I grew up with dogs most of my life. Usually two, sometimes one, with a couple of shitty cats tossed into the mix over the years. My family and it’s closer branches floated somewhere between those people who treat their pets like they were just animals, and the crazed ‘dog parent’ trend ripping through my generation’s ranks (a whole other rant). Yes, every animal we welcomed into our home was a valued members of our family. Yes, half-jokingly we referred to them as our siblings and so forth and we loved them pretty much as such. No, we did not let them lick our faces nor did we share food with them (at least not until we were done with our plates). We respected them for what they started as, and cared for them for what they became under our roof. There are ten dogs I remember, and together they lend to a strong theme that runs through my life, each with their own personality, origin, and of course, end. This story is about Grace, a golden something-something mixed with a whatchamacallit.

Before Grace, there was Lilly, a blondish whatever-retriever who we got from a shelter days after my mom swore we’d never get a dog after what happened to the last one (super downer, but definitely worth telling). Lilly stuck around for about a decade and you know how it goes. One day you realize you’re opening the car door because the dog can’t jump through the window anymore, Fred Flintstone style. Fetch no longer involves launching a stick into the stratosphere so that it looks like Team Rocket blasting off again. You gotta underhand it now, and that’s fine because it comes on slow, slow for us and slower for them. Lilly was two when we got her, this stern-eyed blonde seemingly out of place in a pen filled with Rottweilers and Dobermans. She was a like a rehabilitated child soldier – she bought into our game but was always ready for war. Man, I wish they could tells us their stories! Ah well.

A year or so before Lilly was gone, a stray showed up at the house. She was lighter in colour, and she was timid and a little jumpy, and she was taken in. I had since moved a few years earlier but was back home often enough and met the wanderer soon after she arrived. Lilly took to her well (after establishing who made the rules) and they got along quite well in what I like to think of as a master/apprentice sort of arrangement. As the training session wore on, ad was put in the paper to find the stray’s owner, and after a while someone did show up. The man said he didn’t give a fuck about the dog and was probably going to have her put down, or something to that measure, and offered nothing but consent for her to be cast into the wind. She was named Grace.

Grace was jittery to start, excitable, but never rough or a pain in the ass. She adapted to the walking trail her predecessors took until the last of which, Lilly, went the way of the others. She fit right in, and over time truly accepted her new home as though it had always been this way. But it wasn’t. We didn’t know her story either, and she couldn’t tell it other than that inexhaustible appreciation she had for every scrap, every walk and every scratch she got. She was as obsessed with playing ball as she was with the toy itself, almost always bringing one with her and having several inside and outside the house to accommodate this absolutely healthy and fun habit. Whatever came before us was either overcome or forgotten as she was great with men, women and children, taking a lot of shit from the toddlers that grappled her in those prime years. But what is to us a simple decade is to them and entire lifetime, and Grace was getting old. Her legs were stiff and one of the front one was shaky, but she chased that ball like it was the first time, every time, even if it wasn’t as far as it used to be.

Tuesday this week my mother sent me a text saying the dog was sick every hour on the hour almost, including through the night and that there was an appointment at the vet set for that morning. This wasn’t my first rodeo; l’m aware of ALL outcomes, especially in this case. At noon they showed up, and with relief I got to see Grace alive, but not well, but at least she was moving and at least last time wasn’t the last time. She was given a shot to help with the nausea and a follow up was slated for Thursday. She slept well, but wasn’t eating. Wednesday, my mother calls me at work to say the dog is vomiting blood and she was going to the vet for an emergency call. “Pick me up on the way.” I said, with my stomach in justified, tight, wrenching knots. At the clinic Grace was sick again and the tough call, which was going to happen sooner or later, was made. Grace died moments after the shot was given, peacefully, quickly, almost obediently, because she was always so eager to please. I’d never seen it go down like that, so simply, I was stunned when she closed her eyes between my hands and put her head on the table. It was as fucked up as it was a dignified, beautiful way for this chapter to be closed. I spent the next few hours in a daze, and most of the evening getting fucked up to digest the impact, and the next day (today) recalling fondly just how lucky we were to have fate choose us to host this rare specimen of purity. Not perfection, but an undiluted being of sheer and constant contentment.

Overall, the experience of dog ownership, companionship, friendship, can be an immensely profitable emotional investment. In this case, Grace had a few bad days over the course of a full canine life and I can speak for everyone when I say this was a two-way street. Will I miss her? Of course. I miss all of them, think of them and that’s part of the experience. We make their lives good, most of us, and in some cases better than surely they feel they deserve depending on the circumstance. That is in itself a reward that we get to cash in whether we like it or not, and I’d have it no other way.

The pack welcomes you Gracie, and I can’t wait to see you all again.

RIP