Hey, good morning. So, this weekend we were talking, a bunch of us up at my mom and dad's cabin. Well the story went from our Labra-Idiot Maggie, to a dog we'd had about ten years ago. His name was, "Chewy". After I got home from the Navy I'd wanted a dog, and we'd had one for a short spell that was Stacey's named, "Kia" but it was a certified nutcase and would threaten children and take off on a dead sprint as soon as she was unleashed. Then we had, "Houdini" who was sort of a benji looking mutt-face that could dig his way out of a concrete garage given enough time and lack of supervision. It's no wonder he was a shelter dog. I betcha if they had inserted a micro-chip that dog had been, "adopted" not less than ten times within a two year period. Cute dog, just devious beyond compare.
So, I kept my eyes open for a man's dog. You know, a golden retriever or a big yeller lab. So, one day, while surfing this new thing called, "The INTER-net" I found a website for a Golden Retriever Rescue organization on the West side of the Salt Lake Valley. Anyhow, I was working for the County at that time, and one day while I was in the area I stopped in. Well, really it was this older lady and her husband that had fostered a couple of dogs that were brownish yellow. Not really Golden Retrievers per se'. Well, scratch that. There was once a set of half Golden pups that came in and we sincerely looked at that option. However, being a near-newly wed couple with a baby, we opted to hold out for an older dog so Stacey didnt have to train a puppy while trying to hold an infant.
So after a couple of weeks I got a call from the lady, "Mickie" and she said she had a "senior dog" that had come in if I was interested. Well, let me back up here a little. See, Mickie and her husband had been sending out little newsletters every month in the mail about stories of beautiful golden retrievers that went to Heaven and ran in slow motion and let children weave wild-flowers into their collars. So, I'd been sort of primed to accept whatever they had to offer. Looking back Mickie and her husband should have gone into the car-sales business because the pictures they painted with poems and stories about dogs would just plain make you ache for a sweet pup of your very own. Heck, I just about had to watch, "Where the Red Fern Grows" once a month to keep my anticipation levels down.
Where were we? Ah yes. So I get this call about a Senior Dog. Which, I figured in dog years was about..oh say...nine-ish. Well, she shows me this big schweeet puppy named, "Chewy" who has the sadest eyes you've ever seen. Yeah, Chewy was owned by a little old lady that drove a giant gramma car and lived on Social Security and ate dog food and Chewy was her pride and joy but she just couldnt take care of him anymore. Blah blah blah....so I got the under-carriage wash, the clear bra, the mag wheels and the rebate in the deal. (SUCKER!!!).
Anyhow Chewy was aptly named. Dog LOVED to play ball. He'd play ball as though his life depended on it. No seriously, he'd watch that ball in your hand for as long as you could hold it. His legs and face quivering waiting for you to just throw it. If you didnt throw a ball, he'd run over and grab a rock (see also, "smallish boulder") and drop it at your feet and begin a stare-down competition with it right there at your feet. Oh, also important to note, Chewy was in excess of 100 lb. I'd say closer to 110 actually. HUGE head. Bigger than my then waist. Chewy also had what I considered a mild "snot" problem. However Stacey considered it a MAJOR snot problem. Difference of opinion really. Agree to disagree. Oh, and Chewy, (Short for "Jesus"???) was also about 12 when we got him and was beginning to show signs of arthritis in his back legs. So, he'd probably only last a year (Almost three as it turns out).
So if you listen to Stacey you'll hear all sorts of stories about his lack of listening ability (he went deaf about seven months after we got him) and how she had to lift his fat butt into the truck to meet us up and my dad's lot while we started the cabin. Boy she really lays it on thick too. You can almost visualize her, pregnant with Lexi, Josh in a little car seat in the front of our old white pickup (no air conditioning) and backing the truck up to the steps in the garage to get fat-dog into the back of the truck. She hated him, dont let her fool you. He was a giant nusance to a young wife with one and a half kids. I will give her that.
So, one day, I actually grabbed the dog for myself and hefted his largess frame into the back of the truck and went to meet dad up there. We had just had the septic tank hole dug and dad needed to do what's called a, "Perk Test" which has nothing to do with coffee. Anyhow at the time his lot was just sage brush and we were literally breaking ground on a dream of having a cabin and watching deer frolic and bunny rabbits and skunks play in the wildflowers. Anyhow, we've subsequently learned it's a little more work than that. So, I get up there, and dad has a fire going, his trailer was up there, and there's this giant hole. About fifteen feet across and ten feet deep. Straight down. No angled walls, no waist, just down. So, oh, he had my brother Justin's dog up there, "Buddy" or as we all called him, Buddy Ugly. Oh for good reason too. Buddy was...challenged...looks wise. He was a white dog with whispy hair that covered about 1/3 of his body and showed through his pink weak skin and freckles and moles and ...ugly. He was about 10 lb sopping wet and had these bulging eyes that made you almost wince when he looked at you. He had eye-boogers that were dark black that bled down into his mutt-stache and a curly little tail. He also had a severe underbite and one tooth that sorta looked like, "Pumba" from that Lion Movie. Anyhow, suffice it to say, the dog was UGLY. He was so ugly, that your first instance at finding him at your feet was to recoil in horror. Your second instinct was to pet the ugly little thing because you just knew if you didnt pet him someone may just kick him for being as ugly as he was.
