It’s About A Dog
I.
Ever wake up from a dead sleep knowing something’s terribly wrong? Yeah, my sister’s dog had a knack for that shit.
One winter some years back my sister asked if I would dogsit Oliver for the night. I said of course. Me and my fuzzy little homie hung out, a couple dudes with time on our hands. I ate frozen pizza, drank rum, and played video games in between fetch sessions with ol’ Butthead. When he had to go out he’d give The Butt SignalTM and I’d take him down the elevator to the patch of grass across the parking lot. We did that a couple times then, after hours of degenerate bonding, we snuggled up on the couch and fell asleep.
Then Oliver was gone. The half-drunk fog lifted as my too-little-too-late Spidey-sense kicked on. “Bud, what’s up, what’re you doing?” He scrambled to the front door, I stumbled to my feet in pursuit. Was there an intruder? What the fuck was going on?
Oliver ran as far away as he could, which is to say, not far at all. Turns out he’s a dog, and thus, kind of stupid. He was cornered, desperate for an out, for salvation. There was none.
Oliver looked me square in the eye as diarrhea poured from his asshole like a broken soft-serve machine. There was nothing he could do; that was plain. That didn’t change the puddles of brown filth spreading across my sister’s new white carpet like some horrific Amazonian tidal change.
“Oh, dude. Buddy.”
It was Katrina if the levees were Oliver’s butt. FEMA was nowhere to be found. I did what I could and waited until 6AM before calling my sister. She groggily answered the phone.
“Erin, you should probably come home. Your dog just shit all over your condo…. Yeah, no, you heard me.”
When she got home we took him to the vet. Oliver was a notoriously fickle dog with a notoriously temperamental belly, and we assumed this was another excursion down that tributary. We were wrong. The vet wanted to keep him overnight.
II.
Thus began a months long journey trying to figure out what was wrong with Butthead. The vet found nothing definitively wrong despite his being unwell searing itself into my eyeballs, nostrils, and sister’s carpet. The doc recommended dietary changes and they seemed to work, for a time.
Months later my sister made a desperate 2AM run to the veterinarian ER in a raging blizzard while my mom held Oliver in the backseat, wrapped in towels, as he vomited and shit out blood. “He just kept looking at me with those eyes,” my mom said.
My family gathered in the vet’s office, my parents, sister, and I. The doctor showed us an X-ray and said, “This little grey smudge? We think it’s the cause of his issues. But it could be anything – we can’t know what it is unless we cut him open. That costs $5,000. That $5,000 doesn’t guarantee that we can treat him once we cut him open; if it’s cancer, for instance, it may be inoperable. But we don’t know anything, and won’t know anything… unless we cut him open.”
My sister couldn’t afford exploratory surgery. I certainly couldn’t.
I’ve seen my dad cry 4 times. This was number 3. He broke down – the rest of us had been crying for hours – and said Fuck it, he’s paying for surgery. We all blubbered over Oliver, praying this wasn’t our last goodbye but knowing it could be. The vet tech took his leash and Butthead leapt off the table and pranced down the hallway. As he disappeared through the swinging double doors to a surgery that he may never wake from, I thought, “That… he doesn’t look like a sick dog.”
We went to a bar. Hours later my sister’s phone rang.
The vet came out and in somber doctor-tones told us that Oliver ate the squeaker out of a squeak toy and it perforated his colon. The hole leaked filth into his body and fucked everything up, but they removed the squeaker and patched the hole and he should be fine.
There was a pause while we absorbed the information.
“What an asshole,” I said.
That was 2014. Oliver lived some really good years after that, albeit with toys no longer containing squeakers. Thanks again, Dad.
III.
Death, taxes, and talking about Oliver’s dumps at the dinner table with my family. These three absolutes govern the modern world.
Uncountable meals were ruined. “I took Oliver out before -“
“Please don’t -” I would start before everyone else interjected.
“Did he poop?”
“He did, a couple times -“
“Oh please god no -“
” – by the bay was fine but then this afternoon he made the “Take Me Out” noise [aka The Butt SignalTM] and I barely got him out the door before he unloaded -“
” – Was it solid?”
” – Oh no, it was all over the yard, I got the hose -“
“Yo, fuck this, I’m done.”
I lived in California at the time so I can only assume this was standard operating procedure whenever my sister and folks ate together. Now we talk about my sister’s babies’ poops, which is no real treat, either. I’ll be chastised for burping, but they’ll graphically describe the foulest things to emerge from Oliver’s butt with an alarming lack of situational awareness, typically when food is halfway to my face.
“For FUCK’S SAKE guys knock it off!”
