Right to the very end, my dog was a bit of a jerk. It started when she was just 8 weeks old and I brought her home on a whim from the farm where I’d been horseback riding. She puked on my friend’s lap on the car ride home.
Our landlord at the time said no dogs allowed, so we bought a house.
When she was only a year and a half, she went and tore her knee up, playing too hard with a much bigger dog. Cost us a couple thousand dollars to get her fixed. Before fully recovering, she got hurt again and never was able to run for long stints after that.
She wasn’t the nicest of dogs at times. Once, she picked up a little white poodle and shook it like a rag doll. The dog was all right, but its owner was a mess.
And then there was the time she lunged at a park ranger. That got us a visit from Animal Services.
If you were the type to be afraid of dogs, my dog would reinforce that fear.
We knew she was just being protective. She never once gave us any problems with the baby. And when she would stand on the dock and bark at us the whole time we were swimming up at the cottage, we knew she meant well.
Years later, after we split up, I brought her to visit a boy I liked and she made a point of having the most godawful and constant stream of gas that day.
Recently, when she got sick, she would make the biggest show of not walking and acting pathetic so that people would stop and stare at the cruel people, dragging their crippled dog down the street. But as soon as we turned toward home, she would trot along happily, nothing doing.
And right to the very end, she was a jerk. The vet came to the house today to put her down. Said we’d made the right decision by the looks of her. Said the sedative would make her sleepy and relaxed, but our stubborn goat fought it and stood strong until the doc finally went ahead and gave her the poison. It only took a few seconds for her to go limp and then she was gone. But she had one last jerk move up her sleeve. As my ex lifted her body to take it out to the car, her bladder unloaded a stream of piss on his leg. And then — plop — a solid log of shit dropped on the carpet.
No matter what trouble our girl got us into, she always made us laugh. And for that, we’ll miss her, poop and all.
Originally posted September 10, 2013
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