A Man and his Dog

Growing up on a farm, we never had pets.  The farm dogs stayed at the farm, and our one cat barely came in the house or asked for attention.  My mother said we were never home enough to care for pets, and I agreed.  Needless to say, I never had a deep connection to, memory of, or had to let go of a pet.  I knew that if I did ever have a pet someday it would be a dog.  A big, old, beautiful dog.  Maybe it was from the books I read, or movies I saw, but something about a noble friend, like a dog, just seemed like the most wonderful thing to me.  Every perfect family needed a dog. Every person was made complete by a dog’s company.

And then there was Rez.

Years later, in my mid to late twenties, after I had lived in Michigan for a few years and broke it off with my ex-boyfriend, I met Johnny.  Johnny had just came back from two years of traveling the world and walked into my life one day while I was working at the gym.  From the moment I laid eyes on him I knew he was my soulmate.  You might not believe me, but I knew. God knew.  The whole world knew we were meant to be together from that moment on. And we were.

The first night I went to his house for dinner, I was greeted by not Johnny, but his dog.

Rez. 

This handsome and thick furred creature sniffed me out as I walked into the house, and I instantly fell in love.  If you could imagine the most well-behaved dog it was Rez.  He didn’t bark, he wasn’t crazy or wild or jumping all over you.  He was almost more human, than animal. 

Johnny found Rez on an Indian Reservation, years before, and bought him from the Indians for $100.  It was believed Rez was part wolf.  If you saw him you would have thought the same thing.  The way he drank his water, the way he ran, fought, howled with sirens as they rang, all showed proof that Rez was more than just a dog.  He held the spirit of a wolf.  Like Balto you could say.  A few months ago, Johnny had a DNA test done on Rez and it came back with no trace of wolf, but to this day I still call him the wolf dog.  Rez the wolf dog. 

So here I was.  Beginning this powerful relationship with this man, and his dog.  The wolf dog.  We did everything together.  Hike, swim, garden, eat, sleep, love, read, write, drive, cry.  Everything.  Anything you could image us doing, Rez was with us.  It was as if we had become our own tribe.  A family.  Some of the best moments of my life will always be with Rez.  Camping in the Upper Peninsula.  Walking the back fields of Cherry Valley.  Swimming in Lake St. Clair.  Cuddling on the couch.  He outlived most humans if you ask me.

When Johnny left on trips, Rez stayed with me and he taught me how to be patient, how to be a parent. How to act like one, think like one, be like one.  He would run with me and make me feel like I was a warrior.  When we would walk with him, all dogs looked up to him, like he was the Alpha Male, because he was one.  Any dog fight that broke out, Rez would win.  Rez had that power.  He was invincible.  Undefeated.

I always wondered how Rez would die. How it would happen.  What it would look like.  I knew that from the time I met him, I would witness his death.  That I would see his decline, I just never thought it would be so sudden or so soon.  There were signs. Signs of weakness, old age, decreased appetite.  But nothing crucial or alarming as if to say death was near. 

It was a normal day.  We had gone to the gym and my racquetball game was getting better.  The rain began that night when I got home and that’s when Johnny told me something was wrong with Rez.  He lay there on his bed motionless, lifeless almost.  I have heard stories of people saying dogs want to be by themselves when they die, but because Rez couldn’t move his legs, he was forced to be inside, with us.  We didn’t think it was anything too serious to be honest.  We argued about what show to watch on Netflix, tried to eat some pasta for dinner, and tried to get him to eat and drink as well.  Nothing was working.  And as I put away the laundry that night, I slowly began to cry.  Almost like God was trying to tell me something.  Warn me of what was to come.

It was his breathing that I noticed.  His fight to take consistent breaths. When I began to look up end of life symptoms and saw congestive heart failure on the list, that’s when Johnny decided to take him to the emergency vet. The image of Rez in the back seat of my car, clinging to his life, was the last image I will have of him being alive.

20 minutes later I got the call from Johnny saying Rez had died even before he got to the vet. I will never forget the sound of his voice, the sobbing of his cry. And for a few speechless moments we wept together over the phone.

We buried him in Johnny’s parent’s backyard.  Digging up the rain-soaked mud close to midnight on that Thursday night. The moon hung half full and I knew that somewhere Rez was howling at it. We stomped the earth around him, packing him into the ground, securing him in heaven forever. Closing out a chapter of our life with this amazing creature and beginning the next one without him.  Without this wolf dog that taught us how to love each other and the world a little bit more. A little bit better.

For days, weeks, months, even sometimes still to this day, I still hear Rez pawing on the glass sliding door to be let out. I still instinctively go to let him in. I still sometimes feel him there laying at the foot of our bed and his hair is still found in Johnny’s truck or in some corners of the house. I still see him running towards the lake and wading in its water. I still think back to when I was a little girl, envisioning this dog I would someday have, and I thank God every day for making it be Rez.