So Long, Old Friend. So Long.

September 9th, 2013

I put a treasured friend to rest today. If old rules of thumb hold true, he was well over a hundred years old. You may be guessing my old friend was a dog, and you'd be right. But he wasn't just any old dog. He was my constant blessing for over 16 years and as my husband likes to say - this dog was a one in a million. Of course he was. He was my boy!

 

   When I was but a wee little girl, someone, probably my parents, gave me a floppy toy dog. I loved him dearly and well above all my other beloved toy pets, and for some strange and inexplicable reason, I named my stuffed toy Chico. Where a tow headed, blue eyed little Danish girl living in Danish suburbia came up with a Spanish word like Chico, nobody knows, least of all me. I don't even remember receiving the dog, I was so little, but I remember loving him for years and years, no matter how tattered and matted and worn he became.

Years later I was a twenty something year old woman living fancy free and footloose, travelling the country in an old Ford Econoline cargo van. I worked odd jobs at Renaissance fairs, never knowing where I was headed next, or if I'd have the money to get me there. I loved every second of it, the freedom, the leaps of faith, the solitude on long drives.

I was between fairs, visiting my dear friend Tracy. Sipping wine on the front porch of the home she shared with 3 other girls and two big dogs, we were commiserating over our useless love lives when the dogs went berserk at the back door. There on the back step, with only a screen door between him and two big dogs barking and growling ferociously, sat a calm puppy gazing up at us with warm amber eyes lined in kohl, all smiles and politely wagging tail.

Ignoring the dogs, he turned his little white and brindle head and looked directly at me as if to say: "I have arrived. Please adjust accordingly."

Tracy laughed and said " I think you just got yourself a dog!" I denied and denied. She reminded me I had often said I'd like a dog. I had no recollection of ever saying any such thing. My lifestyle allowed for no such thing. By his condition it was clear he was a stray but we made the usual rounds to no avail. Nobody knew him.

But I never knew where I was headed, never mind if they allowed dogs. No dog for me.

But I allowed we should bring him in and give him a bath and feed him and so on. He politely put up with it all, but if I moved, he moved. An hour later when I walked out behind the house to fetch something from the van, I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard an awful yelping and yapping. Seconds later came a little bundle of flapping ears and tongue and tail, tearing down the driveway to my side, where he sat down and wagged his tail happily as if to say "I thought you left without me! But I was wrong, wasn't I?"

Yes, he was wrong, and I just got myself a dog. When thinking of names, Tracy, her mind as always much quicker than mine, began reeling off names at the speed of a livestock auctioneer. "Fido, Mickey, Wooffie, Waldo, Chico, Lassie, Puppy, Fred, George, Fluffy, Bingo....." Wait, I cried! Did you just say CHICO?! And so it was my stuffed toy dog came to life and was the best living, breathing, walking, talking dog ever.

I always joked that Chico should have been a guy's dog - after all, he was a bona fide 'chick magnet'. I couldn't walk him anywhere without adoring crowds of girls and women fawning over him. All the more amusing, as he rarely let them touch him. He was a one woman kind of dog, and he didn't much care for men. It took my boyfriend-future-husband months to get on petting terms with Chico, but then they remained firm friends. Most people did not have that luck. Chico would put on his polite and friendly front, the smile and the slowly wagging tail, even sniff their hand, but should they move to pet him he'd flinch away and look at them with indignance, his meaning clear: " I didn't say you could TOUCH me."

 They loved him anyway. He was the kind of dog everyone in the neighbourhood knew, even if they didn't know me. One day I was walking him through the equestrian center where I worked and as a woman approached, I happened to call Chico to my side. "Oh!" she called to me with a friendly grin, "Are you with Chico?" Oh yes, said I, and proudly. I'm with Chico. He acquired me some time ago.

Nobody knew what Chico was though everyone wanted to know. He looked like something different to everyone. A Corgi in a Jack Russell suit. A Jack Russell in an oversized dachshund body with the paws of a mastiff. A PBGV with short ears ( yeah, I had to look that one up too). Finally I wearied of the endless discussions and opinions. If anyone asked what he was, I simply said :"He's a GOOD dog." And he was. He was always just perfect, with a sixth sense of what circumstance required of him. He was a gentleman.

If I was feeling mischievous, I'd say: "He's a French Roadrunner." When the listener looked puzzled, I'd follow up with: "Also known as a Louisiana Shrimper, or colloquially as a Cajun Swampdog." That usually did it. Chico and I would exchange conspiratorial glances and be on our way.

