I’ve always felt that one of the rawest of deals when it comes to reality is the severe and cruel discrepancy between human and canine lifespans. Feline, too, but right now I want to talk about canine lifespans, and the miserable way they burn out so much quicker than our own. I was reminded of this earlier today because my little three-legged dog, Abby, died.
Abby was 13, the same age as my son, whose lap she expired in, and while knowing this is bittersweet and wrenching, it also gives me some solace, because I know that’s where she’d want to be. I’m traveling, and couldn’t be home when it happened, which hurts a lot. But I’m glad my son was there.
She came into our lives from an LA-area dog rescue, around the same time as our LA-area human child was created, and she grew up with our son, Otto, who for many young years considered this part Chihuahua, part Miniature Pinscher, probably part gopher or bat, as a best friend.
These two were pals, as you can see:
They both grew up, but they were on very different schedules; Otto is barely getting started, and when he turned 13 he just got taller and taller and somehow more bonkers, while Abby’s muzzle showed more gray and she slowed down, at least a bit.
Abby’s most obvious defining trait was, of course, her three legs. Her passenger’s side rear leg was lost to a car when she was a very tiny pup, before we even got her, and yet she never seemed daunted by the loss of the leg. It didn’t make her wary or careful around cars, as may have been the case for an animal blessed with more than a fistful of brain cells, but not Abby.
It also didn’t slow her down; girl was fast, and in full gallop that lone rear leg would push off with powerful strokes from a central position. The nub where her leg was would sometimes twitch as she tried to scratch an itch with that phantom limb, which never worked.
Her nub did form a nearly 90° angle by her butt, as you can see up there, making her haunch into a fuzzy corner.
All dogs are good dogs, or at least are trying to be somewhere deep inside, and Abby was no exception. A Good Girl all the way through her little sausagean body, all she wanted was to be as close to you as possible, and take whatever food you may happen to have anywhere on your person or in a three-foot radius around you.
Abby’s desire for cuddles and pets was intense and powerful. If she could somehow get inside you, I think she might take that option. And when I say “you,” I mean that literally: she loved everyone, and should you enter my home and sit, you might have a second or two of an unburdened lap before you see a chestnut-brown blur and find her snuggled happily on your lap.
She was fierce when required, or at least what she thought was required, and absolutely unaware of her diminutive size, chasing Great Danes and Huskies and big brindled hunting dogs at the dog park with a relentless madness. Abby never backed down.
One of the things I loved about Abby was that she was exactly the kind of dopey I like in a dog. I’ve had smart dogs before, and they can be work. Not Abby. Abby seemed to live in an impressionistic world, all broad strokes and minimal detail, where the acquisition of love and food were the only real driving factors. She distilled life down into the two best parts, and set out to get as much of both as caninely possible.
Sure, storms scared her, but you’d just grab her as she clicked around the floor at night in a panic and shove her under the blankets with you, and then all would be well in the wet, thundery world.
Abby’s heart, like all canine hearts, has a sort of sac around it called some name the vet told me but I can’t remember. For some unpredictable reason, that sac filled up with fluid, essentially compressing her heart into submission. That’s what did her in. A leak, of sorts.
She was fine this past weekend, darting around happily and eating food liberated from hands and plates, leaping into laps and smacking you with her paw should you have the unforgivable audacity to stop petting her, even for a moment. And then she just wasn’t.
Cars, right, we’re a car blog. Okay. Here’s Abby in my Yugo:
She enjoyed rides in that, as she did all of my ridiculous cars. Speaking of ridiculous, I once did some experiments using hams as bumper guards on my Beetle, and Abby thought that was a fantastic use of resources and time.
I’m going to miss Abby very much. I’m old enough to know this is just how it works with dogs; they give so very much as long as they can, and then the bill comes due in the form of all the years you feel like you should have had with them. That’s the price, and no matter how much it hurts for every pet I’ve had that has died, I’ll keep paying it, willingly but indignant.
I have no clear eschatology to rely on, and Judaism really isn’t much help in that arena, either, being very much a this-world focused ethos. But I allow myself to believe there’s some unending hereafter for Good Dogs if nothing else, and Abby’s will be a warm miasma of cuddles and warm laps, snacks and errant meatballs, free from fleas and storms, a happy blur of all the best things this world has to offer, as filtered through the delightfully limited mind of a Very Good Girl.
I’ll miss you, Abby.
Much condolences on the loss of a furry family member.