A week ago, I let my 14-year-old dog Kilgore out the back door as usual, but as I watched him walk away I had this weird twinge in my chest. A few minutes later, when he wasn’t back at the door waiting to be let in, that twinge grew into dread and I knew. My dog had gone outside to die. And my heart broke right there, standing at the kitchen door.
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I drove home with this tiny, 9-pound puppy on my lap on a sunny Florida Monday back in 2002. We had selected him out of a pretty large litter because of the look he gave us that said “Hey there, you’re my humans.” We had nothing ready for him so we asked the shelter to hold him a few days, but they said there was kennel cough going around and we needed to take him RIGHTNOW if we wanted him to survive.
So here I was, playing hooky from work and taking this little pup home to get settled. Brian named him Kilgore Trout, after a reoccurring character in several Kurt Vonnegut novels. The cat was displeased.
Our excuse for getting a puppy was that it was the cat’s first birthday, so we got her a dog. But really, we had just moved to Florida to start our life together and could think of nothing better than taking a dog along to play on the beach.
He was a German shepherd / chow mix and grew up fast. At one point his legs were so awkwardly long that we thought we’d have to tell people that he was 7 months old forever to explain his odd physique. But he grew into his body, and grew into one of the best companions anyone could ask for. He came when we called him (most of the time), he didn’t chew on anything, he was good on a leash and he liked nothing more than to sit next to you with his head in your lap.
When he turned 3, we celebrated his birthday by getting him a dog.
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I found myself in a really bad spot when Kilgore didn’t come back because it was dark, Brian was at the store and I was alone with the kids. I couldn’t leave them alone in the house to go hunt for him, and those panicked moments of “Shit shit shit. What do I do?” were some of the worst I’ve ever experienced. I once read somewhere that memories fueled by adrenaline are burned onto your soul forever in vivid detail, and I know this is true because that feeling — utter helplessness and panic — is the one that will haunt me for a long time.
The text exchange between Brian and me was simple but spoke volumes:
Kilgore is missing.
Oh no. I’m on the way home.
When watching and waiting for my dog to come back to the door was no longer bearable, I strapped the kids into the car and decided to drive around and look for him. I was terrified that the coyotes who live in the woods behind the house had smelled an injured animal and attacked, but we didn’t even make it out of the driveway before my headlights found him, lying still, out by the tire swing. His back was to me, and I held my own breath for I don’t even know how long as I watched to see if he still had his.
After a few moments, he turned to see what the light was all about. “I’m going to be right in front of the car, you’ll be able to see me the entire time,” I said to my son. “Do you see Kilgore there? I’m going to go check on him. Sing a song to your sister I’ll be right back.”
Kilgore didn’t seem scared, but he couldn’t stand up and hung limp as I carried his 55 pounds back into the house. As I carried him I thought, oh my god my dog is going to die tonight, and at the same time I thought oh my god, my 4-year-old son is witnessing this. How the hell do I explain this to him? Am I scarring him for life? How do I make him understand? But he and my daughter, they both just sat down next to their dog, petting him until we put him into the back of the SUV to take him to the emergency vet.
“Bye, Kilgore,” Jack said to him before Brian closed the hatch. And then, to me, “Mama, I made a wish to Jesus that Kilgore gets better.”
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Ollie was a grumpy old man with a heart of gold, and every vet who ever examined him said some version of “I’ve never met a Shar pei like him, most of them are assholes.” Kilgore picked him after a number of doggie introductions at the shelter, and they spent the next 10 years as best friends. They lived, road-tripped and hiked all over Florida together and then made the trek with us when we moved to Arkansas in 2013.
They were such a pain in the ass sometimes. We spent more than one night driving around our neighborhood in the dark searching for Ollie, and Kilgore never did learn to stay out of the kitchen while we ate. We would say things like “One more time, dog, and it’s back to the shelter with you,” but the things that drove us nuts about them were really the essence and joy of sharing your life with dogs. Yes, you want to scream when you turn around to see your entire 2-pound pile of fresh shrimp gone and your dogs licking there lips, but they are THERE. And when they’re not, the absence they leave behind is enormous and painful.
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I’m not sure what’s worse. Losing Ollie unexpectedly and quickly to inoperable cancer just over a year ago, or watching Kilgore fade slowly — losing his hearing, suffering from arthritis, being confined to the main floor after a fall down the stairs that cost him a toe and two broken ribs.
In the end, cancer took him from us, too. The emergency vet found a perforation in his GI tract that was allowing everything he ate or drank to spill out into his chest cavity. It explained why he had started to throw up a bit the past few days, and why he was so dehydrated that he couldn’t stand up. He had to be in so much pain, so the only thing we could do was to get him out of it.
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The thing about dogs is, once they bond to you they are yours forever. They love you unconditionally no matter what kind of an asshole you are to them, and that was far more than I deserved sometimes. Having two human babies put a tremendous amount of stress on my relationship with my dogs, and I regret ignoring their requests for head rubs, or forgoing a walk because it was just too much work with the baby and everything.
We’ll probably get another puppy some day, when we’re ready. Brian and I want our kids to experience the amazing, unconditional love of a good dog. Even if that dog is a giant pain in the ass who chases the neighbor’s cows or chews up our shoes, it will be here with us, loving us no matter what.
And in the end, that’s what it’s all about.
40 is the New F Word 