old dog

I wrote this in 2006. Laswell died tonight.

Saturday at the park, we saw a couple with two older Golden Retrievers sitting in the shade. We waved and walked on a way so we didn't bother them, sat down and threw the frisbee for Laswell while picnicking on bagel dogs.

After a while they started packing up and I noticed they had a harness around one dog's hindquarters to help him stand up and walk over to the car. The simple, matter-of-fact way the lady helped him walk on his dysplasic haunches pierced me straight through and I started crying, about two seconds before Jen saw the same thing and said "Don't start crying, Eric."

I was thinking of Maddie, the Golden down the street who I helped lift in the same manner once, loading her into the car to go to the vet's and get euthanised. But more, I was thinking of Laswell, and how he'll be 15 when Gunnar's 11 and at some point the kid's going to have to say good-bye to the dog who's loved him since before he was born.

And I was trying to think of what I would say to him, what fatherly bit of wisdom I might be able to manage to choke out from behind my own tears, that might ease that terrible pain for that forlorn, heartbroken kid.

I think it would be something like this: That dogs are here to teach us a lesson about love. The way they teach that lesson is by loving us utterly and living lives we know are going to be shorter than ours. The lesson they have for us is that the reward that comes from loving somebody utterly is worth the pain of losing them. And that just because we might lose our love doesn't mean we should hold back for the time we have together.

But I still told Laswell that he wasn't allowed to get old, and I think he understood.