Tag: dog

Dear Linus

Dear Linus

by TheSecretLifeOfPandas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The light has gone out of my life.” Theodore Roosevelt wrote these words in his diary on February 14, 1884; the day his wife and mother died within hours of each other. This simple sentence of grief and loss immediately came to mind the moment I felt you take your last breath.

Today would’ve been your 17th birthday.

Or at least I think that was the date. I could’ve asked my cousins, they would know best. After all they were the ones who found you all, little white and black balls of perfect fluff. You and your siblings.

I think in my 21-year-old mind, I did some math from the day I collected you and came up with the 25th. November 25th, 2007.

It was January when they told me I could pick you up. I had just come home from a trip, and hadn’t mentioned to my mother that I planned to bring you home. But I knew from the moment we realized that your mom was pregnant, that I wanted you. I had your name all picked out: Linus, the sweet, thoughtful, and wise friend of Charlie Brown. So, I went to pick you up, my little white puppy with the crooked ear and lumpy belly (I later learned the “lump” was a hernia and the vet removed it when we neutered you).

I just picked you up and promptly went to Target to buy you a little sweater and your own bowls. Those bowls were the cutest, by the way. They looked like Chinese food take out containers. Somehow you managed to break them maybe a couple of weeks later. You got metal ones after that. Years later I would find the little green sweater I brought you home in, and the only thing that fit in it was your head.

You had a knack for destruction in your youth. Whenever anyone asked me about you, I told them that you were a perfect baby angel who had never done anything wrong in his entire life– and then proceeded to tell them that you did like to eat one shoe out of each pair, leaving me uneven. Thankfully at the time, most of my shoes were from Payless, so it didn’t hurt me as much. And that you once chewed through my laptop cord— while it was plugged in. Or I’d tell them about the time that I had bought you a beautiful brown, leather, collar, with a gold tag and I discovered it in pieces around you when I got home from school. You chewed it off your body and ate most of it. I never bought you a leather collar again after that.

I wish I could do a clip show of your greatest hits. Like remember that time I took you to the beach and you jumped out the window while I was parking, because you wanted to go see the other dogs? Or remember that time you accidentally flew out of the window of Selena’s smart car, because I took a turn too sharply? It was a miracle you forgave me after that one. Oh! Or how about the time a neighbor’s pitbull bit you on the nose and I was so freaked out, I called the vet and he asked me, “how is he doing?” and I answered, “well, he’s chewing up one of my chanclas now.” And he said, “he’s fine.”

Seventeen. That’s crazy, right? When you turned 10, I was concerned. Wow, a whole decade? With such a large dog? So I did what any rational person would do, I threw you a birthday party. Naturally ten needed to be celebrated. I even baked you a paw shaped cake that we shared with all your human friends.

Then you turned, 11, 12, 13, 14? I was so excited you were able to be in my wedding. The way your best friend and I planned it. My most handsome and fluffy ring bearer. And you showed no real signs of slowing down. Sure, you needed help getting into the Jeep, your leaping days were behind you. But you still loved walking, and camping, and going to the beach. My God. You were the most glorious creature in the water. Baywatch had nothing on Linus running on the beach.

You turned 15 and you even got to be in a quinceañera with your best friend Amy and were the star of the show. How cute were you dressed up in a tux, again? My most perfect, and photogenic boy. I knew you were starting to get tired, so naturally I bought you the largest doggy stroller on the market, and you immediately hated it. But I forced you to get used to it, or you were never going to be able to go anywhere. And you did get used to it. You’d sit and happily watch the world go by. Enjoying the ease of seeing the world without your back leggies giving out on you.

Year 16 came and I was optimistic. I knew that we were honestly on borrowed time. The vet told me you had kidney disease, but you were stable and of course I bought you the most expensive prescription food, and the most expensive medicine because I didn’t care. You of course, were not really pleased with the change of menu. If it was going to help you, it didn’t matter to me. But I decided that we needed to celebrate you, the best dog ever. So we had another birthday party, because the world needed to commemorate that you graced us with your presence for 16 whole years.

This year you gave me some scares, but you always seemed to recover, it gave me this false sense of security. Surely, Linus would live forever. Linus, like Chopin was eternal. But I slowly realized, that I had lied to myself. You, like all of us, were mortal, and your time, unfortunately, was coming to an end.

I am at peace, knowing that I gave you a gentle end, surrounded by the people who loved you the most in the whole world. You went to sleep in the arms of your Mami and Papi and left this world with a little less beauty and sweetness. And that day you were running again with all your puppy friends who had gone before.

Your spot by the bed looks so empty. Every space in this house feels empty without you in it. I keep listening for the click clack of your claws, or the stomp of your little paws in your grippy socks and think for a moment that I hear it, but it’s just my mind playing tricks on me.

I know that with time, your passing will hurt a little less. And I know that with every funny story or anecdote I share with the world my heart will slowly start to stitch itself back together.

For now I’m grateful for the time you were mine and I was yours.

NPM 13

NPM 13

by TheSecretLifeOfPandas ♥ 2 Comments

I am filled with a strange reassurance when I smell the salty, cornchip scent of a sleeping puppy beside me.

