Now granted, my wife wasn’t an over-the-top animal lover. She just figured she was going to be single for the rest of her life--a doting aunt to her nieces and nephews, and a dedicated nurse, but that meeting someone who was Catholic and single seemed like such a far out prospect, she figured it was as good a time as any to adopt a pet and settle in to being single. We met a few years later, got engaged after five months, and married a year later. The dog was in one of our wedding pictures outside the church. My wife had requested the neighbor walk her over to pose with us. I moved into her small town house and the three of us started our lives together.
We spent our Saturday mornings getting breakfast in town and going to the dog park so she could run around. She was a puppy at four years old, with a lot of energy to burn. She would sprint from one end of the enclosed pasture to the other, and had a long tongue that would hang out when it was hot and she was panting. She was standoffish from the other dogs and wasn’t interested in being social. For my wife’s birthday I painted a picture of the dog, laying in the grass, her paws crossed one over the other like the lady she was.
The dog was a wiley opportunist, with no manners whatsoever. I learned early on that one could never turn their back on her while there was food out on the table, because as soon as you did she would rise up on her hind legs, place her two front paws on the table, and quickly lap up every last morsel from your plate.
We had one child, then two, and life in our little house starting getting fuller. We moved to a bigger house with a yard, and had another baby. Because I loved my wife, I made every effort to love her dog. I dutifully walked her in the freezing cold. The terrier in her made her sniff everything. My wife is so patient, when she would walk her she would let her sniff to her heart’s content. I would impatiently tug on her collar to hurry our walk along so I could get back to my life.
There was the twice-a-day humiliation that every dog owner is accustomed to and takes as matter of course, but which I absolutely hated, and that was picking up the poop. Every morning and every evening, I would get the plastic bag and stuff it in my pocket. She would pace around back and forth looking for the perfect spot, sniff to confirm, and commence in making the deposit on the grass. I would lower myself to her level, put the bag over my hand, and pick up the soft pile of waste trying not to gag. I would then quickly tie tight the bag and carry my little swinging souvenir for the remainder of the walk to eventually deposit in our trash can. In the later years I would do the math in my head of how many poops I had picked up (2 poops a day times 365 days a year times 10 years equals something I don’t want to think about).
As the years went on, my resentment slowly grew. I tolerated her for my wife’s sake, but was cold and indifferent, and referred to her jokingly as my step-dog. I didn’t grow up with pets besides the occasional goldfish or gerbil. My parents had a dog aptly named Mona when they were first married and I was a baby. All I remember was she went to the bathroom in the house pretty regularly, and didn’t do much else. I was indifferent and didn’t understand the affinity for animals that many people who had grown up with them had. I resented having to make arrangements for the dog when we would go away, or having to load her up in the car when we would go to my parent’s. She shed everywhere. So much hair.
Every month I would buy a 40 pound sack of food, “Lamb and Rice,” at my wife’s request. I would schlep it over my shoulder and haul it into the house from the car. It was her favorite. One time I got the wrong kind of food and the dog didn’t eat it. I hated serving the dog and her needs, the money we spent on her, the arrangements that had to be made, the hair, every time she messed the house, threw up socks, ruined the hardwood floor, walking her, picking up the poop. My list of grievances goes on. I started calling her the Toyota Corolla of dogs--she just keeps going and going, racking up the miles.
When she especially tried my patience--whether it was the incessant barking, coming downstairs to puddles of urine, or losing my dinner to her opportunism--I was mean to her. I yelled at her, called her names, ignored her, was rough to her, and regarded her with contempt. I looked forward to “retirement,” the day I wouldn’t have to deal with these things anymore, as horrible as that sounds. My confessions oftentimes involved my mistreatment of and animosity towards her. I was no Saint Francis, that was for sure.
But my wife; she loved the dog, had genuine love and affection for her. Not in an inordinate way, treating the dog like a child or anything like that, but just as a reflection of my wife’s character--patient and kind, caring and loving. When I would see her softly petting the dog under her neck, just like she liked, or brushing her hair, I had twinges of remorse for how I treated our pet in contrast over the past ten years.
Lately, she has been having trouble getting up the stairs, and has been falling as she has gone down them. It seems as if her joints have gone bad. Like i said, I don’t know much about pets, but I think that is a bad sign. She is twelve years old, which I guess is old for dogs. I know this because I have asked my wife and googled on more than one occasion “How long do dogs live for?”
The morning of Thanksgiving, she couldn’t get up the stairs. We have started taking her out the side door for walks. It was an especially cold morning, and when my wife came back in from walking her she was crying. “Suzy can hardly walk.” My son knew something was wrong. He had asked me last week when she had fallen, “Is Suzy going to die?” I didn’t want to lie to him and tried to be tactful, but blundered when I got existential and said, “Everyone dies at some point,” which made him understandably upset. He had lived with the dog all eight years of his life since birth, and couldn’t imagine life without her. She was a part of our family.
She splayed out on the kitchen floor and rested her head on her hands as we gathered at the kitchen table. She looked weary, her eyes droopy, and had lost weight over the past couple years. When we realized that these might be the last days for the dog, my wife cried and my son cried and my daughter got sad and the baby laughed and we all hugged as a family. I was feeding the baby oatmeal and looking at the dog at my feet. My eyes started to well up, against my will. I was so mean to her, so cold, for years. I saw her as a burden and nuisance. I thought of myself as a generally okay person, but when it came to the dog I was like an abusive stepfather. And now she was going to die, probably any week now. She would be gone, and I would “get my wish.” No more walks in the bitter dawn. No more stooping down to pick up poops. No more buying gigantic bags of food every month. I would have my retirement.
But it doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel good to have hate in your heart, whether it’s towards a dog or a human being, a stranger or a family member. It’s a mirror being held up to see one’s reflection, how you treat the least of these. And regret is a bitter final pill. It says in scripture that you should settle matters with your adversary while you are still on the road to court. While they are still living, though, there’s always that opportunity to reconcile and make amends. I don’t know how to do that for our dog, but I’m going to try in these her final days. For my wife who lovingly adopted her and gave her a home, to my kids who have only known life with a dog, for myself who can use a challenge to love when it is hard. And for Suzy, so that when her time comes, she at least knows she is loved by every member of her family. Every last one.