[I realize that I also – very recently – detailed a particular bowel movement of my man Oliver. In my defense, A) It’s kind of funny, now that my sister has moved; B)That story was a fucking event, and apparently I cope with trauma by telling the world about it, and C) I didn’t lead with an invitation to the dinner table.]
Because of my geographical handicap I only saw my family 2 or 3 times a year. My sister was Oliver’s 4th or 5th owner. There were a lot of people in that dude’s life over the years. I was always very flattered that he remembered me.
***
What we pieced together about Oliver’s past is this: He was from Massachusetts or wherever and the father of the family that owned him went to jail for physically abusing his children. Oliver was given up for adoption and an old couple took him. He was a stubborn-as-fuck alpha and this permanent home didn’t stick. His vet took him in but for one reason or another he was given up again. Enter my sister onto the scene.
I still remember the day she picked Oliver up, vividly. I surfed, came home and was like, “Holy fuck, she did it, there’s a dog in our driveway.” (We weren’t allowed pets growing up because of mine and my dad’s allergies. Mine I kind of outgrew, but guess who started going to the allergist twice a week for shots so he could hang out with that fuckin’ dog? Yeah.) I played with him on the apron of the garage in my half-undone wetsuit for an hour before we went inside. He was so shaggy, his eyes completely overgrown. I was smitten.
That night my sister went to work and Oliver and I hung out. I made jokes all night about how he was my dog and his name was Charlie, or Winston, or Napolean – I hadn’t decided yet. I was only half-kidding.
Before I fell asleep I patted my bed and he jumped right up. Oh yeah, this is definitely my dog now. My sister came home around midnight and Charlie/Winston and I were still awake, all snugged up.
She smiled and said, “C’mon Oliver, c’mere boy -”
– and clapped her hands –
– and homeboy fucking lost it.
The snarls and noises coming from this tiny little body were shocking. The hair on my arm stood up and I reflexively scootched away from this fucking animal on my bed that went from docile snuggle-buddy to bloodthirsty wolverine like that. He calmed down eventually, but we had long talks that night about whether or not there was a reason my sister was his 4th or 5th owner.
We built a theory that went like this: the father of Oliver’s original family would come home in his Honda (homeboy would go apeshit if someone on our street remote-locked certain late-model Honda’s) and come into the children’s room, in the dark, where presumably Oliver, the alpha, tried to protect his family. He was unsuccessful, given that we heard the children spent time in the hospital.
Butthead was especially touchy at night, then, which could be tricky. The response never approached the level we saw his first night, and he would still growl when approached, but eventually I trusted our bond and just talked to him as I picked him up. He’d growl the whole time but as soon as I put him where he needed to be he would lick my hand to say he didn’t mean it, he couldn’t help it. I knew. We were on the same page.
He also freaked out on tape-measures (but had no problem with air compressors or nail guns) and people who spoke Spanish. We assured everyone he wasn’t racist, because he probably wasn’t. How could we ever know what was truly in his heart, though? I mean, he was awfully white.
Clapping, though, clapping he fucking hated. And yelling, he hated that shit, too. Eagles games were tough. The most beautiful Super Bowl the world has ever seen was an exercise in reining in the un-rein-in-able. The entire 4th quarter was spent holding that little bastard in my arms while I power-walked circles around my parents’ kitchen table and simultaneously hi-fived my whole family while shushing Butthead. What a day.
IV.
I walked through my sister’s front door for the first time in over a year on Friday. Oliver came straight over, ears back, dragging his rear left leg. My initial horror at his physical state was overshadowed by the warmth in my belly. I hadn’t seen him in 19 months, but he still remembered me. I was tickled pink.
My sister was pregnant, scheduled to be in induced on Monday. I hadn’t seen any of my family in a full calendar year so the weekend was a blur of hugs and laughs and drinks (for everyone but my sister; being pregnant, especially during a pandemic, sounds like such a fucking drag) that allowed me to bury what I inherently knew about Butthead in the small, dark, recesses of my brain.
But on Monday, my sister and brother-in-law went to the hospital in order to return with a brand new teeny human (!), and my parents handled 15 month old Lily in their stead, while Oliver became my responsibility. On Monday my heart sank. He could barely walk. His back legs splayed haphazardly out in every direction. I carried him from his food bowl to the couch to outside when he gave The Butt SignalTM, and back again.
It was a perfect symbiotic relationship: he got help with the things he needed and also belly rubs, and I got to hang out with my homie. I’d do it again, in a heartbeat, forever. He’s my buddy, and would do the same for me; that’s what buddy’s do.
As the day went on he seemed to gain strength and coordination, but that was the first time I cried over him. I knew he was dying. My sister was in the hospital, and I couldn’t bear the idea of having to make decisions regarding his care. But I was scared that my hand would be forced.
