Saying goodbye to The Dog, and welcoming a new one. Plus, a recap of a quiet (work) week.
I looked at Lucy and something funny happened. I knew she was The Dog for me. For the next 11 years, that's exactly what she was.
Lucy at the cottage, on her preferred couch.
This isn't going to be the essay I've wanted to write for the last year and a half. I think that essay will never be written.
On Easter Sunday of 2019, Lucy the basset hound (above) died. She was 11 years old — a good age for a basset, and had been in terrific health almost her whole life. In the weeks just before Easter, she'd suddenly slowed down a lot. Something was clearly up. The vet concluded a cancer had been growing for some time and was starting to impact her in visible ways. By the early morning of Easter Sunday, she was struggling to breathe and couldn't really move. It was time.
Lucy was the best dog I ever had — and I've had nothing but good dogs. And she wasn't even really my dog, not exactly — but she also was. And I've wanted to write something about her since that morning, but every time I've sat down to try, I've decided I didn't quite have it figured out in my head yet. So I'd delay.
But for reasons that'll become clear by the end of this, and will be clear already to those who follow me on Twitter, I can't really delay any longer. So this won't be exactly the piece I've concluded I simply won't ever be able to write. But it'll have to do.
Eight-week-old Lucy in my father-in-law’s lap, on the day she came home.
Lucy was actually my in-laws' dog. They adopted her as a new puppy while my wife and I were still dating. She invited me over to meet the puppy the day she was first brought home and I was thrilled to go. Who doesn't love a puppy? So I went over, and a weird thing happened. The puppy looked at me and I looked at her and it just sort of happened. We bonded. Like I said above, I've had many good dogs, but nothing exactly like that has ever happened. I think I knew right away that she was, for me, going to be The Dog.
And so it was. After my wife and I were married, her parents lived very close to us, so we saw her all the time. When out on walks, she'd pull against her leash all the way to our house, dragging my mother- or father-in-law along. She became a regular weekend visitor at my cottage (more on that in a minute), and she'd be palpably bummed out when I dropped her off at home on Sunday night. She blended in with my parents' three (!) large dogs, all of them much older than her. I think they were occasionally exasperated by her puppy exuberance. But she won them over through sheer force of will.
When my kids were born, she adopted them, instantly. I'll never forget the second time she met my newborn daughter — the first time was Thanksgiving, and there were so many people around that she barely noticed the newborn (and so much food to steal, too — bassets have a deserved reputation for that). But the next time, she gave my daughter the most thorough sniffing imaginable. I remember laughing as the dog got her nose into every nook and cranny of my firstborn, then only a few days old. It was an exhaustively meticulous sniffing. And when Lucy was satisfied, she gave my daughter an equally thorough face-and-head licking, and then wandered off to do something else. That was it. She'd accepted the baby, and would routinely guard her while she slept from then on.
Lucy guards my firstborn — she did this routinely, even as they grew up.
We saw Lucy a bit less as the years went on. My children were born less than two years apart, which seemed like a great idea at the time. Anyway, that took a lot of time and energy. My in-laws also moved further away, so the convenience of just strolling past at any time was lost. But we still saw her a lot and she never stopped loving my kids, or me, even if she'd sleep for a whole day after our visits. She remained very much my dog, glued to me whenever I was near her, and howling with excitement when she saw my car in the driveway. And we still got her up to the cottage from time to time.
Lucy begs from my father at the cottage, along with my parents’ then-three dogs. From left to right, Nellie the grumpy Newfoundland, Tasha the crazy rescue, Lucy and Bobbi the angel dog. All four dogs have passed on now.
Her last summer was marked by a brutal heatwave in the Toronto area that persisted for weeks. It was just unbearably hot in the city. We spent weeks at the cottage, where it was a bit cooler and there was always the lake to jump into. My in-laws came up to spend a few days with us to beat the heat, and Lucy had one of her best-ever moments. My in-laws were wonderful dog owners and doted on Lucy. But no one spoils a dog like a Gurney, and that's especially true at the cottage. The dogs run the roost there. It had been a few years since Lucy had last visited, but when she arrived, she hadn't forgotten a thing. My mother-in-law in particular was equal parts astonished and mortified when Lucy instantly reverted to the cottage rules she'd learned over the years, and had never forgotten. She climbed onto the chairs and couches when she wanted a nap, begged shamelessly from the table, loudly demanded to be lifted onto beds at night — all forbidden at home, but routine at the cottage. Lucy knew the rules there, and wasn't about to let my in-laws tell her otherwise. They were guests there, but the cottage was hers. And she was right.
Lucy goes for a walk with her (my) kids.
