Riko and Ralph

Riko and Ralph are a mother and son duo from Seattle whose up and down story is as punk rock as their city of origin.

Their owners (and life partners) found Riko running around their neighborhood about a dozen years ago, when she was 2 or 3 years old. So they did the responsible thing and took her in and cared for her while making every possible effort to locate her owner, including fliering the entire neighborhood. All to no initial avail, until one day she was being walked, and this guy nearly accosts her biped, "What are you doing, that's my dog!"

Being a gentleman, my client explained to Riko's very high strung (former) owner that he'd been trying to find him for a while, and was glad he had finally done so. The man in question simply replied with a grunt, "Well I have her son too, at home. Ya want him?"

And everyone did live happily ever after, after a fashion; but as with most rescued dogs it wasn't exactly as simple as all of that. The dogs had never been properly socialized, and they have the explorative, athletic and workaholic drives common to many terrier breeds. In spades. They quickly developed an attachment to their new family (also common among rescued dogs), and a related hostility to other dogs (who might be a threat to mom and dad after all. you never know!). And although they improved psychologically, Ralph (to the right in the photo above) never completely got over his nervous jitters and Riko (on the left) never fully lost her urge to roam.

But these were only minor bumps on the road to recovery, and manageable. They remained very engaged, animated and happy; and very, very active well into their senior years. I started walking them when the whole pack (mom and dad, and, well, mom and son) moved to Brooklyn 3 years ago, and that was how I found them. (Riko had already started to develop some minor arthritis even then, but hell, she still did handstands on her front paws when she marked her territory!)

Then a bit less than 2 years ago, over the space of a few weeks, Riko went blind. After much testing the cause was determined to be a rare disease called sudden acquired retinal degeneration, or SARD, about which little is known. The disease is accompanied by a reduction in activity, and this in turn led to more painful arthritis. But she was still a very happy dog, and if anything she got even more affectionate. She even started playing and wagging her tail with other dogs!

A few months after Riko went totally blind, she started acting almost as if she could see again for a few weeks. She was avoiding obstacles (even those that were not part of our routine) and walking with much more confidence. To this day, nobody understands what that was about, and after what was maybe her last glimpse of sunlight she receded again into darkness.

Ralph's story isn't quite so extreme as that but, at 13 years old, he's not exactly on autopilot either. He's still very energetic, and the same dog as always, but he has some arthritis as well and recently had surgery for mouth cancer.

On the bright side (no pun intended), they do now have a live at home butler (i.e. their owner!), who has recently started his own business out of his home, so the love and affection (and the glucosamine/chondroitin) they need is never out of reach! I don't give them regular walks anymore, but work is easy to find and I'm much happier that they're getting what they really need. But I do fill the role of butler when their owners go away, and I'm going to be delighted to spend some time with them soon!