[This was written on September 12, 2004.  My dog died some weeks later.]

As I look back on it now, I took 13 by the reins and lived. That hadn’t been true for a while and it wouldn’t again be true for a while.

I was a goody-two shoes and cheated (got caught) on a test. I took charge, took a chance in something more consequential than lunch. I dished out, on one occasion, what I had been taking for many years (really pissed off a classmate who’d been a serious bitch to me for years). I got up in front of the school and showed them I was anything but worthless, and in an environment where they hadn’t the hope of fighting back.

France that summer was hot. My parents had picked that summer as the most feasible for such a trip – the economy was good (this was back in ’95, probably around the beginning of the tech boom), my siblings were old enough to remember it but not so old that the kiddy stuff would be too young for them, and with my grandfather dead as of January there was no giant pause waiting for him to die anymore. The weather was the one thing that didn’t cooperate. I have never lived through so much 10 PM heat as I did that summer. The sun would go down between about 9:30 and 10 every night, and that shit was out in a matter of minutes. 15, max. It’d be about as bright at 930 as it had been at 6. My siblings and I would be in one room talking about stuff. Then, one of us would happen to glance out the window and you’d swear the sun had just up and left, it was that quick.

It was the sort of summer where you do a lot of growing up, but you don’t realize it until later. Most of the growing up I did was realizing that yes, some people will always be asses no matter how strong a genetic link you have to them, and the best thing you can do is avoid them. I also learned that European nettles - I didn’t know I’d encountered the American version before – sting like a bitch if you aren’t used to it. Then again, stuff hurts a lot more when you’re young than it does when you get older. I can’t remember the last time I cried because of physical pain.

For the duration of our stay in France, the two family dogs were kept in a sort of kennel thing (I was 13, I had no part of the plans). I’d been slated to take two more weeks and spend them in Ireland with some relatives who happened not to be assholes (this made my stay considerably more pleasant). Irish weather was a bit more forgiving than French – it rained twice in two weeks, down from the national average but up from the lackluster performance French clouds had given. I got to see 35 different shades of green, which was fine for me because I have never really given a damn about nature – in terms of looking at it, that is.

I’d gotten a call at the beginning of the Ireland trip that one of our dogs had died on the night before everyone else got back to America. Evidently she’d died of bloat, which happens when dry dog food isn’t appropriately wetted down, and the result is that the food expands in the dog’s digestive system and basically takes a nap there until further notice. There often isn’t one, and the dog dies.

That’s what happened with Annie, a dog who basically existed and didn’t do a hell of a lot, but she was massive and deterred would-be thieves and such because she was just so fucking massive. She was a very obvious mastiff, and you don’t want to go messing around with a mastiff you don’t know when it’s midnight. You usually don’t want to go messing around with a mastiff at all, but some folks are more daring when they have a better chance of winning a lawsuit. For my money, I’ll keep my body intact and just go without the crap a thief would have gotten (old TV, broken weight bench, two children, etc. Kinda hard to steal a washer and dryer if you gotta drag it a good distance).

I got back to America with about a month left in the summer, and the family went new-dog shopping. Keeping in our tradition of getting dogs instead of an electric alarm system, my parents had picked a Rottweiler as our next dog of choice. Our German Shepherd was fairly imposing (even moreso when a police officer was attempting to write a ticket), but her hips, as happens when you breed dogs to be larger than their skeletal system would like, had seen better days.

I don’t remember a hell of a lot about dog-shopping. I think we only made it to one breeder, but for all I know we might have gone to fifteen. It didn’t much matter how many we went to – once we got to a particular breeder’s place, it was all over.

Down we went into the basement where the puppies were kept - this isn’t a story about dog abuse, so don’t think this is going to go “I never saw so many puppies living in such squalor” or anything. There were … several puppies. More than 2, less than twenty.

Some of them, as dictated by the law of averages, were either sleeping or trying to hide. Picture a bunch of two-year-olds trying to hide and you’ll get an image proportionally similar to what we saw. Puppies can walk, but they still stumble around a good bit, and if they are falling over each other trying to hide from The Strangers, it can be somewhat comical.

Some of them were barking very loudly in what I am sure meant “Hey, you come any closer and I’ll bark a lot louder! You wouldn’t like me when I bark louder! I can give a guy a mean headache! By the way, where’s the other dog? You smell like dog. A lot.”

At least one of them peed, either out of nerves or … well, animals pee. Duh. The breeder was very embarrassed until my father pointed out A) four kids B) 3 dogs (1 then, but we’d had two previous) C) it’s a PUPPY. It’s going to pee.

