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He Is My Dog

   He is my dog. He is hairy, old and smells, has soft tumors all over his body and a skin condition, is content to sleep most of the time and his ear constantly leaks wax. His eyes are going. If someone moves a piece of furniture, he is as likely as not to bump into it.  Stairs have become a terror, most of the time to be taken as slowly as possible, and sometimes not at all.  There are times were you have to sit in the middle of a flight of steps with him to assure him that he can make it down the last few.  His mind wanders as he stands in the yard and he often has to be reminded why he is outside in the first place. Some moments he is there and others he is not. More often than not just stepping off the cement patio is more of an adventure than he wants to do.  He hides a lot, especially from the four-year-old boxer who wants to play all the time. He is my dog.

   He wasn’t always this way. He came to me the week my Samantha died. Cancer, she was skin and bones at the end. Sitting in my chair, crying tears I didn’t want anyone to see, the phone rang; a friend who had no clue what was going on asked me if I wanted a dog.  Less than six months old, a Labrador Golden Retriever with paws the size of dinner plates and more energy than he knew what to do with.  I should have said no. I am sure my landlord would have agreed with that sentiment. But no one wanted him and no one wanted me. So, he became my dog.

   There were moments I wondered if we were going to make it.  He frequently rummaged through the garbage can and the dirty laundry hamper.  He liked the seat of my pants and, when we would go over to my parents, he would charge into their bedroom, and emerge with my dad’s right shoe.  Those of you who know the family can make your own connections. He chewed through the mattress of my expensive bed and left teeth marks on the headboard.  He chewed through half a dozen bottles of vitamins one day while I was at work, which resulted in a panicked phone call to my vet and her informing me that everything was going to be okay. I now just had the most expensive fertilizer in Story County.  

   In a test of wills, mad at me, he jumped up onto my favorite stuffed chair, looked me straight in the eyes, and did what dogs do. My response shocked both him and me.  I am sure he got particular enjoyment when I called my father because dad had a big enough vehicle to haul the chair to the dump.  With my dog looking on, my father took one whiff and announced he was not putting that chair in his SUV.  It was decided that the best option, even though it was probably against the law, was to burn it in my backyard. It seemed like a good idea until the flames that climbed from the artificial material shot a good twenty feet in the air, dancing through the limbs of a nearby tree that had been there since God was a pup, and I suggested we might want to think about calling the fire department.

   Living next to a creek is never a good idea when you have a water dog and he made the most of it. As he did the artificial pond I installed.  Steaming unattended bathtubs became lounging areas for him and I heard the screams of more than one houseguest as he crawled in the shower with them after they had not made sure the bathroom door was completely closed. While I am not sure and I cannot prove it, I suspect that at least one of my relationships ended because of a wet nose and a small shower. 

   Then there were the escapes, too many to even count. One poor traveling salesman, who made the mistake of opening my front door to ask if anyone was home, got a guest in the passenger seat of his red, two-seater convertible, foreign sports car.  Informed that the only way he was going to get the panting dog, whose salvia was dripping into his air vents, out of his car was to take the animal who probably weighed more than him for a ride, I do not know he had a grander time, my dog, his owner, or the extremely shaken salesman whose suit and seats were now covered in dog hair and slobber. 

   There were the snowstorms. The larger the amount of snow falling, the more he wanted outside. As what could only be visually described as something akin to a dolphin leaping in and out of waves, he would bound in and out of the snow when he had the opportunity.  Language that could not be repeated, shaking fists, shouts that I hoped he would never return, and a slamming front door were more often than not the end result.  A few minutes later, just the snowplows and me were out, as I slowly drove up and down the snow-caked streets.  Invariably I would find him, sitting on some rise like a lion examining the outstretched savannah as he oversaw the neighborhood. Still, quiet, then a rush of joy as he noticed me signaling for him to get into the car.

   There was the snowstorm where he could not get out. I was stuck at work, unable to get home for two days. Imagining the worst, I opened the front door. He shot past me. As he leaped off the front step, I do not even think that his feet had hit the ground as he did what he had to do.  The house was somehow dry as he had the look of a wandering nomad who had found a desert oasis. The same fortune could not be claimed of the evening when my mom stopped by and dumped a whole bunch of pork fat into his dish when I was gone. As I cleaned several spots, the number of which grows every year in my mind, on the carpet, I had to remind myself that he was my dog. 

   Big like his father, clocking in at over eighty-five pounds, he still considered himself a lap dog at times.  Sweet, with a gentleness that ran to the bone. He always had the amazing ability to find coolest spot in the house during the summer and the warmest during the winter, which often is not a good thing when you have floor vents.  Many a December evening I woke up seeing my breath and finding his side as warm as bowl of chili. In Augusts, it was not uncommon to find his side ice cold as I uncontrollably sweated.

   He has been there during some of the best moments of my life and there when I could not buy a friend, when I got fired from jobs, when relationships went south, when the world seemed to be falling apart, when everyone seemed angry at me… except for him.  He was there.   More tennis balls thrown off the dock into the lake than I can count. More hours spent sitting at my feet than can be calculated. More worries than I can even remember. He was there through it all.  He was my dog.

   A few years ago, he started slowing down. My vet suggested a friend might help.  A six-week-old white boxer with special needs, deaf, entered our lives and it helped. While everybody loves him, the younger dog is an acquired taste; even now that she is four.  She is pushy, selfish, too smart for her own good, thinks she should be the center of attention, and has never met anyone she thinks should not be her friend. The feeling is not often shared.

   Yet, the older dog, is good to her. He more often than not acted like a guide and sage for her, teaching her the ropes, and been her ears for her.  When it appeared she was about to get in trouble, he would get between the person she was irritating and her, sometimes pulling her down to the ground by her collar until she calmed down.  He played with her and gave up his tennis balls and bones to her when she whined.  When it is time to go outside, if she is sleeping, he would gently wake her up. If I am not around, if he is not less than a few feet from her, she panics.

   Then a few months ago, we walked out to the car. I opened the door for him. He looked at the leap he had to make to climb in, a leap he has made hundreds of times. He then looked at me, sighed, and trudged back to the porch. Now she wakes him up in the morning. She licks his eyes, his ears, and where he is sore. Sometimes the ritual takes up to twenty minutes for him to get up to greet the day. She is his eyes and often carries dog food over to where he is laying, so he does not have to make an effort. She has become the one who is kind and gentle with him.

   His beautiful chestnut face has turned white. Black circles surround his eyes and sometimes his pupils disappear into his head. I know he is dying, the spark of life is starting to flicker and soon will go out. I know in a few days, weeks, or months I will probably have to put him down. Whatever made him, him, will disappear. Humans, dogs, whatever, when the candle goes out, it never reignites.

   Still, every once in awhile, in his sleep, his paws move, his body jerks, and his eyelids move rapidly.  Somewhere in his dreams, he is young again, maybe chasing a rabbit or bounding through a snow bank.  I sit down next to him. Put my hand on him and let him dream.  He is my buddy. He is my pal.  He is my dog… and too soon, sooner than I would like, he won’t be.