Princess Zoey White Paws
The little black one with the white dot on her nose and chin making it look more like her snout had been dipped in powdered sugar was the first…
The little black one with the white dot on her nose and chin making it look like her snout had been dipped in powdered sugar was the first to grab my attention. There were twelve all total, twelve, four weeks old, wriggling, playful puppies with their mama set out in a pen in the front yard a couple of blocks from our house. They ranged in size from small to very small, and color from all black, to black with white markings, to dark grey with black splotches.
“You can pick one out and play with it,” their human daddy said.
Jon was partial to one of the grey ones, and we pulled her out. We called her Stella as she bounced around the yard and back to us, kissing us and snuggling us, and then off to explore again.
We were sure one of the twelve would be coming home with us. This union was a long time in the making.
“Hey!” the big yellow lab, his fur so bleached from the sun that it was almost white, barked at us from behind his chain link fence, again and again, earlier that spring as we took our evening walks in the neighborhood. His female companion, a herding dog of some kind, joined in the chorus.
“Hey!!! Hey!!!! Hey!!!!” day after day, loud and gruff and to the untrained ear, potentially fierce. Initially, I thought him protective of his yard and partner.
One evening on impulse I said to Jon, “I am going over to say hi to him.”
I crossed the street, we normally walked on the opposite side of their yard and approached cautiously. Years earlier I had been attacked by a dog and at times that trauma still surfaces.
I stood and looked at him as he stood and smiled at me, his front paws hanging over the top of his fence. He was a big boy. I gave him the back of my hand to sniff, and he covered it in kisses. I stepped in to pet him and he kissed up my face while his partner, younger and a bit feistier than he, grabbed his leg in her mouth to pull him down so she could kiss me as well.
We visited them often after that. They were always outside, confined to their backyard, nary a human ever in sight. They lived on the concrete slab of the patio and the dirt behind it that comprised their yard. Charlie was the big lab and Lola was his partner. They were loving and wacky and I looked forward to hugging and kissing them from the other side of the fence.
One early summer night I stepped back and noticed Lola’s girth. She had grown considerably. I said to Jon, “Is Lola pregnant? ARE WE GETTING A PUPPY!”
Two days later on June 26, 2013, Lola gave birth. We knew this because we finally met the people who owned the house where Charlie, Lola, and the then 2 days old puppies lived. The son brought one out to meet us, its eyes barely opening, and they let us know the puppies would be available at 8 weeks.
Now Jon and I had always assumed we’d have a dog. When we first moved to California 8 years prior we had set out to the shelters to look for one, but shortly afterward, a kitty moved onto our property and we became something we never thought we would (due to allergies), cat people. In fact, at the time of Zoey’s birth, we had two feline beauties living with us, Izzy and The Smurf. I was nervous about introducing a puppy into our kitty-dominated home and hoped they’d all get along. I had long talks with the girls about it all, and they both would look at me suspiciously and then acquiesce and give me kisses.
One day, shortly after our first full-on meeting with the puppies in the front yard, I wandered over to see that Lola and the puppies were out in front again, no sign of any humans, Charlie in the back. I pulled the little black one with the white dot on her nose out of the pen, she was one of the three runts, and she kissed me up and snuggled into my shoulder. I noticed she had white tips on all four of her paws and a white streak down her chin. She was just about the most precious being I had ever met, and she and I began to get to know each other.
After I was done visiting with the pups I wandered to the fence to see Charlie. He was anxious, pacing a bit, and worried about Lola and the babies. “It’s okay, buddy,” I said to him doing my best to reassure him from the other side of the fence, feeling his loneliness as a visceral sensation in my body.
My eyes fell to the fence latch and for the first time ever I noticed there was no lock on the gate. Without giving myself time to change my mind, I took a breath, lifted the latch, and stepped inside Charlie’s yard. He scooched back to let me in, and once I had secured the latch, I turned and faced him, a bit nervously. It was his yard, after all, his babies and their mama were separated from him, and he was huge.
He stepped towards me, got on his hind legs, placed his paws gently on my shoulders, looked me in the eyes, and then pulled me towards him giving me a full-on hug, nuzzling his face ever so gently in between my head and shoulder. I stood still receiving his love, never before having been hugged like that by a being in a dog's body. It was a moment of such specialness that recalling it here brings tears to my eyes. We talked for a bit, he and I. I let him know that in no time at all he’d be back with his loves and that I’d be back to visit him soon.
The next day I saw the human daddy there. He let me know that the rest of his family would be gone for the next month, it was just him and the dogs, that he’d be putting the puppies in the backyard the very next day, and that Jon and I could come over and visit with them any time we’d like.
We spent the next month in a haze of puppy love, visiting many times a week, as the days grew hotter. Ojai gets really hot in the summer. We fed them and watered them and socialized them as much as we could. They were a rambunctious pack of love and we laughed harder than we had in quite some time as they crawled all over us, day after day, chewing the crap out of my purse, our clothes, our fingers and toes, and anything else they could get their sharp little alligator puppy teeth on.