One of the remaining puppies (out of those who had not peed, weren’t sleeping, barking while not threatening or trying to hide) came forth and said “Hi! I am going home with you. Run run run mouth run run mouth. Run run RUN mouth mouth run run skitter crash mouth! I am okay, though mouth. Run run mouth run run! Oh yes, pet me mouth. Dude, that’s mouth my paws and stuff. But hey, you mouth wanna play with my claws, run run run, fine. Aren’t mouth they pretty? I can mouth use them and stuff, but mouth not now. Run mouth run run. You are a mouth kid! I mouth am mouth a mouth kid mouth too mouth! We mouth will mouth have mouth lots mouth of mouth fun! What are you holding so high about your head? Can I have it? I want it. It must be important since you’re holding it so high. I think I should take it so I can protect it. Can I have it? I want it!”

What can I tell you? My brother, at the tender age of … newly-minted 7, had some things to learn.

The puppy was definitely for keeps. She had picked us. I think she probably would have found a way to get into our car and sneak home if we hadn’t agreed to be picked by her.

We took her home and Greta (the German Shepherd) was Not Pleased. A little puppy to run around and start shit and hide under the furniture - Katie the Rottie quickly found out that she was small enough to fit under parts of furniture where Greta couldn’t even get her snout in. A little puppy to run around and make Greta’s hips stop working properly.

Greta was top dog, you see. Greta had to control things. With one dog this was fine. She just had expanded duties with Annie missing. But a puppy was an entirely new set of duties. This little annoyance not only had to be taught, she had to be kept in line. We hadn’t even consulted Greta beforehand, though I doubt she would have admitted another dog into the house; puppies have this annoying habit of peeing when they feel like it. This makes the trip downstairs from upstairs more hazardous, as linoleum gets wet and inhibits traction. They also have this knack for thinking everything is theirs to bite, climb on, eat, pee on, nudge, break, bite, take, bite, bark at, bite, chase, bite, play with and, lastly, bite.

Greta accepted this task with deep sense of honor. She was doing this for her people. We had added something to her job description, and by the sacred code of dogs she would fulfill her obligations. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t bitch out Katie at every opportunity, though. Katie would continue to hide under stuff until she got too big - which didn’t take long. You ever seen a full-grown Rottweiler hide under a chair? Not so much. Katie would continue to run the length of the yard just to narrowly miss hitting Greta, who would bark at her with ferocity I have seen rarely elsewhere. Greta wasn’t mad at her for being reckless: she was mad at her for daring to be so carefree during her workday. Greta’s workday began around 6 AM and lasted until around 10 or 11 that night. Katie’s workday gradually increased from five minutes to about five hours a day while Greta was training her.

Then Greta stopped training her. But first, short backstory. I had been away at school for most of this, and had only known about it through the occasional trip home or the occasional phone call. Greta’s hips had been getting worse, as had other parts of her body. I had seen and heard about this. She was to have surgery for some sort of uterine problem (memories disagree on the specific problem). She went in on a Monday and came out on a Friday, but she didn’t come out in the traditional sense. Our feeling was that she woke up from the surgery, found her hips were still not working properly, waited patiently for her family to come back and, when they did not, sensed that she was no longer able to perform as she required for the position.

It rips my fucking heart out to think (even though it would have meant yet more pain and hardship for her) that the ending might have been different if we’d gone about things differently. I miss her as much as I miss any other living thing I’ve yet known. That’s the kind of dog that doesn’t draw comparison; she draws adulation. Most folks will never have the sort of bond with anyone that we had with her. Most people have pet names or nicknames for people, and they’re meant to be amusing. Greta was The Noble Dog, and ain’t none of that a joke. Bitch took her job seriously, and if you got in her way that wasn’t going to be a happy situation for you. There’s a police officer somewhere who will attest to that.

Greta was dead, though. The Noble Dog became … well, an aspiration. I’m not sure Katie got enough instilled in her to be the same dog Greta was, but then maybe she was meant to be a different dog. Anyway, I went back to school the day after Greta died, and that was some tough, tough shit. That also continued a string of times I would leave behind a situation when I wanted the exact opposite. I didn’t need Geometry or Latin in the months following Greta’s death, and maybe my final average of 67 in Geometry shows how much I was paying attention.

When I got home there was a new Shepherd there. She was nothing like Greta. To this day she is very shy and very quiet and very … afraid? She’ll stand up when it needs to be done, but for the most part she’ll let the other two dogs do what needs doing and make sure the little things are in order.

I say the other two because at some point, after we got Katie and Clare (the new Shepherd), we got a Doberman with more energy than ten sugar-fueled toddlers. We named him Rocket and that dog will not sit still for more than five seconds unless there’s something serious riding on it. I’m convinced he has the memory of a gnat when it comes to some things because each trip outside, each retrieval of a bone, each discovery of a blanket is The First Time Ever. It is as exciting to him as anything in the world.

