Celebrating the life of Mariah
Mariah’s life was nothing short of a gift from God. She was born on May 31, 2010, the daughter of Ruutu and Lambert. She was the 2nd puppy of Ruutu’s litter of 6. Of the 6 puppies, 2 of them died the first week after birth. I have been advised this is normal for a first time mother to lose a puppy or two. However, puppy #2, Mariah, did not survive easily. She was born weighing 3.9 oz, whereas the rest of the puppies all weighed 7.9–8.1 oz. She was HALF the size of her brothers and sister! Mariah came out of the womb dry, with no umbilical cord and no placenta, unlike the other 5 puppies. Little did I know this was a sign that she would be an escape artist for much of her life.
All 6 puppies on June 1, 2010, the morning after they were born. Mariah is laying on top of her brother, Dexter.
Mariah was so small that her mother Ruutu would not nurse her. My breeder friend Loretta warned me not to get too attached to Mariah because the odds were not in her favor of surviving. Loretta did not want me to get my heart broken. I did not listen. I made Mariah an incubator out of a 20 gallon rubber maid container. I placed a heating pad under a blanket in the container and gave her a 6 inch loofa dog to sleep with. Being an Orthodox Christian I also put an an icon card of the icon of “The Theotokos She Who Is Quick to Hear” in her incubator. She was given the name Mariah in honor of the Mother of God, Mary. I wanted to name her Mary, but the ex thought it would be sacrilege to do so, so I figured Mariah was close enough to Mary. I said a prayer praising the Theotokos as being the model of all motherhood and asked her to ask her son to protect the puppy.
Mariah was so tiny when she was born that I needed to get a nipple for the formula bottle that was not already punctured and then puncture it with a needle in order to make sure that too much formula did not come out when feeding her! Mariah needed bottle fed 4x per day for the first 6 weeks of her life AND she would not let my ex feed her. Every time my ex tried to feed her she would not drink. The ex would say “she is not drinking”. I would take Mariah, rub her back, force a little formula into her mouth and soon she would be drinking away. Thus I was the one who fed her. At first the bottle of formula was as big as she was! Soon one bottle of formula turned in to two bottles of formula. When nursing she would always get about half way through the bottle and stop drinking. Then she would stop and give me a look which said “wait for it!”, which was followed by a huge burp. She would then proceed to finish her bottle. All of this nursing Mariah was on top of my walking Gilmour a mile every time he went out because he was too busy hunting to want to do his business at first. The ex thought he was mentally challenged (to put it nicely). She refused to walk him, so I did. I had a busy summer between these two dogs.
This photo of Mariah sitting next to her brother Gilmour will show you just how small she was. As I noted, Mariah was born to be an escape artist. As a puppy once she proved that she did not need her incubator we placed her in the confined area which we kept her brothers in. This was an area which was 15 sq feet in between the steps and the front door, which we had barricaded with a 2 foot tall plywood board. She would often scale the barricade, climb on the steps and then come in to the living room to visit us. When she was older she would do the same thing with the pen which we kept the dogs in the basement in at night. We would be watching a movie or playing pool and walking up the steps would be Mariah who was coming to visit us.
Mariah’s father, Lambert, loved Mariah dearly. He would cover her in kisses every chance he got.
Mariah was not supposed to make it past puppyhood. Here she is at one month old. She had already grown quite a bit, even though she was still on forumula for few more weeks. The prayers and and the love that were poured into her as an infant worked. She grew very steadily from a sickly little girl who Loretta warned me not to get too attached to into a strong, energetic dog. About 6 weeks of age Loretta told me that she was amazed at the job I did in helping Mariah survive her infancy. I wish I could take credit. I know it was the supernatural help of the Theotokos. I was at my old church in Ohio later that summer and commented to the deacon’s wife, Lou, how I was surprised at how healthy Mariah was. Lou responded to me “Michael, you gave the Theotokos a puppy. What did you expect to happen?
She did not stay small for long! Here is Mariah playing with Hobbes in August 2010, at 2 months old.
Eventually Mariah grew to be a beautiful full sized cocker spaniel, and even got to be heavier than her mother, Ruutu. She was such a sweetheart and loved both her father Lambert and me.
