Farewell to a Friend

The first time I saw the dog who would become Lola (aka Muttley, aka Babu) she went by the name Bailey. She had a wonderful profile pic on the adoption website. Her mouth was open wide and she seemed to be smiling. There was something about her that drew me to her, which was weird because she was the exact opposite kind of dog I wanted.

I grew up with a Collie-German Shepherd mix, Ginger. She had long fur and was pretty big. That was the kind of dog I was looking for. Something big that I could wrestle with and chase around. And here was this Doberman mutt with short hair weighing in at under 50lbs. She had the appearance of a scary dog, a junkyard dog, and was pretty far from what I’d imagined.

But still, something about her drew me in.

I admit that it was something of a setup on my partner Lexi to get her home. We had wanted a dog for some time and finally had an apartment with a yard. So we decided to go to the local humane society in St. Paul to see what was there. I already knew.

We checked out a few of the dogs and didn’t feel any connection with them. And then I sprung my trap. Lola (Bailey at the time) had been something of a hard-luck case. She’d bounced around from another shelter and had clearly been abused. Time was ticking for her and if someone didn’t adopt her soon, she’d be off to the glue factory.

We brought her outside for a short walk. She was so calm and quiet. We sat on a hill overlooking a bunch of soccer fields and as the wind gently blew across our faces, it was clear that we’d found the newest member of our family. My trap had worked.

Little did I know that the trick had actually been set on the both of us.

Once we got the newly re-christened Lola home, we got her a cute bandana to wear. You can see it in the picture above. And how did this orphan dog repay our kindness? By ripping it to pieces, of course. This was only the beginning. She suffered from separation anxiety which meant that every time we left her alone, even if it were for three minutes to change the laundry, she would lose her mind and start destroying things. She would pee and poop on the floor and in one instance even dug up the vinyl flooring. Since we’re intellectuals, we got a bunch of books to try and learn how to help her. What did Muttley do? She chewed up the goddamned puppy training books!

One morning while still in bed, I noticed my partner crying. When I asked her what was wrong she said through tears that she hated the dog and felt really bad about it. She wanted to return her. That was a nonstarter for me. Family is family, for better or worse. We resolved to increase our efforts in getting her properly trained.

It’s funny to think back to that morning now. Lexi and Lola couldn’t be closer and it took cancer to tear them apart. With hindsight, it’s clear that the failure was ours, not the dogs. Lola was a special pup and needed extra care. The first thing we got was a crate and began to crate train her. I’d always felt that it was cruel, having had a dog who was raised without one. But all the experts agreed it was for the best.

It worked. Lola now had a place where she felt safe and that was all she needed. She spent much of her final days in that crate, seeking a place where she felt safe as her broken body betrayed her. The tumor in her leg was causing immense pain. She couldn’t walk on it and the pain meds we’d been giving her stopped working. The desperation in her eyes told me everything I needed to know.

It was time to say goodbye.

The photo above is one of my favorite memories of Lola, if not my favorite. We were walking down the streets of Provincetown, Massachusetts when something caught her eye. She began barking at the doorway. It was her suspicious and wary bark, the kind she reserved for strangers. And yet, we could not find the person that drew her ire. As we got closer to the storefront, we could see the target of her woofing. Two stuffed dogs were propped up outside.

The incident made us laugh as we’ve never laughed before or probably since. She was convinced that these dogs were real. Strangers on the street doubled over laughing. It was the perfect encapsulation of everything that made Lola so special. Her suspicious nature from enduring abuse in her first year as a pup, her want to protect us (really she protected Lexi at all costs, even at my expense), and her desire to make new doggy friends. You can see in the photo that even though she’s only a few feet away and should probably be able to smell that they aren’t real, she’s still incredibly suspicious of them. Kudos to whoever made those stuffed animals. You fooled a dog with them.

Lola was the fastest dog I’ve ever seen. That’s not hyperbole. Ask anyone who knew her. She could outrun greyhounds. She would toy with other dogs at the park, running circles around them. She had the heart of a champion and I wish she’d been allowed to play a sport because she would have been the greatest running back a football team ever had. Doing zoomies made her the happiest, as you can see in the pic above. She loved to have total control over her body and race around. I hope that wherever her spirit ended up, she’s got a big ol’ field to race around in.

Unlike a lot of pets, Lola seemed to enjoy dressing up. Since we didn’t really know her exact birthday or even her age, we decided she was born on Halloween. So that became her official/unofficial birthday. Each year we’d get a costume for her to wear. And, as expected, if we didn’t watch her the whole time she wore it, she would end up tearing it up. But when we’d first put it on her, she’s parade around the house like a show pony, so proud to have it on.

