Herr Pooch

“Mamma says he’s the best of the bunch. See? He don’t cry none when you pick him up by the neck hide.”
“Oh, that don’t mean nothin’. Its if his mouth’s black inside, that’s what counts.”

I can still remember the day we bought him. Mom said we could choose between an above-ground swimming pool in the back yard, or a dog. And well, with Disney’s 101 Dalmatians having been re-released only a few months earlier, the argument for a pool didn’t last long.

“We’ll have a Dalmatian plantation. A Dalmatian plantation, I say!”

I could vaguely remember a line from the movie when Cruella De’Ville was appalled by their ugly appearance when the puppies were born—something about their spots. The lady we bought him from promised he was a full bred Dalmatian and said that his splotchy spots would become more defined as he got older. It occurred to me about a year latter as I was looking at his black and white, pepper colored coat, that either that lady just doesn’t know as much about Dalmatians as she thought she did, or we didn’t know as much about that lady as we thought we did.

“Oh, Roger. You are an idiot.”

When he was a pup I can still remember thinking I’d never seen anything cuter and cuddlier in all my eleven-year old life. I wanted to play with him and hold him all the time, but of coarse, I had to split time with my sisters and he just slept so darn much. I can still remember carrying him over to my best friend Ray’s cul-de-sac, not necessarily for Ray to see him, but because, whenever the pup came, he had a magical ability to draw out the Nickels twins and the Farnsworth girls and all of a sudden, I felt like Don Juan D’Marco.

“He’s a HERO!”
“Then why’s he wear a mask, huh? What’s he got to hide?”

Aside from his smeared black spots, he had two big black patches that covered his ears and his eyes. It looked like he was wearing a mask, so… we named him Bandit. Mom usually called him “the pooch.” I think to this day, Mom still would have rather had a swimming pool :) and avoiding the use of a proper noun was a good way for her to keep from getting too attached. I don’t think I ever called him by his given name. I’d call him Poochie Kins, Mr. Pooch, Herr Pooch (German, of coarse, for Mr. Pooch), and Ray and I, one day, decided to put a Spanish twist to his name by calling him Bandito el Puppo.

As he got a little older he got more playful and considerably more rough. I still wanted him to be the same cuddly little pup that would snuggle up to me and sleep in my lap, so I would attempt to have sleep-over parties with him. I remember, as I got tired I’d get into my sleeping bag, while Herr Pooch was still bouncing off the walls with energy like he had a case of hydrophoby. I’d pin him down and pull him close to try to get him to cuddle up for a good night’s sleep and he’d squirm and scratch and bite his way out of my clutches.

“I am Wind in His Hair! Do you see that I am not afraid of you?”

I can remember him being too rough on a lot of occasions. Sometimes I’d come in after playing with him and have bright red streaks all up and down my arms and legs from where his nails had gotten me. And even though it hurt a lot, and even though he’d sometimes growl at me to convince me to let go of him when I was trying to coax him into being cuter or cuddlier than he wanted to be, I never wanted him to see me shy away from him. I figured if I just acted like I wasn’t scared of him, he’d stop trying to scare me. It worked to the point of me not being scared of him anymore, but I never did manage to convince him to be the teddy bear I always wanted him to be.

“Wait, Tinkerbell! We can’t keep up with you!”

During my high school years, I used to take him jogging with me. I enjoyed the idea of having him come along, but in all honesty, each time I took him, I questioned if he’d ever be invited again. I was jogging to keep in shape for high school sports, but Bandit never seemed to understand (or at least, respect) my training efforts. He’d either go way too fast, nearly pulling my shoulder out of the socket as he dragged me behind him, or way too slow as he stopped to pee on every mail box stand (sorry, to all my Winterwood neighbors), or to sniff the butts of all the other neighborhood dogs (on second thought, I take back that apology, serves you right for not chaining up your dogs).

My parents house is at the top of a small hill. For a little added conditioning, and for a chance at payback for him throwing off my pace, I’d always race the pooch up the hill. We’d start at the bottom of the hill, right where the road’s shoulder ended, then it was “first one to take a step onto the driveway wins.”

During high school, he’d beat me about six out of ten times. But after I got back from my mission, either I got faster or he got slower, because by then, I could beat him every time.

“He’s an old, fat grampa-man.”

I’d go away to college and each summer when I came home to visit, we’d go on our regular runs. Only, they weren’t seeming like the regular runs I remembered. It used to be that Bandit would drag me so hard that it made my shoulder sore and I could hear the leash constricting on his windpipe from the tension. Well, now the sore shoulder and the tight leash were still the same, but this time it was me doing the dragging and Mr. Pooch doing the lagging.

I told that story to my dad when I was visiting last month. He quickly said, “Oh, don’t take him out running now, you’d probably kill him.” I thought for a second that he was joking, until I went out to the garage to greet the pooch for my semi-annual visit.

“I’m old, Peter. Ever-so-much more than 20.”

I couldn’t believe what I saw. It used to be that Bandit would stick his nose in the door, ready to pounce on you as soon as you opened it just a crack. But this time as I entered the room he just lie there in his bed. He lethargically lifted his head to investigate the unwelcome disturbance to his sleep. He was, of coarse, happy to see me (who wouldn’t be), but he didn’t spring up and throw his front feet on my belly the way he used to. He weakly ambled over to me, tripping over his own feet as he came. And when he reached me, he only had enough energy to sit beside me and rest his head on my knee.

This dog looked like mine, but how could it be him? Why did he move so slowly? Why did his spine and his ribs stick out so much? Why did his eyes look so cloudy? Then, for the first time, it occurred to me that I’m not a kid anymore. And if I’m not a kid (and dogs age seven times faster than humans) my little, wild pup was now a 98-year-old porch hound.

Today Mom and Dad are taking him to the vet to be put to sleep. They said things were just getting too hard for him, and they were tired of the surprises left around the garage by his geriatric incontinence. I know it was well beyond his time to go, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make me a little sad to say good-bye, especially since I’m too far away to tell him so myself.

“It’s all right, children. Life is made up of meetings and partings. That is the way of it. I am sure we shall never forget Tiny Tim or this first parting that there was among us.”

I never really considered myself to have been really close to that dog—he was just always too rough, too smelly, and too dirty to want to play with him every day. Still, I was a little sad when I first heard that the appointment with the vet had been made. And now, as I look back on all the things I did with that loveable mutt, and at how the events of him entering and leaving my life bookmark the beginning and end of my youth, I can’t help but shed a few boyish tears of both mourning and gratitude for that good old friend.

“Dances With Wolves, I am Wind in His Hair! Do you see that I am your friend? Can you see that you will always be my friend?”

I’m gonna miss you, Boy.