Not long before she died, my in-laws were out of town for a few days, and Lucy came to stay with us. She was quite slow by then, and struggled with stairs. We had put the kids down to bed an hour or two before and my wife and I were turning in. I picked the dog up and carried her upstairs and put her right into her bed. But to my surprise, she slowly got up and walked on her stiff legs down the hall. She bashed my daughter's door open with her head (which is fine, you could fire artillery in my daughter's room and she wouldn't miss a snore). Lucy walked in, stood at the side of her bed, and looked at her for a few seconds. Content, she left and walked to my lighter-sleeping son's room, where the door was mercifully already open. My son's bed was higher, too high for her to see him, but she stood there at his bedside with her nose up in the air, sniffing thoughtfully. Once she was assured that he was indeed in his bed, she left, and put herself to bed in the hall outside their rooms.
And she did this every night she stayed with us that week.
My son cuddles Lucy. She had a good enough nature to not just tolerate, but actually enjoy, this attention.
Again, she wasn't my dog. She spent most of her life with my in-laws. They cared for her, paid her bills and, in the end, had her put down.
But she was my dog, too, and I was her human, for a reason I can't explain. I've wanted to write the essay that explained that for 18 months, and I've simply concluded I can't write that essay because I can't explain it. It just happened. I can share with you stories that might capture a bit of her personality and good nature, but I can't tell you why she and I bonded like that because I don't understand it. I've been thinking about it since Easter before last, and I'm no closer to an answer.
But I can at least talk about her now, which I couldn't do for months after she died. She didn't even feel dead to me for months. It just didn't compute. (I'm not sure some of it computed until I started writing this, to be honest.) It took me a long time to stop worrying if she wondered where I was on that last visit to the vet, why I wasn't there. I will always regret that I wasn’t, but I'm also glad, on a different level, that I didn't have to be. I spent a lot of years wishing she was my dog instead of my in-laws', but I admit (with some shame) to relief at having been spared that last bitter duty.
Lucy naps with my son, shortly before her death. This is the last picture I have of her, and it’s perfect.
A few months ago, over the summer, I found myself looking at listings of dogs for rescue or for sale. This is something I couldn't even have imagined doing before, and never even considered while Lucy was alive. Just because she wasn't living with me didn't mean she wasn't mine and getting another dog was inconceivable. At first I told myself I was just idly looking around. But over the last few months, I began to realize that I was ready. Getting a dog during the first wave of the pandemic was impossible, we found. Everyone suddenly wanted a dog. We put ourselves on a list and were told it was going to be an 18-month wait, minimum. We looked very hard at rescues but almost all of them come with recommendations against going to homes with children. So we were stuck.
On Thursday, during one of my semi-routine web searches, I saw a post about a breeder in Ontario that had two basset hound puppies. They had been intended for breeding but the breeder had decided against expanding into bassets and was offering the two up for adoption. We were not specifically looking for a basset hound; the breeder in question didn't even normally breed them. But she had one, and I saw a picture of him, and, again, I knew. So without asking anyone, including my very patient and tolerant wife, I emailed the breeder and said I'd take him!
The first picture of Scotty, from the web post I read. I knew he was perfect the moment I saw this.
It took a bit more doing than that, but only just barely a bit. I picked him up on Saturday, only about 47 hours after first seeing a picture of him. His name is Scotty, a name that you'll all think is because I'm a Trekkie but was actually my son's idea. It won the family vote, beating my top choice of Riker. (Trekkie, remember?)
He's settling in wonderfully. He's good natured, well behaved, loves my kids, has peed or shat in every room we have, needs his belly rubbed 23 hours a day and is learning how to howl when he wants attention. Which is often.
He's perfect, in other words, and is already using a lot of the accessories that went into storage when Lucy died. I don’t think she’d mind.
Scotty has a very proud legacy to live up to. But I think he has it in him, and he's off to a strong start.
Welcome, Scotty.
Scotty at home, just before I started writing this — note my laptop on the table.
Goodbye, Lucy.
Lucy sleeping in the sun.
No full recap, this week, folks. Writing the above took a lot out of me. Some links to my work this week below — that’ll have to do for this recap. It wasn’t a busy week for me, in terms of public output, anyway. As I mentioned last week, most of my time right now is being gobbled up by a behind-the-scenes management project, so not much time for columns of late. But still, this week, I was able to produce:
A column for TVO.org about how Ontario’s COVID-19 testing has failed right when we need it most — as the second wave arrives.
A column for TVO.org about the Patient Ombudsman’s report into the first wave’s impact on long-term-care homes being depressing, but predictable, reading.
This video, at the National Post, on President Trump’s exposure to COVID-19.
That’s all for now, folks. Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian readers, and take care.
mgurney.responses@gmail.com
Twitter.com/MattGurney