Lola has lived in a lot of places. I think probably close to a dozen different apartments, houses, and duplexes. She always rolled with the punches. The bond between her and Lexi was special. Because of what she likely witnessed growing up, Lola was incredibly sketched out by men. Even me, the ungrateful cur! Anytime things got loud in the house, either from us telling a story or bitching about work, Lola went into protector mode. She’d position herself between me and Lexi, my partner. Even if we were laughing, Lola would still wedge herself between us. She loved Lexi so much. It was always incredibly gratifying to see how much their bond had grown since those early days back in August 2008.

Lola did NOT have a sense of humor. Like, at all. She was the most serious dog I’d ever met. Everything was a travesty to her. Ask her to get off the couch and you’d get back a series of groans and dirty looks. A furrowed brow was her calling card. Constantly on alert, our dog detective always made sure to secure the perimeter. And as anyone who ever saw her in person can attest, she would subject any and all persons to a DEEP body cavity search.

That’s what we loved about her though. She protected us and I always felt safe sleeping at night knowing that Babu was on duty. Were there a few false alarms? Yep! I think there were only false alarms. But I knew that an intruder would take one look at this Doberman-looking dog with a ferocious bark and skedaddle.

Lola loved other dogs, especially puppies. At dog parks, she would always seek out the youngest and most playful pups to pal around with. But because of her self-serious nature, there was always a time limit to how long she would tolerate their playful behavior. Once she reached her limit, that was it. Back to the dour-faced serious pup. It always seemed to me like she needed to forget who she was in order to have fun. Like, she would get so wound up and excited to be at a park that she’d lose her mind for a bit.

Aside from Babu and Muttley, Lola had another nickname: TrashDog. This was because she loved eating things that she shouldn’t. Not dangerous things, per se, but if you left a roast out on the counter to defrost, as my parents found out one Christmas, she would help herself to it. Same goes for the loaf of banana bread she wolfed down. Ditto for paper towels soaked in bacon grease. Lola LOVED food. In some ways, it was a blessing. We wouldn’t have been able to train her without her incredible food motivation.

Her most infamous food stealing incident came a few Easters ago. My brother-in-law was in town with his young daughter. We decorated eggs with lots of colors and glitter. On Easter Sunday, he got up early and went outside to hide the eggs for his daughter to find. He did not tell us he was doing this and as was our typical morning routine, after getting up we let Lola outside. Normally, that dog is so obsessed with food that she makes her pre-feeding trips super fast. But on Easter, she lingered a bit. When we went outside to see what the hold up was, we came upon a dog — quite proud of herself — munching down on a brightly colored egg. In all, I think she took down about 4 of them. Her poop was festive for the next week.

We opted for in-home euthanasia services. You don’t always get to pick the circumstances under which your beloved pets are put to sleep. We were grateful that we could say goodbye in the place where she felt most comfortable. The process was simple, calm, and peaceful. A lovely vet from MN Pets came to our house. Her name was Dr. Susan. She was soft-spoken and gentle. We sat with Lola for maybe 15 minutes while she explained everything to us. She smiled kindly as we wept like babies. The first step was administering strong pain medication/sedative. As it slowly took hold of Lola, she laid down, her head in our laps and we said goodbye. We told her how much we loved her, what a good girl she was, and that it was her job to get everything on the Otherside set up for us. We told her we’d see her again soon.

The medication took about 15 minutes to work. In that time, Dr. Susan went out to her car to afford us some privacy with Lola in her last moments. As we cried and said goodbye, all our other pets came into the room. I kid you not. Lebowski was there the entire time, from the moment Dr. Susan arrived to the minute she left. The other two cats came and stood solemnly as Lola slowly slipped away. Once she was totally out, Dr. Susan came back inside and administered the final injection. I watched as her breathing and heart rate decreased. One final check with a stethoscope from Dr. Susan: “She’s gone.”

Note: Lola is just sleeping here. This was taken a few days beforehand.

It’s been a rough week. I haven’t really cried much since Monday. That part of my soul feels unreachable right now. It feels like I am dancing along the edge of a well. I am constantly reminded of her absence. My morning and evening routines are disrupted. My sleep is off because, for the first time in over a decade, I do not have my burglar/squirrel alarm. Every time I enter the house, I look to her favorite spot on the couch, expecting to see her head lift up to greet me. Instead, I am greeted by emptiness.

In time, things will feel “normal” again. But there will always be a Muttley-shaped hole in my heart. To make matters worse, I know that I will have to endure this three more times. That’s the deal we make with pets. We let them into our hearts and lives knowing that we will outlive them. You sign up for the heartbreak willingly. It’s the cost of love — unconditional and pure.

Lola still feels alive to me. I talk to her. I imagine her running through the freshly fallen snow. I can still smell her on blankets. She remains alive in our memories. I miss her so much. We all do.

I hope to see her again.