So, we're watching this fire, talking about being mountain men and how he's going to have a pot-bellied stove and how we can watch deer out the window and we'll plant pine trees here, and quakies there...and my dad says, "Hey, where's that dog of yours? You better bring him over here before he falls in the hole." Oh, important to note it's pitch black that night with the exception of our 90% sagebrush fire. So, almost on cue, I hear, "fffwhooommmpp!" and I knew instantly fat-dog was in the hole. So, I go get the flashlight, and as I do, I said, "Hey dad, you better grab Buddy...." and in Buddy went after him.
So, I walk over to this hole. As I go I'm contemplating the realities of an aging and decrepit dog, probably with a broken leg, and how I will have to shoot him and just leave him in the hole because we'll never get him out. Morbid reality stuff. So, I get over there, and Chewy is in the bottom of the hole, and next to him, his side-kick Buddy Ugly. I literally recoiled at the reflection of the flashlight in little Buddy's beady eyes. Gosh that dog was ugly! So it turns out, the only ladder we have, is a four-foot a-frame wooden ladder that should have been thrown away three years ago. So, I lower this ladder down in, and grabbing my dad's hand, lower myself onto the, "This is NOT a Step" step on my tippy-toes. Grumbling the whole way, just thinking how much easier this would have been had I just shot the stupid S.O.B. rather than rescue the either of them. So, I grabbed Buddy (from behind) and chucked him up out of there. Of important note, I realized while he was in flight, that if my dog was that ugly, I'd shave his butt and teach him to walk backwards. So then we have the little issue of Chewy. So, I pick him up, like a cowboy picks up a calf and start up the four steps one...rickety..step at a time. We're talking about in excess of three hundred pounds now on each little step. So, I made it to the, "Not a Step" step and in an act of Herculean ffort I attempt my best, "Atlas" pose and lift fat-dog up to dad who pulls him up and out the rest of the way.
It's important to note that neither dog suffered any injuries which would warrant their speedy death. Unfortunately that is. Well Chewy held on another couple of years almost and about the time his legs gave out on him trying to make it two stairs into the house I just couldnt take anymore. I knew it was time.
One bright Saturday with snow on the ground Chewy and I went for a ride out by South Willow Canyon by Grantsville, Utah. Chewy was his lackluster excited self and I was dreading what was coming. I knew it was time, but I wanted to shrink from my responsibilities. You of course know what's coming. You're wondering why I didnt take him to the vet. I just think that's not the way to go. I can't leave a dog with the vet laying there on the table wondering when I'm coming back. I wanted his last moments to be filled with the smell of snow and sage brush and the possibilities of smelling a cottontail rabbit mixed with the pungent smell of juniper trees. I sat there for a long time, looking down at my rifle. This was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I sat there with him as long as I dared. He was starting to get cold and shiver and I knew this was to be one-way trip for old Chew. I just couldnt bare to take him home because I knew I'd never do it. If I loved this dog I'd let him go. I'd let him go in style, not on some cold examining table frightened and scared that I'd left him.
Well cowboy wisdom is that if you can't shoe your own horse, or shoot your own dog you probably ought not have either a one of them. But I'm just not so sure of that. I've had a lot of dogs, ground up a couple of cats in a truck motor, I've killed deer and elk and just about anything I could justify, but nothing has ever sapped me the way that letting Chewy go that day did. It's bitter sweet letting an animal go. You know it's the right thing for them. Hell that dog couldnt hear, snotted all over himself, couldnt stand up, had no teeth left and still was the sweetest damn dog you'd ever meet. Till the very second I let him go he wanted to do what he considered was his job and fetch rocks or a ball. It was all he lived for. The day I realized he couldnt even do that I knew it was time.
I want you to know I said goodbye to him first. It wasn't without a great deal of tears that I put him down. I pretty much searched my entire soul for a way that I didnt have to let him go. I wanted to be selfish and keep him around, one more day, one more week, one more year. But I knew that letting him go any longer wasn't right for either of us.
Anyhow, enough of the melodrama. I loved that old dog. I hated him too, dont get me wrong. I know this is a story you've all heard before and you maybe even have your own old pup that you know you're missing. I dont understand this whole world as it goes around. But I do know a few things. We're made to love. We're made to hurt. We're made for joy, and we're made for heartaches and disappointment. Part of our learning while we're here is to suffer these tremendous losses so that we can understand the cooresponding joys.
Anyhow I gotta run. It's time for me to put some pants on and maybe mow a lawn or two. If the weather doesnt hold I'll head to the Home Depot and pick out a nice little garbage disposal and swap one out. I'm ready for Spring I tell you. This, "Sprinter" crap is for the birds. So, I have no words of comfort, just a smile to start your day. All this isn't for naught. There's a reason behind it all. Get out of your house, it's Memorial Day. Put your flag out, grill some brautworst and meet the new neighbors. No more of this doom and gloom. It's time to plant some flowers in the front of the house and get ready for Summer.
Hope you have a great day and maybe we'll talk at ya in a week or so if I dont get the chance sooner.
J
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