It was on a Monday, a week and a half before Christmas 2024. The wind howled the night before. The two puppies yapped loudly at 4 am to wake me up. I had picked them up a week earlier than initially intended. They were only four months old, bundles of fur so tiny they looked like toys. Brother shih tzus. I plodded down my stairs to feed them. We had named them after hobbits in honor of our shih tzu Frodo who had died two years prior. They each weighed less than five pounds.
Pippin was brown and white and clearly a troublemaker with a sharp bark. His long hair hung in his eyes like a surfer. I imagined his voice (if he had one) as Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgement High. Merry was white and grey and fluffy. So beautiful and sweet. He had the tiniest mouth and grey nose and hazel eyes, and he immediately knew he was my dog. He snuggled in my lap constantly.
I was still grieving the death of my 16 year old shih tzu Chewbacca who had died three months before. I had to let him go. He had chronic heart failure and had survived years past what we expected.
Every night, for the six months before he passed, I had slept downstairs with him. I told him how much I loved him. How he had added so much to my life. He would look at me with his caramel colored eyes and cough, still wagging his tail, and then we would sleep. In the end, the vet said he was holding on for me. The day I let him go was painful. I felt as if my heart was being carved into pieces, but I knew it was the right thing to do. After they gave him the sedative, Chewbacca wagged his tail, and went to sleep. His ashes sit on my mantle next to Frodo's.
Chewbacca's death threw me into a deep depression. I would crawl into bed every day after work and just stare at the ceiling until I fell into a fitful sleep. I couldn't believe he was gone, that dog followed me around for 16 years, a constant presence. My husband Adrian called him my baby duck because Chewbacca was always right behind or beside me.
Soon, I started searching the internet for dogs. "Just browsing," I would chirp at Adrian. He said it was too soon and I told him that the house felt too quiet. I agreed to wait a year. Yet, when I saw a tiny golden shih tzu online that reminded me of a female Chewbacca, I knew. She had a three puppy litter. Two boys and a girl.
When I visited the dogs, without telling Adrian, it turned out that in a matter of fate, they were right by Adrian's dental office in Riverside. Literally, down the block. The breeder was a woman named Rosie and she was Latina and near my age and when she opened the door, she was wearing a Guns and Roses tee. We bonded and connected, talking for hours. I held the boy puppies. The momma shih tzu (Chewbacca lookalike) growled at me.
"They are so damn cute," I told her, "I knew I was meant to have two boy shih tzus again." She nodded. "They are meant to be yours."
Rosie told me she started breeding after her niece (who had cancer) had a shih tzu and she noticed what loving dogs they were. Rosie had 7 dogs total. The momma shih tzu, two daddy shih tzus, the three baby puppies, and a puppy she'd kept from the first litter she bred named Petunia. The momma shih tzu had been so upset when the majority of her babies left after her first litter that Rosie let Petunia stay.
I went home lighter that day after holding the puppies. Later, I admitted to Adrian that I'd visited some fur babies after work and he grimaced. But when I showed him the pictures, he melted. "Their mom looks like Chewbacca!" he exclaimed. "Can we take all three?"
I told him the girl was already spoken for, but the boys were available. "Well go ahead and call her," he said. He knew I needed them. Adrian knows me so well it's eerie at times. That's what 3 decades together will do I suppose.
Back to the wind. On that Monday before Christmas after adopting the puppies, it was howling like I said. Adrian got up to drink his coffee at six am. "Be careful if you take them out," he said right before he left.
I got a little distracted that morning I admit. I remember I was trying to get ready for work while watching the puppies. Looking back, I think I was doing my makeup in the living room mirror downstairs. Putting on my lipstick, I remember opening the back door because the wind had died down, then I went back to the mirror. All I remember next is hearing the screaming. My puppies were screaming. High pitched screams that echoed. I had looked away for seconds, maybe a minute at most.