We developed relationships with each one, named many of them, and wished we could take them all home with us. But it was “Dot”, the runt with the white spot on her nose that continued to grab our attention. And as far as Charlie was concerned, well she was his favorite. We would watch him correct and nip at the other pups when they jumped on him, but little Dot, she could do no wrong in her daddy’s eyes. She was allowed to crawl on him and nuzzle herself into his neck, and he would just lean his head down and gently kiss her.
I headed over one day by myself for a visit. I scooted in through the gate while all twelve rushed me, using my foot to prevent any escapees (the neighbor had told me that one day they had all gotten out and had to be rounded all up). I scooped Dot up, she gave me a kiss, and then I heard a female voice clear as a bell in my head say, “Could you please put me down! I need to poop!” I did as requested and she ran off and pooped, another indication that she was our girl, telepathy of that nature.
They were just past seven weeks old and it was getting close to decision time. Again I wandered over by myself one hot afternoon. They were all asleep, against the house, a good four or five of them crowded together underneath the grill. Not a single one of them had woken up when I came in. I sat quietly, facing them, a few feet away. I silently let them know that we’d be taking one of them home with us in a few days, and if there was someone in particular that wanted to come with us that they should let me know.
A few seconds passed and Dot lifted up her head, stood up, shook herself out, and trotted right to me. She climbed into my lap, flipped herself onto her back, belly up, cradled herself into my arms, and looked me right in the eyes. Not a single other puppy moved. She stayed with me like that for just a few moments, as if to say, “Okay. Got it! Are you sure now?” and then crawled off of me and ran back into one of the piles of puppies, settling herself back to sleep in the mid-day heat.
I went home and said to Jon, “It’s Dot.”
He said, “Yeah,” nodding.
We both cried.
Two days later I was doing yoga in the living room. Jon was in the yard tending to his garden. We used to have magnificent vegetable gardens, now we have dogs. We had been playing with potential names. We thought “Dot” was cute, but not quite right. It was always just her working title. I was in a downward dog and the name “Zoey” popped into my head. I called out to Jon, “It’s Zoey!” He said, “Yes!” Again we both cried.
We planned to pick her up on the morning of Aug 19th. We would have taken her a couple of days earlier but we had plans in LA that weekend and there was no way we were going to pick up a new baby and then head off to LA. All weekend I battled with ridiculous fears like — someone else would take her or something would happen to her.
Monday morning I woke up anxious to get her home. We headed over and before I knew it she was in my arms and then we were in the car heading back to our house. She did not even look back. We were already family to her. I remember feeling the weight of responsibility settling in and wondering perhaps shouldn’t there be some authority person who should be okaying such a big action? But no, there was just us, taking this wriggling mass of love in a puppy body home with us.
Now it is not an exaggeration to say that Zoey was the kind of puppy who could reduce, well, pretty much anyone to tears with her love. This was especially true when it came to young girls. I witnessed it again and again. She was, perhaps, the most joyful being I had ever encountered and only thought that everyone and everything was here on the planet for her to love. And we felt it was our responsibility to facilitate this as much as we could. Time and again someone would call out to me as I was walking her, “Is that Zoey!” It would be someone who would have met her with Jon or “heard about her.” Rarely did they know who I was. I was just Zoey’s human.
Izzy and The Smurf were very curious about this new baby who had come to live with us and their first meeting went off without a hitch. Now, Zoey was a high-energy puppy (the combo lab/herding dog/elf/unicorn making her both intellectually very interested in everything and everyone and physically very active), and soon she started chasing The Smurf. The Smurf, as opposed to standing her ground, would run. Zoey thought this was a lot of fun, The Smurf — not so much. So, she retreated a bit for a couple of days as we sorted out this dynamic.
Izzy, on the other hand, Izzy fell in love, immediately, completely in love, and adopted Zoey as her own baby, following her around, playing with her, and snuggling her on the couch, in the bed, in the dog bed for the first whole year of Zoey’s life. Any time we took Zoey out of the house, the first thing she would do upon returning home was run and find Izzy.
There were so many magical, mysterious, and beautiful moments of Zoey’s puppyhood. If you’ve never had the opportunity to spend time with a puppy, well I recommend it. It absolutely requires tremendous time and patience, but the joys of the experience far outweigh what can feel like the difficulties at times, like any rich relationship. I remember thinking about 5 months into Zoey’s life that I might never have a moment just to myself again. Jon and I were very involved puppy parents and gave Zoey (who demanded it) at least two and sometimes three outings a day for the first nine months of her life. She was so gregarious, even more so than I am, and adventurous, definitely more so than I, and needed her needs fulfilled! She was also such a good sport and wanted to please us so that whatever we did with her was always fun. She did not like being left alone, so we just did not leave her by herself until after her first birthday. At that point, she let us know that she could handle it and we were free to move about the world without her by our side at all times. She would jump up on the back of the couch and perch like a kitty in the window (Izzy and The Smurf taught her well) awaiting our return.
