Keely was born on March 23rd, 1998. She was born in North St. Louis to a purebred Rottweiler. The owner of this dog thought she was spayed and was surprised when she had a litter.
My girlfriend at the time, now my wife, purchased Keely for me as a surprise birthday present. She picked Keely out because she was feistier than the others. This was against the wishes of my mother who had accompanied her and whom Keely would share a house with for the first year and a half of her life.
When I first met Keely she was so small and when I held her she was as sweet as could be. The only thing I knew about choosing a puppy was to flip them on their back to check their dominance. When I flipped Keely over she growled and acted as though she wanted to kill me. I flipped her back over and she was fine. I knew then I was going to have my hands full with her.
Keely as a growing puppy was a terror. For no reason she would appear aggressive and growl and bark with her hackles raised. She acted up every time she went to the vet. She would yelp in pain at the sight of the doctor even though they had done nothing. My vet put it best, "Keely acts the way she does because her mom was a whore and she never knew her dad!" Keely would need to be muzzled the rest of her life when she needed to see the vet.
I knew I needed professional help to get her trained. I chose a trainer that not only trained pets and police dogs but also fellow dog trainers. He said Keely had fear based aggression. The first lesson she growled the entire time at him or yelped in fear. After a few lessons this continued. The trainer was brutally honest with me. He told me to give Keely up. Life was too short to own a dog like her. She could never be around children and she would most likely bite someone. I was devastated. Even though she would appear aggressive, she had never bitten me or anyone else and when she was calm she was a joy to be around. I knew that if I gave her up that she would be destroyed. She would appear to aggressive in a shelter and no one would want her.
I decided to stick with the lessons and work with her everyday on her obedience. She was bull headed and needed a firm hand but she quickly was becoming obedient. This obedience only pertained to me and my family. She was still deathly afraid of strangers, especially adult men. At graduation day she graduated 1st in her class! She had learned all her commands and had beat a dozen other dogs, including many purebreds. She had become better with people she knew but her socialization with other people and dogs persisted her entire life. I did my best not to put her in situations she could not handle.
I got married and Keely moved into our first house as a family. The house was small, and did not have a fenced in yard. This proved difficult with a dog like Keely. She had two favorite spots at this house. The top of the stairs near the front foyer was one of them. She would sit there in the late afternoon and wait for my wife to come home. She would be very excitable and greet her everyday she came home. The other place was our back deck. The house was built on a hill and the deck overlooked a valley. She spent countless hours looking out into the valley and we joked that Keely felt like she controlled everything the light touched. My wife and I treated Keely as a child and spoiled her rotten. She had birthday parties with dog only cakes and received all of our attention. Due to my schedule I was off during the week. Keely became my constant companion. We would go to the park and explore. One of her favorite places was Cliff Cave park, along the banks of the Mississippi river, south of St. Louis. She was a good companion and watch dog to my wife on the many nights I had to work.
My wife and I decided it was time to start a family and moved to a bigger house with a fenced in yard. My wife soon became pregnant and our family was about to grow. Keely was 5 years old now. She had mellowed quite a bit but still had fear based aggression with those she did not know. How would she react to a new crying baby that would dominate our time? We set up all of the baby gear months in advance to get Keely accustomed to the sights and smells of baby stuff. When the big day came and our daughter came home from the hospital my wife and I held our collective breaths. I put Keely outside while we brought our daughter in. We had placed her in a pack in play in the family room. I let Keely in and she was very excited to see my wife whom she had not seen in a few days. Keely then put her nose to the air and noticed a new smell. She went over to the pack and play and sniffed it and immediately walked away. She did not notice our daughter at first until she had made a noise. Then Keely ran back to inspect further. She quickly became excitable. My wife got our daughter out of the pack and play and introduced the two. Keely wagged her tail and was happy to meet her little sister.
Two years later our family grew again with the birth of our son. By now Keely was an old hand with kids it was no big deal. Keely truly loved both of the kids.
Keely was a very vocal and expressive dog. She hated her feet being touched. She would snarl at first then growl if I persisted touching her feet. If I would have continued she would have bitten me. But whose fault would it have been? Mine of course. She was giving fair warning that she did not like her feet being touched. She never did like being picked up. She would growl and carry on if I did this, but she was all talk. The kids would fall on her or accidentally step on her and she would growl. But that was all she would do. It was her way of saying, "Watch what you are doing kid." I trusted Keely 100% with the children. She was a great protector of the kids and would never do anything to hurt them.
When Keely was 8 we moved to Ohio in 2006. Though it was tough to move away from family the move seemed to unfaze Keely. By now Keely had settled into a comfortable routine that most often meant sleeping the day away. With two small kids, it had been quite a long time since Keely had our undivided attention. Family would visit often from St. Louis making us and Keely happy.
Prior to moving Keely had a lump form on her right front leg. The vet in St. Louis aspirated it and thought it was a fatty tumor but could not be 100% sure. I was advised to have it removed when it appeared to be bothering her. A year later it had grown to the size of a golf ball and I decided to have it removed. It was not causing her any problems though. When they prepped her for surgery they aspirated the lump again and it bled. They advised that fatty tumors do not bleed and it was most likely cancerous. I picked her up later that day and they confirmed it was cancer. They advised it was the best cancer a dog could have and that the cancer was confined to the tumor. Because of the location, the wound was difficult to dress and heal. Keely was in an e-collar for almost 6 months before it healed. She made a full recovery but the road was long and painful for Keely. We vowed if we were faced with a similar situation in the future we would not put Keely through this.
Keely aged gracefully but she rapidly began to show the signs of a senior dog. Her muzzle seemed to gray more and more every year. She no longer went anywhere in a hurry and no longer felt that she go jump on a bed to sleep with us at night. She was happy and still had a zest for life. She never turned down a walk even if I could not sleep and it was 3AM. Even up until the very end, if I had her leash and my "walking shoes" on she would go nuts. She loved her walks, smelling the ground and the air all along the way. If the walk was not long enough to her liking she would put the leash in her mouth and tug on it to let me know her displeasure when we got within sight of home.
In the fall of 2008 we welcomed another dog into our home, Penny. Penny was a Boxer and full of mischief. She adored Keely but I cannot say the feeling was mutual. Keely enjoyed being around Penny but just wished Penny was not so in her face. Penny could not help it, she was a puppy and a Boxer. I do feel that Keely enjoyed being the boss over Penny and let her know it on a daily basis.
In the spring of 2009 we needed to move from Ohio and Minnesota. Keely was now 11 years old. My daughter worried that Keely would miss Ohio. I told my daughter that the only thing Keely cared about was the people in her life.
Not long after the move Keely began to limp in her left front leg. I attributed it to arthritis. The limp progressed but it did not keep Keely from getting around. One Sunday morning I got up early to take Keely on a walk. I took her to the Mississippi River north of Minneapolis, just as I had done in St. Louis. She sniffed all around and was happy but it took a lot out of her. As we walked back to the car I knew that this would be the last walk I would take with my friend.
A week later my wife asked if I had noticed the lump on her left shoulder. I could not believe I had missed it. The next day I took her to the vet and I knew it would not be good news. The vet felt the lump and believed it to be bone cancer and an x-ray confirmed it. He advised her leg could break anytime in the next 6 months. She was put on pain meds and we prepared for end. Two weeks later we took Keely back to St. Louis to visit family. It was the happiest I had seen her in a long time visiting with all of her family. Though her leg hurt her she did everything she wanted to. When we returned back to Minnesota that very night her back legs no longer worked. The cancer had spread to her spine and she was put to sleep 36 hours later.
I will miss my friend Keely.