“You gotta hold on, buddy. At least one more day. You gotta be here when they get home, dude. That’s a good boy, you’re a good boy, buddy, good boy.”
Tuesday was better. Oliver barked in front of his box of toys, demanding that I root through all of them until finding the one he wanted. Like a good boy he chased the tennis ball my niece slapped around with a wooden spoon. He flopped down the deck stairs into the snow when he had to shit and I couldn’t get my boots on quick enough.
I began to believe that he’d live like this forever and I was perfectly happy to believe this lie.
Wednesday and Thursday were mixed bags, but nothing so hard as Monday. My brand-new niece came home from the hospital and I quietly updated my brother-in-law on Oliver’s quality of life checks. We took a lot of selfies.
V.
Today started the same. I carried Butthead outside and down to the snow. He rolled around, at home and at peace, a little polar bear in his element.
But he wasn’t right. Without the depressing details, he needed a bath. Freshly shampooed and blow-dried, he lay wrapped in a towel on the couch. We ate breakfast and returned to find him in the exact spot as before. All of his favorite people were in the back room, and he stayed on the couch. This was uncharacteristic, and a real sign that things were devolving.
A few hours later Oliver gave The Butt SignalTM and needed another bath.
I would have showered him as often as needed. I would have carried him from the couch where we slept to his food to the bathroom, forever. His body was failing. Life’s basic functions were fleeting. The window of dignity he’d earned and deserved was closing. This was the 4th time I’d seen my dad cry.
In my head – in every scenario – I was with Ollie at the vet. My sister would be with her 3 day old baby and physically unable so I would go, probably with my brother-in-law but alone if need be. I’d jump on that grenade, for them, for my buddy. I never thought I’d say goodbye before the end.
There was no discussion. Erin and Rob were taking him to the vet.
I put my head on his back and hugged him as best as I could. I loved him so much; he was the closest I’ve ever come to having my own dog. I was so grateful to sleep with him on the couch again for the past nights. I breathed into his fur.
“Thanks for waiting for me to come back, buddy.”
And then he was gone. My sister carried him to the car and held him in her lap. The last I saw of him were his pointy white ears, just barely protruding over the dash.
***
Teacher’s have a thing called Teacher Voice, and my sister’s is well-practiced . Teacher Voice kept Oliver in check. I would yell at him, for 5 full minutes, to, “Shut the fuck up you’re barking at your own shadow, you horses’ ass.” My sister just had to walk in with one eyebrow raised. He’d know he lost, and he’d be pissed. Then, a chastened child caught in the act, he’d slink off to his crate before my sister even said a word.
She was clearly the authority figure; the parent, if you will. In this metaphor that makes Oliver my brother. We’d fuck off together and leave the responsibilities to the grown-ups. My sister and parents complained about his early morning calls of nature. Not this guy!
He’d chill in my bed until ten AM or so, knowing better than to think I was getting out of bed (I would, and I did – often – but the point is he barked and they all snapped into butler-mode and oh here’s some peanut butter for you Ollie). He’d give The Butt SignalTM and I’d open my door without leaving my bed for him to go bother someone more responsible in the house. When I heard his collar jingle back on down the hallway I’d open my door – again, without getting out of bed – and he’d jump up and we’d snooze off whatever hangover I had recently collected, together.
So, yeah, after all those words I still have to admit I was #3 in Oliver’s Affection Pecking Order. My sister’s husband, Rob, was Oliver’s Fucking Dude. I could go toe-to-toe with my sister (a #2 so distant she’s almost #3), vying for Oliver’s attention – I’d lose, but I’d write it off as my man being intelligent enough to recognize who butters his bread.
But Rob? I’ve never been cold-shouldered harder.
My parents tried to warn me when my sister started dating Rob.
“Ooooooh Oliver found a new best friend!”
“Yeah, ok.”
“You’ll see,” they’d say, all smug. I so rarely get my comeuppance that even my parents, my sweet and optimistic parents, delight in seeing me eat shit. Oh yeah, I fucking saw, alright. Oliver’s devotion to Rob was an impenetrable fortress. No treat could sway him. No ball enticing enough, no amount of peanut butter made a dent. This was bullshit.
After I my final goodbye to Oliver I hugged Rob. I knew he was being strong for my sister, for all of us. I said, He knows how important you are to her, that’s why he chose you.
***
It’s snowing just enough to cover his paw prints on the deck. Thank god. I don’t need to be reminded of him plopping around just this afternoon. He loved the snow, that little polar bear.
I spent a full week sleeping on my sister’s couch with him. I’m writing this on my phone, under blankets on that couch right now. He’s not here. I’m used to not seeing him for long stretches so it’s easy to pretend. But I know, and I miss him.
