When Perry and I were just newlyweds, we bought our first (and only) house together. Then a few months after that we decided we were ready to take the next step in our lives as real adults and get a dog. Perry really wanted a Blue Heeler and so we began to look at litters of puppies. Our search was over as soon as we saw our Scout.
He didn’t look like a typical Heeler. His face was much darker and his temperament was totally different. He never acted like a dog. In fact, Perry remarked last night that he’d never owned a dog that acted less like a dog than Scout. Of course it probably didn’t help that we bought him from a woman who lived in a trailer home in Hondo, Texas and she informed us as we were walking out the door with him that he really enjoyed sleeping on her couch and watching “color T.V.”
Scout was the first dog I’d ever owned. And I was crazy about him in that way you are before you have kids and your dog is your baby. I hated to leave him when I had to go to work in the morning. I rushed home at lunch to see him. I took him to Sonic to get ice cream. Let’s put it this way, I SANG HIM LULLABIES. I was besotted.
When he was about three months old our vet discovered he had a hole in his heart that needed to be closed up or he wouldn’t live more than a year. At the time it was a surgery that could only be done at Texas A&M and it wasn’t inexpensive, but he was my baby and so Perry and I drove him to College Station to have heart surgery that would save his life.
And, boy, did we get our money’s worth. He was an adrenaline junkie that never stopped. We had to build a higher fence in our back yard because he would get so excited he’d just jump over it. Perry and I would get on either end of the back yard while one of us called his name and he’d come barreling at us as fast as he could and leap into our arms. And heaven help the raccoons he managed to chase down at the ranch because they weren’t long for this world.
He never met a stranger and we always said he’d totally sell us out for a hamburger. And at night he liked to watch the “color T.V.”. He’d growl at the deer on Perry’s hunting shows and then fall asleep while he dreamed of chasing them down as evidenced by the way his paws constantly moved while he slept.
During those first few years, Scout was my original road trip partner. Gulley lived in Austin at the time and I’d go visit her on weekends when Perry was hunting and always brought Scout with me. He loved being at Gulley’s because he loved her dog, Annie, plus we fed him some expensive, healthy food and she fed Annie something called Dinnertime from HEB. Scout would scarf that food down like a kid at McDonald’s and have the worst gas all the way back home to San Antonio. But he and Annie would play non-stop and Gulley and I declared them to be best friends. They were our first generation of best friends.
Five years after we got Scout, we brought Caroline home from the hospital. We never had to worry about Scout because there wasn’t a mean bone in his body. He seemed to accept that he had moved down a rung in our family hierarchy, but took it in stride. Especially when he realized the new little person had a tendency to leave a trail of Cheerios or Goldfish wherever she went.
About two and a half years ago, Scout contracted a serious infection in his leg. We still don’t know what caused it, but he began to run a fever and was lethargic. I rushed him to the vet and they began to give him intravenous antibiotics in an attempt to fight the infection. After about three days of this, Perry gently said, “Maybe we should call the vet and see how much this is costing us. He’s a fourteen and a half year old dog and nobody needs to be a hero.”
So I called our vet and tried to gently ask if he felt like Scout could recover from this or if we were spending money in vain. And, in what has become part of our family lore, the vet replied, “I think he can get through this and might even live four to six more months.”
We weren’t sure four to six more months seemed like that great of an achievement when you averaged out the daily cost of his hospital stay expenses. But Scout defied the odds and made a complete comeback. We had two and a half more years with him. Those two and a half years were worth every penny.
Scout loved to bark at thunder, other dogs and at nothing. He outlived two of his doggy companions, Jem and Bruiser. And he was a good grandpa to Piper and Mabel when they came along. He took them in stride and never minded that they jumped all over him and were constantly in his space. He was a good boy.
We lost Scout last night. He was seventeen years old. Mimi and Bops were dog-sitting while we were at the beach and they were with him when he passed away. I’m heartbroken I couldn’t be there to say one last goodbye. I think he’d defied the odds so many times that I began to think he might be with us forever.
Perry and I will celebrate our eighteenth wedding anniversary this Sunday and Scout has been with us for seventeen of those years. Scout gave me a glimpse of what it looked like to be a mom and the confidence to take that step. He was my first baby. He loved us unconditionally in that way dogs do and never wanted anything in return other than the occasional belly rub. He was a good boy.
And if it’s true that all dogs go to heaven, then Scout will be one of the first in line.
Goodbye, our Scout. We love you.