Borderland

[I need to say goodbye to a friend. If this seems too sentimental, skip it. It's personal.]

You had a rough go your whole life. I’m sorry about that.. We did our best, and it wasn’t good enough. The whole way driving down to Anchorage last week, I thought about what I would write about you. I was pretty sure you wouldn’t make it and I wanted to say something. I had an old Allman Brothers CD playing as we were getting near Girdwood. “Trouble No More.” I wondered if I could use that as the title of my piece about you. Ah, but that would sound mean. You were trouble, but you were so much more than trouble. You shared it, though, for sure. And now you’re free. But it still feels bad to us. We loved you so much. We miss you.

You were sicker than a dog (sorry) when we brought you home from the shelter. All paws, legs, and fur. We thought you were just getting adjusted to your new food or something. But by Day 3 when you were limp as a mop, we knew that it was serious. You’d pooped and vomited everything we gave you. So off to the vet you went. Pneumonia, and enteritis was Doc’s diagnosis. She took blood and put you on an IV. I took your blood sample over to the lab at the hospital. When I told them it was k9 blood, a tourist who overheard me said, “Now I know for sure that Alaska is a special kind of place.” That was a bit of a treat. It cost us 600 bucks. What a deal you were!

Then there was the housebreaking thing. You never did get it. You were so submissive that you pissed every time someone greeted you. That made it rough whenever anyone walked into a room, or came home from somewhere. We were all on a hair trigger, taking you outside constantly to make sure that your need was minimal. For nearly a year! I named you The Project.

You were full of surprises. You chewed the custom birch stair treads. We’ll have your tooth marks there for a long time. You couldn’t come down those stairs very well, either because your big hairy paws were too slippery. Man, you crashed down those things sometimes. And other times you’d get part way down and freeze, not wanting to slip.

The other big surprise from you was the day Amy came home from work and found that you had a 2-inch twig poking out of your left eyeball. Yeah, that was something. How the hell did you get that in there while you were at your doghouse all day? The best we can figure is that it happened while you were tearing around in the woods on your way up from putting the kids on the bus that morning. Nobody noticed it in the dark when you got chained up for the day. You were so tough. Your heart rate was normal when you got to the emergency vet care clinic. Turns out it wasn’t really in your eyeball; just stuck in the socket behind the eyeball. Close enough, I’d say. We were awed by your toughness. You weren’t even bothered by it. Another couple hundred bucks.

My only regret with that incident is that I wasn’t around to take your picture. I think you’d have been famous all over the internet!

There were good surprises, too. In the Fall, when the kids got on the bus to go to school, you walked them down the driveway and we discovered your beautiful singing voice. You howled for them every single morning when they rode away on the bus. But the craziest thing was the way you sang with Peter when he played his trumpet. At first we thought maybe you were complaining because Peter was learning how to play. But as the months went by, you’d drop anything you were doing and rush to the room where the trumpet was, and sing sing sing. That was pure joy for all of us. I’m glad I recorded that with the digital camera.

We loved to pet you. You had the most beautiful thick coat. You felt like a giant teddy bear. What a prize! And you were so big. You were big enough to send Peter to the emergency room with smashed ribs the day you accidently plowed into him. More doctor bills. Not yours, but you did cause them.

The most charming thing, though, was your absolute devotion. Most of the other northern breed dogs we’ve had were somewhat aloof. Not you. You were never more than a few feet from any one of us. You even rested your head on our feet when we were busy in the kitchen. That made it hard to get much cooking done. But it was so nice.

I’m sorry we couldn’t help you out of this final jam. We tried. But nobody knew what was wrong. Maybe it was something that you’d been carrying all the way from that puppy time. You certainly never could gain weight. Even with all of your fur you were too lean.

It’s been a hard month for you. We didn’t like to see you so sad. Olaf, you were one of the very best. We miss you so much.