The thing about dogs

Just after Hank and I got married, we did what a lot of newlyweds do. We flirted with parenthood by adding a fur baby to our lives. Hank picked her out from a shelter in the small country town where he worked at the time. They were calling her Aerial, but we decided to go with Mya, after Riviera Mya, where we’d taken our honeymoon.

I remember him walking in with this little tan puppy. She had a dark face, but was mostly ears. She was a mutt, through and through. Some boxer, German shepherd, maybe some lab. Who the hell knows? She wasn’t what I’d expected and everything I’d dreamed of. I adored her instantly.

The thing about dogs before you have children is that your capacity to care for them seems so vast. In those early days, just the three of us, she took up so much space and energy. We bought her Christmas gifts and took her everywhere. I put her in a sweater and boots in the winter to protect her paws.

She introduced us to the shame and embarrassment that comes with unpredictable little ones. We’d scurry about picking up her rogue poo, explaining it away, “She’s been so good lately. I don’t know why she shit on your new carpet.”

One time, when Hank and I had just moved back from Indianapolis and were living with my parents while we looked for our own place, Mya ate an entire brisket off the counter on New Year’s day. Out of fear my father would kill her, my mom told him she’d made up a bunch of sandwiches for Hank to take hunting. My dad shrugged, left the room and Mya was spared from his meat-motivated wrath. We didn’t tell him the truth until years later.

But while she was no canine saint, Mya did the job that all fur babies do. She taught us that we could keep another being alive. We could parent. We could love beyond the inconveniences. The messes. So, we welcomed a daughter. And then another daughter. And another. Each time, Mya put her nose to the car seat and inspected the pink skin of another human in her home. Always gentle, always curious.

Eventually, Mya became a brown blur in the background of our photos. An unbiased witness to our lives.

To me and Hank, she was now another set of tasks. During the phase of life when the pages of your planner are crammed with orthodontist appointments and well child exams and parent-teacher conferences, Mya had become, to us, something else to manage. Had she been let out? Fed? Given her meds? Check. Check. Check. Moving on to the next thing on the list.

But to our girls, particularly Spike, she was a constant companion. She was as patient and safe as any parent could ever wish for their family pet to be.

One night the girls decided to have a fashion show. They made custom clothes out of tissue paper and posed on the fireplace. Mya got a cape and matching hat. Some time later in the evening, we let her out to go potty, and the gate must have been open because Hank came home to our old mutt strutting down the sidewalk in nothing but a cape.

After leisurely weekend breakfasts, I always toss out any extra pancakes for the birds. Mya would cry at the door as soon as she saw them flying through the sky. We’d let her out and she’d immediately collect the carb rounds and bury them in the flower bed. We’d all forget and then days later I’d look out of the kitchen window and see her digging one up to eat it. She’d look up at me, dirt on her nose, and I’d laugh.

Too early for it to be fair, Mya’s hips started going.

“It’s time to start thinking about …” Hank would say. “Not yet,” I’d dismiss him. A few months would pass and she’d have an accident in the house. “Courtney …” he’d urge. “Not yet,” I’d say, pushing him off.

My admiration for our fur baby had been rekindled since I started working from home. She was always at my feet. Behind my desk chair. On the basement floor while I worked out. To be honest, it felt like taking in a confused elderly woman. I’d apologize for her snoring and loud farts on Zoom calls. She’d go into a room, seem to forget what she was after, and come back to me. We started finding little piddles here and there.

Then, a few weeks ago, she started having accidents in the house. Horrible accidents. She seemed weak and started falling down the stairs. I could hear my mom’s voice in my head: “She’ll let you know when it’s her time.”

I knew she was telling me it was OK to let her go. I sat down on the cold tile floor with her and cradled her grayed face in my hands. The chicks were at the table eating lunch. “Guys,” I choked out. “I think we need to talk about our girl.”

The thing about dogs is, they tell you a lot about people. In Mya’s case, my people. In our pet’s final days, my three girls were so incredibly strong.

We made the decision to set Mya free from her body together, as a family. On our last day with her in our home, JoJo made her a pancake and smeared it with peanut butter. For lunch, she made tacos so Sloppy Joan could drop cheese on the floor for her to lick up one last time. The girls and I took her for a walk around the back path with no leash. She was galloping, until her body caught up with her and she limped to the doorstep. Then we just sat and loved on her for two full hours, a tornado of love and her shedding hair and tears.

Hank came home around 3:30 to take her. Spike and JoJo decided to go with him. Sloppy Joan and I met them at my parent’s farm, where the girls had picked a perfect spot for our fur baby to rest by the pond. We stood over the loose dirt, a stone to forever mark our dog’s final resting place. We all cried and thanked her, the dry grass and bugs unwanted guests tickling our feet.

No one wanted to go home. That made it real. She wouldn’t be there, waiting for us.

“I can’t believe we really did that to her,” JoJo cried.

“She’s been here for my whole life,” Spike sobbed. “She was my favorite dog and I loved her so much. I just can’t process that she won’t be there.”

All Mya ever wanted was our love. If we were happy, she was happy. If we gave her attention, she was over the moon. She asked for so little and gave so much. We couldn’t have asked for a better dog for our family.

The moment you decide to let someone into your heart, you take a ticket for pain. You know full well that the day will come when a power much greater than yourself comes by to punch that ticket and break your heart open into a thousand pieces. But that doesn’t stop us from loving. From taking tickets.

The thing about dogs is, they come with tickets, too.

The thing about dogs is, you know when you get one that they are only yours for a short time. That they can’t be yours forever.

Mya took up space – sometimes a lot and sometimes a little – in our home for 14 years. I still look out the kitchen window to see if she’s digging up pancakes. Sometimes I think I hear her nails on the wood floor when I’m upstairs. I’ll feel like I’m forgetting something, and then realize it’s the old rituals I had in place to care for her.

I miss her.

I tell the girls that our hearts will heal, and the day will come when we can welcome another dog into our home. And I know that’s true. We’ll take another ticket. We’ll love an animal again the way we loved our Mya. The thing about dogs is, there’s always one in need of a family.

Rest easy, sweet Mya Moo.