‘Stupid Dog’,

I amusingly thought to myself as I rolled a ball down the hallway of my wife’s house before we were married. Expecting her dog, Petey, to eagerly go after it, he just sat there, looked down the hallway and then at me as if to say, ‘Nice trick human, now go after it.’

A dog is a man’s best friend no matter how many people may be around but they are a woman’s companion when she is alone. Petey was a maltipoo, his actual birth date is unknown since he was a rescue, taken in after being neglected by another family and given to Susan’s mother to help keep her company. Susan inherited Petey when her mother died of cancer and she reluctantly let him become part of her life as his independent personality fit hers. At first, Susan would complain that he would follow her everywhere around the house but then he started to settle down and his presence started to grow on her. He eventually became Susan’s touchstone to the memory of her mother. A physical link to the past, she would often hold him to help fill in the space where her mother had been.

I will be honest and say that there is a litmus test if a woman has children or pets and you want to keep seeing her. If the pet or the kids like you, you’ve up the scale of being kept around. After my failed attempt to garner favor with Petey, he oddly showed attention to me by pulling my clothes off of the chair where I had laid them at night. He still wouldn’t play fetch but one day I knew that he had adopted me and allowed me into the fold when Susan and I came home and he ran past her to greet me. All in all, he would just simply be there, he both gave and accepted affection but not overly so. Given the independent personalities that Susan and I both have he kind of filled in the spaces in between. You loved him because he was cute in a mutt sort of way and you sometimes hated him because he didn’t know that he was a dog and so he subsequently wouldn’t do the things that dogs normally would do.

Through the years the three of us made a family and because of his assumed age, he mirrored the effects of time that both Susan and I showed in getting older. In these later years, he gave us a scare every now and again when his health would take a dramatic downturn but then he would suddenly recover, which happened enough times for me to nickname him ‘Lazarus’. But then Petey started showing even more signs of getting old. His hearing was virtually gone and his eyesight was not far behind. His legs and joints caused him to stumble and be unsure of walking. We knew that when his time was up that he would start down that slide that all elderly beings do. That time soon presented itself when he started to lose his way around the house and finally he quit eating. Despite the inherent need in all of us to fight that one sided battle against time, time would win again.

So I sit here writing about this mutt, remembering his antics, his personality and how all he did was be himself and unknowingly created love and gave it to Susan and then to me. At times the silence in the house is deafening and the absence of a simple 12 pound dog from our world has left a perceivable void.

While I write, I am crying because I am missing this,

‘Stupid Dog’ .

Now cracks a noble heart.
Good night sweet prince;
And flights of angels sings thee to thy rest!’
– Horatio, Hamlet.

Petey