Vaya con dios

Task 17, April 19 to April 26

"Arliss!" I yelled at Little Arliss. "You get that nasty old dog out of our drinking water!" Old Yeller, Chapter 3

I'm not a dog person. I don't like how people talk to them like they are furry, four-legged humans, or worse, ascribe human characteristics to them. I think they are dumb, but smart enough to fuck with us.

This goes about back my childhood. In rural Ohio dogs weren't around for psychological support, nor they didn't get on airplanes, and they weren't welcome in grocery stores, and people didn't carry them around in oversized purses, and they didn't wear sweaters. Or any leisure wear for that matter...

In rural Ohio a dog's raison d'être was to chase field mice and other food predators from my mother's garden; to snarl at door to door salespeople and most importantly to bark at anyone or anything that came into the yard from evening until daybreak.

They lived in dog houses. Which were outside. And when it snowed, which it was prone to do in Northeastern Ohio, the drifts would cover the dog house, and it was my job to go outside with a shovel and clear away the snow.

I don't know where my dad would get the dogs, or if they just showed up and stayed around, and it didn't matter to my father, who fed them either way.

There was an exception, of course. "Lady" a border collie. My dad would tell me that Lady was so smart that she could count with her paws, which I never saw her do, but she did roll over and play dead on command, which pleased my father to no end. Lady was allowed to stay in the house, but not in the house proper--she was allowed to sleep in the mudroom, which was like sleeping outside.

This is the way I viewed a dog's contribution to the world. After college I left Ohio and made my way west and I never owned a dog but, of course, I married a dog person. Over my strenuous objections she brought dog after dog into our lives, all rescues, all labs. I co-existed with them, and that was all. They would live with us for a few years, then they would pass, and my wife would mourn for a few months, then announce one day, "I'm getting a lab..." I’d complain, I’d threaten, I’d beg her not to bring another dog into our lives, but she would...

This has gone on for over fifteen years.

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One sunny afternoon in 2019 she walked in with Bodhi. A big, dopey-eyed yellow lab. She didn't know how old he was. He was rescued from an abusive home in outskirts of Los Angeles.

Bodhi proved to be particularly irritating, at least for me. If I accidentally left a door open, he was gone, and my wife would cry and scream at me to go find him, which I would do, although finding him wasn't easy. I could generally trace him by following the sound of screeching car brakes, and eventually I would find him a few miles from home, eating out of some other dog's food bowl.

He shed. On a daily basis he shed enough hair to make another lab. I went through three vacuum cleaners in four years.

And eat? He could eat like a teenage boy. My wife would laugh and say, "Oh, that's what labs do!". I frankly wouldn't have cared about the eating if he kept to his own food, but he went after anything left unattended, even if it was up on a counter. One day (it was July 12th, 2020) he jumped up and grabbed my large #4 Jersey Mike's submarine sandwich that I had left on the kitchen island, on a plate--I had just literally walked five feet away to grab a napkin and when I turned around the submarine sandwich was gone, the plate broken, and Bodhi was lying on the floor, surrounded by remnants of the paper that the sandwich had been wrapped in.

He saw the anger in my eyes and bolted for the backyard, with me in pursuit.

And that's the way it was with Bodhi. Our kids loved him. Of course they weren't living at home by that time, so they could love him but not have to deal with him. My wife treated him like he was her best friend--she would chat with him while she cooked or worked on the computer; they would go out for long walks, and my wife would fuss if Bodhi had an earache (which was every week), or needed to be brushed, and she would laugh if he ate something bad for him and barfed on the rug and…then ask me to clean it up.

But, I sorta got used to him. When I was watching television he would sidle up and nudge by arm until I rubbed his head. And he would chase the squirrels in the back yard who were trying to poach my avocados, which made us brothers. I don't like dogs, but I really don't like avocado-thieving squirrels. And in the late afternoons, when the sun was fading, I liked to watch him sit in the shade with his paws crossed, serenely watching the sun drift into the horizon.

And that's the way it was, until it wasn't.

Then one afternoon, in late August of 2023, my wife called me at work. She said, Bodhi can't get up. He's just lying on the floor--and he won't eat!" Which was startling, and disconcerting--not the lying on the floor--he did that most of the day, but not eating?

I came home. Bodhi was up and acting somewhat normal, but not eating. So we put some wet food into the dry food and watched him sniff and walk away. We looked at each other. Normally, Bodhi didn't eat--he inhaled, then licked the bowl dry.

Later that night he got up and went to the bowl and ate. We sighed. We watched him closely for the next few days. He was lethargic, ate occasionally and spent most of the day curled up in his bed. We scoured the internet for answers--worms! Or parvovirus! Or distemper, kennel cough or leptospirosis.

My wife said, "We have to take him to the vet". I don't like vets, who up-sell like car salesmen, but we decided to call the next morning.

The next day I had to run to work. My wife was going to bring Bodhi to the vet, wait and bring him home.

At 11:30am my phone rang. It was my wife. She was crying hysterically. The vet recommended that Bodhi be put down. Then and there. Huh?! His spleen was ruptured. He was bleeding internally. And there were the tumors...how did we miss the symptoms?

I raced to the vet's office. I was led to a small room. Bodhi lay on a small purple rug. My wife sat beside him, crying and stroking his head. I sat down beside her.

It was over in a few minutes.

And I cried. I don't think I have ever cried as hard as I did that morning, and I am crying now as I write this.

That morning we woke up with Bodhi, and that night we went to bed without him.

Life is so miserably short and cruel.

Four months later, in January of 2024, my wife walked into the house and said, "I'm going to get a lab".

Now we have Truman. A chocolate lab.


TASK:

This one's for me, not you. I don't know how Bodhi pierced my hard heart, but he did, and I am going to try to love Truman, even if he eats my Jersey Mike's.