The Chaotic Catastrophe of Acquiring Cricket

Part 1

Cricket. Mini. Cricketus Minimus. Teeny Tiny Telepathic Terrorist.

Whatever name we have for him, there’s certainly one thing he isn’t.

Boring.

And the story as to how we got Cricket is anything but as well. The whole thing started about 3 years ago. Quin and I were thinking about getting a second dog, ideally one to eventually replace Stark for Quin’s service dog. We had a few in mind but it wasn’t until one afternoon that the conversation shifted.

Quin visited me at work during my lunch break. They never did that. I got into their car and we had a nice conversation about the dog. They started thinking about how *I* needed a dog of my own. That they have Stark, and that I need to have one that is mine. That meant a tremendous amount to me. The problem was I had no idea what kind of dog I wanted. I didn’t really want one as big as Stark but I didn’t want something I could fit into my pocket either. Somewhere between 50-70 pounds and something that loved life as much as I wish I did. I wanted a dog that could encourage me to be more active, and to just get excited about things through association.

A few weeks went by and Quin found an ad for puppies out near West Perth, Ontario. They were Border Collie/Dalmatian puppies. Apparently mom Dalmatian wandered off and got knocked up by the neighbour Border Collie and ended up giving birth to 13 puppies.

Thirteen.

And mom kept all of them alive.

Quin and I spent some time talking about names for the future pupper. We wanted something that was a symbol of our relationship in some way that worked for both of us. Names have to have meaning for us. To us, you don’t just name a dog Spot or Skip or Rex (Sorry if your dog is named those). It has to mean something. Cortana (my cat if you didn’t know) is named after a character from my favourite video game franchise. Stark was born in November, so winter was coming, and Game of thrones was just taking off on HBO (or Iron man, if you so choose). So whatever name we chose, it needed a reason.

We got down to two names: Link, and Cricket. Link obviously from The Legend of Zelda; a subject of mine and Quin’s early date conversations (apparently they were impressed when I actually had a Zelda wallet cause it meant it wasn’t a lie), but we decided in the end on the latter. Why Cricket? When Quin and I were dating, and the few months after I came home from the Military before Cricket, we spent a lot of times at bars. One thing we love to do together is play Darts. The standard bar game of Darts is called Baseball. Well, there’s a more condensed version of that when you’re trying to get more games in, or the booze is starting to take hold and math becomes hard. That game is called Cricket.

And that’s where he got is name. From a Darts game. And if you’ve ever had the opportunity to meet Cricket, I don’t think there is a more fitting name for him (The fact he bounces around and hops like a Cricket just makes it extra fitting).

So anyway, back to the day we picked him. Well…He picked us. But we’ll get to that.

A few days before we set off for the hour and a half drive out to West Perth, we bought a puppy collar. See, Cricket would be Quin’s 37th(ish) puppy or something in their lifetime. Dozens of puppy’s worth of experience to know how to create the least turmoil and confusion when selecting a puppy before they’re old enough to leave their mom (We’re picking the puppy at 5 weeks, they can’t safely leave their mother until after 8). Normally when you pick a puppy from a litter you put a collar on them to indicate which puppy will eventually belong to which owner. More on this later.

The day finally came and we were going to pick our puppy. We were told prior to coming that there were only about 5 left to pick from. But I knew deep down that we would find the perfect one for us. It was a Friday in early May of 2018. Many of the puppies were born overnight between March 31st and April 1st. We consider Cricket’s official birthday as April 1st, because why wouldn’t he be an April Fool’s baby. I had just gotten off work early in the afternoon prior to the trip out. Unfortunately halfway through my day at work I started to get sick. Ironically sick as a dog so to speak. However I wasn’t going to let feeling under the weather and puking my guts out stop me from picking my puppy.

So, I’m sick as all hell. I’m basically useless on the hour and a half drive out there to keep Quin any kind of company, and they had to drive. We asked our friend Nikkie if they wanted to come and help us pick the puppy and keep Quin company on the drive. They excitedly agreed. So we drive from Guelph down to Milton and picked her up and headed off, Nikkie riding shotgun next to Quin, and me and Stark snuggling in the back, periodically stopping so I could throw up on the side of the road.

So with the obvious chaos of me being sick and having to detour to pick up a friend of ours thirty minutes away from where we’re going, there was *another issue* brewing behind all of this.  This is all taking place the day before Quin’s grandmother’s celebration of life. She had passed away over the course of the winter, but because of winter road conditions/snowbirds/the age of her peers, Quin’s family had opted to wait until something resembling spring before we had her “funeral”. Their family is big on cremation so you have lots of time to decide when to have a gathering or celebration of life. About an hour and a half into the trip out, Quin got a phone call.

