One look. That's all it took.
A pair of huge liquid eyes, an indignant but huge, soft mouth and combover ears so crazy that they made his face a study in imperfect perfection.
I arrived at the shelter to volunteer that afternoon over ten years ago, not knowing that I was going to meet someone who was going to change my life forever, but I did, and that someone was Frankie.
A huge Great Dane but skinny, skinny, skinny. His owners had left him a month earlier, tied to a post in their backyard, no food or water for days (a common story here in Georgia that we rescuers hear all the time) unfortunately for him though, he had gone to the shelter, been treated for a severe lung infection and then been fostered out to someone who kept him in an outside pen, because they were frightened of what he would do to their cat. He'd been returned as he was not flourishing, the infection kept coming back, and so he was awaiting his 'exit date'.
Then he locked eyes with me, and it was love at first sight, instant fireworks.
All the way home, he had his head on my shoulder as I drove, looking at me in the rear view mirror, eyes telling me that I would not regret this hasty move. We had just moved into a new house, had three big dogs already, and needed another one like a fish needs a bicycle, but what can I tell you? The heart wants what it wants....
Over the next three weeks our lives were turned upside down, he climbed up on top of the fridge to get at a bag of grapes and a whole catering size jar of peanut butter which he demolished entirely in the twenty minutes I was out sweeping the driveway. I rushed him to the animal hospital where the vet had him under observation all day, looked at me and said " Penny, welcome to the world of Great Dane ownership...if you put it on top of the fridge then OF COURSE he's going to find a way to get it!"
He was needy, he was loud, he was funny, he was famished, he was huge......and he was absolutely downright fascinating. I couldn't get enough of him.
Unfortunately, my oldest boy, Weimaraner Nelson didn't feel the same way, and set about making Frankie's life a misery at every opportunity, to the point where we had to keep them apart, permanently. His heart did not want what mine wanted, obviously.
So, three weeks after he left the shelter, Frankie moved into the basement, my son Joe moved down there with him, and we set about building up his health, working on some of his issues and helping him to trust humans again, all the while looking for the perfect forever home where he could have it all.
We did so much more than that, we found him his very own Penny. One with movie star looks and a heart as big as the moon.
Owner of a beautiful female Dane, Milan, Penny had convinced her boyfriend to meet Frankie so that they could have dogs that would be friends.
Penny Andrews took one look at him, her heart melted and she knew he was her soul mate. Even though he was ostensibly supposed to be her then boyfriends dog, she always wanted Frankie for herself, and when they split up, the loss of him from her life was devastating. When the boyfriend turned out to be a bit of a douchebag and wasn't treating Frankie right, I drove down to get him, and on the way got a call from Penny, in floods of tears.
'I need Frankie', She said.
'But Penny,' I told her, " You have a condominium, how will you manage with two Great Danes in a small space?"
And then she said the words that tied me to her forever....."Let him come to me and I will buy him a house with a yard".
Two months later, all three of them moved into a fabulous home in Brookhaven and so became the way of things...Frankie wanted, or Frankie needed.....so Frankie got.
Now don't get me wrong, this did not in any way turn him into a brat, he just had a sense of his own worth unlike any dog I have ever known. He had a presence that drew people and dogs to him like bees to a honeypot, and he knew it instinctively, so he worked it.
Over the years, Penny and I became closer and closer and decided, when we saw the need for it, that we would open a senior dog shelter together one day. As Milan passed and then Frankie grew older, the way forward was shown very clearly to us by the dogs, who told how, when and where it must happen. Along with Penny's sister, Krystle, whose own dog Andy was a special senior visitor to the Ranch, we opened Frankie and Andys Place last April 2016. Sadly, Andy died a week before the cabin was delivered, and now rests right by the entranceway, but Frankie was there on delivery day, directing the cabin placement operation, barking instructions, making sure everyone did their bit to make it perfect.
He was the idea behind Frankie and Andys Place, the driving force, the muse, the inspiration behind our unique senior dog sanctuary. Without him, and his mum who saw it all so clearly...it would not exist.
On Tuesday Frankie left us. He had degenerative myelopathy and had not been able to move himself for a few weeks; when it was clear he could not get better from this, his mum made the decision to have a last perfect weekend with him, and then say goodbye in a way befitting his rank and dignity. His final needs were taken care of by our friends at Gwinnett Animal Hospital and Frankie slipped away peacefully surrounded by those of us who loved him, looking deep into the eyes of the love of his life, their gazes locked for eternity.
I needed to share with you this story, about how he came to be so very fundamental to our very existence, but what I really want is to share these next words, and to let them rest on your hearts. Penny spoke these words to him just before he passed and it was beyond beautiful.....
" Right now I struggle with two thoughts....why does he have to go? And...why me?
I don't know why I was so blessed in getting Frankie, but I know I was.
It was like my lot in life was a combination of caring for Jesus and a supermodel mashed together; a diva and a deity.
In one sense he pushed me beyond anything I ever thought possible; he opened my mind to see things I had never seen before he came along.
We all have teachers in life.....people that mold us and make us reach for the stars, people who see more in us than we think is possible. Mine came in a furry body, with a loud bark and floppy combover ears. I don't know why I was gifted, but I know I am so much better, so much stronger because of him.
John Keats said 'I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days-
Three such days wth you I could fill with more delight than 50 common years could ever contain."
I had Frankie for ten years. It seems like a butterfly life, so short, yet so packed in.
He had such a ferocious zest for life.
In the course of ten years, he changed me, he changed lives, he saved lives. We stand on this ground today honestly because of the fireworks Penny Miller saw the moment they locked eyes. He is an energy that demanded you be drawn into him.
He demanded love, he demanded adoration, he demanded attention. If I had his capabilities as a woman, I would rule the world.
This dog required all of us to raise him, love him, and serve him.
He leaves a legacy- how many dogs leave a legacy? Usually only a combination of Jesus and a supermodel!
He worked so hard, but here, now his work is done.....yet I am sure whether we see it now or in the future Frankie will still mold us in the way he sees fit."
He was the luckiest dog in the world, and he paved the way for other dogs to be every bit as fortunate as he was. Frankie, all of the dogs at the cabin were saved because of you and your big, big magic.
So, from Lil Kim, Boris, Ilsa, Luna, Cody, Huxley, Murray, Amy, Errol Flynn, Donald, Naomi Watts, Reese Witherspoon, Sally Field, Trudy, Ozzy, Frannie, Quentin, Juju, Fiona, Snazzy, Gilda and Patton, Thank You.....and Goodnight..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzU4hLZfPoA&feature=youtu.be
