Raising Tygger

by Judith Grenkowicz              

      I am not exactly presentable in the early mornings as I usually appear in my baggy old pair of sweatpants and a hand me down top from younger years.  Tygger, my 6-month old Golden Retriever and I had started our morning run routine around the neighborhood. It’s breathtaking, running in the morning along the shores of Thunder Bay River which runs through the island subdivision where we live in Alpena.  The area leading to the water gave Tygger an open field in which to run loose, I unhooked his leash letting him free to run at his own pace.   A huge tree trunk had fallen into the river with one end jetting out on the shore, Tygger decided he would    test the trunk. He slipped, fell into the water and started yapping. Running down to the water, I could see something was holding Tygger under the water by the shore. Tygger was caught in a beaver trap!

The beaver trap was clamped on his right back leg, meaning, it would cut off the circulation quickly, and he would lose his leg.  I, literally, panicked, screaming and crying as I ran for help.   A local police sergeant was first to show up in his police car driving with lights and sirens down to the tree trunk.  In the meantime, a detective living nearby came running out jumped in the water with his business suit on and broke Tygger free of the beaver trap.

What I didn’t know at the time, was the police sergeant (being true to his Irish roots) put out on the police radio, “Prosecutor’s wife caught in beaver trap”.  You can well imagine the many cars and visitors that soon showed up in the field.  When we arrived home my, then awake, prosecutor husband – dumbfounded asked, “What’s happening?”  Oh well, it made for good humor in the local coffee shops and most of all Tygger was okay.

 

 

In the late 90’s, I worked full time as a college professor traveling several hours each day to and from work.  I had a lot of drive time to think and talk to myself about my life.  I could sense I needed something but I wasn’t quite sure what it was that would fulfill my needs.  My marriage and home life were not the happiest at this time. I felt lonely, bored and tired of the same old routine.  I had this feeling I wanted to be close to someone or something. I elected to get a Golden Retriever puppy.

The six week old, block-faced golden retriever wrapped his body around my neck and slept the entire three hour ride home.  Thinking I had timed my arrival prior to my husband’s but when I walked in the door around suppertime, my new puppy in my arms, I made eye contact with my husband who said, “What’s that?”   Caught off-guard, I replied “You know a student at the college brought this puppy into class today trying to give him away.”

Okay, I lied and my husbands’ bright blue eyes told me, he knew, but to his credit he did not mention a word.  In my appeasing efforts later that evening, I let my husband name the puppy, Tygger, to be a replacement for a real tiger he had wanted.

My husband (much younger than myself) had been the Alpena County Prosecutor for the past twenty years and was now running for his fifth consecutive term. This was the first time he had opposition and it was from a young, female, a Dolly Parton look alike.  She was playing every trick in the book in her attempts to unseat my husband.   Two days prior to the primary election, my husband decided to add something different and unexpected to his regular campaign ads.   A photographer friend took a picture of a soaking wet Tygger coming out of the river with my husband having wrapped his arms around Tygger. This ad ran as a full page color ad on the back page of the local newspaper.  It was a hit and Tygger, instantaneously, became my husband’s pal taking the front passenger seat in the silver corvette convertible used for campaigning in parades.  I would place a bright red, white and blue vest around Tygger’s front and stuck a small American Flag in his collar. Parents and small children were always excited to wave at Tygger in the campaign car.  My husband won the election, and to this day, locals still remember the back page ad of Tygger.

Tygger was such a handsome and beautiful golden retriever even my vet thought him to be the perfect specimen.  At twelve months old the vet suggested Tygger was ready to ‘do it.  But, sadly, this never happened so there were never any little Tyggers.

During the same summer, my family members had planned an 86^th birthday party for my Aunt Patricia to be held at the Cellar restaurant overlooking Thunder Bay River in downtown Alpena.   Running late, common for me, I pulled into the angled parking lot behind the restaurant bordering the water.  While quickly trying to maneuver myself out of the jeep, with three inch heels on, the driver’s side door partially opened.  It didn’t take a second for my two dogs to push me out of my seat and jump out.  The Otter Hound, Maggie was easy to coax back in the jeep but Tygger, dove into the river swimming upstream.  A restaurant patron, thinking Tygger was drowning, jumped into the water with his suit, shoes, shirt and tie on and pulled Tygger out of the river to a cheering audience.  I picked up the tab on the man’s anniversary dinner.  And, completely forgot the incident.  Two weeks later, I received a newspaper clipping from my former husband, now a resident of Ft. Meyers, Florida.  It was an Associated Press article and picture of Tygger diving into the river and being saved by the gentleman celebrating his anniversary dinner.  So much for a small world.

Our cottage is located on Lake Geneva a small, peaceful lake located in the headwaters of the Upper Black River in the Canada Creek Ranch (a private 13,000-acre club) area in northern Montmorency County.  One of Tygger’s favorite past times was entertaining the locals and taking a running dive off the dock at the front of the cottage into Lake Geneva. If I would let him, Tygger would do this all day long assuming, he had an audience.  Kids and adults loved to watch him run off the end of the dock with all fours outstretched as he landed in the water.  Where there was water Tygger was in it often swimming across Lake Geneva, a small lake of 95 acres and making myself and others very nervous.

