Late September, maybe early October, I was still dabbling in my cups back then and time was a fuzzy concept. I was on my way to the store to resupply. It was dark. There was a light rain, the weather cooling. I was walking down the middle of Dolphin street, one block over from my own, when I spotted something small walking toward me. I thought at first it was a cat but when we got closer to each other I saw that it was a dog. A little dog. A puppy. No more than 8, 10 weeks old. It had a pale red flea collar around its neck. We both stopped. It wary but hopeful. Me curious.
“What are you doing out here in the rain,” I ask? It just looked at me, blinking in the rain. “Look,” I tell it. “If you’re still here when I get back, I’ll see what I can do.” And I headed off.
On my way back, I didn’t see it at first. A part of me was trying to pretend this was a good thing. I had just rescued a female pit (Jessie) and her 8 pups the month before. I had managed to find a shelter for the pups but in the course of rescuing her, I’d sorta fallen in love with her so I kept her. That gave me three big dogs. Last thing I needed was another one, right?
Truth be told, I knew the moment I saw the little poop I would be taking it home so, when it poked its head out from beneath an SUV, I sighed externally, exhaled with relief internally, set my beer down, picked the little bug up, grabbed the beer and headed home.
A quick peek switched the pronoun from it to he. The next day I tried to find out where he’d come from. When asked about a little dog, a guy on Dolphin pointed to a house across the street. The woman at the house, cranky bitch that she was, said she knew nothing about no dog. I knew she was lying but that was okay. I had a new puppy.
Several names were considered; Hey You, Poothead, Gebackhere, Chewbacca (that boy chewed on absolutely everything) and Boomer (probably because I had just rewatched Independence Day). Boomer was the front runner but somehow it morphed into Bummer and Bummer was what crossed the finish line.
When I introduced him to the others, Jessie took to him as if he were one of her pups. You should have seen those two together. Their play-fights were fast and furious and loud. You’d have thought Jessie was killing the little pup but every time she knocked him down, he was back on his feet and in her face. He matched her bark for bark and move for move. Not bad considering Jessie was pushing 80 lbs while Bummer was 20 tops soaking wet. He was a scrapper, that boy, and he never backed down. And never once, in all that rough play did either dog hurt the other. It was a hell of a thing to watch.
Two years after I found Bummer, Cooper came along.
Bummer was Cooper’s Mini-Me. They looked alike, their color was exact, their personalities were similar and they even had similar markings. That, however, was where the similarity ended. Cooper topped out at a 100/105 lbs while Bummer was 55, 60 lbs at best. The size difference didn’t hinder them a bit. From the get-go they became BFFs. I walk 1.5 miles with them every morning in the park. They probably cover 5 miles in that 1.5. They would run together hither and yon, back and forth, jumping on each other, play fighting, knocking each other over. And if you don’t think a 50 lb dog can knock over a 100 lb dog, think twice. Bummer did it numerous times though, truth be told, he got knocked for a tumble far more times than Cooper. Never fazed him. He was back on his feet before he stopped rolling and in Cooper’s face. It was a joy watching the two of them play.
About 6 months ago, he started slowing down. I thought at first it was because of the injury he got from trying to hop the front yard fence. He was a real fence climber but this one time he got hooked on the top. I had to lift and unhook him. Tore himself up pretty bad. Not the worst wound I’ve ever had to deal with on a dog but pretty nasty. I cleaned it out and tried to keep him in the house for a few days. Yeah, that worked real well. The wound healed nicely but I noticed he wasn’t running like he used to, at times avoiding interaction with Cooper. I had read an article outlining how neutering a dog too early can cause future problems, especially with their bones. Bummer was neutered at around 1 year old so I wondered if his joints were hurting him and I took measures to combat that.
It didn’t help.
We had a wicked heat/humidity wave in July. I noticed Bummer was breathing hard and acting as if he was trying to hack something up. But then, all the dogs were breathing hard so I let it pass, leastwise until the heat wave passed and his hard breathing continued. I called the vet and made an appointment for him for August 13th.
Bummer died in my arms Monday night, August 12th. He was 7 years old.
I lay in bed all night with him in my arms. In the morning I called a cremation service, wrapped him in a blanket and left the house. I drove around the park where just the day before he had walked with me. My mind was blank. I stumbled around like a gut-shot bear. On Wednesday, when I came to the spot in the park I consider a sacred place, it all came up. I screamed, I sobbed, I fell to my knees cursing. Cooper and Biscuit hovered close as though guarding me.
Day to day it’s the little things; how he would insist on a butt scratch while I was trying to get dressed in the morning; how he would run out the door when it was time to go to the park, run to the same tree morning after morning and pee; how he would stick his face through a gap in the bars that separate the passenger side from the dog side of the Dogcar, seeing Cooper running in the open field without his tan shadow by his side.
That’s when I feel the sob in my gut rising toward pursed lips, pursed because were they parted I would scream. That’s when I tell him I’m sorry. That’s when I tell him I miss him. That’s when I tell him I love him.
