Remembering Savannah

Savannah's charisma must have been partly her shiny black coat and partly her jaunty trot with the way her head moved fluidly from the left to the right and back to the left so as not to miss anything. She was the canine equivalent of a Tennessee Walking Horse. She was more popular than I was! Strangers stopped and got out of their cars in the middle of streets to come over to pet her. Neighbors invited her into their yards to play with their dogs. She was used to cars stopping beside us on our walks and the head leaning out the window and looking down at her and saying, "Hello, Savannah." She walked straight to the window and raised her head to acknowledge the greeter. I never minded being invisible when I was with her. Anyone who showed love to my dog was showing love to me.

Savanna and Me

It's been nearly four months since my beloved rottie Savannah died. I've been wishing I were a computer that could be reset back to a previous date. I would go back in time to the years when Savannah walked at a proud, spirited trot, without a limp showing pain; before the growths started lumping up inside her body; when she could hold her own in rough play with other neighborhood large breeds. 

I wish I could reset to before all the times I let her down, beginning with the first minute I brought her home from the shelter in the front seat of my mini-compact car, with her body falling in folds onto the floor, with no space where it could fit all together, and her head, neck and chest cramming into the space between my legs and the steering wheel, making steering the car almost impossible. All I could do was to keep shoving her in sections over to the other seat and hope we'd make it home. She just wasn't a front-seat dog!

I got her in November of 2001, after I'd been robbed on THE 9/11, and a few weeks after I'd had a hysterectomy. My music equipment was stolen on that 9/11 day, and I was unable to make it to my gig at the restaurant that night. The police told me to get a motion sensor that barked like a big dog to protect myself. I decided it was time again to get a real dog for a companion, but a large one.

Olivia went with me to the shelter on the first day

The woman at the animal shelter talked to me about what I wanted and then brought Savannah out to me in the yard where I could get acquainted with her. The woman told me she rescued and bred rottweilers, and this sweet-natured rottie of sterling quality was perfect for me. The shelter had named her "Savannah." Animal rescue had found her only the week before walking along a major highway with only a choker chain around her neck. 

I'd always had long-haired dogs, most of them cute little wiffy-wuffies with shoe-button noses, and as I looked at Savannah's short black fur and eyes wide apart, I wondered if I could ever learn to love her. We walked slowly together, while the shelter volunteer gave me tips on how to take care of her. To praise her, I was to simply pat her on her wide chest. Before I left, dog and I looked at each other and she moved towards me and gave me a faint lick on my face. I went home that afternoon without her. The next day, I went back with photos of my backyard to prove it was fenced all the way around, and adopted Savannah.

The shelter workers assured me that she had been thoroughly checked over by a veterinarian and judged to be healthy, but when I got her home and observed her, something told me she was very sick. My own vet discovered that she had the bacteria in her body that dogs get from drinking stagnant water, and she had a large tumor that had grown from some tissue left from a time when she'd been spayed.

I called the animal shelter, and they told me they believed Savannah would have a good home with me, and agreed to pay the bill. My friend Norm and I took Savannah to the vet hospital for her surgery and brought her back home that night. Norm and I will both remember that night forever. We had laid Savannah on the floor of the backseat, but when we got home, she was in too much pain to get herself up, or to let us move her. We couldn't get her out of the car. It was after dark, and cold. I covered her with a blanket and left her there. About 30 minutes later, we looked out and saw her sitting up in the backseat, ready to join us in the house.

The vet believed Savannah was five years old, but based on her energy, I guessed that she was more likely two or three. Her temperament was sweet, and I had no doubt she had only been loved by her previous owner. A few weeks after her surgery, a new obedience training class was starting, for a nominal fee, and even though Savannah and I were still recovering from our surgeries, I believed it was time for us to get trained. She was a 75-pound full-grown dog, and I knew I would have to be able to speak a command to her. Moving her physically would not be an option.

The class was held in a very large room, with 50 other dogs and twice that number of people. The trainer stood in the middle of the floor speaking a microphone that projected through a booming speaker system, and she yelled at me constantly throughout the two very long hours: "Renelle, make your dog sit up." "Renelle, don't let that rottie get near that little dog!" "Renelle, watch your dog!" It's no wonder. Instead of sitting, Savannah was lying down. Instead of standing, she was dragging me all over the room, trying to herd all the dogs and all of the people into her own pack. Both of us were exhausted before the class was halfway over.

