For Chaka And All The Lessons About Life And Love A Senior Rescue Dog Taught Me

Four years ago, when my dog of 11 plus years, Sierra, passed away from cancer, I wrote a tribute piece to her on all the lessons she taught me. I never thought I would write another piece like that because I couldn’t imagine another dog having an impact on me that profound. Sierra was irreplaceable in my life.

She still is. But I found with Chaka, opening your home to another dog doesn’t mean you are trying to replace one with another, you are just opening yourself up. Chaka passed Thursday after nearly four years with me. And though I had been through it with Sierra and my cat, Duder, this was still every bit as brutal and emotionally devastating as going it through the first time and I cried just as hard and just as long.

I want to share Chaka’s story because while I am fortunate to be friends with rock stars and CEOs, to be around some of the most successful people in the world, Chaka’s story is just as inspiring as theirs, if not more so.

Chaka, or Chak as I called him, was a 75-pound arthritic pit/lab mix when I met him. It was September 9, 2019, just five months after Sierra had passed. So I was not looking for another dog. But I got an email from a fellow journalist who knew I had been fostering dogs, telling me about Chak. He was in a foster home with a little dog, who had gotten aggressive with Chak. And he had defended himself. The husband wanted to put Chak in a shelter that night. If an arthritic pit/lab goes into a shelter he is not coming out.

So after speaking with the family and Deity Rescue I drove from Long Beach to the Valley to pick up this dog. He was so confused and terrified, as anyone would be. He was being forced to leave with someone he had never met and didn’t know at all. This was Chak’s fourth home in two years. Not because of anything he did wrong. Two homes had little dogs that didn’t want him, one woman moved out of state after they had been together a year and a half and another family wanted him but they had a third floor walk up and he couldn’t do the stairs.

Chak was the poster child for bad luck. So the night of September 9, 2019 I brought him home for what I thought was a temporary stay. I stayed with him the first 24 hours and the next night I went to see Elton John on his farewell tour in Anaheim and I prayed Chak and Duder would be okay.

They were and the following morning, September 11, I called Deity Rescue on an impulse and said not to look for a home, Chak was staying with me. I said, “He had been passed around enough and dogs weren’t objects to be given away.” This I’ll never forget cause as I talked about with my friend Cameron Crowe, who knows dialogue as an Oscar-winning screenwriter, it was like a movie scene. The woman from Deity responded, ” I don’t even know you, but I love you. Not only did you take him in, but you understand him. He just needs someone to believe in him.”

This is one of the biggest lessons I have learned in my career as a journalist. The first time I met Billie Eilish her publicist, a long time friend, introduced me as a “Music journalism legend.” I laughed and said, “That’s code for old.” But I have had an incredible career in journalism, interviewing everyone from James Brown, B.B. King and Dolly Parton to Robert Plant, Stevie Nicks and Aretha.

What I pride myself on the most is the number of long-standing relationships I have with artists. I have interviewed Slash, Dave Grohl, Stevie Wonder, Alanis Morissette, ASAP Rocky, Courtney Love and so many more tens, if not dozens of times. I have maintained these relationships because I know how to build people up, to make people feel comfortable and to be at ease by being authentic. That brings us back to Chak.

Everyone needs someone to believe in them, to make them feel comfortable, to allow them to be themselves. I have met every living member of Led Zeppelin, which was my favorite band growing up. If you would have told 13-year-old me that I would meet every member of Zeppelin I would have thought that would be the pinnacle of my life. It’s not. They’re awesome and I loved it. But watching this goofy lummox of a dog come into his own, to feel at ease with me to roll around on the grass, to bark in the morning when he wanted to go out, to excitedly play ball, to meet so many dog friends, was way more rewarding than any backstage hang would ever be.

I saved his life and he repaid me by showing me more about love than just about anybody I’ve ever met. Chak was pure love. He loved every living thing, even after being given away at least three times in two years I know of. No one knows how old Chak actually was, we guess maybe 13 – 15. So who knows what the first five or six years of his life were like. My guess is not easy. But he never felt sorry for himself. He reveled in this last chance at happiness every moment he could. The vet said he should have been gone years ago, but with a lot of love and care he held on, making sure he could soak in every minute of having the home he deserved. His capacity for love and joy was boundless and something we all could learn from. Arthritic and hardly able to stand at the end, he still loved to sniff everything on his walks, he loved to just lay on the grass outside, to just be alive. And I loved watching him be alive.

Rescuing a senior pet is not easy. You will have less time with them and it’s expensive, But giving this amazing soul a second chance at life, and seeing how much he taught me about love and enjoying life, was worth every penny and every tear I have shed the last 48 hours. Opening my home to this goofball changed my life and I am eternally grateful to Chak for all the lessons he taught me. So as the cliche goes, who rescued who?