Episode 4: A Big Boy and a Bigger Blessing

 Julie- Hey, welcome to Happy Tales of Happy Tails, the podcast where you’ll hear stories of the way pups have touched our hearts and our lives. So for the next few minutes, let everything else go and just listen and smile. I’m your host, Julie Jackson. Hi friends, I am so blessed to be joined today by my friend Gale. She has the sweetest heart for animals and shares just a beautiful love story today. I love this story so much. And I know you will, too. So just sit back and enjoy.

Gale- I’ll start with Axel because he, you know you have dogs in your life. And there’s that special one that is your heart dog. And you never ever get over them. And of course, I don’t have Axel anymore. But I’ll just tell you a little bit about him. We got him from a family in Weatherford. He was 12 weeks old. And we got him to be the friend for our senior dog, Lady. We had just lost another shepherd. It kind of all just goes down the line. And so we brought him home and Lady, you know, she did her matriarch thing and raised him. And he, by the age of six months, he started having health issues. And, the vet found out that he had a growth, genetic, some sort of genetic marker that made him grow very big and very fast. And he had a huge lump in his neck. It was like the size of a golf ball. And it was calcium. And so the vet took it out. And we started him on Gaviscon for a year and a half to stop him from growing because he was getting huge. And this is something, this particular genetic thing shows up, and it usually shows up in the soft tissues of the dogs. Well, he got one on his tongue. So his tongue was always kind of crooked, because they had to remove it from his tongue. But anyway, he kept growing and growing, getting bigger and bigger. And he, you know, maxed out at 150 pounds. And he was he was like a small horse, and we take him for walks, and people would look and go, What is he and he’s a German shepherd. And he was a shepherd. I mean, 100% He was the best protection I ever had. But he was also very reactive. He didn’t like any other dogs except lady who we had at the time. He loved no one but his family. And he was mainly protective of me. I was like the momma dog. And one night I was sitting here in this room, and I was concentrating on something, and my husband came up behind me and scared me and I scream, Axel came and latched on to his arm. It’s like, we’re gonna protect momma. And he was always under foot. I mean, you know, the same thing dogs in the kitchen, they’re always under your feet, you got G to step over, um, you know, and he was so big, he just took up the whole kitchen. I tried to make some notes here about him. Yeah, he just got really big. And he didn’t like people didn’t like other dogs. And I had to learn that that was okay. If he didn’t like other dogs, because I wasn’t going to, I was always going to control him around other dogs. But if anybody came on our house, it’s like, don’t make eye contact and don’t touch him. He will never hurt anybody. But he was just massive. And our neighbors didn’t particularly care for him because he was so big and loud, you know, when he would jump up against the fence. And we had one neighbor who just really would annoy him. And, of course, Axel would keep hitting the fence and the neighbor would call animal control. So we got to know Animal Control pretty well. “Was it Axel? Okay, goodbye.”

Julie- Like, “He’s fine.” Yeah.

Gale- They knew he did not pose a threat at all, you know. But again, I keep saying, but he got so big. My husband had to make him special beds, because we could not find anything large enough for him to lay comfortably in. And so I wish I had a picture. But my husband built this gorgeous wood frame bed with a TempurPedic mattress. And we put it in our front room of our living room from the house. So he could sit there and look during the day at his estate and see who’s coming by, you know. He hated the UPS man, hated the Federal Express man. And one of my good friends was a manager at one of the local pet store and she said, “Why don’t you bring him on in.” About this time Lady had passed away. So he was by himself. And she said, “Why don’t you bring him in? You know, and I’ll kind of make sure no other dogs come in while you’re there.” And so, sure enough, we’re in there and the lady’s husband walks in and he has a UPS uniform. OH NO! But luckily he didn’t do anything about that. But anyway, as he got older, he had a lot of health issues and we don’t know if it had to do with the calcium deposits called calcinosis circumscripta. We don’t know if that had anything to do with his health issues. But of course he you know, had arthritis and at one point the vet said he had degenerative myelopathy which to this day I cannot accept. I think it was just arthritis. But he eventually could not walk. But prior to that he became so lonesome after Lady died. And again, he would not have anything to do with any other dogs. And so what are we going to do? A whole year went by, and I just so happened to go to a rescue for the German Shepherd rescue in North Texas. And they had this tiny little German Shepherd, female, same age as Axel. And she’d been through a lot. She was scared. She was like a third of the size of him. And the thing I liked about her was that she had been with an alpha male in her foster home and I thought, well, Axel was an alpha male. We brought her home and it was truly a love story. He loved her so much, and it’s gonna make me cry. 

Julie- Me too. It’s okay.

