Goodbye to an Old Dog

For as old as I am, I’ve suffered very few serious gut punches. I recall five: divorce from my first wife, my dad’s death, Manyu’s sadness at her dad’s death, Clare’s depression at having her study abroad program cut short due to COVID, and now the death of our dog.

Because he had a severely enlarged spleen, probably the result of cancer, we put Jack down last week. I have no desire to describe my family’s pain right now, but I can give Jack a proper eulogy.

Jack was two years old when we got him. We were told that he was a Yorkipoo, and while he did not look exactly like the Yorkipoo photos that I googled, it was close. After several failed attempts to adopt a dog from the local Humane Society, one of the staff members told us that we shouldn’t wait even a couple of days to submit papers if we wanted a small dog. Large dogs sometimes were hard to adopt, but small dogs went quickly. Therefore, when we saw Jack and his brother Indy at the pound, we immediately put in for Jack’s brother. Indy was friendly, whereas Jack was aggressively protective of Indy when we tried to get close. The next day we were told that the gentle dog of the pair had been awarded to someone else, but we could have the other one.

Even though Jack was an adult dog when we got him, he was not housebroken, nor did he have the sense to stay in his yard. For the first couple months, I had to keep him on a leash even to let him out to pee. The first time I tried without the leash, he bolted. I had to chase him across four streets and only caught him because he stopped to poop. Fortunately the attempted escape had happened at at time when I was still young enough to run. Jack hasn’t been the only one to slow down these past few years.

My fondest memory of Jack might be the ends of our walks in the neighborhood. Once he figured out that his new home was home, I’d let him loose a block from our house. He’d tug at his leash, and then take off the moment I undid the clasp. Watching him run was witnessing the joy of freedom. Instinctively he’d make a wide turn at our driveway as he ran into our backyard. If I intentionally stayed back in the street for more than thirty seconds, he’d peek his head around the corner of our house to make sure that I was coming. Once he saw me slowly walking toward him, he’d turn around and wait at the backdoor.

Jack lived with us for sixteen years. If he really was two years old when we got him, he outlived the life expectancy of a Yorkipoo by more than two years. Millions of Americans, including most of my friends, have said goodbye to pets. Knowing that many others have endured a similar loss does not make it any easier.