At about the age of four months, Zoey started calling her family back to her. First, we ran into her sister Kiva at the dog park and then her sister Bodhi, in our neighborhood. Bodhi was a consistent playmate for Zoey that first year as the two would tear around Bodhi’s yard together. Next came sister Elli. We were at the dog park and a couple came in with a dog that looked very familiar. Zoey was six months old at the time.
“How old is your pup?” I asked them.
“We think she’s around 8 months old they said. “We just adopted her from the Humane Society here in town.” Now I had seen on our Humane Society’s website that Charlie had shown up there with the 3 remaining puppies that the family was not able to re-home. Apparently, he had busted them all out of the yard and taken them to the river bottom. They were picked up, Charlie was sent home, and the puppies were relinquished to the Humane Society.
I said, “Well, actually she is six months old, and this is her sister, Zoey. Over there is her sister, Kiva,” who also happened to be at that park at that time.
Elli, who I had originally known as Esperanza (named by our 6-year-old neighbor who had visited the puppies with us a few times), ran to me as soon as she saw me, jumping on me and kissing me. Zoey was overjoyed to see her.
Shortly after Elli appeared I got tagged on a Facebook post about a found dog. Someone thought perhaps it might be one of Zoey’s littermates (I told you she was popular). I went over to where she was hanging out. She looked and acted so much like Zoey and yet was clearly much older.
Jon and I started calling her “Zoey From the Future” (she really was so much like an older version of our pup), and I took her to the Humane Society and dropped her there as I had no idea to whom she belonged.
A couple of weeks later we were out with Zoey, walking in our neighborhood. Just a couple of blocks from where we live two labs were out in the front yard with their humans, “Zoey from the Future” and a yellow lab who looked an awful lot like Charlie. Well, it turns out that Zoey from the Future’s actual name was Tamia and she was Zoey’s grandma (Charlie’s mom). The yellow lab there was Zoey’s aunt, Brandy (Charlie’s sister). We still see them regularly, both on our walks, and every once in a while Tamia, escape artist that she is, either shows up at our house or shows up as a lost and found dog on Facebook and I go and get her. We love visits from Zoey's grandma.
On a daily dog park afternoon, a woman came into the park with a big, beautiful black lab around 3 years old named Ruger and his sidekick Pup Pup, a reddish shaggy dog who was just a love. I chatted with Ruger’s mom, Julia, for a bit, getting to know her. The boys were off romping and Zoey was playing with her sisters. Suddenly Kiva got a bit too rough and it looked like she and Zoey might have a scuffle. Before I could move in their direction, Ruger ran right over and lovingly nosed the little girls up, breaking up the tension and resetting the energy to play.
“Ha! It’s like he’s their uncle!” I said to Julia. “Where did you get him?”
“Oh, some family a few blocks from us in Meiners Oaks,” Julia said.
“You mean Tamia’s house? Tamia is his mom?” I exclaimed. “Holy shit, he really is their uncle!”
Ruger and Pup Pup became regular playmates and visitors to our yard.
And on it went................................................
A few weeks after our first adventure with Tamia, Jon called out to me that Charlie was at our fence. He’d escaped, again. Zoey could not stand it, she was so happy to see her daddy. Charlie hung out at our home for a while and then we got him back to his people. We offered to take him, more than once, but they would not relinquish him to anyone.
Zoey has always been able to receive exactly what she needs when she needs it, and the beings she needs to facilitate her well-being always show up exactly at the right time. We’d been going to the dog park for a good year and a half with Zoey, and there was drama, as there often is in environments with people, let alone people with dogs. The drama became so exaggerated that we decided it was no longer the place for us. Right around that time, the puppy our very good friends and neighbors had adopted grew into playmate size for Zoey. They spent the next couple of years playing together multiple times a week, often nightly. Zoey no longer needed 2 adventures a day, and Heidi became her best playmate.
Zoey turns six years old today, no longer a princess, now more of a queen with a full pack of her own. Nothing makes her happier than being surrounded by beings she can love, the more the better as far as she is concerned. Happy Birthday Queen Zoey White Paws. We love you so much.
Addendum: Zoey turns 10 years old today. Yesterday, I put her in the car and took her to town for a mommy and me day, something we used to do quite often when she was an only dog child. She saw many of her favorite people, received treats and pets and birthday wishes from them all, played with some puppies (Zoey loves all puppies), and met some new friends as well.
This morning she is on a birthday adventure at the river with Sookie, Teddy, and Jon.
Nora & Zoey puppy picture ♥️♥️♥️♥️
Oh, Nora, I love this story so much. Thank you for sharing. Love to your pack.