this one isnt by me.... i read this on espn.com... its a story by bill simmons who writes for page 2... i just thought those of you who've lost a dog would appreciate this... so heres to lacy my black lab... and sammy... well, we were never quite sure exactly what sammy was... but she was alot of fun... girls this ones for you...
bill simmons----
Before I proposed to my girlfriend, we had already discussed getting
a dog. But what kind? We debated it constantly. We loved Great Danes,
but they never seem to live long enough. We loved Newfoundlands, but
their back legs go too fast. We loved golden retrievers, but my father
had two and we didn't want to copy him. We loved the thought of
rescuing a mutt, but we worried about getting one with "I hate kids"
DNA, and we wanted to have kids.
The decision ultimately didn't matter. Unwilling to raise a puppy on
the concrete streets of Boston, we decided to wait until we moved ...
somewhere. By this time, it was the summer of 2002. I was thinking of
taking a job writing for a television show. As part of the deal, we had
to move to Los Angeles and leave everyone behind: Our friends, our
family, my teams, the things we loved, everything. I needed a change.
If you write for a living, it's good to keep moving. Keeps you fresh.
My fiancée wasn't as crazy about leaving.
"We can get a dog," I kept telling her. "We can take her to the
beach. We can take her hiking. It will be 75 degrees every day. The dog
will have a good life."
That swung her vote. I moved to California on Nov. 16, 2002. She joined
me eight weeks later. As she was packing and settling everything back
home, she was frantically searching for a puppy. She wanted one
immediately. When I rented an apartment next to a house with a young
golden retriever named Zoe, we thought that was a sign. We were getting
a golden.
We
had our new roommate within two weeks: an 8-week-old puppy named Daisy,
or as we ended up calling her, "The Dooze." Her obsession with tennis
balls started as soon as she could cram one in her mouth. And, yeah, I
know goldens stereotypically love tennis balls ... but The Dooze took
it to another level. Within a few months, she could repeatedly bounce
them off the ground and catch them like she was dribbling a basketball.
Our first apartment had high ceilings, so we'd watch TV and bounce
balls off every inch of the wall for her. That's how I spent the 2004
Red Sox season -- sweating out games and dinging balls off that 10-foot
wall. Soon she was chasing down ricochets like a four-legged Ozzie
Smith. On walks, she sniffed out any stray ball within a 100-yard
vicinity, dragged us over to the ball's precise location, somehow
locating it even if it was buried inside some 6-foot bush. There was
one hill a few blocks away -- the front lawn of someone's house -- that
she would race atop, then drop the ball so it would roll down. She
loved the way it rolled. We'd throw it back up, she'd chase it down
like Jim Edmonds, then she'd drop it back down and watch it roll. She
never wanted to leave. Soon we were making trips to Target every few
weeks just for more tennis balls.
For that first year or so, I was working long hours and my wife
hadn't found a job yet. She was constantly doing things with Dooze:
they'd go to the beach, go hiking, go for one-hour walks, you name it.
She carried Puppy Dooze around in a little front pack like a baby. We
even brought The Dooze on our mini-honeymoon. By the spring of 2004, my
wife was working and I was writing full-time for ESPN again, so our
roles reversed: I finally got to spend more time with my dog and
crammed morning and afternoon ball throws into my daily work routine.
When my arm started aching, I bought one of those green ball-thrower
sticks and turned into Greg Maddux, circa 1995, with that thing. I had
pinpoint aim. I wanted to compete in the Olympics with The Dooze in
whatever you would call this category. Nobody could consistently fling
balls reminiscent of a perfect golf drive quite like me. What a dumb
thing to be proud of ... and yet, The Dooze was the only one who fully
appreciated it.
We lived on a street with especially wide sidewalks and little traffic,
so we trained her to sprint for balls without ever straying into the
street. Eventually, we starting using two balls and taught her how to
fetch one, run back at full-speed, drop the first one as she was
approaching us, then keep going 40-50 yards the other way for the
second one (like a nonstop series of wind sprints). It was amazing to
watch. She looked like a race horse. Woooooooosh. We didn't have a
single neighbor who wasn't totally and completely impressed. She would
never NOT chase a ball, so the sessions usually ended with The Dooze
lying on her side and her tongue hanging five feet from her body ...
but waiting for the next throw.
I spent that spring and summer writing columns, finishing a book
and doing my Maddux routine with Dooze. Then we bought a house, my wife
got pregnant and we found Dooze a brother named Rufus. They came from
the same breeder and actually had the same father, so they were
half-brother/half-sister like "90210" characters. Rufus immediately
attached himself to The Dooze, followed her around and pretty much
dominated our lives from that point on; he was like Marley crossed with
Satan. The first week we had him, he whimpered so loudly that we had to
sleep with him every night. He just didn't leave us a choice. He hated
being alone.