Gale- You can see by the picture where he’s kissing her at the park. And they were just such a cute, cute little couple. And that’s them right there. In that picture up there. My husband painted those pictures of our shepherds.

Julie- Oh, my gosh, he’s so talented.

Gale- They’re all done in oil. That’s Vader, our first Shepherd. That’s lady and then we’ve got Sasha and Axel up there. But anyway, he loved Sasha and they had like, so they’re both the same age around seven. She passed away at the age of 11. Three months after she had her birthday, she passed away. And Axel, of course, you know, it broke his heart, broke all of our hearts. And here we go again, you know, he’s not going to accept another dog. And he ended up in a wheelchair. And three months after his 11th birthday, he passed away too. And it’s still really hard to talk about it. But shortly after he passed, I was in the backyard and butterfly came and sat on my shoulder. It’s like, yeah, you just read about this stuff. But butterflies sitting on my shoulder following the all over the guard. No, I’m not one of those people. that’s like “Wooo”, type of stuff. It was a God thing, I firmly believe, to help me through all of this. And then shortly after that, I had in our living room, we have like, I’d guess you’d call it a, I don’t know. I’ve got their pictures. I’ve got their ashes sitting there. And I have a porcelain German Shepherd figurine. And on night in the middle of the night this, that porcelain figurine falls off the shelf for no apparent reason and breaks. And I’m like, “Okay, is it time for me to let go?” You know, I need to move on. So I started entertaining the thought of get, oh, we had this cat. His name is Milo. Milo and Axel, were like the best of buddies. You know, both of them are alpha males. And so I thought, well, maybe I need to get Milo a friend and I thought, “Oh, great. What am I gonna get him?”, because he’s already nine years old. So I go into this pet store and there’s a tiny Maine Coon cat, and I thought she’s pretty cute. So I adopted her. And when I got home, I looked at her adoption papers, and she and Axel had the very same birthday. I mean, that just, that’s not a coincidence. Julie Jackson 08:45 Right? Right. You just know you’re like, yeah, they’re meant to be here. Gale 08:50 Yeah. And it’s like, I think the Lord knew that. You know, I needed something Milo the cat needed something, you know. And I think maybe Axel is just smiling down on mica saying, “Hey, Momma, it’s okay.” You know, yeah. The these lanterns that I hang in, I’ve have hung in my backyard one for each one of my shepherds, and they light up at night. And Axel’s stays lit almost all the time. It’s like, “Hey, Momma, I’m here.” That’s the story of my Axel. And like I said he, he’ll always be my heart dog. 

Julie- Oh, thank you so much for sharing. I’ve got tears.

Gale- No, no, I was thinking earlier. That’s like, I’m just gonna cry. 

Julie- And you know what, it’s okay. I mean, it’s just so they just enrich our lives. And I laugh because I you know, finally at one point was like, it’s just silly to say that I’ve rescued a dog because I think every time they’ve rescued me.

Gale- Exactly

Julie- You know, they’re just they’re so special.

Gale- Yeah, they are. And our lives are just, they’re empty without them. 

Julie- Yeah, well, and you know, it’s interesting too, because like you’ve had multiple dogs and one thing that I always marvel at is that they’re all so unique and they all bring so many different gifts, you know, like, and, and so you may have several but when you lose one, there’s still such a huge void because they, their personalities are not like anyone else’s. What I what, what they do and the things they pick up on are different than what their siblings do. And they all just work together to just really enrich our lives.

Gale- So yeah, we had Axel’s wheelchair. I’m sure you’re familiar with the wheelchairs for the dogs who can’t walk. And it was up in our attic for a year and a half. And this past Christmas, I thought I need to bless another dog who can’t walk. And so it went to a little boxer in Arizona G G G G named Buddy and it made my heart feel good to know that Axel’s life had, you know, it’s even with what he went through, the things that we were able to give other dogs because of him made a difference in more lives. 

Julie- Yes, he just continues to bless. Oh, well, I appreciate you so much. And this just made my day.

Gale- Oh, well. Good. Well, it might mine too. And I appreciate you for reaching out to me and letting me share my story, Julie. 

Julie- Thank you so much for being here and have a great one friends. Don’t forget to head over to Facebook and Instagram to see pup pictures. Head to the website for your free gift. Or if you would like to share a story, any story ideas or suggestions. And finally, if you want to receive this podcast automatically, please subscribe or like in your pod catcher. And if you like what I’m doing, please consider sharing and liking and maybe even being really wild and crazy and leaving a comment so other people can find out about it and we can share more stories. please always remember that you are as great as your dog thinks you are and smooch your pooch, have a great one y’all!