Well we lost a good one right before Memorial Day weekend.
Our dog Bruiser.
We’d known before we got the new puppies that Bruiser wasn’t going to be with us long. He’d been diagnosed almost a year ago with a degenerative spine and the vet sent us home with the words, “You’ll know when it’s time to put him down. One day he’ll wake up and won’t be able to be a dog anymore.”
For the last year we’ve watched him grow progressively weaker as his condition continued to worsen, but he’d still have a lot of days when he’d bring us his tennis ball to throw over and over again until he finally had to give up and lie down. He loved nothing more than a good tennis ball. He’d carry one around until it was falling apart and go into a depression until we replaced it with a new one. I used to always contend he’d chase a tennis ball until he fell over from sheer exhaustion. And so it was an indicator of how much he was going downhill when we’d throw the tennis ball and he’d just watch it roll across the yard instead of chasing it down.
Bruiser was always the one who would run barking to greet us at the back gate when we pulled into the driveway and, as time went on and our other dog, Scout, couldn’t hear our cars, Bruiser would jump on him in a full body tackle to alert him that the people were now home. Sometimes he was a little overzealous and I often had to roll down my car window as I pulled into the driveway to start yelling “NO, BRUISER, NO!” in an attempt to save Scout from an attack while the neighbors probably questioned my mental state.
But as the last few months have gone by, Bruiser struggled to meet us at the gate and, more often than not, would choose to lie on the back porch because I think it was just too hard for him to get up. He never attacked Scout any more and could only hobble out to get the tennis ball a couple of times before he needed to lie down in the yard. His walk began to increasingly be more of a wobbly, tenuous lumber and was very reminiscent of Fred Sanford.
Then in the last two weeks, he grew weaker every day. By Thursday morning we knew that the time had come when he wasn’t able to be a dog any longer which I think is the hardest part of being a dog owner, making the hard decision to let go of someone that’s meant so much to your family. So P called the vet and we made an appointment to bring him in later that evening. There were lots of tears and we all said our goodbyes.
Bruiser was a good dog. But he was absolutely a dog in every sense of the word. Part of it was just his personality, but I think a lot of it was because we brought him home when Caroline was five months old.
(Please note how pale I am. Just looking at this picture makes me feel like I want to go sleep for days.)
It dawned on me when we brought Mabel and Piper home that I don’t remember one thing about Bruiser’s puppy days. I was still in the fog of having a newborn and in sheer survival mode. I can’t even tell you why we thought it was a good idea to add a puppy to that mix.
When Scout was a puppy, I would come home from work at lunchtime to sing him songs and rock him in my lap. True story. I came just shy of burping him after he ate. He was my first experience with any sort of maternal instinct and I still credit him as being part of what gave me the courage to become a mom to an actual human.
Bruiser just had to make do. There were no lullabies. I never rocked him in my lap. I had a baby and spent Bruiser’s puppyhood barely treading water. But he was a good dog. Loyal to his marrow and always so gentle with Caroline even as she unwittingly taunted him as she toddled around the back yard holding all manner of animal crackers loosely in her sticky toddler hands.
He was never a dog that wanted you to mess with him. Any attempt to check out his ears or to see if he had a thorn in his paw would be met with a growl. Even at the end as we had to lift him on and off the porch steps, he’d growl as we did it. But occasionally he’d give in and put his head in my lap and I’d scratch his ears while doing my best Harlan Pepper imitation and make him say, “I’m the best dog!”
Caroline said it best as we said goodbye to Bruiser when she remarked, “I can’t remember a day of my life that he wasn’t there.” And that’s what dogs do. They come into our lives and share a season or two and then we have to say goodbye to these loyal companions that have taken a piece of our hearts and become a part of our story.
It’s not easy, but they’re worth it. We couldn’t have spent Caroline’s early childhood with a more faithful friend, even if he was a little cantankerous on occasion.
That picture totally sums him up. I can almost hear him saying, “Please give me the duck. Please. Give me. The duck. Look at me. Sitting here. Being a good boy. Waiting for the duck.”
Goodbye, Bruiser. We’ll miss you.