Chewing on God's Couch

Last Monday night I had to put my older dog Pooh Pooh, a.k.a. Gummo, a.k.a. Campeón, a.k.a. Long Dog, to sleep. The years of frenetic, constant movement had finally eroded his wheels to a point where he had a lot of trouble getting around; even standing up was hard on the old guy. It was the hardest, saddest decision I’ve ever had to make. It would have been really easy to justify keeping him around, but it would have been selfish.

His last day was a good day. We fed him a lot and loved him up. He seemed in pretty good spirits, even playing around a little bit. It was a contrast to how he’d been acting for weeks before – anxious, scared, and confused. It was good to see him having a good day, and that much harder to take him down and do what I knew had to be done.

Pooh has been with me for the better part of 12 years. He lived with me in an apartment in Los Feliz and traveled north with me when we came to Chico to live with Trish. He was a wild dog – but we didn’t know it when we adopted him. Pooh had been living as a stray dog on a nursery in Los Angeles. My room mate’s dad discovered him and learned that the people at the nursery were going to send him to the pound. We got him instead. He was mangy and frail, and completely mellow. We figured that was good, because he was going to be living in a cramped apartment with three humans. It turned out he wasn’t mellow, he was dying. We got him antibiotics and good food, and every day for the next three weeks he gained more and more energy; until finally he was running figure 8 patterns through our apartment, leaping onto the furniture, and generally resembling a Tasmanian Devil or a minor hurricane. He tore up couches (multiple), chewed shoes, hats, wallets – anything he could get his mouth on. I saw him mellow one more time after he ate a bag of weed.

When I fell in love with Trish and decided to move to Chico, my room mates were thankful that I took the dog with me. It was a good move for both of us; though Trish must certainly have had her doubts initially. One of the first things Pooh did was to dig out every single flower bed in the yard; Trish had recently fertilized them with bone meal. Then he decided to use her 10 year old Bonsai tree as a chew toy.

He never really mellowed out – though over time his mania tempered slightly. Eventually he even outgrew his chewing phase, though not before taking out the seat belts in my old station wagon. Pooh was an absolutely sensitive, loving dog. He was always looking out for us, and saved Trish’s life once when she was choking.

It was hard to see him towards the end. His back legs had become almost functionless. He’s not a dog with the ability to be still. He remained constantly in motion; he would take choppy little steps with his front legs and sort of drag his hind legs behind him. Now I am struggling to remember him when he was young, fast and spry. I was talking with a friend of mine on the phone who remembered seeing Pooh run in upper Bidwell Park. He said he had never seen a dog run so fast.

Dogs are something else. On Monday I was so sad, so disturbed by the decision we’d come to and the knowledge of what I was going to do. I was upset, and there was Pooh, sensing my emotion and coming over to comfort me. The damn dog was comforting me because I was saddened by the fact that I was going to put him down.

That trip to the vet was so hard. He must’ve been reading my vibrations, because he did not want to go in. Neither did I. I held him while they administered the lethal cocktail that took his life; and then he was gone.

I’ve been drinking wine at night and so I haven’t had a chance to dream. I want to dream – I want to see that crazy, wild dog running, playing and laughing. I don’t really think there is an afterlife, but Pooh passing makes me wish there was. I can see him up in Heaven, eating God’s shoes and tearing up his couch.

Farewell my furry friend – I miss you so much.

madbob@madbob.com