And since The Dooze was a loner of the highest order -- every time she
jumped on the sofa next to us, it was an unexpected treat, like she had
graced us with her presence -- she absolutely despised her brother at
first. Whenever he lay beside her, you could see her thinking, "I wish
he'd go away, I wish he'd go away ..." Knowing that she'd never get the
same attention (especially after our daughter was born), The Dooze
settled into a new role as protector of our house. She stayed near the
front door and barked at anyone suspicious. At night, she scared away a
few people in our kinda-sorta-maybe-sketchy-at-night neighborhood. We
rewarded her with more ball throws and a few coveted beach trips.
Her biggest save happened in January '07. My wife went out to pick
up dinner, and I was watching a basketball game. Somehow our tiny
daughter, at that specific moment, decided she would sneak away, open
our front door (a brand-new trick, unbeknownst to us) and stroll
outside. How does this happen? In the 25 seconds that passed between my
realizing the door was open and my sprinting outside like Usain Bolt,
she made it all the way to our street. And it was pitch-black.
Fortunately, the dogs followed her and shielded her like two offensive
linemen. I am convinced to this day that Dooze saved her; had it just
been Rufus, he would have followed her out, then skipped away to eat
cat poop or something. When I noticed a car stopped in the street and
someone carrying my daughter back to our house, I almost had a heart
attack. My little girl was fine. The driver said, "If it wasn't for
those two dogs, I wouldn't have seen her." Gulp. Everyone with kids
knows that you have to catch a few dumb breaks along the way; this was
one of ours. Hopefully, it will remain the biggest dumb break. The
Dooze saved the day.
..
..| THE B.S. REPORT |
|---|
|
The week that was in the B.S. Report:
Monday: Mega-Playoff Podcast IV with Cousin Sal and Mike Lombardi, looking ahead to Super Bowl XLIII.
Tuesday: Chuck Klosterman talks Obama, music, aging and the NBA.
Wednesday: J.A. Adande stops by to discuss Obama's inauguration and size up the NBA contenders.
To subscribe to the "B.S. Report" on iTunes, click here.
|
..
..We moved again that summer to a bigger house
with a pool. Within a week, Dooze was swimming in it. Every time the
fence surrounding the pool was open, she brought a tennis ball out
there, "mistakenly" dropped it in, looked around a few times, then
said, "I gotta save that thing!" and jumped in after it. Rufus was
terrified of water and was annoyed that she kept going in, so he'd just
stand there and bark, then hump her to reclaim alpha status when she
climbed out. Eventually, we just started pushing him in and that's how
he learned to swim. The one thing he never stole was the ball-throwing
gimmick -- she always outraced him, so he settled on just being her
sidekick (his Pippen to her Jordan). He copied everything she did. She
guarded the house; he did, too. She was obsessed with tennis balls; he
was, too. She loved swimming; suddenly he did, too. They were like
Frick and Frack. I even think The Dooze grew to like him. You know,
except for the humping. At the end of the night, he came to bed with us
and she stayed downstairs to guard the house. And that's how it went.
Every morning when we went downstairs, the first thing we heard was her
tail happily banging the floor.
Last winter, my wife became convinced something was wrong with The
Dooze. She was definitely looking older, but geez, she had just turned
5, and we kept her in phenomenal shape. How could anything be wrong?
Was she depressed because we had our second child and weren't giving
her enough attention? The only weird part was Rufus was sniffing her a
lot. (We realized later he was doing that for a specific reason. Dogs
know. They always know.) One night, we noticed The Dooze's eyes looked
blue. Blue? We took her in to the animal hospital and they worried it
was glaucoma or even something worse. They ran some tests on her.
Within a few days, we were on the phone with a doctor who told us
grimly that The Dooze had stage-5 lymphoma. That led to this exchange:
Us: "Stage 5? How many stages are there?"
Doc: "Five."
Just like that, The Dooze was dying. We were demolished, obviously.
Ages 6 through 10 are the best years for a pooch -- that's when they
mellow out, when they cease surprising you, when you can guess
everything they might do before they do it. You know them as well as
you know anything. That's what happens when your dog grows old. We
always imagined The Dooze in 2017 as a 15-year-old with creaky hips and
a white face and unconscionably bad breath, only every time we came
home, her tail would start wagging and she'd roll a ball toward us, and
we'd shake our heads and it would be like a cheesy movie scene. That's
what we always thought. Now the doctors were saying she might last
10-12 months with chemotherapy injections and a better diet.
Months?
My wife took charge and made it her personal mission to get The Dooze
to her sixth birthday. By the summer, she was having mostly good days
and only a few bad ones (always the day after chemo). She spent her
time sleeping, swimming and chasing balls, although she didn't have the
same wheels anymore. Ever the wily veteran, she saved her fifth gear
only for the longest tosses, cruising at a controlled pace for
everything else. Every time we thought she was fading, we'd be watching
TV and The Dooze would amble over with a ball, drop it, then crouch and
take a few steps back: Her famous, "Hey, how 'bout a few ball throws,
whaddya say?" move. (Note: She trademarked this as well as her unique
habit of repeatedly walking between our legs any time we returned to
our house.) There was one point in early December when she went blind
-- out of nowhere -- and we thought that might be it. Special eye drops
saved the day. She made it to her sixth birthday, made it on our
Christmas card, made it through the holidays and made it to 2009. We
couldn't ask for anything more than that. Miracles don't happen with
lymphoma and dogs. People, maybe. Not dogs.
