It's been over a year since I've posted. Seems like I've been in a slump for a while. I've got a new job and with it, a bit of a new attitude. Strange to say I'm feeling happier and then go and post something so somber, but a favorite blogger inspired me with a similar story, and I think I owe it to Sammy to honor him with a few words:
Sam was our Border Collie, Springer-Spanial mix, rebel of a dog.
He had mischievous eyes and a look that said “So what?”
He was the smartest, misbehaving, lovable, renegade son of a bitch I’ve ever known.
He swallowed a sparrow whole he’d caught in his mouth when I told him to put it down,
just to show me I wasn’t boss.
His eyes got real big and he winced with pain when the bird fought to get out of his gut.
I took him to the emergency vet after I stopped laughing.
The vet laughed too. He was fine. The bird...not so much.
He ate both my daughters’ Halloween candy once.
He ate two pounds of gourmet Ghirardelli chocolate chips he dug out of a cardboard box we brought back from a local festival.
That was a long and nasty night, but the scrappy bastard weathered it and still craved chocolate.
He got inordinately embarrassed when we shaved him in the summer and ran into the house so no one (or hound) would see him.
He killed our little hamster Digger when it escaped from its cage, probably by licking it to death.
The corpse was left on the carpet wet with all its fur slicked back toward its rear end.
He couldn’t stand to be apart from us.
The people at the kennel had to take him to their house because he stopped eating when we would leave for a week.
He’d meet me at the gate when I’d come home from work and he’d pull his lips back and grin.
He ate blueberries off the bushes when we went on hikes in July by picking them with his little front teeth and slightly jerking his head.
He ran like a bullet and dodged like a rabbit and leapt over fences when he was young.
He had a little mutt girlfriend named Muffin whom he corrupted and led downtown in the days when our yard had no fence and he vagabonded the neighborhood.
He policed our two new puppies and broke them up when their play got too rough.
His old age came on like turning a corner.
He had a vestibular stroke at 14. He couldn’t stand up and his eyes went back and forth in saccades for two days and I held him tight and told him it would get better.
It did, but he walked crooked after that, his left ear dipping toward the ground and his face in permanent question affect.
He soon went deaf. He started to get glaucoma.
He still yearned for his walks, but couldn’t make it very far.
He fell down a lot, and looked confused and embarrassed when he hit the floor and got panicky when he couldn’t see or hear me five feet behind him in the woods.
On a sunny spring day, I made myself take him to the vet. I’d canceled three times before.
He was unusually spry and had some of the old fire in his eyes.
He loved the vet but he looked a little nervous that day. I’m sure I’ll be too if I’m conscious when my day comes.
I held my cheek to his head and hummed the song I’d made up about him for our kids and talked to him while the vet administered the drugs.
It was one of the most difficult things I’d ever done.
He trusted me. It was the right thing to do.
The vet said, “He was good boy.”
“Not really.” I croaked with welling eyes, laughing and choking-up at the same time.
The Sammy Dog song for Devin and Aidan:
Well my name is Sammy dog and I’m okay
I scratch all night and I bark all day
I like to chase cats and make ’em afraid
And if you say come, well I’ll run away
Oh Sammy dog,
Oh Sammy dog
Well my name is Sammy dog and I like the couch
I hop on it when Mom and Dad are out of the house
When they come back I jump to the floor
Just in time to meet ’em at the door
Oh Sammy dog,
Oh Sammy dog
Well my name is Sammy dog and I like to eat
I eat from the trash right out in the street
It tastes the best when it’s rotten and old
And I’ll even eat my food, but not from my bowl
Oh Sammy dog,
Oh Sammy dog
Well my name is Sammy dog and I’ve got to pee
So come and get the leash and walk with me
I can hold it for a pretty long time
But if you take too long I’ll start to whine
Ohhwwww, Ohhhw Ohhw Ohw,
Ohhwww, Ohhwww Ohw OOOhhwwww
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