The nature of the beast
This is my first dog, Genji, in 1999, when he was a few months old. When he wasn’t gnawing on nylabones or other chew toys, he spent some valuable hours chewing my Swedish wood clogs and a couple of pairs of underwear from the laundry hamper. His other pastimes included digging into my husband’s armpits as though mining for buried treasure, digging like a madman in the dirt at the park in Westwood near UCLA, and barking at suspicious inanimate objects, like blenders, or baseball hats that hung from doorknobs.
He was insane, growing into a nutty little jumper and humper, but in a good way, and we held him every moment that we could, watching long movies with him on our uncomfortable, hand-me-down pink couch. When we figured out that we needed him to behave occasionally, we started taking him to puppy class in Cheviot Hills and later at a park in Santa Monica. There we learned that he was not just smart relative to some of the other sweet slobberers we encountered, but that he was very tuned into us, and people in general. We assume he was born that way, but we like to think that we nurtured him a bit, with all of our devotion, to be that special, like parents not-so-secretly believe about their human children.
When each of our two children were born, we followed the advice we’d heard and brought home a blanket that held the baby in advance of the actual baby, so that Genji could smell it and not be totally surprised at the tiny, human usurper. What he made of the milky smells, I don’t know, but he soon grew used to the kids. By the time they were toddlers and later in school, he was too dignified to compete with them for our attention, but he could easily be coaxed into a zooming game of chase all around our townhouse. Just when one of the kids, or one of the adults, paused for breath in one corner of the house, either he or the human would suddenly drop into a defensive running position again and resume. We said that we were inspired by “The Pink Panther,” where Cato the houseboy is paid to keep Inspector Clouseau on his toes by trying to kill him. But Genji had never seen that movie; he was more a fan of science fiction. So we were just being silly.
Genji was my birthday gift, at the age of 30. I’d never had a dog before, unless you count my grandparents’ badly behaved, nippy chihuahua Bambi (you shouldn’t count her), or the stray dog my mom fed when I was a child in Taiwan, Dumbbell. I’d spent most of my life afraid of dogs. On my first day in Taiwan, at the age of two years old, I was attacked by a dog. I still have faint scars where the Taiwanese doctor stitched up my arm and stomach. While I might not have remained afraid of dogs, my father kept me away from them, instilling in me a jumpy aversion to even the best dogs. But once, when I was with the boy I would later marry on a beach in Michigan, he showed me how to let a dog approach me, how to tell if it was friendly. Then I started to really like them and eventually want one of my own.
Genji has had a long year of decline in his 15th year, and today is his last day of life. I’d like to think we’ve given him a good life. Last night we gathered the kids, now age 11 and 8 years old, to say goodbye to him. Just like earlier this year, when we had a couple of very sad pet deaths, we were reminded that one of our kids hates acknowledging or talking about feelings, more cerebral and closed up, and the other one is very in tune with emotions and is not afraid to show them, in real time.
We spoke some impromptu words to remember his best years, and tell the kids the stories about their milky blankets and coming home from the hospital and how he lit up when they came home from preschool and later elementary school. I said that the great sadness of having a dog is that at some point, you are at the same stage as the dog, like a child and a puppy, but that eventually the dog grows old before you do, and you take care of him as long as you can. We sat and held the child who cried and told the one who refused tears that our door was always open to listen. We told them, like my father-in-law told us earlier this year, that ending a pet’s life in dignity and at the right time is the last responsibility of a pet owner. It was the best I could do, trying to be the parent I wish I’d had.