I know I am safe, because the moment I wake I can hear the soft rustle of fur and muscles stretching and dog tags jingling as he starts the morning with me.

Big brown eyes watch my every move and my every food.

A big brown nose bops me in the side when he deems he hasn’t received enough attention.

He does not snuggle but, the pitter patter of padded feet signal unconditional love arriving by my side.

My eternal puppy, it’s hard to see the passage of time in his face, but I see it in the way he lags behind on a long walk, or the way he waits for me to carry him in and out of the truck.

I try not to dwell too much on the passage of time or my heart will break.

What did I ever do to deserve such a good boy?

The fluff of my fluff, the love of my life.

Eulogy for a Pup

Eulogy for a Pup

by TheSecretLifeOfPandas ♥ 7 Comments

Nothing will ever prepare you for death.

Not time, not the knowledge of its inevitability, not illness–Death just happens.

And no one’s ever really happy about it, but we deal and that’s the best we can do.

It was a Friday evening in December. I was a freshman in highschool. I was standing in the kitchen doing God knows what (probably getting a snack after a long day at my nerd school) when my parents came home from work.
I asked my mom about the puppy she’d promised us. Her coworker owned a beautiful chocolate brown chow chow and she’d just had puppies. She was going to buy one.

Mom said they’d gone but he didn’t have anymore dogs. She tried to keep a straight face as I groaned in disappointment, but couldn’t as the front of her jacket started twitching.

I ran to her and she unzipped her coat.

There he was, this tiny, black, fuzzy, angry, little ball of fur, who smelled like death.

“Why does he smell like that?”

I still don’t know. Maybe it was the kibble they gave him? Maybe he hadn’t had a bath since he came out of the womb. Regardless he smelled pretty gross. There was no new puppy scent.

One thing was for sure, the jerk hated being held.

He was fighting against my mom and when I reached for him, the little brat hissed at me like the very spawn of Satan.

I spent the whole first week of his life in our house with him. I learned he really liked milky cereal, he hated fuzzy slippers, he liked hiding under beds, and his tiny little teeth were as sharp as needles.

But he was the cutest little evil thing.

After days of trying to think up a name my mom suggested Baloo, like the big black bear from the Jungle Book and it worked.

Eventually he faced the facts that he was stuck with us and allowed himself to be loved and squeezed and begrudgingly cuddled sometimes.

He loved long walks, using every opportunity to scare the crap out of strangers. He especially hated men. The only man he liked was my dad, and only after dad established the fact that he was the alpha and Baloo resigned himself with being the beta. But there was no room for anyone else.
He lived for car rides, sticking his head out of the window, letting the wind flow through his glorious mane. He looked like a mix between a lion and a bear. Cute but terrifying.

He loved cheese and ice cream and mangoes and pizza and hot dogs straight off the grill and all the food he was probably not supposed to eat.

But how can you deny those big puppy dog eyes?

My mom used to make sure Baloo had an enchilada before making the rest of us one.

The dog lived like a spoiled king.

He was a part of our family: the short, furry, angry kid that didn’t talk much, unless it was to bark when something annoyed him, or as he got older, when he was hungry.

A dog’s life is over far too quickly.
At best you get maybe 10, 15, or if you’re really lucky 20 years with them. And what is that compared to a human’s lifetime?

When you’re holding a puppy you don’t think about the future. You don’t think about failing hips. Or diseases. Or muscle loss. You don’t think about doggy incontinence. Or about carrying him up and down the stairs to go outside.

But it’s the harsh reality of old age.

Baloo had a good life. He was strong. He was healthy. He was happy, in a crochety kind of way.

Age crept on him and in the end we knew we had to let him go. Even

though I’d made him promise me a long time ago that I would be allowed to die first.

I loved that dog. I love that dog.

Thank you, Baloo.

You were a very good boy.

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Every Dog Has His Day

Every Dog Has His Day

by TheSecretLifeOfPandas ♥ 8 Comments

When Baloo was a puppy, he would squeeze through the bars of the wrought iron fence in front of my house and run down the street towards me when I was coming home from school.

He would do this every time he happened to be outside on the steps.

But there came a point when he wasn’t tiny enough to squeeze through.

One afternoon I got off the bus as usual and I saw him sitting on the top of the steps. He had seen me and ran down the steps. I kept walking, waiting for him to meet me halfway. When I heard crying and saw his little head through peeking through the gate. 

He had gotten stuck.

I started laughing and ran towards him. He had tried to squeeze the bars of the gate like he usually did but his tummy had gotten too big to slide through.

I pulled out my keys to unlock the gate while he squirmed and kept giggling. 

One of our biggest pet peeves with that dog was that he would sneak out of that gate and we would have to run around the neighborhood trying to find him. So all I could think was, “that’s what he gets.”

I swung open the gate and locked it again. I sighed and set down my saxophone case as I squeezed him and shimmied him out.

I cuddled him, which he hated, and set him down.

I wish I could say that was the last time he tried squeezing through the fence and that he had learned his lesson.

But it wasn’t.

Baloo is feeling better, the vet prescribed him some antibiotics and he found that there is something wrong with his liver. He wants to see how he reacts to what he’s given him before making any other decisions.

He is fighting.