Last night I talked to my son who is happy to be heading back home to a new place and if all goes well, he would possibly like to get a dog. While a dog is a lot of responsibility and would limit the free roaming lifestyle I know he embraces, I simply can't say it is a bad thing. Thus, my thoughts on dogs I have loved.
My first dog was named Dinky, a family dog. I have vague memories of him but he was tragically run over in our driveway on 29th street when he went out to greet the truck coming up the driveway. This was my first brush with death of any kind but thankfully, being as young as I was, my memory of that pain is not so strong now.
Then, when I was 8 years old, the family got a puppy for Christmas. This was to be the beginning of the most special relationship of my childhood.
Naming a dog is almost as important as naming a baby. It can shape their whole personality in my opinion. This puppy was named Darby. The story goes that on Christmas morning, my sister called him "here doggy" and everyone thought she said Darby and when we repeated it, it stuck. My parents had really been against getting another dog but more than being against that, they wanted to give their children pretty much whatever they wanted and that being a dog, they got a dog. He was the runt of the litter at the B & I Variety store in Tacoma. The purchase price was cheap but getting him treated for his various ailments wasn't.
It didn't take long for Darby to really become my dog. My sister left for college shortly after that, my oldest brother went into the Navy and my youngest brother was more involved with sports, girls and teenage life. When we moved to Day Island when I was 10, Darby stayed by my side and really was my best friend. Darby became the ultimate beach dog and I soon earned the nickname "Queen of the Beach", given to me by the four bartenders who inhabited bungalows at the end of the Day Island Spit. I would spend hours on the beach, in the water and climbing the rocks, always with Darby. But Darby didn't need me to enjoy the beach. All I had to say was "the tide is out" and Darby would run to the beach and play. He would turn over rocks and chase the crabs, he would wade into the water and roust up flat fish to chase and on hot days, he would just swim. No need to throw a stick, he would just swim.
Darby got into his share of trouble. One morning Mom had made a whole platter of bacon and eggs but all of us got up too late to eat it so Mom fed it all to Darby. I got home from school and Darby's face was as big as a balloon. Turns out Darby was allergic to that much protein. Another time, Darby ate half of the anniversary cake I had made for Mom and Dad, never mind the fact I had hidden it under my bed. Darby chewed a lot too, enough said of that. But the biggest incident was when a neighbor who was fed up with our dog in her yard decided it was perfectly acceptable to pour motor oil on him. So, when he came into the house, he just looked wet like he always was but when he rolled on the carpet, it turned black. We got new carpet.
Darby died in my senior year of high school. We came home, he had been in a fight of some sort and had wounds on his neck. That apparently released a dormant cancer that quickly took over. But I think Darby knew it was his time. I was leaving for college, Day Island had passed a leash law that would have killed him anyway. No longer my first experience with death but definitely the hardest and I still remember the pain.
I then went through college, a year studying abroad in Germany, and got my own place in Tacoma, the downstairs of a house. By that time I had met my husband and while we tried to hide it from my parents, for all intents and purposes, he lived with me in that house. The next natural progression was to get a dog, right? We found Beau at the pound. Beau was a yellow lab puppy, as close to purebred as I think you could get. Soon after bringing him home, the landlord found out and kicked us out. We found another house, upstairs this time and Beau helped us reveal our living arrangements to my parents, out of necessity. It was okay.
Beau took us through our younger years as a couple. He was with us on our 1
6 day honeymoon camping in Western Montana. I can't imagine it without him. He moved with us to Conconully where he loved to go into the woods when we cut our firewood for the year, go fishing and jump into the water scaring them off or just lay in the sun on a lazy summer day. Beau was there to welcome home both of our sons when they were born. We had to share baby toys with him so he wouldn't get jealous. Beau moved back to Gig Harbor with us and for the first time in his life was mellow enough to just be allowed outside without being tied up or contained and I like to think the last years of his life were the best.Beau had epilepsy, probably the result of getting hit by a bicycle when he was a puppy, and sometimes had seizures. I still have a scar on my arm from a scratch I got holding him down during one. He was so strong. It was on February 17th, 1990 when Beau was 12 years old, on my son's 4th birthday, that Beau went outside in 1 1/2 feet of snow and suffered what we think was a heart attack and died on the floor of living room with all of around. We buried him that day in the back yard of the house we were buying and Beau was with us until we moved from there. This was the first time I had to try to explain death to my sons. I definitely remember that pain, more for them than myself.
It's hard to lose a dog and equally as hard to decide to get another one. After all, the end is ultimately going to be the same, right? But when you 9 year old son decides that he wants a puppy for Christmas, just like my parents, we had to get it. Santa found a little female yellow lab puppy on a farm in Puyallup. She was only 4 1/2 weeks old on Christmas Eve but she was brought home, stayed with the neighbor until early Christmas morning and Santa delivered her. That was such a special Christmas morning and little did we know, it was the beginning of so many adventures, ups and downs. involving this dog over the next 16 years. We named her Murphy Brown.
This post is already so long and to do Murphy justice, I really should devote an entire post to her. My sons grew up with her. She was part greyhound or whippet and could run faster than any dog I have ever seen and
jump so high. She would jump up to the top bunk to sleep with my youngest son every night. He would torment her but she seemed to love it and while my oldest son was her master, my youngest son was her friend and he got the best end of the deal.Murphy chewed more than any animal I have ever seen. Nothing was off limits. Boxes in the garage were destroyed, including my entire journal from my year in Germany, not her finest hour. Before we moved, she had destroyed the insulation blanket on the hot water heater, chewed up the plastic sink in the garage, starting with the legs and working her way up and had made quite a dent in the wood studs and sill plates.
Her master went away to college, we moved to a new home with hardwood floors. She had a hard time dealing with that and shortly after that, she became paralyzed. I was coming home from Mom's Weekend in Pullman and got a call that something was wrong, she couldn't move anything but her head. I got home and we took her to an emergency veterinary clinic. It was determined she had ruptured a disk in her neck. Apparently, all that jumping and disintegrated the disk and some sort of sudden move, possibly on the hardwood floors, had caused it to rupture. When we carried her out of the house that night, our son said "Please bring her back to me". She was 11 years old. It would have been logical to have her put down at that point but not after that. We ended up taking her over to WSU where the only doggie neurologist was at the vet school there. She ended up having a cervical fusion surgery, stayed there for 2 weeks with her master visiting her every day and then she came home. Her friend had to come home from school every day for about 6 weeks and walk her with a towel to support her spine but she slowly but surely got better. She never ran or jumped like she did before but she was able to spend another 5 years with us.
Murphy was the first dog I had where the decision to have her put down had to be made. It was by far the hardest thing I have ever done. My husband spent the day with her laying in the sun in the yard, taking care of her. My sons, having moved on in their lives, were able to meet us at the vet's and we all said goodbye as she peacefully moved on. Even now this brings tears to my eyes. I wonder if it was her time or if we should have done more. She trusted us though and I think it was the right thing to do. We brought her home and buried her in the yard she loved. My son and I planted flowers and a tree over her and I still talk to her there sometimes.
That was almost 2 years ago and maybe someday I will be ready for another dog but not now. I have had all the best over the years. Why mess with that. But understanding what these dogs, best friends, brought to my life, how can I tell my son it isn't wise to get dog? I can't. In fact, I think it is vitally important in life. In fact, I look forward to having a grandog.