With Clare firmly nestled in as Beta Dog (this was before Rocky supplanted her), Katie was assured Top Dog status. Not Noble Dog, who would not have asserted her status so much as known what to do so no title other than The Noble Dog was needed – there was no Top Dog, there was The Dog and The Other Dog. Katie was Top Dog and did a lot of learning about what it takes. Her inner child never faded, whereas Greta was born pretty well bent on doing her duty if she could. Katie’s motivation was fun; Greta’s had been pride. Nobody did shit to Greta’s family, which meant her job was complete. Katie’s fun was taking note of every passer-by (if I had a mill for every time she ran from one side of the yard to the other to make sure that a pedestrian went past the house, I could have retired comfortably back in 1997), every animal, any balls thrown, children outside, whatever. A printed list of stuff she noticed would rival the paper in the Library of Congress. She and Greta had different approached, but they both did their jobs.

Every time I have been home, it has been An Event for Katie. She must be sure that I am okay, that no other animal has harmed me and that I still remember I am her human and her master’s puppy. People say that you own a dog, but a cat owns you. Bullshit. Dogs own you too. A dog will use your hand to pet itself just as much as a cat will say “Excuse me. I wasn’t done petting myself with that. You’ll simply have to wait to put on your socks.” A dog will announce that she is prepared for a belly rub every damn bit as much as a cat. A cat cleans you with his tongue; a dog marks you and figures out where you’ve been (and why the hell you didn’t bring her along!). I am still Katie’s puppy every bit as much as I am Greta’s puppy (she was my dog; I remain her puppy).

Katie has never lost her motivation even through joint pain, additions to the family (two more dogs), people moving out and … well, anything. She asserts herself as much now as she did back in the day, though with different results. Greta never did quite instill in her the sense of human helplessness: who but a dog can get you out of a moving violation without even having to go to court AND will keep your home safe from intruders and for little ones? Katie knows she needs to do her job or stuff will start to fall apart, but she is not quite as relentless as Greta was.

Katie does her job, though. We have never had any trouble with crime. Nothing of ours has ever been stolen, nobody has ever broken in or spray-painted stuff on our belongings, nothing. You live in a house for 14 years and it isn’t secluded, that ain’t luck. That’s a good dog. That’s Greta and Katie, at least 14 years between them. Katie is doing fine, too, if you ask her. No signs of wear, nothing, if you ask her.

If you ask the vet, she has nine months to live, at most. She’s been taking supplements for her joints for a while, and though they’re now pretty good, her left leg isn’t. Katie has cancer. We could amputate the leg, which would leave her with three working legs. You’ve probably seen a three-legged dog. They usually aren’t very big, which helps. Rottweilers aren’t known for being svelte. They’re known for being bricks on legs and being fast, too. Katie with three legs is not an option, and that’s why I’m telling you she has nine months to live, not a spare sock out of every four.

In nine months, Katie will be dead, assuming the vet is correct. Should something unforeseen happen for the worse, that nine months will become a drive to the vet. As long as she’s happy and safe and comfortable, she lives – she wouldn’t admit it, but she favors that leg because – duh – she can’t put much weight on it. The other dogs are giving her a break, and Rocky has probably figured out that he will become Top Dog once she goes.

She isn’t gone yet. There’s still time for me to see her. I can drive up to see her one last time, thereby making the return trip interesting, since I’ll potentially be driving away to let my dog die. I can wait until they put her down before I see her, which will be the first time since I was 14 that she didn’t approve of my travails when I returned from gallivanting somewhere. I can wait until a holiday (Tgiving, Xmas, that sort of thing) to see her, which is a medium-grade risk but doable.

Whatever I do, I am left with the sense that I am abandoning my dog. Staying with her the whole nine months isn’t feasible; forget school, it would drive my parents insane (compared to how they are now). Going up every weekend would turn me into a shell of a human being, emotionally unstable and physically exhausted. Whatever I do, it will not be enough for me and it will not be enough to honor her.

Will she know if I do not come back? Probably so. Animals have more human characteristics than we like to think (it helps us to think of them as being below us, when in reality this is far from the case). I think she will know. I also think she will be saying goodbye to me forever when I go see her. Dogs mostly live in the moment, but in the occasional dog there is the sense that they understand more than you might think.

At some point in the not-distant future, Katie will die. There will be no direct tie to Greta’s mastery of the art of the Family Dog. Clare and Rocky were both taught by Katie, but they did not have the Noble Dog to guide them in their development. Katie’s death will be the complete death of the Noble Dog.

Maybe that is why this hurts twice as much. Maybe that is why I found myself sobbing a few nights ago, unable to block something for the first time in two years because the pain was more than I had anticipated. Maybe that is why the decision I now face feels more difficult to me than most decisions humans make in their lifetimes. For now, I am left at a place where so many have sought solace before: the words of someone else.

Fare thee well, fare thee well. I love thee more than words can tell.