Seven years, and Dom still owns our hearts.

Photo copyright Wings, 2018; all rights reserved.

Seven years.

It doesn't seem possible.

I couldn't find either of the photos I wanted to use of her: In one, she's wrapped up in one of my old fleece shirts, warm on the floor of Wings's studio; in the other, she's sitting at the edge of the deck just before the old house got pulled out of here, exploiting that lame paw as she always did when she didn't want to do something. It was permanently damaged it, probably during the period she was used as a bait dog, and then further exacerbated by a rescue entity's failure to care for it properly. Once I got the infection gone, it never stopped her.

She only had a half-mask, but it gave her her name, for domino: Domina, in her case, a nod to the feminine and also to the other Latin translation in which it's used as the female analogue to "Master." Because she was the boss, in so many ways — not of her pack, true, but she ran her humans ragged as her personal servant. Of course, it was too heavy a name for a little tomboy who loved to fake being the fragile flower, so it got shortened immediately to Dommy, Dom, Dommers, DomDom. Also Grubster Girl, since she never met something disgusting to roll in that she didn't like, and Little Monster, because she was completely bullheaded.

She owned Wings, and she sealed that deal when I was up in Washington, hopping up onto the back of the ATV and riding with him. What we didn't know then was that she was already not only sick, but irrevocably so; in fact, she had only weeks to live. I returned at the very end of March; by 10:42 PM on the night of April 14, 2011, she was gone. Roughly 11.5, 12 years old, and at the vet, they thought she was pregnant; that's how drastically the tumor(s) had expanded her midsection. All in the space of a couple of weeks. We had no warning, and no time.

She left this world from my lap, on the floor of that damned RV, freezing cold and rattling in the wind. I kept her warm and safe, and held while her first her motor control failed, then her vision, and last of all, her breath. I baptized her spirit with my tears; they fell unceasing and unchecked the whole time. It took about forty minutes overall.

She was the first to rest in the plot where the her siblings now are. We couldn't bury her until the next day; it was too dark, too cold, the ground too hard. Every once in a while, she comes back to see me in a dream, and I know she's happy. She's still fierce, but she's always happy, that little doggy grin on her face.

Later on, when the wind dies down, I'll go outside and take her some cedar, and some tobacco, and some water. And I'll remind her that, like her siblings, she's never out of our hearts.

We love you, little DomDom girl.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.