A Boy And His Dog

The Mark Levin Show has a website now. He's been kind enough to mention items from this blog a few times. Along with some news links, there is an audio link from his show - its him talking of his two dogs. You can see the link here.

It caused me to bring this post below back from Dec 5 of last year. That's when my life stopped being Easy.

So, What Was I Thinking?

Well, after three years of a full-time day job and full-time college classes on nights and weekends, the funerals of both my parents, one after a long and incredibly stressful dying process - I was thinking nothing in life was easy. And it was about damn time that something was.

That's what I was thinking when a lumbering puppy mix between a lab and a whatever jumped over the fence started playing a game of over-size pawed footsie with me through her 4 by 6 foot enclosure at the we put down unwanted puppies county site they called the dog pound. And just as easy as she settled down on my lap for a nap on the ride home, that's what I named her - Easy. And she was, mostly.

Of course, umpteen years later it's easy to forget the three linoleum floors, two doors and a table top a young, gnawing half-lab cost me - but what the hell. They weren't anymore troublesome than the holes she had dug in a distant part of my yard that a building inspector made me fill in before I could close when I sold that property. At least no one died.

Not long after getting her, that was my fear while walking her one day in a park around a new lake which had sprung up from the filling in of an old creek bed and a small valley. The rules required I keep her on a run and she had one - a chain, about thirty feet of it.

I was tossing out a stick and watching her swim and fetch it back when that damned must-be-dumb dog decided to grab onto the tip-top of an old birch tree that hadn't had time to decay and fall to the bottom. She tried and twisted the top of that small tree and it pulled her down deeper - damned if she was going to let go without bringing it back to me. I was halfway to jumping in after her when she finally relented long before the birch ever would. She made it back to shore snorting water out of her black shiny nose. Scared the hell out of me that day, yes, she did.

Just like it scared hell out of me thirteen and some odd - fetch, catch it, and stop begging at the kitchen table - years later when the vet said she had to talk to me about the X-rays in the other room - the room with the shiny black image of a thigh bone that wasn't where it belonged. It wasn't even what it was supposed to be anymore, so deformed - freakish and malevolent, glowering from a light board on the wall.

My eyes rolled malignantly over each bump, break and perturbation of what should have been a sturdy bone that only looked like so much sadness to me now I could hardly stand to look. But I had to. No, I wasn't going to see some magical answer in the X-ray the vet had missed. I just saw so much magic so quickly disappearing, eaten up from the inside, as it were, eating at the inside of me, too, now. Frozen, I couldn't look away.

And so it was we came to be older, limping along together at another small lake in another small town all those years later and that damned dog Easy still loved the water every bit as much as she did when she nearly drowned in it so many good God damned years ago.

Why she stepped out into that mucky mess I'll never know, but she did - finding herself unable to move, sunk down deep as she was, until all I could do was step in after her. Calf-deep in mud and knee deep in water I reached down and scooped her soggy ass up and cradled her until we both fell back on the bank - me half laughing, half crying and her just licking my face like she had done so many times, so many days over so many long years together. I cradled her there on the bank, in the sun light, warmed by so many beautiful memories.

Actually, I never stopped cradling her. I cradled her in the back seat of the car as her overly-long Labrador tongue lapped at the top of an open window unaware it was her final ride in a car, which she always enjoyed right to the end.

I cradled her as I lifted her up on the gurney and I cradled her even more and buried my face in her coat while the vet did her number. I cradled her as I felt everything that was so good and so God damned Easy all those years slip away into a relaxed mass of flesh I couldn't comprehend but could only love as it became increasingly weighty in my shaking arms.

I can't recall the things I said to her, though I know I said much. Whatever it was is buried somewhere deep down in my heart - where she is - where it and she will always be - so Easy, so beloved, so pure.

What was I thinking? That something in life could be Easy, I suppose. But I know better now. Don't let people fool you, nothing in life is easy - and certainly nothing worthwhile. But some things are so beautiful and all but necessary you have to learn to accept the dreadful uneasiness they may inevitably bring one day. And such is life.

And such is the death of things we love, perhaps. It's what it must be, I guess. But it sure as hell isn't always Easy, either.

Comments

[Fausta]

Very moving post, Dan. Beautiful.

[kempermanx]

Sorry,
Off the subject, but whatever happen to the Aruba girl and the investigation? You were on that like flys on s***. Where is it now?
Kemp

[kempermanx]

Sorry,
Off the subject, but whatever happen to the Aruba girl and the investigation? You were on that like flys on s***. Where is it now?
Kemp

[Uncle Mikey]

Now that's what I call a blog post. Nice.

[Purple Avenger]

"Where is it now?"

Out searching for your tact I would imagine.

[Maggie Mae]

That absolutely broke my heart.

[Nell]

I had to take my 16-year old cat to the vet for the last time 2 weeks ago. I never anticipated how hard it would be, but it was just like you said. Only my friends who had been there really knew how I felt. Pets work their way deep into your heart without you even realizing how much you love them and depend on them being there. My condolences on the loss of your noble companion.

[tuyvnsurvivor]

Very good story Dan. Thanks.

I lost my great friend Rott dog, loyal wow, over a year and a half ago. Many times I have thought if there was just anyway I could tell one person how much I loved him -- somehow for that alone I would feel better, peace for me would begin. Through your story we see we understand that of eachother. Great from the heart story.

[PJ]

I wish you hadn't written this. I wish I didn't read what another blogger recommended. I wish I didn't have to face again the pain I felt...like yours a few years back. I wish my Abby hadn't left me then. I have a new dog to love...Broghan, a recued greyhound that rescued me. He's great, but not the same as the girl I loved for 20 years.

[Dan Riehl]

Thanks, folks. She was a good dog. Don't forget the link to Mark's site if you get a chance. I listen to his radio show on the way home at night, sometimes he'll read posts from the blog, if it's newsworthy enough. I missed his piece on his dog. Glad I was able to hear it on the web.

[clarice]

Beautiful, Dan. Easy looks just like Sumi, the dog my son and his wife rescued from the pound in L.A. She was so scared and sick when she adopted them and is so happy and sweet today. Mutts. Nothing better.

[Florida Patty]

So sorry to read this Dan but what a beautiful story.

[Buzzy]

Dan, thanks for sharing that. I've buried several good dogs but the one that hurt most was Gus, my Rottweiler a couple of years ago. A month or so ago I found an old wallet that Gus chewed into a circle when he was a puppy. It's a shame dogs don't live as long as their people.

[jacqueline]

Dear Dan, you gave Easy a beautiful and full life she knew she was loved and thank you for sharing some of your memories of her.

[ZZMike]

One problem with the way the world works is that we live longer than they do. We give them 3 square meals a day, a place to sleep, sticks to catch, and they give us unconditional loyalty.

Here's a short poem from the '20s, by Don Marquis (writing as "pete the pup"):

pete at the seashore

i ran along the yellow sand
and made the sea gulls fly
i chased them down the waters edge
i chased them up the sky

i ran so hard i ran so fast
i left the spray behind
i chased the flying flecks of foam
and i outran the wind

an airplane sailing overhead
climbed when it heard me bark
i yelped and leapt right at the sun
until the sky grew dark

some little children on the beach
threw sticks and ran with me
o master let us go again
and play beside the sea

- - - - - pete the pup

[jolari]

beautiful story Dan--Thank you for sharing.