It is rare that you come across a person who is not a "dog person." It seems that everyone has a soft spot for these furry little friends, whether it be a quick pet on the head in passing, or someone fully embracing your dog on the sidewalk. There is something about their energy that people are drawn to.
My family got our first dog when I was 7, I believe. We had been thinking about getting a puppy for a while, and my dad came home from a business trip with a revelation one evening. He had watched (and sobbed through) the movie Eight Below, about eight Siberian Husky sled dogs whose owner was forced to leave them in Antarctica over the brutal winter season. My dad was convinced that a Husky was the perfect dog for us. She was a Siberian Husky puppy, less than a year old, and we named her Maya after the main dog in the movie. She slept in my lap while we drove home from picking her up in San Francisco, and I immediately fell in love with this little angel.
We soon found out that she was psychotic. She would bark all the time, run around our coffee table and dive under our couch, and scratch at the sliding glass door only to sit down and protest when we opened it for her. She would bite at her water and lick her food. She would sit in the middle of the street whenever we crossed one on a walk. Nonetheless, she was our little angel, and we loved her and all her ridiculousness.
About a year later, we either had forgotten about or gotten used to Maya's insanity and decided that we wanted yet another pup. We got another husky, who happened to be Maya's half brother, and we named him Pal after one of my mom's childhood dogs.
He was actually an angel. He was a little ball of energy and love: he gave the best kisses, he would follow you wherever you went, he would bow his head when you hugged him and stay there forever. He was the fluffiest, softest pup I had every snuggled with. He would curl up into a ball on our couch when we weren't in the room, and when we entered, he'd immediately jump off because he knew he wasn't supposed to - but it was the cutest thing in the world, so I never disciplined him for it. And, best of all, he would actually smile at you.
Our dogs would play fight like none other. They would bark at each other, tackle each other, and chase each other around the yard (and the house, tripping me on multiple occasions). But they were partners in crime.
Maya had a load of medical problems - she tore her both of her ACL's, she got extremely fat (which was actually pretty funny, until we figured out she had diabetes), and got cataracts in her eye pretty early. Once she turned 10, we were pretty prepared for her to go - but she kept chugging along, stepping on our toes and licking our noses and prancing around when she was about to get fed.
As a result, when Pal got sick, we were completely shocked. He started walking weirdly one day, and when my mom took him into the vet, we learned that he had a degenerative spine disease - one that he was born with but typically doesn't show up for years. We had to put him down less than two weeks later, and it was probably the hardest day of my life. It was beautifully done, in our own backyard with me and my mom by his side as he took his last pants. We sobbed and sobbed for months afterwards, even though we knew it was the right thing to do.
Maya continued being our now calm but still psycho girl for about another year. She had trouble every so often, a few seizures here and there, but was ultimately very happy in her last year without her brother. While we could tell she was a little lonely, she did like being alpha dog and monopolizing attention again.
I said my goodbye to her over FaceTime while at school early one morning, lucky that I was even awake to answer it. She was put down quickly and peacefully, and a rainbow shined over her little body minutes later. She was much easier to grieve for, considering I didn't see it happen first hand, and that we had been prepared for a while. It truly was her time to go, unlike Pal. But now they are both our angel babies, up in the big dog park in the sky, and I'm sure they tackling and chasing each other just as they did in their time here.
No one tells you how much it hurts to lose a pup. How quiet the house will be. How you will never be able to get rid of the disgusting dog bed that's been in the same corner of your living room for 12 years. It is because they are the most pure souls on earth - to us, they are a wonderful little piece of our world, but to them, we are their whole world. Dogs literally live to love and protect their owners, their families. They kept my mom company when she was adjusting to living alone when my brother and I would go stay at our dads house. They licked my wounds and my tears away, they gave me hugs when I most needed them. They were always excited to see us, always happy to be there in the middle of the kitchen, tripping us while we're trying to cook. You don't expect it when you get them, but they truly become an invaluable part of the family, and when they go, it feels as if the family is incomplete. And you'll find yourself unfinished grieving years afterwards, while simply writing about them, and cursing the fact that their lifespans are so unfairly shorter than ours.
But that is how it is. So, dog lovers, hug your pups a little tighter, give them a little more attention and a little more patience, and remember that they are there for you. And, Maya and Pal, thank you for being my best friends and the best dogs I could've asked for. I love you endlessly.
