Some of you know my Chihuahua, Dobie. He came to live with us back in 2006. I had just turned 50, with the typical mid-life crisis, bought a big-ass motorcycle and a tiny little dog.
Our family has had dogs ever since our daughters were little: they’re great for companionship, life lessons, and developing allergy resistance when you’re young.
But Dobie was the first dog specifically for me—my responsibility to feed, water, litter train, clean up after, and generally keep happy and healthy. Together, we worked out 21 tricks: sit, stay, come, lie down, back up, crawl, speak, hush, shake hands, wave, spin, roll over, play dead, prairie dog, get it, stand, walk (hind legs), twirl (hind legs), up, down, kisses.
He’s now middle aged. A few weeks ago he developed a luxated patella, so most of those tricks are over with. Lately he’s been off his food. Most of yesterday and last night he spent vomiting. The family and I just got back from the vet, and Dobie has a bit of a heart murmur and a whole lot of renal failure.
I had to ask. The vet said with special diet and care, about a year to a year-and-a-half . . .
Shakespeare wrote: “This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, / To love that well which thou must leave ere long.” Yeah, I get it. Life’s transience is what makes things so precious. That’s still not how I’d make a world.
But it’s what we’ve got. So for the next year or two, or however long, my family and I will take special care to make sure Dobie’s life continues to be good and full of love. He doesn’t know. I wish I didn’t. But for what time remains, under the cloud of that knowledge, I’ll bask in the light of his personality.
And if you’ll forgive just a bit of maudlin sentimentality, of all the tricks we worked out together, I’m especially glad that as his health declines and others go away, “kisses” is the one to remain.