I considered having him DNA tested. But somehow that would have spoiled the fun and dampened his air of mystery. I left his ancestry to his ancestors and Chico to his own unique self.

In his last years, I began to take him to the groomers for a wash and then after a year of baths, we added a haircut. I had done the honors myself for years on the bathing, but now I had a second dog who required serious grooming and it was just easier. Besides, he was struggling under his many layered coat, it was starting to mat, and I was struggling to keep up with the brushing. They say he wagged his tail the entire time they buzzed off all the hair.

When I asked if the groomer had an opinion on his particular ancestral cocktail, she laughed and said "All twelve of them? He has at least 12 different types of coat in there!" I know, I said. And they all shed at the same time. Which is - all the time, as copious hairballs flitting about the house could attest to. Five minutes after a thorough vacuuming, there they'd be, teasing and tickling. And even straight from the groomers with his perky little scarf, he managed to look scruffy. (That is, until he started getting buzz cuts).

It's fun telling all these little stories, remembering my little shadow of over sixteen years. But then I remember what it means and my stomach plummets into deep, dark recesses. But that is all we who are left behind can do, isn't it? Remember and relish the memories of those who touched our hearts and souls beyond words, be they two or fourlegged..

I feel like an amputee searching for a missing limb. Oh, Chico Man. You were with me for the better part of my adult life. I grew up with you. Now, you are here but not there. You are gone, but you have not left.

So I will remember you, Chico. I will remember your beautiful amber eyes and friendly smile. The way you picked me and never let go ( unless treats were in the offering, then you became any man's best new friend for the duration), the funny trot and bouncing run and the way you'd sit and rise up, to go all melty and soft eyed when I rubbed your paws. Which was pretty much anytime you asked, how could I resist? Even if it was in the middle of teaching a lesson....

 I will remember you as a cheerful puppy bumbling through a field of blue bonnets and trotting beside my horse, your matched white paws striding out with alacrity. I have memorized every hair on your brindle ears in your white face, your glistening black nose and the comical sight of the perfect white tip on your tail waving above golden grasses like the flag of a ship on high seas.

I will remember how you'd gently bump my leg for attention, and how it felt to hold your silky head and kiss you softly in the little hollow between your eyes and how you'd lean into the kiss, ever so slightly, then pull away like, yeah, yeah, enough, woman! I will never forget the warm affection you saved just for me, the special look you'd throw my way when you knew I was paying attention, the way your eyes would squint for a second as if you were winking at me with both eyes. I will laugh at how extra funny you were when hit by bouts of playfulness, all decorum and gentlemanly demeanour put aside for leaps, bounds and excited barking.

 And how you'd do anything for a treat. After learning 5 tricks you'd try to do them all at once, perhaps thinking then you'd get all the treats at once, too.

I will remember your quiet dignity that lasted till the very end. I will remember how you slowly and quietly let me know it was time, and the gentle breeze that ruffled your many coats as I carried you to the shade of the oak tree my mother planted just after we moved here, 10 years ago. I like to think she was there to greet you when you relinquished your tired old body. I will remember how, for the first time ever, you, a dog who hated to be held and carried, simply lay softly in my arms and rested your head on my shoulder as I hugged you closer and closer, desperate to not let go, though I knew I must.

And I will never forget how you took one final, long hard look around, then looked me full in the face for a long, long moment of silent communication, your beautiful soul shining through your eyes, so warm and present for the first time in days, beaming at me one last glorious shot of pure affection. I felt your love for me then as I felt mine for you, and I knew then as I have always believed, that there is more, much more, to a dog than so many will allow, as there is so much more to every sentient being on this earth than mankind will admit.

At the end, words failed me and I can't remember the many blessings and prayers of gratitude that poured from my heart but never passed my lips as the final injection was administered. Even now, I feel like I fail to do Chico justice. He touched the heart of everyone he met. He touched them and somehow, challenged their perception of 'it's just a dog'. Chico was never, ever - just a dog.

Perhaps no one has described Chico better than my close friend Jennifer, who wrote:

Here's to you, Chico!

You returned Love with Joy. Your perky trot and upright tail will never be forgotten, you jaunty gentleman! Thank you for the laughter and comfort you brought to all who knew you.

Hear, hear, Chico, and may you find a limitless supply of treats in Heaven and may all your tricks be rewarded tenfold.

So long, old friend, so long. I'll be seeing you.

 

(While I took most of these photos, my thanks to the friends who over the years shared some of these photos with me. )