear him laughing. When she makes her way to the back door to go out to her business Douglas is right there, literally riding her back the whole way. He towers over her so he makes a point to step over her, on her, around her and then I swear to stick out a foot and trip her! He’s not being mean, he just is truly teasing her. Once outside, while Susan is trying to find just the right spot, Douglas will dart in yapping. He will dance around her, throw off her concentration and just when it looks like she has found the right spot, he will pee on it and then bound off with a literal skip in his step and giggling! When I am sitting in a chair and Susan has settled herself in HER spot, which is my lap, Douglas will come along and sit down as well, right on top of her. He will sit there, his bum firmly planted on her back until she gets uncomfortable and gives up and moves. I’ve watched him creep stealth like around the dining room table to only come flying out of no where as she walks by. He launches himself at her, almost with a karate kick, until she goes flying, screaming and he’s just got the biggest smile on his face.

What transpires between Susan and Douglas is not anywhere near the level of what poor Remy endured. Susan loves Douglas with all of her heart. You can tell that. And he loves her. But Douglas is giving back to her, in a loving, playful way, much of what she dished out for many years.

The other night, Susan stood stock still in the living room as Douglas danced around her. He kept reaching out and tugging on her ears and then jumping back, barking at her that he wanted to play. She stood so still, just staring at me with this “Mom make this kid stop!” look and all I could think to say to her was “Susan, Karma is a….well you know!”