What if you had a friend who periodically came over to your house and peed on your carpet? Who loved to come over and hang out with you but never made conversation - just sat there in the living room staring at whatever you were eating? What if this friend was absolutely thrilled to take walks around the neighborhood with you, but consistently shouted threats at dogs, at squirrels, and at small children? That is to say, imagine you adopt a dog, but it turns out to be Owen, the Worst Dog in the World?
I didn’t want a dog. They’re a lot of work and I already have a lot of work, and I know that dog maintenance tends to fall on fathers, in the same way that other chores do, like trimming the hedges or going to Home Depot on Saturday mornings. But the kids wanted a dog, and made all the usual promises vis-a-vis walking, cleaning up after, and bathing the dog. Who could say no?
There was not a day in the past seven and a half years that I woke up and did not have to rush around to try to get Owen outside before he peed on a rug or pooped in the basement. He destroyed at least one area rug with his pee. He literally peed on my mother’s Christmas present last December.
There were certain foods that I tended not to eat because he would be so desperate to get them. A warm bagel drove him out of his mind with desire. A piece of toast, ribs, a slice of American cheese - he’d sit there, a panting vulture, desperate for you to drop a crumb. Disruptive is what I call it! Disruptive to the digestion.
He was not only a smelly dog, but an unattractive one, the exception being post grooming. For a few weeks after grooming, he was undeniably cute. But a month later he would revert to form, which was “chupacabra”. Coarse gray-black fur sticking out in every direction. Little coal black eyes peering out of a mass of fur like two black marbles stuck on a pile of dirty black yarn.
As the poet said, “I thought our days were commonplace - thought they’d number in the millions”, and I was grimly resigned to them. This past week he had been a little down - a round of flu, I figured. So I took my time taking him to the vet. But yesterday the vet diagnosed him with diabetic ketoacidosis - one of those things like “anterior cruciate ligament” or “Iwo Jima”: words that go from being just random syllables to something burned into your consciousness once you know what they mean. Owen had never been diagnosed with diabetes - he was always as indestructible as a cockroach. But now he was going to need to stay at a hospital and we’d have to go into considerable debt, and it might not work anyway - he had also developed a heart murmur.
My wife and I had said many, many times in the past that if it came down to it, we were not the kind of people who would spend $6,000 or $7,000 we didn’t have on a dog. So in a matter of minutes, the discussion went from “What’s wrong with my dog?” to “This is it?”
And it was. Yesterday afternoon, the vet put him down. And now I think: $7k? Not so bad. Why didn’t I spend $7K to keep him alive? He could be back from the hospital, peeing on things and chasing children down the block. He was not a good dog - my God, no - he was the worst dog. But he was what a dog is - he loved his family, he loved car rides, he loved bacon, he loved farting, he hated skunks and unfamiliar cats and lightning bugs. He was, grudgingly, part of my life and a good friend and I already miss him
