the little black dog

they have all kinds of fancy names, now, for the kind of childhood i had. my personal favorite is "underprivileged", although i'll be damned if i knew it at the time. we almost never got the cool toys that other kids got. we certainly never went on the cool vacations, to hawaii or disneyland. we never got cool clothes or hair "styles". but we had one thing that none of the other kids had - we had misty.

misty was a feisty little black mutt we got in 1977, when i was six. before we knew it, every other kid in the neighborhood had a dog, too - but none of them were misty. she was well-behaved and loving and very smart. she knew a dozen or so tricks, including jumping through a hoop, sneezing and growling on command, and dropping dead when you made your fingers into a gun and said, "bang, bang!" at twelve, she was every bit as active and goofy as she had been at two.

mom's favorite memory of misty was when she took her to be spayed. we'd only had her for a short time and mom had to leave her at the vet's overnight. when she went to pick her up, misty had a funny, guilty look on her face - like she felt badly for thinking she may have been abandoned.

loyalty and devotion would be misty's strongest qualities through her life. at noon and 5:00, misty would beg to be let out so she could sit on the porch and wait for mom to come home. at different points during the years, both lorne and i lost her - being careless with her while out for a walk. no matter how far away we were, or how certain we were that she was gone forever, misty would always be waiting on the porch when we finally arrived home to face the music. one time mom had our school bus/motor home out front, with the driveway gate open, getting it ready for a trip. as she started it, misty rushed out the gate and up the steps of the bus. if we were going somewhere, misty was coming with us. and she loved the bus, where she was reigning queen. on the bus, everybody always had time to sit with and pet misty.

we finally had to put misty to sleep on april 8, 1995, at the age of seventeen and a half. it was the single most difficult decision i've ever had to make, and i was the final hold-out in the family. she was nearly, if not completely, deaf and blind. her arthritis made it very difficult for her to stand most days, let alone walk. she had almost no control over her bodily functions. but i just didn't think that it was too much to ask for us to have to take a little extra care of her, after all the care

she'd given us over the years. i would race home after work - on the days i actually left her - and hold her in my lap while i put her bedding through the wash. sometimes i'd have to feed her from my hand. i got to the point where i could hear the lightest of scratching on the floor, while i was asleep downstairs. and when that happened, i'd often sit up with her most of the night, trying to coax her to settle down and go back to sleep.

misty's worst problem was that nobody ever told her she wasn't a puppy any longer. if she had ever stopped eating or given up trying, it would have been easier to help her go. but misty never stopped trying to do all the things she always had. it broke my heart, but if she wasn't going to give up, i certainly wasn't going to give up for her.

having the morning to do over again, i would grab her and run as far and as fast as possible. but i think that she was finally ready to go - she was very docile, as she laid in my lap that morning. i'd set an early alarm, so i could sit with her as long as possible. then i gave her a last hug and left the house. i didn't want to be there when she left, and i certainly didn't want to be there when mom brought her home.

i'd made a little tag for her collar that said, "unconditional love". mom buried her in the backyard, at the property line. even if the house is torn down, they probably won't disturb that portion of the property. the grave is marked with two stones and covered by a red rosebush. every year, i plant a new garden of pink begonias and forget-me-nots.

i still go out there and talk to her, sometimes, when i have a problem.