I knew as soon as I pulled the front door closed that I had locked
myself out. And I knew in the same instant that I had locked my phone in.
Everybody loves their dog.
Everybody thinks that their dog is the most special dog in the world.
Everybody considers their dog to be, not just a beloved pet, but a member of
the family. But everybody would be
wrong. Since my dog, Maggie, was all of
those things, your dog is, at best, the
second best dog in the world. When Maggie was twelve years old, her eye began
to bulge. The veterinarian told me that it wasn't an eye problem but that she
had a brain tumor pushing against it. After hearing the options of prolonging the inevitable, I decided to let her live out her days with no invasive treatments.
My son and I rescued Maggie from the Chattanooga Humane Society when she was just a few days
old. In retrospect, I wish that we had
taken her brother too, but we don't live in "retrospect", do we. The
ball of black fur that we took home grew into the most beautiful seventy pound
mixed shepherd that you can
imagine. Her black fur was balanced with
brown and white markings on her face, neck and paws. Looking at her straight
on,these markings were perfectly
symmetrical like an artist had put them there. Her most outstanding features were her eyes. Maggie had one eye that was sky blue and the
other was half blue and brown. More than
a few people over the years asked me if the blue eye was glass. After
considering all the wise cracks I could have made regarding spending thousands
of dollars for a glass eye for a dog, I just answered, "No." Without a doubt though, Maggie's most
marvelous attributes were her endearing temperament and gentle disposition. She was quiet, reserved and deeply introspective.
She seldom told me what she was thinking, but she was always thinking
something. From a puppy, Maggie seldom
barked, but when she did it was a couple of low, non-feminine yelps.
That afternoon, just a few weeks before I took her to the
vet, when I laid down in the grass to wait for my wife to come home, Maggie
took up residence beside me. I scratched
her head, stroked her fur and utterly gave myself to the situation. Instead of feeling inconvenienced, I felt that
I had been given a gift. I laid there on my back for nearly two hours looking,
listening and enjoying the wonder of it all. Most of all I was enjoying the
love that I felt from my shepherd, Maggie.
That I was in that particular yard at all was part of the wonder. This house, when we bought it, and moved in,
was the fourth house we had lived in in three months. After we got settled (again), I told my wife that I
hoped this was the last house I ever lived in. That was thirty two years ago. We
talk about moving from time to time, but we never do.
The question I have asked myself over the eleven years since
Maggie died, is why did it take being forced to spend that time with her for me to spend
that time with her. And why did I never do it again? I certainly spent quality
time on our front porch loving on my dog, but never before or since anything
like that day. Instead of beating myself
up for my mistakes, I try to learn from them and apply the lesson to something
else. I have tried over the years to
spend my time according to my priorities instead of always feeling compelled to meet someone else's marching orders. It’s like what the narrator said on an emotional support tape years ago, “I’ve
never heard anyone on their death bed say ‘I wish I had spent more time at the
office’.”
Thankfully, it was a beautiful spring day that day I locked myself out of my house. And thankfully I had absolutely nothing better to do than to listen to the birds, watch the clouds move over Lookout Mountain and to love my dog. But the lesson for me is to take inventory of my priorities when I do have something better to do and to sometimes change my mind and do something else more in line with my values.
So why have I never got another dog? When you had the best dog in the world, it's hard to settle for anyone else.
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