The water sometimes got Tygger in much trouble.  When visiting my old walking trails in Alpena County, I had stopped with Tygger at the newly designated Rockport State Park a 4,237-acre park. This site used to be a limestone quarry so when you arrive you are confronted with huge concrete piers, old tailing piles and rusted out equipment left by the company that used to mine it.  It has an area with a small boat ramp and local fishermen often used it to launch their boats into Lake Huron.  Tygger decided to use the ramp to launch himself into Lake Huron.  I, mistakenly, had taken my eyes off him to examine some fossils; this area is a fossil hunter’s paradise. I looked up to see Tygger battling the waves in Lake Huron.  I panicked, but not so much, that I didn’t see two fishermen in a boat several motors on it.   I knew they couldn’t get Tygger into the boat without tipping the boat over, but, I jumped up and down waving my jacket and yelling when finally, one of them must have seen me so they turned the boat around, saw Tygger and used the boat to redirect him inland towards the boat ramp.   I was so very happy when an exhausted Tygger reached the boat ramp.  The fishermen came in with him; I thanked them and promised a case of Budweiser.  Tygger was now safe and I immediately delivered the beer.  Money well spent.

On a very cold morning in January, I was on my way to Cheboygan, Michigan to give a customer service seminar.  I had decided to take Tygger with me in the jeep and I would let him out several times before giving the seminar.  With extra time to get to Cheboygan, I drove past the Cheboygan County animal shelter. Thinking Tygger may need a companion and it was just after the holiday season.  I thought perhaps someone had received a golden retriever puppy for Christmas and they had now taken it to the animal shelter. Into the shelter I went and out I came with a one-year old Otter hound recently put up for adoption.  I loaded the Otter hound (Maggie) in the back of the jeep with Tygger and went off to give the seminar.   Returning home to Alpena that evening I introduced Maggie to my husband, not a positive reception, so I put Maggie in the extra bedroom with food and water.  Tygger was actually very good with Maggie not paying her much attention.  In the morning, I found Maggie semi-conscious having had dysentery all night and was dehydrated.  Some four-hundred dollars later Maggie returned from the vet a healthy new dog to become Tyggers best side-kick as long as she recognized Tygger as boss.

In the summer, the dogs and I spend our time at our cottage in Canada Creek Ranch Association.  The club is a wildlife haven with five lakes and a famous trout stream running through it along with snapping turtles that love the backwater of the lakes.  Tygger, now seven years old, laid in the front yard when we heard a lady screaming by the side of the road.  Tygger raced off to save the day, sniffing near the turtle’s head when, suddenly, the snapping turtle’s jaws latched onto Tygger’s nose. You have to understand snapping turtles, once they latch on they don’t let go.  The local fire department had to come by with Jaws of Life like tools and get the turtle off Tygger’s nose.  It left his beautiful nose scarred with three-forever white marks on his nose.

It is funny how Tygger could tolerate cats and rarely paid them any attention but chickens he did not like. I stopped at my father’s sawmill to bring him some papers for signing and without thinking, I let my dogs get out of the jeep.  Within a few seconds, Tygger had found my brother’s handpicked special free range chickens in the field.  By the time I got to him, he had snapped the necks on two of them and was going for a third. I dove after him as he rounded the corner and caught his collar.  Wow, in the meantime, my 90-year old father is yelling at both Tygger and me to get away from the chickens.  When all was calm with the chickens back in their chicken coop and dogs in the jeep, I immediately, replaced the chickens that Tygger had killed.  I drove to the next farmers market (some 40 miles away) and picked up to specialty roosters.  Thinking to myself, “That ought to keep my brother happy”.  Little did I know that specialty roosters cost $20 a piece?

When spending summers at the cottage, I have a dog handler for my dogs.    The dogs, particularly Tygger would hear the 1993, dark maroon, Ford Ranger coming around the lake, headed toward our house with their sixth sense of hearing.  The dogs run to the door to greet their dog handler, Russ.  He’s 75 years old with white hair, which is balding, a six-foot or so body frame, blue eyes and a permanent smile.   He is my dog handler, dishwasher, fix-it man, landscaper and emergency driver but most of all, he is the person I entrust my dogs to when traveling during the week; the dogs adore him!

Russ seems to know just when and how to pet and speak to a dog.   He first arrives in the morning and immediately tends to Tygger, his favorite. Russ talks directly into Tygger’s face in some sort of ‘dog-gibberish’ language.  The rest of the world including myself, do not understand but Tygger gets it, as he dances around with a wagging tale.

Tygger and my husband, eventually, bonded, particularly after the picture of Tygger helped win my husband’s election.  Last year, an aging and ill Tygger was at our summer cottage when he became too ill for me to carry in and out of the car.  My   husband volunteered to take care of him at our family home in Alpena.  A week later, Tygger died in my husband’s arms.  We met at the local vet’s office where Tygger was to be cremated.  I cried for days.  Tygger wasn’t just a dog to me.  He was a friend, companion and mentor of sorts.   When coming home to an empty house after a tough day at work, I knew I could always put my arms around Tygger for a big hug.

Tygger was my soul mate. He helped me reignite the kindle in my marriage as his illness brought my husband and I back together.  Tygger taught me warmth, compassion and loyalty.    Whenever, I looked into his big brown eyes I knew he understood every word I said to him.  If I was happy, he would smile and jump with joy wagging his bushy tail; if I was crying, he would find and console me with his big black nose.  Tygger was mine, forever loyal and loving.