Major

This is the “tail” of a guy and his dog.  It’s the story of anyone who’s ever loved a pet.  A story of love and loss, of two best friends, of a bond so eternal no words could ever really do it justice… Jeff had always wanted an English bulldog…since childhood.  All I knew about them was that in every picture or video clip I’d ever seen of them they appeared to be drooling.  “No,” I said.  “We’re not getting a dog and the last breed I’d ever want is one of those drool-y things!” Then I met Major. Out of sheer boredom when walking around the mall one day, we decided to go into the pet store to check out the latest puppy arrivals…not an uncommon thing for us to do.  Jeff asked one of the employees whether they had any bulldog puppies.  “You’re in luck,” he said.  “We can never keep them for very long but we just got one yesterday!”  I’m sure I mumbled something to the effect of “fine, we’ll hold one…we’re NOT getting a puppy.”  And then I fell in love. It was instantaneous.  I didn’t care if he drooled, or how much he drooled, or if he smelled like the pee of himself and all the other dogs at Pet City, we weren’t going home without him.  Period.  The only question was how on earth we were going to come up with the $2600 price tag.  Ouch.  To this day I can’t recall how Jeff pulled that off but he bought me (us) the most precious gift.  Today I thanked him, again, for giving me Major.  My life would never be the same. Potty trained in under 2 days…house-trained (for the most part) in a few weeks…able to be left alone in our apartment (un-crated) in less than 6 months.  He was our constant companion, our affectionate leg-buddy, the humor in our day.  There wasn’t a hard shift at work he didn’t hear about or a CSU loss he didn’t grieve right along with us.  It wasn’t long before he had his own Broncos gear.  As for Huskers gear?  Well, if he had any, I never knew about it but I’d like to think he wouldn’t do that to his momma.  The bond between Jeff and Major started early, and it was undeniable.  Every quirk unique to the breed, from burps to farts and all the ‘humps’ in between was simply an endearing quality to be appreciated as far as Jeff was concerned.  And if you weren’t a fan of Major then Jeff wasn’t a fan of you.  A few months after we got Major I insisted we needed to have professional pictures taken of him.  He was, after all, one of the cutest things I’d ever seen.  We felt a little ridiculous taking our dog to a photography studio, but they assured us they did pet poses “all the time”…(while I was writing the check and they were likely rolling their eyes).  Needless to say, we had framed images of him everywhere…we often joked that if we ever lost our jobs, Major surely had a promising future in modeling! If you’ve never had a dog of your own, listen up: I submit that there is no love like it.  I believe with all my heart that God gave us dogs and other pets with a very specific purpose in mind.  They display a type of unconditional love and an unwavering level of forgiveness that you will not find this side of Heaven in ANY other form.  Are they perfect?  No.  Do they understand most of what we say?  Probably not.  That is both good and heartbreaking at the same time.  They give love that can never be fully reciprocated because we, as humans, are flawed, selfish, sinful, and at times, hateful and cruel beings.  We can learn a lot from our pets about how to love unconditionally.  We can learn a lot from them in general.  Take a day off from training your pets–let them train you.  When Jeff and I broke up, it was a difficult time, to be sure.  I’d spent 5 years with him.  But the day Major moved out with him was one of the hardest of my life.  Even though it was the best thing for everyone involved,  I was lost, and sad, and a wreck, and I didn’t have MY DOG…I had plenty of friends and family to turn to, but there were too many opinions…no words were the right ones.  I needed Major…he just listened.  Didn’t judge.  Didn’t question.  He just listened–and licked my face.  I would go weeks without seeing him at all, and nearly a year before he was again a regular fixture in my life.  Devastating– although there was never any question Major belonged with his dad.  I was never able to sleep with the snores of a bulldog next to me and Jeff was never able to sleep without them.  As humans, we spend the majority of our day figuring out how best to tailor our lives and agendas to our own needs and wishes and aspirations.  We tend not to give enough consideration to others, or if we do, it’s often in a self-seeking manner.  We enjoy the company of other people because we gain something.  There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that, as sometimes what we gain is merely a few laughs, but I am convinced that our pets have no such thoughts.  Ever.  They’ll take whatever remaining scraps of love, food, and affection we have left to offer at the end of a day spent chasing what are often empty, meaningless goals.  They’re just happy to see us.  Think about the last time you were “just happy to see” someone…anyone…no thoughts of the hurt they inflicted last week (or last year, for that matter), no questions about when they’re going to pay back the money you lent them, no anger or bitterness or envy…are you ever just genuinely happy to see another person with no regard for what they might have to offer you?  My guess is, you and I need to re-evaluate our agendas.  There’s something so simple and genuine about the love of a pet.  They want nothing more than to make us happy.  After we lost Major, Jeff shared this as one of his fondest memories:  “Major used to love to go camping with me at the lake or at the river.  Even though he couldn’t swim he would always wade out into the water.  He would then feel something with his paw and slam his face into the water and come up with either a stick or a rock.  You could almost see him smiling as he would bring the object to me and either put it in my lap or at my feet as if to say, ‘look what I got you dad!’”.    Major was unselfish to his last breath.  For two weeks we debated whether to make the tough decision to send him home or whether it might be too soon.  Knowing he very likely had a brain tumor or inflammation of the brain from which he would not recover, we knew it was only a matter of time.  Jeff rose to the challenge of caring for him, despite the fact he was already almost totally blind and could no longer control his bladder.  He took Major to work the last two weeks to supervise him and monitor his seizures.  He did load after load of laundry trying to keep up with accidents around the house and exhausted himself to give our precious Major even a few more days of play, and hoping to see his tiny tail wag again.  He said several times, “I don’t want to have to make that decision.”  Tonight, he begged me to.  When the veterinarian arrived and waited patiently while Major ate his last macaroni and cheese and seasoned ground turkey, he let us say our goodbyes before giving Major a mild sedative to make him comfortable.  We were immediately reduced to a puddle of tears, and I got out my cell phone to record a few last snores…the sound I once loathed when I had an 8:00 am class was now, ten years later, music to my ears.  As Jeff was holding him, without any help or lethal medications to put him down, Major left us on his own.  Perhaps I’m crazy or irrational to think this, but I am convinced he knew exactly what he was doing.  Knew we’d never be ready to let him go, and went to the rainbow bridge without any help from human hands.  It was truly the most vivid display of his love for us that we weren’t even left with the burden of having to hasten his death.  Although Jeff is utterly broken tonight, I pray that that gives him peace.  What gives me peace, what makes this okay, is knowing that dog hated to see me cry. “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”