Quin’s mom had gone to get her hair done before the funeral as you do. It turns out that when they were in the salon, their father had a heart attack. A big one. Their mom’s hair stylist (who is a friend of Quin’s), called them to tell them they’d called the paramedics. Quin asked if their dad could talk and she handed him the phone.

They asked him how he was doing and obviously he said he wasn’t doing well. Quin said that they were on the way to look at the puppy, and if he needed them to turn around and help him. He told Quin that he promised he won’t die before we got back from looking at the puppy and we should go look. So, now Quin is driving with Nikkie riding shotgun, and their barfing husband in the back seat, while knowing their Dad just had a cardiac event all while having to keep the car between the lines to go see some puppy.

Quin’s always been good at listening to their dad (for the most part), so we ploughed on to go look at Cricket and they was confident as hell that he would be fine by the time we returned.

So, we finally arrive at the farm in West Perth. The three of us got out, while we left Stark in the car because we didn’t need him running around saying “hi” to every animal on the farm for the next two hours. We introduced ourselves to the owner of the farm and they brought out the puppies for us to look at.

From what I remember, the owner brought them out in a giant Tupperware tub. There were four puppies inside of it, but she specifically mentioned that there was a fifth one trailing behind. She placed the tub on the ground and tipped it over so the puppies could explore us and we could see them better. All four of them kind of huddled together and weren’t terribly adventurous. They looked sleepy and just kind of wanted to chill.

Then the fifth little tag along showed up from behind the container.

This wee puppy stumbled out into view. Quin and I were down on our knees getting better to the litter’s level. This wee one walked past their brothers and sisters and went straight to Quin and climbed up onto their lap. Almost without missing a beat he just B-lined it to their lap and started climbing onto Quin. Quin picked him up and we looked him over. This tiny little bundle of fluff couldn’t have been more than 5lbs, however he was just calm as can be and seemed to enjoy us giving him attention.

We found Cricket.

After the two of us, with some input from Nikkie, decided that this was our puppy, it was final. We asked the owner if we could put our collar on him. They said they didn’t want us to, that they had their own collars and would take out information down associated with that coloured collar and that he would be our reserved puppy.

There’s obviously some foreshadowing to all of this which will be in the next blog, but we had picked out puppy, our deposit was given to the owners, and we were on our way. In about a month, Cricket, as he would be named, would be coming to his forever home.

So Quin dropped off my barfing behind back at home, all while panicking about the whole heart attack situation with their dad. Grandma’s funeral was still the next day, and their parent’s car was still at the salon because their mom had gone in the ambulance with dad. Quin also didn’t have their parent’s apartment keys. This began an extra level of Chaos that was obviously added to the chaos of sick husband and puppy picking that they were absolutely not ready to deal with

But we soldier on.

Nikkie and Quin drove down to Burlington. After dropping me off they didn’t have a lot of daylight to deal with and Quin wanted to go see how their dad was doing, so they didn’t have time to take Nikkie back to Milton, that would come later.

We went down to Jo Brant Hospital in Burlington. Quin’s dad was well ensconced in the most stunning hospital room they have ever seen, but he also looked very suddenly like an old man and that was very scary. Nikkie talked to Quin’s mom while Stark and Quin visited dad. Stark very gently hopped up on Dad’s bed so he could have a cuddle and all the attention. In that moment, it made Quin’s dad look and feel a little more human in a small amount of time.

I’m a little foggy on the timeline, but somewhere in there, they went to let their parent’s dog Roxie out for pees. Quin and Nikkie left the hospital with Quin’s mom and headed back to the hair salon where their parent’s car was still parked. Quin’s mom hadn’t driven in almost a decade but we needed to get the car home. On top of all of this, Nikkie didn’t have her license.

So Quin got into my car which they were still driving, and threw the 4-ways on. Mom got into her car and the two of them crawled their way back, likely never breaking 40km/h, from the hospital to the apartment building. Getting her home safe was all that mattered. Making sure she was comfortable at home to get some sleep as obviously she’d be back at the hospital the next day with dad.

After dropping mom off and making sure Roxie got out for some pees, Quin and Nikkie headed home. Quin, exhausted and tear-full, managed to get Nikkie back to Milton safe at home and get back to Guelph before I had to go to work in the morning (because remember, they were driving my car the whole time).

They made it back to Guelph safely while I was asleep. What should have been a quick few hours out to West Perth to see some puppies ended up as a whole catastrophic event. And we just went to go *select* our puppy.

We haven’t gone to pick him up yet.