Superdad, Man of Steel

So far I have written a lot about my mom and all she went through with our Little Pot, the basket case that is Nadine. My mom did a bang-up job with the Nadester. It was, and still is to an extent, nearly impossible to predict Nadine's behavior. As her health and comfort-levels improved, her behavior's altered as well, so things were really in flux those first few weeks and months. Point is, my mom was a trooper for taking on Nadine and I could never have adopted this poor wee thing without her help.

So anyway, remember how excited my mom was to meet Nadine? My dad was the opposite. He's not a bad man, just not big on pets...unless they are raccoons named Ricky with sweet little hands (that are used to break into coolers when camping, but that's another story). His cold heart of steel is not due to a terrible childhood or soul-crushing job. It caused by his ancestry: West Michigan Dutch. We are a stoic and emotionless people. With absurdly large feet.

Pops wasn't all that interested in meeting Nadine. He wasn't particularly happy about having a dog - a non-housebroken dog no less - in his house. He was possibly a bit worried that having a dog in the house would prompt my mom to adopt a dog at some point in the near future, which might cause additional poop stains in the house and pee stains on the driveway. He made jokes about putting her in a barrel, as he was known to do with other wonderful dogs beloved by his one-and-only daughter. My dad is simply not a pet person and pets would not be welcome in the house, unless said pet could be kept in a cage or tank, explaining the parrots, fish, and chameleons we had growing up.

That is, until my parents went on vacation when I was 10.


The Story of Tigger

My parents traveled a fair amount when I was a kid. Apparently they needed to get out of the house, which I'm sure had nothing to do with me. How could it?! I'm perfect! Anyway, on one such trip, my aunt and uncle were taking care of me for the 5-day weekend while the parentals went to Stratford for their annual trip to see lovely Shakespeare plays and drink lovely wine and do other lovely things couples do on mini-breaks that I would prefer not to think about in regards to my parents. Ahem.

I had been asking for a dog for a while at this point and always getting a pretty convincing "not a chance in hell" in reply. A week or so before, my babysitter's family had found a dog. He was lying in the middle of the street with his legs splayed out behind him. They assumed he had been hit so they pulled up next to him to see if he was hurt. On opening the door, this sweet 20 pound black and brown Spaniel mutt hopped up uninjured and jumped in the backseat!

They spent a while trying to find the owners of this pooch and then trying to find someone to adopt him. He was housebroken but didn't have a collar. Finally, a day before they were planning to bring him to the Humane Society, my babysitter came over with him on the off-chance my family would want to adopt this nice dog. Guess who IMMEDIATELY fell in love? No, not just me, but my aunt and uncle too. Being as impulsive as the 10-year-old they were babysitting, my aunt and uncle agreed to take the dog. The deal was that if my parents wouldn't let me keep him, they would adopt him.

Tigger was the nick-name of my favorite counselor at Girl Scout camp that summer, so I named him Tigger. I never even considered that Tigger was a Winnie-the-Pooh character and even now, when I hear the name Tigger, I automatically think of my dog and not Pooh.

Tigger spent the next few days becoming the "Best Dog Ever" to me. We became buddies that no parent would rend asunder. Especially the parents of a child who had perfected the bottom-lip-jutted-out, eyes-watering, chin-quivering pout. No doubt, the parental guilt of raising an only child would help my cause. "I have no one to play with!" I would cry. Like Ralphie and his Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle, I plotted to keep my Tigger...