I vowed not to go back the following week. My name being shouted through the speakers was still ringing in my ears--it was all too humiliating. But the day before the next training session, I remembered my psychiatrist had given me Zanax to take for my newest diagnosis of "social anxiety disorder." I was only taking a tiny .25 mg. just before I had to attend a social event, which wasn't very often, but the medicine worked. I decided to take that same dose on the nights before the training sessions. The trainer continued to yell at me and no one else through the 10 weeks, but on the medication, I wasn't bothered. 

Joanne Priaulx with Savannah

Although Savannah and I graduated, I don't think visitors who came to our home believed we had our diploma. Savannah was always playful and had to be the center of attention. Rotties are herders, and she was the best! She sat on a visitor's feet, leaning against him or her, always between the visitor and me. Then she would look at me with her wide, panting smile, so proud of how well she was protecting me. 

In later years, from watching the dog whisperer, I learned how to have body language that would "own" a visitor, if I thought Savannah's behavior would bother someone. Rev. Sue used to laughingly say that I spent the whole visit trying to discipline my dog.

I knew as the years went by how painful it became for Savannah to walk. She was diagnosed with hip displasia and arthritis in her shoulder. I tried her on every painkiller the vet could prescribe, but she had always had a sensitive digestive system--had to eat prescription food--and just couldn't tolerate the medicine. She was full of tumors, including one next to her spine. For several years, I often had to help her stand up when it was time to go for a walk. Sometimes I had to pull her down the street--walking was just too painful, but I believed if she didn't walk, she would be in worse pain.

Lu trying to get Savannah's Christmas Toy

She was always playful, and up until her last week, she initiated a play session at least once a day with her squeaky ice cream cone toy. It was the only toy she'd ever owned that she didn't chew up. The dog whisperer would have said she was "killing" her toys.  

A week after I was diagnosed with leukemia, and a week before I knew I would have to put her to sleep, Savannah got out while I was out grocery shopping. The front porch door was closed, but not properly latched. She didn't have her collar on, and even my next door neighbor believed she was a stray. Finally another neighbor told her the dog was Savannah. When I got home, Savannah was on the porch and the door was latched. The only way I knew something had gone wrong was how Savannah bent her head down in a guilty posture when she saw me.

I believe she ate something poisonous. Neighbors reported she'd been seen on streets on the other side of the community. By that evening, she was very sick and too weak to walk. She spent the night in the emergency animal hospital on fluids and a shot for nausea. After she was home the next day and the shot wore off, she became very sick again. She stopped eating and drinking. 

The vet assistants came out to the car and gave her another shot to stop her vomiting while she lay in the backseat. I thought she might start eating and drinking after that, but she didn't. Her coat looked uneven, her ribs started showing through, and she was too weak to stand. 

I knew that she would start vomiting again when the shot wore off the next morning. She and I sat together on a blanket in the front yard in the warm sun that last afternoon, relating to neighbors, each in our own way. That evening, friends came over to say good-bye, and one of my friends sent a chaplain in the neighborhood over to pray for Savannah. 

I stayed down in the carport room with her on that last night, dragging her on her bed out through the carport to the yard every few hours and standing her up so she could go. I didn't want her to be uncomfortable.

The next morning my friend Hazel returned to help me lift her on her bed onto the backseat of the car. I've known days so bad I've tried to take my life before, but this was the saddest, most intolerable day I've ever spent. I can still see the veterinary assistants gently lifting Savannah out onto a stretcher and following as they slowly carried her into the clinic. I can still see Hazel, Savannah and me sitting on the floor, Hazel crying, Savannah holding her head up, steadily looking into my eyes while I cradled her head in my hands and told her I loved her, while the doctor on the floor beside me did what he did. I remember coming home and crying until my head was pounding and I couldn't move out of the chair.

I wanted to write a song about Savannah and use it for the background music for a slideshow of all of her pictures. Then last night, I put a bunch of my recordings onto a CD for my friend to take with her on a trip, and as I listened to make sure the songs had all gone onto the CD properly, "At Last" started playing. I suddenly knew what those words meant--they perfectly expressed the gift that Savannah had been for me.

I worked all last night to learn how to make a slideshow, and I finally completed it and posted it on YouTube in memory of her. You can click on the picture in the right column to see it. 

I think bringing up this sadness again has helped me move onto another level of healing and acceptance. 

I would rewind my life and live those years with Savannah all over again if I could. But since that isn't an option, I still have my memories, and a hope--that I might one day be reunited with her in another dimension, maybe even in another life when she'll be the master and I'll be the dog. If she's as good a master as she was a dog, I have a lot to look forward to! 

RIP, Savannah. 1998 (?)- Feb. 9, 2011
"Until the 12th of never, I'll still be loving you."