I could go on for hours with stories about Mariah. One story that I will tell is from December 2014. My house had a very large back yard which had a vinyl fence. There was one spot in the back right corner where the bracket holding the vinyl panel had broken lose. Hobbes, Mariah’s brother, would often get loose and just walk around to the front porch to sit at the front door. He would wait at the front door for me to let him in. On Sunday Dec 07 during the Steelers vs Bengals game I let the dogs out back as I always did. When I came to get them to let them in, there was only 4 dogs, when there should have been 6. I went to the front door and Hobbes was sitting there, but there was no Mariah. I immediately went out looking for her, but could not find her. I called her name, no response. I let Akira know that she was missing, but she was busy doing a photo shoot. I called Loretta who recommended I make posters and put them on every light post within 2 blocks of my house. I did that that very evening. I put the above photo on the flyer along with my name, phone number and a notice that Mariah was hard of hearing and had limited sight so to approach her gently. I went out looking for her Monday, still no Mariah. I called the dog catcher on Tuesday who advised me because I lived on a hill and there were hawks in the area that the worst could have happened to her, but that he would keep his eye out for her. Akira came over on Weds and we looked all over the place for her. We looked everywhere I looked, went over the hill, nothing. Right as Akira was getting ready to leave about 10pm I got a phone call which I was going to ignore due to not knowing the number on it. Akira looked at me and said “aren’t you going to answer that?” I answered and the lady said “Is this Michael? I have Mariah!” I asked the lady where she found her and she said that she wondered into her yard and she recognized her from the poster. She said she was cold and scared. I told the lady that I had not seen her since Sunday and then inquired where she lived. We agreed to meet at the church that was 5 minutes down the street from me, the same church that I used to walk Gilmour to and back every day on his walks. I told Akira what was going on and we got in my car to go get Mariah. When we got there the lady handed me Mariah, who I immediately handed to Akira to hold and then I gave the lady the biggest bear hug ever and thanked her for returning my dog to me. The next day I texted the lady asking her for her address so I could send her a thank you note and she said to me that the hug I gave her was the best thank you she could have ever gotten. She said she wished everyone loved their dog as much as she could tell that I loved Mariah. Akira gave me a stern lecture about never letting Mariah out of my sight when outside again and never letting her out without a leash on her again. She also made me promise to go to PetsMart to get her tags with my name, number and a note about her impaired hearing and vision. I did that the next day. To quote the ending of Kill Bill Vol 2. “And the lion was reunited with his cub, and all was right in the jungle.”
Mariah was my best friend. She was very attached to me. She loved to get her belly rubbed, loved to share my dinner with me and Gilmour and loved to go for walks. All I had to say was “Mariah, do you want to go…” and she would already be half way down the steps to go outside. She would often run back up the steps to inquire what was taking me so long.
In summer 2019 I began to regret that as many photographs as I have taken of other people and other people with their pets, I did not have any with me and Lambert (Mariah’s father) together when Lambert was an adult. I had plenty of photos of just Lambert, but none of me with him. I asked my model friend Michelle Marie to take the above photos of me with Mariah and Gilmour.
In September 2019 while I was giving Mariah one of her belly rubs I noticed a lump in her chest. I gave Mariah belly rubs about 10x a day so I knew her belly very well. I took note of the lump, but then a week later there were 2 lumps. A week later 2 lumps became 3 and the 3rd lump was rather large. Then another appeared on the other side of her. I was scared. I took her to the vet for a senior check and the vet confirmed what I thought I was feeling. The vet said she had chain mammary tumors and there was a 50/50 chance that each tumor was cancer. She said the vet could do a double mastectomy, but there was no guarantee the tumors had not yet spread to her blood, lymph nodes or nearby organs. I declined the surgery. When I went home I researched how long a dog would live with breast cancer if untreated. What I read told me to expect to have her a month. I then discussed with my breeder friends how to keep her comfortable when she showed signs of being in pain. The above photos were done as one final photo shoot for Mariah. I always wanted to do a shoot where she was with a model who was in a black dress, heels, hat and gloves, like she was the accessory of Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffanys! Celina agreed to model for the shoot and even though it was a cold day, the photos turned out amazing.
When I realized that Mariah had cancer and that I would not have her for much longer, I asked my friend Al who is himself a very good photographer if he would be willing to do a shoot of me with her. I wanted epic photos that I would always be proud of . We decided to make it me vs her in a game of Monopoly with cigars and liquor. The Monopoly game that I happen to have is Star Wars Monopoly, which is even better! These photos were shot about a week before the shoot with Celina, and were my tribute to my friend who I knew that I would soon lose.
On Monday Jan 6 when I came home from work I noticed that Mariah was weak on her right side. She also had been sleeping quite a bit under the coffee table, which in dog language is a sign the dog is in pain. When the dog thinks it is dying it will often hide in a hidden place so that no one will bother it. I picked her up to hug her and she melted in my arms. This was not good. On Tuesday night when I came home I noticed she had been licking her underside and when I went to look at it, she was trying to bite me. I gave her a bath to see if she had been licking at fleas, but she was clean. It was then that I noticed the area from her navel down to nearly her knee on the right side was swollen, thick and red. I dried her off and gave her something to make her comfortable until I could get her to the vet the following morning. I knew what this meant and sat down to cry my eyes out.
When I took Mariah to the vet on Weds morning he said that normally chain mammary tumors are not that painful to dogs and that there was something much more severe going on. He agreed that the best thing to do would be to put her to sleep and end her pain. I had already accepted this was going to happen and let him do it. While driving home it still did not hit me that she was gone as I kept trying to talk to her and pet her. As soon as I got home I buried my best friend. May your memory be eternal, Mariah!!!
