Once upon a time, a couple of young newlyweds bought their first house. It seemed big and empty, and the wife became obsessed with the idea of getting a dog. They searched the newspapers—this was long before Craig’s List—and found a litter of labs born on a farm in Kansas. The mother was a yellow lab and the father a husky red-fox lab, yellow with a whole lot of red in him. When the couple traveled to Denver to pick out the new addition to their family, they wondered how they would ever choose just one. Then the one with a smudge of dirt on his ear caught their eye. They watched him for the next half-hour until they decided he was definitely the one. It wasn’t until they had him at home that they realized it wasn’t mud on his ear after all, and it wasn’t going away.
The puppy grew up way too quickly, as puppies do, and made quick work of shredding two couches. One day the couple came home to find a pile of snow in the backyard. It was July. He had dragged the couch cushions out the dog door and shredded them to smithereens. Another time they came home to find him sitting on the couch with the TV on, the remote under his paw. He was completely out of control in those early days, and his young, naïve owners felt helpless against his boundless energy and persistence. A coworker sensitively pulled the wife aside one day and asked her, after she showed up with one too many scratches and black eyes, if she was “having any problems at home.” She answered, “I have a dog.”
The wife took him to training classes. They helped. They began running together. The husband took him across the street to an open space with a little stream, and they played for hours. Exercising their dog was not an option; it was a necessity. The couple learned that good behavior is directly proportionate to good exercise—a good lesson for future parents.
The husband bought a business, and the wife spent long, long hours alone. The dog became her baby. When the woman became pregnant with a real baby, the dog gained weight with her. On the day she left for the hospital, she bent down between contractions, held her 100-pound baby in what remained of her lap, and promised, “I will never love this baby as much as I love you.” She returned three days later, startled to find that her dog was really just a dog.
She loved him still. But things had changed.
The babies kept coming, one after another. The dog got less exercise and less attention. But he was fiercely protective of the babies. After the arrival of the first daughter, the wife tried to leave the two children at the park with the grandma and go for a run with the dog, but he would not leave their side. She forced him to go, but when she let him off his leash a half-mile away, he bolted back to the children and stood guard by the swingset.
He may or may not have loved the children, but he endured them well. He let them sit on him. Pull his tail. Brush his hair. Dress him up in superhero costumes. They, in turn, let him eat their toast crust and slobber on their feet.
And then time slipped away, as time will do. He calmed down. He calmed way down. He began sleeping the better part of the day, only really coming to life when the family was seated at a table full of food. One day (literally, one day) he lost his hearing, and he became more belligerent. He still obeyed the husband’s commands, but to the wife, he gave a look that said, “Really? What are you going to do to me?” Then he stole the food off the baby’s plate when she wasn’t looking.
One day, the family moved. They planned to take the dog with them, but as he struggled to get up the stairs at their old home, it became clear that he wouldn’t make it living on the second story. Besides, at the equivalent of 90-something years old, this was his home, and the wife became convinced that this was where his days should end.
In his final weeks, he received more love and attention than in his final four or five years. He went on walks (slow, short walks) with the family. He sat on the deck for hours with the breeze blowing through his ears. The day before he died, the oldest daughter threw the ball down the hill for him to retrieve. He went after it, making his usual concentric circles in the ravine below, sniffing everywhere, until at last giving up and making the slow, burdensome trip back up the hill. The family was planning to take him for a walk, but he seemed too tired. They stayed at the house for a few hours, but he stayed alone in his basement, sliding door open, breeze in his ears. And that’s where he died the next day. Today.
They don’t seem like the same people they were when they picked him up that day 13 ½ years ago. They have tripled in number. They’ve lived more, hurt more, loved more. Zeke was there for it all. They grew up with him, and he grew old with them. He had a good life, and he was greatly loved.
