The Dog

"It is easy to forget that in the main we die only seven times more slowly than our dogs."
Jim Harrison, The Road Home.

November 2004, November 11 at around 4:00 p.m. to be precise, a friend we have not seen since delivered a nine week old labrador puppy to our home. The arrival was unannounced; apparently a whim on her part, though I may never get the full story here. I was not happy with this addition to the family. With three children, and a menagerie that included two cats, a parrot, two geckos, several fish tanks, a guinea pig, and a rat, my plate was full.

But the puppy had arrived, with the vague promise that our friend would return in a week or so to reclaim the dog. My then eight year old daughter was enthralled, as was the entire family, except me. The responsible father who experienced a quiet joy when whatever tragic accident or insidious illness offed one pet or another, bringing the total closer to a reasonable number, however fleetingly.

By around 10:00 p.m., I was sitting on the kitchen floor nursing not my first glass of moderately priced cabernet with Rose, as she would soon come to be known, stretched out beside me, all twelve inches or so of her. I sat, stroking her impossibly soft muzzle, and murmering that she would be, in fact, the best dog in the world. She responded by growing limper and limper, tiny puppy farts wafting up from the linoleum.

Now I am not the first to be sucked in by canine devotion, nor will I be the last. As Rose grew, she became quite active. We had never owned a dog before.  Daily exercise was required and at four months, she was all over and everywhere; racing about the beach, yanking my arms out of the sockets, running me into the ground. I was 45, she was four months; the math was not going to work in my favor.

Her athleticism was, and remains, stunning; powered by an unstoppable retrieving drive and a love of water. At five months she would leap unafraid and undeterred into the surf; focussed on the ball, there was nothing but the ball. I was fat, and out of shape and had been for nearly a decade. Change was required to stand a chance of surviving this now welcome intruder.