For a doG

On the evening of March 21^st 2012, my furriest friend passed away. The sorrow in my mother’s voice on the phone was as palpable as the knot in my throat that grew with every word she used to describe his last moments on Earth. Our old dog had been sick for quite some months, and although no one in my family wished to admit it out loud, the noble, attentive and gentle dog that was every bit a member of our family was in the twilight of his canine existence. And so it was that on that warm Floridian night he lay down on his side as he had done so many, many times before, only that time it was to exhale his last breathe and think his last thought. How I wish to someday learn what that thought could have been. The chicken he so carefully plucked from amongst the rice that my mom cooked for him? My dad filing his nails down to smoothness? The sound of his name? How much he hated my parents’ neighbor?

I last saw him that January while visiting my folks for the holidays. He had difficulty getting around and although he had lost a lot of his hearing by then, we think he could still sense the boom of the New Year fireworks in the neighborhood which always forced his tail between his legs and caused a hasty retreat to a corner of the house as dark and as distant as possible. In the days after his passing I found myself pulling old photo albums out to hunt for images of him, noticing the steady increase of his absence from photos as his health began to decline. Although I can’t say I foretold anything, although I had no premonition of any sort, I guess I didn’t really need one in order to take extra time saying goodbye to him on January 2nd. He was always a little despondent when he saw anyone prepare to leave, but by then he seemed to simply lack the energy to even be despondent, and that made me sad. Nevertheless, there was a small part of me that believed that I wasn’t to ever see him again.

After finding several great photographs, after sharing memories with my sister the day after he passed, after deciding on several commemorative art projects to work out my grief, I found it helpful to think about, and share, my favorite experiences with him.

One warm summer afternoon while walking him in the park across the street we used to live on in New York City, he suddenly yanked my arm sideways and launched himself forward towards not one but two dogs that had not yet made note of his presence behind them. Both of these dogs were not only considerably larger, they were off their leashes and before I had any chance to react I was smack in the middle of a melee of ferocious snarling, barking and glints of sharp teeth. With a roiling mixture of fear and anger I managed to pull on his leash until all dogs were clear of each other. To my surprise no one was hurt, so the only emotion left was even greater anger that my dog had actually instigated the incident. Although I shook at the thought of what could have happened to any of the dogs, thinking of what could have happened to me made me madder still, as I yelled at him while we crossed the street and raced up the four flights of stairs to our apartment. Once inside I ordered him to lay down and to stay down in the living room. His demeanor was by now of course completely reversed; his giant, pink bat-like ears practically glued back onto his head, his chin resting on his front paws, his large apologetic brown eyes wanting to look at me but darting away nervously. My yelling having ebbed, I realized I was still shaking so I went into the kitchen for some water and then to my room to continue whatever project I had been working on prior to walking him.

It was a good half hour later that slightly above the music playing on the radio, I heard the distinct ticks and clicks of his long dark nails against the linoleum floor coming towards my bedroom. Without completely breaking my concentration I became aware that his pace had slowed considerably and had come to a complete stop outside the room and just out of my line of sight. I found that to be so odd that I stood up and came around my drafting table to see what had made him stop. As I leaned out to see, I was met by the most saddest, sorriest gaze I have ever seen; his head hung so low his whiskers were bent along the ground, themselves looking desperate for forgiveness. I had read many times that when disciplining children and dogs, you should not punish them for too long lest they disassociate from what they were punished for in the first place, and there I was having actually forgotten he was still punished. The poor dog had figured he’d try and throw himself on the mercy of the court. This act amazed me, and my gasp was not so much for finding him standing apprehensively in the doorway, apparently worried that I would still be mad at him, but that as a child I did the exact same thing to try to regain my parents good standing after being punished for bad behavior. It worked for me sometimes, and it worked on me this time. The bad feelings now long gone, I apologized to him in a high, happy voice as I hugged his scruffy neck. He was immediately back to being his normal happy dog-self as we wrestled and then got up to get him some of his favorite treats, creating what would be one of my favorite memories of him.

While I was still of the opinion that we could not, should not keep this big mutt in our long-since too small apartment, he did something that held me in absolute awe. And because I was the only one awake at that hour, I was very anxious to share the tale with my family the next morning.

