My boy and my best friend
We wanted a dog. And we wanted it to be from a rescue shelter. We thought it was the right thing to do. And we thought the decision about which dog we got would obviously be one that we would make ourselves.
But that was before we met you.
We went to a shelter in Burbank. So many dogs. Such a small space. We spent time with only three. You were the last. We wanted to think about our decision, maybe meet more dogs, visit other shelters. But when we got in the car to leave you bolted from the hands of the shelter lady and jumped into the open door of our car. Like you knew where you belonged. We didn’t meet any more dogs after that.
You were an athlete. Muscular. Lean. Strong. A leaper. We couldn’t leave you in a kennel if we went out of town because you would jump their fences, no matter how high. People at the dog parked marveled at the way you ran like a thoroughbred. My arm would get sore before you got tired of chasing down tennis balls.
But dogs get old quickly. Their lives accelerate faster than ours, sprinting passed youth into old age in what feels like a change of seasons. We saw you aging. You slept more. You ate less.
And you started falling. It was more slipping at first, on the wood floors, on the tile, anywhere you lost your footing. You had bad hips. You had arthritis. Your legs – limbs that once had the strength of a racehorse - started to wither.
As the months passed, you fell more often. Off the bed. Getting onto the couch. Down the stairs. From the floor you’d look up at me with wide, confused eyes like I had an answer. An answer for why your body was failing. An answer for why you were on the ground. An answer for why you were in pain.
But you got up. Every time. Like a punch drunk fighter who knew he had to get to his feet or be counted out. Even when you could barely move your back legs. Even when your body had shrunk and weakened to little more than skin and bones. You’d struggle and push and twist and fight until you found your balance.
You’d drag yourself up the stairs every night so you could sleep in the same room as the family. Every night. On cold nights in the same bed. Some nights I’d carry you because you couldn’t make it. But most nights you’d struggle on your own. Sixteen wooden steps. Knowing most of the time you’d fail. And Fall. And every time you’d get up.
Until the night you didn’t.
I heard the fall from the bedroom. The sounds of the slip. The awful sound that makes my son cry. The thud-thud-thud of your body banging down our flight of wooden stairs. I didn’t hear anything after that. No struggle. No fight. No push.
I walked to the top of the stairs and saw you at the bottom. You’d lost your hearing by then and didn’t hear me coming. You didn’t know what I saw. That you didn’t want to struggle. That you didn’t want to fall again. That you didn’t want that pain. When you turned to me I saw a different look in your eyes. You weren’t wondering. You weren’t confused. You knew what was going to happen, where you were headed. And when I saw it in your eyes, I knew it too.
I wish I could tell you how much I’ll miss you. I loved you like you can only love a dog. Like loving a perfect memory. Like loving pure joy.
I’ll get another dog some day. Probably soon. But I’ll never get another you. I don’t know why watching a dog be a dog has always filled me with such happiness. But I do hope I gave some of that happiness back to you my friend. And I will miss you forever.
