His name is Spike

This week someone approached me when I was out with Spike, pointed at him and said “what is that”?

Their words hit me harder than if someone had physically punched me in the belly.  My insides reacted very strongly as my mind tried to process and understand the question and the fact that they referred to Spike as a “that”.

Frog Prince kissing?

Were they enquiring about his genetic make-up or were they so entranced with his aura that they wanted to know what more about the being that stood before them?

As I processed the question in my mind I thought about our life with Spike.

Spike is like no other dog I have ever known or shared my life with.  He frustrates me, annoys me and yet he continues to inspire every day.

Spike is a product of selfish humans, a puppy born of questionable parentage and almost definitely arrived in this world with no forethought to his future.  We will never know what became of his brothers and sisters or his mum.  I doubt they still live amongst us but in my mind they watch Spike from above and share his experiences as if they were their own with little smiles upon their faces.

Spike the lap dog

I would love to say that Spike is a very generous and kind hearted dude and that he thinks of his brothers and sisters and his mum every day, dreaming that one day they will meet again.

But Spike is a dog, he does not think like a human, he thinks like a dog and lives life like a dog. 

However, he may well be “just a dog”, but he is a very special dog with phenomenal self-survival skills and an attitude to life that is inspirational.

All of Spike’s joints are deformed, they don’t fit together properly.  He has had the best medical care and we know the full facts from the CT scans and x-rays.  But Spike defies medical logic and refuses to follow conventional veterinary advice.  He is Spike, and he will jump and run and have fun because he wants to and because he can.

Every day we question whether he should run or not, we worry about his well-being and the deterioration within his joints.  He sticks his two little toes up at us and tells us he will run.  He is Spike and he knows best about what he wants.

Manga Spike

He has very large ears and a rather unusual shape of head. His lower jaw protrudes in the way that a bull dogs does and his teeth have big spaces between them.  His paws are massive and when not running he stands on tip toes to ease the pressure on his elbows.  He also stands on three legs, not happy to fully weight bear on the hind leg that was operated on.  Fully recovered from the TPLO surgery it is degrading HD and subluxation in his left hip joint that causes him discomfort.

Spike shouts at things he finds exciting: a bird high above; a cow that nonchalantly chews the cud; water from a hosepipe; an off lead dog to the side of the path.  To him these things are all fun and he wants everyone to know.  To us he is being naughty and we feel the need to apologise to fellow villagers for his rude behaviour.  He is Spike and he is expressing his feelings to anyone that will listen!

He refuses to come to us when we call.  Why should he, his approach to life is far more exciting than ours.  We try to stop him having fun.  He is Spike and he will do whatever he wants because life is all about having fun.   

He does not want to eat venison, lamb or game.  He would much prefer to eat bananas, cottage cheese, porridge and potato.  He is Spike and mush apparently is best!

He is obsessed with horses, I understand that one, but I would rather kiss their noses rather than nip them!

He has the most amazing blue eyes and they are a doorway into his mood.  When he is happy his eyes shine and he smiles, when he is sad or in pain they darken.  He has a fabulous cheeky little grin, which is best demonstrated when he is intentionally trying to evoke a reaction from me! His biggest smiles can be seen when he runs alongside our Siberian Huskies, when he is truly part of the team.

Spike is a very sweet natured dog, but he does have very strong survival instincts.  When I and Ian are with him he never shows any aggression, he knows and trusts us to protect or help him.  The last two times we had to leave him at a veterinary surgery he turned into a furry velociraptor.  One time his special Vet friend helped him and the other time he had to be heavily sedated before he could be safely handled. 

Spike also has many quirky ways. He will stop on a path if vegetation has overgrown or a twig has fallen on it.  He waits for us to move the obstruction or follow us if we walk though or over.  If he sees a cat on a drive one day, from that point forth he is absolutely convinced that it will be there every time.  He throws strops when you ask him to walk away from the cows or the pigs before he is ready to say goodbye.  He finds it hard to adapt if we move items in the house or change something and shows visible evidence of stress. 

Spike running in the team

Spike is very special in so many ways.   I don’t know what and who made him, but I don’t need to understand how special he is.  As I type this I acknowledge that Spike has just broken one of our well establishes house rules and now lies on the sofa beside me... 

He stayed for all of one minute before the boss dog of the house reminded him of house rules.  Spike may well be Spike but when it comes to talking dog he understands and respects the other dogs in the house.  The boss dog of the house is his hero and thankfully his hero knows this and chooses to helps us humans by reinforcing the rules in the way he best understands.

So how did I respond to the person that asked me the question that provoked a thousand thoughts?  I smiled and said....

“His name is Spike and he is our very special husky”. 

(all images taken by Ian J Berry and me)