A Celebration of Tootsie Roll
Tootsie Roll was born in mid-2006. Her first home was on a farm outside of Forest Grove, OR. Being a standard dachshund, she probably had a lot of things to do and small animals to chase. At a lean 17 pounds, she was clearly active and happy on the farm, but her owner could no longer keep her.So we took our one dog at that time, Oscar Mayer, and drove out to meet… Dixie. That was her name at the time. Dixie didn't seem to think too much for Oscar (or us), but we decided to adopt her. Dixie settled right in with Oscar and us at our home in Beaverton. She immediately started putting on the weight, a problem she had the rest of her life.
But the name had to go. She was not a "Dixie". So as not to confuse her too much, we renamed her "Doxie". After some time to get used to the new name, we came to our senses and realized that Doxie was a dumb name, too, and that she did not care what we called her. We wanted to give her a name that really fit. You know the saying, “you are what you eat”. In our dog house “you are what you look like.” So, in keeping with the name Oscar Mayer came with when we adopted him, we re-named Tootsie for something she looked like... a great big Tootsie Roll.
Tootsie was very social and loved to meet new people and other dogs. If she didn't know you, she would come and stand at your feet with "hello, pet me" in her eyes. If you were one of her extended family peeps, then she loved to lick toes if they were not hidden inside shoes. If you were a child, whether family or stranger, she loved to get up on her hind legs and stretch out and up, trying to face lick. This usually resulted in the child falling backward and landing on their bum.
The funniest thing Tootsie ever did was when we entered both Oscar and Tootsie in a wiener dog race competition at Oaks Park in Portland. There were about 10-12 dogs in each heat and each dog had their own enclosed starting gate. Owners stood just beyond the finish line opposite their dog so that each dog had a "target". Oscar actually won his first heat (but did not advance through his 2nd heat) and won a blue ribbon. Tootsie? Tootsie jogged halfway down the line and then noticed that there were spectators standing along the side. She wanted to meet new friends! Not only did Tootsie come in last, she did not even finish the race. No ribbon for Tootsie, just some new friends.
Except for one thing that really annoyed her, Tootsie never "yelled" at any person or other dog. After we added Jimmy Dean to the family in 2009, Tootsie had to contend with two male dogs that sometimes took turns humping her. She put up with a lot, but once in awhile she would turn around toward the annoying offender and unleash a bark that said, "if you don't stop that right now, you're going to die!"
Unlike Oscar and Jimmy, Tootsie was not the best rodent hunter, unusual for a dachshund. While Oscar and Jimmy celebrated their hunting prowess with an occasional field mouse trophy that had strayed too far up from Fanno Creek, or the family of pet rats that a neighbor must have released in the area, Tootsie just wasn't into that. But there was this one time… Tootsie squirted her way though the front door one summer day. I chased down the street after her, but didn't have to go far. I saw that Tootsie had stopped at the curb a few houses down and was sitting waiting for me to catch up. Next to her was a squirrel that had lost a game of tag with a car. Tootsie's eyes said it all, "look what I caught, let's bring this home for dinner!"
It wasn't that Tootsie lacked a powerful sense of smell. She just preferred a different prey – her peeps. One time, when Zenny spent weeks out of town helping out after the birth of a granddaughter, I set things up so that the dogs would not see her come home. I put them outside and Zenny quietly brought her suitcase inside and then hid in the downstairs coat closet. When I let the dogs in, Tootsie saw the suitcase, ran right up to sniff it, then took off at full dachshund speed looking all over the downstairs for Zenny. As always with the hide-and-seek games we played with them, they found her. But in this case they did not know that we were playing this game. With the sight and scent of the suitcase, Tootsie knew that her Zenny was home.
Tootsie had the most unusual tail wag. While other dogs do a rapid back and forth, left to right, Tootsie excitedly greeted favorite peeps she had not seen in a while with something special. Tootsie’s tail wagged left to right and up and down all at the same time, in a random order. Her tail could hit every hour on an imaginary analog clock.
Each dog had their own favorite toys and ways of interacting with them. Tootsie preferred rubbery, chewy balls with a squeak. Unlike Oscar, who would rip the squeaky toy apart until the squeak was dead and gone, Tootsie would run and retrieve her squeaky toy, bring it back, chew gently on it a couple times, then invite you to throw it again.
Ever the alpha-female, who would barge toward the door to be first in or out, knocking Oscar and Jimmy to the side, there wasn’t much left of the original Tootsie Roll by November 2020. Beginning early 2020, we had Tootsie on medication for heart and kidney function, possibly dog diabetes. Beginning summer and continuing into fall, we began to notice other changes for Tootsie in her trajectory of decline. By the end, she had lost most of her vision, bumping into walls and other objects. She probably could not hear because our touch often startled her. She had lost her bark but, until the last several weeks, kept the “cuddle voice” she used to respond to affectionate touch. By the end she did not respond to Oscar, Jimmy, or us. We had to help her eat, drink water, and go outside or inside to pee and poo. She could still walk, with difficulty, but mostly wanted to walk in circles and find corners to stand in, searching, searching for the path to the rainbow bridge.
On November 15 Tootsie Roll crossed over the rainbow bridge. She was surrounded by almost all of her favorite peeps, plus Oscar and Jimmy. We all loved her. She enriched our lives.