Meanwhile, something unexpected was happening, something we hadn't counted on: Our little boy had become enchanted by The Dooze.
The first word he ever said was "Day-zee." Once he started crawling,
he'd crawl to the front of our house and smother Dooze. Sometimes we
found him lying on her or gently tapping her head. I have never seen a
dog who was sweeter with a little kid -- he could pull her ears, sit on
her head, poke her in the eye, pull her tail and she didn't care. She
just laid there and let him do his thing. Like she knew he didn't know
any better.
Once Dooze started visibly declining, our daughter knew something
bad was happening, so we told her that Dooze was heading to the moon
soon and went through the "it's better on the moon, she'll be happier
there" charade. Now she thinks everyone goes to the moon when they die.
This will be awkward if she ever meets Neil Armstrong. But that's the
part nobody prepares you for -- not just losing your dog, but watching
your kids lose their
dog. As a parent, you feel obligated to protect your children from the
things you don't want them to see, and then suddenly there's your dog
slowly dying in the house, and they're seeing it every day. It's not
fair.
Right after New Year's, Dooze took a turn for the worse. She looked
skinny and frail, just a bag of bones with a beautiful golden coat. She
was sleeping all the time. Rufus was sniffing her constantly. We had
entered that despicable "How do we know when it's time?" mode. We kept
telling ourselves that Dooze would let us know when she was ready --
somehow, someway -- but that's the thing about dogs, you just never
know. If we bounced a tennis ball and she didn't respond, we figured
that would be it. But every time we bounced the ball, her head popped
right up. We couldn't tell how much she was suffering. There was no way
to know. Dogs can't speak. Dogs have a huge threshold for pain. You
just don't know. You can't know.
Last week, she finally told us. She started limping a little, then a
lot, then all the time. Her back legs started failing. There was one
walk when she made it only one block before lying down. Her breath
stunk like holy hell. Every time we bounced the ball, her head would
jostle, but only a little. She planted herself near our front door and
wouldn't move. She was 6 years old going on 16. The cancer had rooted
itself in her bones and wasn't going away.
It was time. We thought it might happen last Thursday, then Friday.
Nope. She wasn't giving us The Sign. On Friday afternoon, my parents
were visiting and The Dooze rallied one last time. Even made her way
over to the pool and seemed like she wanted to jump in. Just for the
hell of it, I tossed a ball in the water knowing that I'd probably have
to dive in there to get her. Maybe she wanted one last swim. She looked
at it. She looked at it. She looked at it. She didn't go in. Oh, man.
When she could barely stand Saturday morning, that was that. She was
officially suffering. We couldn't let it happen. We drove her to the
vet's office (bringing along a tennis ball, of course) and stopped at
AstroBurger for her last supper; she wolfed down a cheesburger in 4.2
seconds in the back of the car. Even to the bitter end, she couldn't
turn down AstroBurger. Upon reaching the veterinary clinic, we carried
her inside in her little dog bed, almost like how they use those
stretchers for injured football players, then we waited in a little
room that smelled like stale pee. We laid down next to her. She licked
our faces with her smelly breath and we didn't care. It was like she
knew.
And then something crazy happened.
The Dooze fought through the pain, rose to her feet, grabbed the
ball, rolled it over to us, took a few wobbly steps backward and dusted
off the "Come on, throw it to me" face. We tossed her a few from short
range, then a few more. She caught every one of them. This was her last
hurrah. She tired quickly and laid down again ... and that was that.
The doctor came in a few minutes later and euthanized her, with that
same ball resting right next to her mouth. We had her cremated with it.
We just thought it seemed fitting. When the time seems right, we're
heading to the beach and spreading those ashes in the Pacific Ocean. So
much for our first dog. We didn't even have her for six full years. She
belongs to the West Coast, and because of her, maybe so do we.
We came home and Rufus was a mess. He knew. I don't know how dogs
know, but they know. Dogs always know. Now he spends his days lying in
Dooze's spot next to the front door. Like he inherited it.
Our daughter didn't cry. She didn't even seem that upset. When we asked
her why, she explained, "It was time for her to go to the moon. I'll
see her again some day." Oh.
The day after The Dooze left us, our little boy woke up and my wife
carried him downstairs to feed him like she always does. I was still
half asleep and could hear her footsteps. Then I heard this: "Day-zee.
Day-zee." That part didn't make me sad. The part that made me sad
happened three mornings later ... when my wife was carrying him
downstairs again and he didn't say anything.
jd