I admit that back then, although I would say out loud that we couldn’t keep this dog, he had already started to secretly grow on me. I was still, however, a bit afraid of him; when he barked his deep, big-dog bark it boomed and resonated even more loudly off the walls and surfaces of our apartment, and dang it, it was a little intimidating. Whenever I would dare to feed him from my hand, I did it holding my breath and reclaiming my fingers as fast as a ninja because he didn’t seem to care too much if he nipped your fingers with his teeth during the exchange. Not that we lived in fear of him; we were aware that teaching an old dog new tricks would be necessary. Eventually he picked up on what we putting down for him in terms of behavior, but at night there was a rule; he was not allowed in any bedroom under any circumstance. I vividly remember closing the door night after night and seeing the puzzled look on his half-cocked face as if asking himself “What they do in there they no want me see?” (In my head all animals speak like Tarzan or Cookie Monster. Animals speaking perfect English is too ridiculous a notion even for me).

The first bark startled me so much I spilled an inch of liquid out of my cup, the next 4 barks had me rush out of the room to prevent him from waking anyone up 

My portion of lasagna was still in the fridge waiting for the moment I would condemn it to death via midnight snack. I was especially looking forward to it given it was a corner piece, and therefore the last of the Coveted Four; everyone knows the corner pieces are the best, tastiest and crunchiest parts of any food made in a pan. I got myself to the kitchen and prepared for my midnight mini-feast. So engrossed was I that it was a couple of minutes before I realized the dog was nowhere to be seen, or how odd that was considering how much more interested he was in what we ate than what we fed him. Oh well, I thought. I made my way back to my room, placed the meal down, locked the door behind me…and that’s exactly when the barking started. The loud, incessant barking started. The first bark startled me so much I spilled an inch of liquid out of my cup, the next 4 barks had me rush out of the room to prevent him from waking anyone up. As I rushed towards him with the intent of squeezing his muzzle and death-whispering in his giant ear to shut up, I realized he had been barking from the middle of the dark living room, which is as far as you could get from our room and stay in direct line of sight. What was wrong with this picture, I wondered but before I could even begin to imagine what was about to happen, this clever dog rushed passed me, darted straight into the bedroom and snatched my perfectly-heated piece of Italian goodness from the plate. Although the operation took but a few seconds, by the time I made it back to the room all I saw of my precious lasagna were small remnants of sauce he licked from his whiskers. I could not believe it. This dog had actually lured me with his barking to the perfect spot just far away enough in order to out-run me back to the room and gobble down what he clearly found to be even more delicious than I did. Mission accomplished, you smart-ass dog you. The only thing missing was shutting the door behind himself and locking me out entirely. I officially loved that dog right then and there. Had I a second portion of lasagna I would have given him that one as well for having so earned the first one so majestically.

I let him sleep in the room that night.

September of 1997 was a difficult time for me emotionally and spiritually. It felt like my self-esteem was in a bag tied around my ankle, dragging through the dirt and mud behind me. I was working as a toy packaging designer which was great, but alongside an individual whom I came to realize lead a very destructive lifestyle of drugs and partying. Things very quickly went from covering for him every now and again to constantly stepping in do to his work as well as my own because he would show up late, leave very early and not get much accomplished in between. In addition, the relationship I was in at the time had grown increasingly bitter and conflictive due to a fact that neither I nor she was willing to accept; that we had reached the end as a couple but were unwilling to let go, destroying not only the remains of the relationship but any possibility of a friendship as well. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was about to learn that it is preferable to be alone than in bad company. I had heard my folks utter that axiom so many times before, but until that moment in my life, I hadn’t listened to it.

After a particularly defeating day on both the job and heart fronts, I came home with the intent of collapsing, having dinner and maybe crying a little, in no particular order. As I opened the door, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a lithe, yellowish shape move across the end of the darkened hallway. In my emotional stupor I actually thought a stranger with long blonde hair had just quickly crawled from the living room to the kitchen. I was so out of it that this idea did not really strike me as odd. Once I settled myself in the living room and said my hellos to the family, I was quickly informed that my brother had encountered a stray dog in the elevator of his high school, and that he had brought it home. That was now three pieces of info in about as many minutes that did not strike me nearly as odd as they should have. As if on cue, back into the living room pranced a rather large blonde dog with huge freaking ears, looking as if he had been living with us all along. He made himself comfortable on the sofa right in front of me, and in both a natural but fully contradictory motion, I said to myself “we can’t keep this dog”, as I reached both my arms around his neck and quietly cried my days’ sorrow away.

Referencing the elevator (company) my brother discovered him riding in, we began calling him Otis.

RIP