All our dogs are dying.
I’m not sure what it is, but many of my friends have lost their family dogs in the last few years. There’s probably some sociological pattern here; maybe we all got dogs in middle childhood, right in the early teenage years when our parents thought we were old enough to take on some responsibility. So you get a dog and it comes with all these expectations—you’re going to feed him, right? You’re going to walk him, yeah? Play with him?—and children nod their head happily, Mom and Dad knowing all the while that they’ll be handling the chores within a month.
The other expectation about dogs is, no matter when you get them, they don’t live forever. They were never meant to.
My own family dog was named Scout. He was a black English Cocker Spaniel. Floppy ears, excitable, very active until, in later years, he became very sleepy.
My mom was reluctant to even get a dog, but my brother really, really wanted one, so we brought home a little tail-wagging puppy, and everyone was pretty quickly smitten.
Here’s how it works: You start out with grand ambitions like, We’re going to train him so well he’ll be able to teach the neighbor dogs how to shake hands and He’ll learn to flush out rodents and unwanted birds from the garden.
You also begin with rules. 1) He won’t bark at strangers. 2) He won’t be allowed on the furniture. 3) He won’t eat any human food.
But quickly all these best-laid plans begin to fade.
You teach a dog how to “Come” and “Sit,” but you make compromises on “Roll Over,” because is that really necessary? You start by pushing him off the couch, but after he nests there once you think, “Well, that’s his spot now.” And pretty soon he’s welcome on any chair or bed in the house. (It is awfully cute, though, to see a dog curled between a headboard and a pillow, or so you tell yourself because it is your dog and not someone else’s.) And within a year you’re giving him vegetables from the garden and bits of sirloin steak to supplement that dry stuff he eats—with just as much glee, mind you. In fact, Scout would happily eat grass spewed out by the lawnmower, so you’re not sure why you spoil him with bacon, but you just do.
You really fall in love with the dog. You wonder why, because it’s just an animal, isn’t it?
But it seems like so much more.
We love—really love—our dogs, because a dog is an animal that is nearly always happy to see you. It’s an animal that is also a perfect pillow, and is perfectly pleased to serve as one. It’s an animal that is easily loved, and loves easily. A dog does not lie or betray you. It doesn’t even judge you.
Want someone to go for a run with? The dog is just begging to be your jogging partner! Feeling stressed or sad? A dog can be a pretty great therapist. A dog pretty much never stops loving you, and, in my experience, amazingly, you don’t really grow tired of loving the dog.
I know lots of “dog people” feel this way.
It’s a little bit embarrassing the way our dogs affect us. We develop a language with them. We call them the weirdest pet names. We let them get away with things. We say we’re never going to dress them up in clothes or with ribbons, and yet, at least once, you give it a try.
Whatever it says about our culture, I know guys who get more worked up by “Air Bud” or “Marley and Me” than by war movies.
And when dogs get older, they just get sweetened by age. They get softer from the years.
By the end, Scout was lumpy and mostly deaf and blind, but he never stopped being lovable. He slept most of the time in his last few years, but he was still happy to see people. He had a kind of separation anxiety—like he needed us. And, in a different way, we needed him.
You don’t ever replace a dog that’s been your pet for 10 or 15 years. You can get a new dog, but it’s not a replacement. And maybe you don’t even want another dog. Not yet. Too soon.
And when the dog finally dies, you actually cry about it, because, you’re reluctant to say it, but he was sort of like family. You took pictures with this dog. You have meaningful memories with it. You spent time, money, sweat, and tears over it.
You knew this had to happen, death, because everything dies. But that doesn’t make it easier. Because you won’t get him back, this strange, forgiving, sometimes-stupid, beloved friend.
After a few years spent correcting grammatical errors and writing subtle, clever headlines in a Chicago newsroom, Griffin Paul Jackson (’11) now does aid work with refugees in Lebanon. He writes about that, God, and, when the muse descends, Icelandic sheep. Read him here: griffinpauljackson.com.
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Love my dogs!!!! Thanks for writing this Griffin….. You do such a great job!!