Dogs. We just don’t deserve them. No matter how many times they’re ignored, as our aching feet in high heels or our multiple bags of heavy groceries are far more important that a cursory pat on the head in the evening, they still smile that tongue hanging toothy smile at us. When we long to sleep in on rainy Saturday mornings, they’re still up at 6am, just wanting an extra snuggle, too. They love us in spite of our tempers over the UGG slippers we left in the living room floor with a tag that practically said, “Please chew me.” They still want hugs, even as we raise our voices in anger over the accident on the new rug, though it wasn’t their fault that we waited an extra 15 minutes for that walk. They still adore us when we run out of patience. They long for us while in an unfamiliar cage in a boarding kennel, never imagining that we’re kicking up our heels at the beach, without them. There is nothing more important to a dog than his person. We are their one true love.
Dogs are the keepers of the great secrets, too. You can hold a dog tight and cry messy, sloppy tears into their fur when your heart is broken. When the world has become too unkind of a place for you to exist, you can tell them all the terrible things. The words their eyes conjure up for you will walk you back from the brink. And, it’s really difficult to stay up all night worrying about all the evils of the world when there’s a furry, warm little heartbeat spooned up against yours. Dogs have such empathy. They know what it’s like to be misunderstood, underfed, underloved. They live in a world where they never learned to speak the language, but they get their point across, effortlessly. And, all of our doggly accomplishments, the handshakes and the sit and stays that make us feel omnipotent, those are just a dog’s way of showing us that they’re the best therapists. They let us think we did it all. “My poor human,” they must think at night, “Where would she be without me?” Indeed.
We have such a small window of time with a dog. It seems like for ever, at first. We often balk at the commitment before we bring them home. Fifteen or more years seems like an eternity. But, it’s over before it even begins, in retrospect. Dogs are like children. I can say this, because I’ve had both and I’ve lost both. When you’re expecting a baby, you have grandiose plans and dreams. You have names picked out and, once you know the gender, you begin to create a lifetime of memories way before you meet your little person. You can see them dancing with you at their wedding one day, or graduating from college, or moving to Colorado to become a large animal vet. The image of the child you’re about to bring into the world is of a healthy, strong, beautiful person. Yet, for many, it doesn’t come to pass in this way. There are potholes everywhere in this world of parenting. Children get sick. Sometimes we lose them. Dogs are the same way. We assume that puppy will grow and prosper and stay by our side until their muzzle is gray and their bones are creaky. Sometimes, though, they have afflictions and illnesses and bad things happen to them, too. Forrest Gump was right about life being a box of chocolates. You really don’t know what you’re going to get.
This was all really about my Pug, Poppy. We lost her this week. She was only 11. We had eleven years of waking up periodically each night to pug screams - as she was never a good sleeper, eleven years of neurotic pacing tendencies, eleven years of her green bean addiction, eleven years of her magic spray sneezes and little piggy snorts. There is no better way for me to send her off than to quote the best thing ever written about a furry cohort, real or not. Marjorie Williams Bianco said it best in The Velveteen Rabbit. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
So, Poppy, aka Pop Muzik, Dirty Pop, Poppy Like It’s Hot, Popcorn Popper, rest easy old girl. All dogs go to Heaven and it’s full of green beans.
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