Looking back in hindsight, I now see that she was really sick. Like any person with cancer, she had her good days and her bad days. Because she was a 10 year old dog, Sheba had slowed down quite a bit from the days when she was an energetic puppy. And it was difficult to distinguish the bad days from the days when she was just plain tired. As a puppy she was always high energy.. too high energy. She flat out wore me out some days, but she was a good dog. To be more precise, she was a human dressed like a dog. Now matter how long an obituary I could write, no amount of words could do justice to describe Sheba Gill's involvement with the Gill family. But I'll give it my best shot. Here goes.
In June of 1997, I was home in Atlanta during summer break from college. I was entering my senior year at Hampton University, which I was attending on a football scholarship. One Saturday, my mom brought a little puppy home she had got from a friend of the family. The puppy was a golden brown... almost blond. She had big floppy ears and a purple tongue. I almost thought she was a Chow, because Chows are one of the breeds that have purple tongues. I asked my mom what she was going to name the puppy, to which she replied "Sheba". Now mind you, Sheba was originally my mom's dog. I was going to school in Virginia and was only home for the summer, so raising a dog was not anywhere in my plans. But Sheba and I really took to each other.
The same day my mom brought her home, I started potty training her. I ran to the store and got some puppy food and dog treats. From that day on, were inseparable. Tamila Hill, my girlfriend at the time (who would later become my wife) also took to Sheba. And Sheba took to her too. We would go out on dates to Piedmont Park and take Sheba with us. For the rest of the summer, Sheba pretty much hung with me. Right before I went back to school in August, my mom started having second thoughts about keep Sheba. She suggested she would keep her until I graduated and then I would take Sheba as my own. I agreed. I
Sheba and I were tight, even though my schedule was hectic. I would let Sheba out in the morning. Then I would go to class at Georgia State , get out of class at 11am and catch the bus to work . I would work 2pm-10:30pm and catch the bus home, getting home about 11:30. I would then let her out when I got home. So during the week, I would not get to spend a lot of time with Sheba, but the weekends were different. Tami would usually come over Saturday morning. Unless we were going to a mall or a movie, Sheba would hang with us. Parks, drives around the city, going to Stone Mountain, you name it, Sheba was there. In November of 1998, I proposed to Tami and she accepted. We began to look forward to our lives together as a family.
I ended up needed to go back to Hampton for to take my last two of the needed three classes. Like a bonehead, I registered at GSU as a transient student, which meant I could only go to school at GSU for one semester. So I finished the Fall of '98 at GSU and continued to live in the apartment and work at AAA until May '99. I then had to go back to Hampton to take the last two classes: 1 during the summer and 1 in the fall. I left Sheba with my mom and moved back to Hampton. Tami was home in Atlanta planning our wedding that would take place on December 18, 1999. I completed the needed classes over the summer and fall, taking my last final on December 6th, 1999. I left the exam room, went back to my dorm room, and was on a Greyhound back to Atlanta within 2 hours.
A few weeks earlier over the Thanksgiving break, Tami and I had a found an apartment in Atlanta (Riverside Apartments, now called Riverside Vinings) that took pets and one that we could afford. It was a small apartment. A 900 square foot apartment with one bedroom and a kitchenette. But it was home. Starting out, money was TIGHT, but it was fun. Tami, Sheba and I would all pile into my old full size bed at bedtime. On weekends, I would get some hot dogs and cheap $2.00 steaks and grill on the patio (Violation of the City Fire Code). Sheba could eat her weight in steak. Tami and I also found a trail that led to a path that ran along the banks of the Chattahoochee River. We would take Sheba down there and let her walk through the water. Life was simple. However, it was at this time I noticed some quirks in my dog.
Sheba had pretty much been raised by my mom, which means my mom let her do whatever she wanted. Sheba would brazenly eat out of the garbage can. And would stand 6 inches from you, when you were eating, to beg for food. When she did not get any food, she would urinate on the carpet out of spite. This was always a pet peeve of mine. Whenever she would urinate on the carpet, I would get livid, because she had been house-trained since she was a month old. She also hated to get wet, which was strange for a dog. If she was standing in wet grass, she hold up one of her paws, as if to say she was too prissy to get wet. Whenever I gave her a bath, I had to put on swimming trunks because I would get just as wet as she did. Sheba also had the bad habit of chewing the toes out of my socks, only mine.
But she was a part of the family... Our family. And like all families, you get used to each others quirks. We eventually moved into our first home in Douglasville, Ga. After being married about 3 years, Tami and I bought a Boxer puppy from on of my best friends. We named him Dutch-Daddy, or Dutch for short. Of course, Sheba did not like this. She would nip at the Boxer puppy, or sulk in the corner whenever he came into the room. But they eventually became pretty tight. One time I took Dutch and Sheba to the vet after Dutch's face became really swollen (He got stung when he ate a yellow jacket). When the vet tried to touch Dutch, Sheba tried to bite her, and started barking. So she took to protecting him, while he was still a puppy.
Tami and I would have two kids (boy, then a girl) along the way. Sheba went from sleeping in the bed, to sleeping on the floor. Eventually, Sheba and Dutch would have to sleep in the garage because they would tend to roam around the house and get into things. We no longer spent all of our time with her, taking her to parks and letting her ride in the car when we ran errands. The kids and our work week became the priority, and the dogs , while our pets, became more like pets and less like our kids. And this is the way it remained until the second week in October 2007, when we first started noticing Sheba was really lethargic. She started peeing on the carpet. But suprisingly, I did not get mad at her. I would see the pee stain, and she would give me a look that said "Sorry", and "I would tell her it's okay Sheps". She began to eat less as well. She would still be outside when I came home from class, but know she would be laying by the back porch, instead of running around the yard.
On October 31st, I took her to the vet. The night before, I noticed she was barely able to stand, and looked really tired. She just sat in the corner and looked really sad. A couple of days earlier, she laid on the couch, while I sat in the floor in front of her and she laid her chin on my shoulder while I watched TV. She just looked really tired. At the vet, she could not get our of the car, so I had to carry her in. I laid her down on the table, and told the vet I thought she had a blockage in her intestines (her stomach had swollen to 3 times the normal size). He said she had cancer, probably lymphoma. He also said he could do surgery to make me happy to confirm it was cancer, but Sheba would still have to be put to sleep and I would be out of pocket close to a $1,000. I asked for a minute to say goodbye, and went out to pay the bill. When I went back to look at her, she was already gone. I had the doctor open up her abdomen (Remember, I was a Biology major, so I was not squeamish), and we both saw that her spleen was the size of a grapefruit (normally the size of a small banana cut in half). The doctor said it was probaly a lymphoma type blood cancer, and that is why her illness progressed so quickly.
Tami called as I was leaving the vet's office... as expected she was hysterical. She cried almost everyday for a month. Sheba had grown to become more her dog than mine, and she was kind of like our first child. The kids would ask about her, but they were too young to miss her. Besides, Dutch was the really the dog they played with. Tami still cries if she finds a toy of Sheba's, or a picture she took of her right before she died. I cried for 2 or 3 days aafter she died. I even went to the Humane Society looking to get another puppy. I eventually decided against it. I said if I still want one a month from now, I would get one, and I ended up not wanting another one. I decided to just spend more time with Dutch, and that has worked out good. Besides, Sheba had so much personality, I coould not replace her even if I wanted to.
That's it. That's my obituary to Sheba. A great dog, and a great friend. Thanks for ten years of friendship.