I ran outside and our furniture was everywhere turned over but I didn't see Merry or Pippin. Then, I picked up a huge planter that weighed at least thirty pounds and there was little Merry on his back, splayed out, but still breathing. Where was Pippin? More screaming. I picked up a board and there was Pippin who immediately started limping. I could tell he'd broken something, but Merry was worse off, breathing heavily and he couldn't walk well. He kept laying down.
I started crying, tears running down my face and gulping big breaths of air, I immediately called Adrian and he was upset and yelled, "What the hell!!!" He kept asking, "Are they alive?" I responded as best as I could. "Yes but they're hurt. I'm going to the vet." Then I hung up.
Next, I called into work. My work colleague consoled me and said they would handle my cases on calendar. I called my twin sister Jackie who lives in Palm Springs and has two Boston Terriers that she loves to distraction.
"It's bad Jackie. Really bad," I sobbed. She started crying with me and then quickly switched her tone to practical and said, "Stay calm, go now to your vet. I'll take the day off and get a sub to teach my class, and meet you there."
I drove at a breakneck speed to LA county to my longtime vet after calling him on his cell and loading my dogs into the car. Merry was lethargic and whined and writhed. I could tell something was seriously wrong. Pippin was very alert and other than his leg, he seemed okay.
When I got to the office, my vet came out. Dr. Berg was a good friend. He'd went to undergrad at Cal Poly with my husband and had taken care of Chewbacca so he got us right in. He looked worried about Merry.
After an hour, he came back out and said with a serious expression, "I gotta tell you that it's pretty serious. His lungs and chest are bruised and it looks like a pelvic fracture. But if we can make it through the next few hours, and his breathing stabilizes, he should pull through. I have to consult an orthopedic surgeon. His bones are rubbery so that's good. Pippin is fine, that little guy is tough, just a shoulder fracture which I can cast. Give me a few hours and we will know more."
I gulped back my tears. A woman came up and held my hand. She prayed with me for Merry, and right then my sister pulled up. Jackie bundled me into her car, handed me a blanket and coffee and we went to Petco to get a second crate for Merry which she paid for. She kept telling me that it wasn't my fault. I kept telling her, "I fucked up, I'm the worst dog mom. How could I let this happen?" She just patted me on my shoulder and told me, "Jua it's gonna be okay."
Then I called Adrian. He kept asking how it happened and if I'd left them alone outside. I had tears running down my face. Jackie kept frowning. After I hung up, she said, "It's not your fault. It was a freak accident."
I thanked her. Jackie and I don't always get along but she was being kind and supportive right when I needed her to be. I was so grateful that looking at her, my eyes welled up again with tears, and then my phone rang.
It was Dr. Berg. Merry would need emergency surgery. His hip ball joint had went through his pelvis which was in pieces, so they had to remove his hip bone on one side and replace it with his muscle. It was going to be a lot of money, thousands of dollars, which thankfully I had. It would deplete my savings but I told him to do it.
Dr. Berg rushed Merry to his Santa Monica office where he does surgeries and his partner performed the surgery. It was the smallest dog they'd ever worked on. I took Pippin home in a cast and he whined for his brother for hours and hours. Late that night, I met Dr. Berg at his home in Claremont to pick up Merry. I gave Dr. Berg a big hug. Merry was groggy but had pulled through beautifully.
Within two weeks, Pippin had his cast taken off and was jumping around and zooming faster than ever. In another act of fate, we ended up also adopting their sister who had to be rehomed because the older dog in the house was aggressive with her. We quickly named her Princess Leia (Chewbacca's best friend in Star Wars) and her nickname is Princess Stinky Pants. When her brothers saw her, they were overjoyed. They lit up, and Pippin started kissing her all over her face. She and Pippin snuggled in his crate while Merry whined in his own crate post surgery.
It is more than a month later, and Merry is able to stand upright on his hind legs. He only runs slightly crooked, burying any "show dog" hopes, but filling me with joy.
Still, last week, Merry and Pippin trembled at the sound of the winds as LA burned sixty miles away. Princess Leia was unfazed.