Requiem

On Wednesday afternoon we were riding in a taxi home from the airport after an excellent week of relaxation in Puerto Rico, when Gretchen’s cellphone unexpectedly rang. It was the kennel calling about Grady, and it wasn’t good. But I don’t want this story to start there…

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November 3, 1999—let’s start there instead. We had bought our house several months earlier, and we both wanted to get a dog. A co-worker of mine had told me that the U.S. Customs Service had a program at their canine training center whereby dogs that fail out of their program to train drug sniffers were given up for free adoption to loving homes on a first-come, first-serve basis. Gretchen called one day and they had three dogs available, one of which sounded like a perfect match.

Naturally, by the time we got out to the training center the dog we thought sounded ideal had already been adopted. But the other two were still there, including one (named either “Viggor” or “Tre”) that Gretchen’s notes from her call that morning—which we saved—describe as “black lab…hyper…likes people.” He did indeed seem hyper, but against our better judgment when they asked if we’d like to take him outside and play with him, we agreed. When we got outside, he sprinted in frenetic circles around the play area, paying basically no attention to us except when he launched himself airborne to plant his muddy paws directly onto my chest in the midst of his running (I had to have my jacket cleaned soon after our visit). He was clearly a handful with way too much energy than we could handle. As it turns out, he had failed miserably in his training for the Customs Service. We got a copy of the report on his dismissal from the training program: “poor intent and interest…no desire to search…constantly influenced by distracting factors and displays equal interest in these distractions.” And this wasn’t his first failure—the Customs Service had acquired him as a dropout from a program that trained dogs to help the disabled. That program had in turn obtained him from a dog pound. So, at three years old he had already failed out of two training programs and, as far as we knew, had never actually lived in a normal household.

But like countless others who have said they were just going to look rather than rush into a decision, we agreed to adopt him right then and there (although I would sometimes insist later that it was Gretchen’s decision and I just couldn’t say no). And so it was that the dog we came to call Grady (named for a character named John Grady Cole in the Cormac McCarthy “Border Trilogy” books) came into our lives.



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Back to Wednesday: it turns out that Grady had suddenly and unexpectedly fallen very seriously ill at the kennel (which is at a veterinarian’s office), and he was being rushed to an emergency animal hospital. We then had to make a very quick and painful decision about whether or not we wanted him to have emergency surgery (which would not be a guaranteed success and which would be very costly). After a wrenching discussion, we made the incredibly difficult decision not to go through with the surgery. He was already pretty old for a lab (12 years) and we were starting to see the first signs of physical decline, and we feared this would hasten a steep decline that might keep us happy but would be increasingly painful for him. So instead we drove over to the animal hospital, spent some time with him saying a very tearful goodbye, and held him as he peacefully departed this world.



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As those who met Grady know, he had plenty of quirks. He was neurotic, and for many years he would just pace back and forth for hours on end. He would bark at us for no discernable reason. Despite being a lab, he seldom liked to play fetch and he hated the water. We couldn’t leave food anywhere near him, and as a result whenever we had friends over we had to either put him in another room or in the car if we served any food (and sometimes even if we didn’t serve food because he would still bark). He became so food-obsessed that he wouldn’t leave us alone until he had eaten three meals by 2:00pm, and we frequently had to use peanut butter to try to bribe him to be quiet. In Switzerland he was the crazy American dog who couldn’t be let off leash and who would snarl at the nice Swiss dogs who tried to approach him. He usually wouldn’t go out in the backyard unless we went with him. He had to be medicated because he left little dribbles of pee wherever he went. To be perfectly honest, over the past year he sometimes drove us so crazy that we would tell him we were going to send him to a farm somewhere (but just for the record, we never meant it).



But like Gretchen always said, he was our baby. Despite the chaos of the years before we adopted him, in our house he finally found a home (even if it took a lot of sweat and tears on our part to get to that point). He made us laugh. He gave us unconditional love. He was never the least bit aggressive toward us or any other people, and despite occasional bluster with other dogs he was ultimately a softie with them, too. He flew to Switzerland and back, and went to the kennel more times than we can count because of all our travels, but he always just rolled with the punches and seemed happy wherever he was. He stoically endured abuse at Mädchen’s hands, and in return he gladly cleaned up after all of her meals (they were really starting to bond in the past few months). He may have been a crazy dog, but he was our crazy dog, and he brought more happiness to our lives than we ever could have expected way back in November 1999.



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So now the house feels much more quiet and empty than it used to (or at least as quiet and empty as a house with an almost-two-year-old girl can be). Little things constantly remind us of him, whether it’s the black hair that still turns up on everything (and probably will for years to come), the mess at the bottom of Mädchen’s chair after she eats that doesn’t get cleaned up, the gates we no longer have to close behind us, etc. We’re in a period of adjustment, which is tough but we know we’ll get through it (and let’s face it, we’ve dealt with much worse pain than this in recent years).

We don’t want to end this on a sad note, so if you knew Grady, we ask that you think of a time he made you laugh. If you didn’t know Grady, that’s OK—think of a time another dog made you laugh or picked you up after a bad day. And if you’re not really a dog fan, well…think of something or someone else that makes you happy. Because while we never really had a chance to talk to Grady about his end-of-life wishes, we’re confident that loving and being loved were the things that were nearest and dearest to him (followed closely by food, but that’s beside the point). Hopefully we’ll have much more cheerful news soon as we reflect on our fun time in Puerto Rico.