Ode to Lily
I have a dog named Luna. She’s not the one in the picture. To be clear, Luna is not really my dog. She was a graduation present to my daughter who received her B.A. this past May in an online ceremony, not unlike all other college graduates in 2020. My wife and I wanted to give her something special, something she’d never expect, despite making obviously clear to us that it was something she definitely wanted. Two years ago, almost to the day that we told her about the Luna gift, we lost our last dog, Lily. She was our eleven-year-old Bichon and had given us many happy moments. My wife and I struggled through Lily’s final days, knowing the end was near. She was, for all intents and purposes, our kids’ dog, but you know how that goes. When you buy a dog for a child, you’re really buying it for yourself. We kinda knew that going in. What we had no idea of at the time was how emotionally attached we’d become just having Lily around. Days spent feeding, walking and pooping⏤the pick-ups that is, sprinkled with crazy dog-hours in the evening with Lily running in circles like a bat outta hell, had a way of softening us to her presence. She went from an exasperating nuisance, to a bearable chore, to the endless love and lover of our family. She did in fact, love us to death. She never wanted to be anywhere but with us.
What made Lily’s last few days the hardest for my wife and I, was knowing that we couldn’t tell our daughter what was about to happen. When we got the diagnosis from our vet, we weighed our daughter’s undying love for Lily with her need to get through finals week. There was no right way to handle it, but we decided to wait until our daughter came home. She took it hard, as we expected. But she’s a resilient young lady and I think that was why my wife looked at me one day earlier this year and said, “Hon, I think we should get another dog, as a graduation present.” It floored me, to be honest. We both teared up when Lily passed, but we’d gotten used to not having late night walks⏤every night, or paying the extra airfare for kennels whenever we wanted to travel. We were enjoying a bit of freedom that was, actually liberating—there’s no other way to say it. But the stars were in alignment and Luna was born on May 23rd, and she was ours.
Luna is a different kind of dog than Lily was. Her breed may have something to do with it. She’s a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. It’s a mouthful, I know. Wherever we go people stop and ask, “What is she?” We’ve gotten so worn down by the curiosity that at this point, we just say Nova Scotia Retriever. This breed is very smart. Annoyingly smart. When we ask Luna to do something she stands and stares at us for a good fifteen seconds. What the heck is she thinking in that time, we really wanna know. Sometimes she does what we ask, if it’s something that often has a reward at the end, but other times, well, she turns and walks away. I’ve been living with her since July and I still haven’t figured her out. Dog therapy may be in our future. We have the beginnings of a communication problem, I think. Still, I love having her around. She is at her most enjoyable when we take her to dog beach. She has become a total social junky. There’s no dog too large or too small that isn’t worthy of a sniff. Even with the not so hospitable ones, Luna tries a few times before giving up. I’m hoping there’s something in that. Perseverance maybe? Luna also has webbed feet, but you wouldn’t know it yet. She and water have a tense relationship. Mostly, she loves to run, chase and be chased. To see animals in their element, without artifice, hypocrisy or rank cruelty, is refreshing in ways we humans can learn from.
There have been a few studies on dogs and owners that suggest the two somehow end up with the same personality. Some feel that owners pick dogs like themselves or that dogs gradually adopt their owner’s personality traits. They are all pretty well-structured studies and I don’t have issues with the conclusions. My own experience, however, makes me wonder if there’s a lot going on in the other direction. Does an owner change their personality because of their dog? If, say, their dog is on the obnoxious side⏤maybe excessively territorial⏤does the owner develop a little less sensitivity to others? Or, if the opposite is the case, say your dog is excessively amiable and has an owner that leans introvert, is the owner more inclined to engage others? Does our regular re-education about mammalian instincts that play out whenever two dogs meet, help us to understand other people’s idiosyncrasies? And regardless of our own inclinations, I wonder if having and caring for another being⏤a relatively helpless being at that, give us empathy and compassion that infects our human relationships. Any one of these could make for research worthy of a PhD in psychology. In my own life, I feel that Lily tugged on my emotional balance and capacity to give that made me a better person. Luna seems intent on testing those waters with greater intensity. I’m running my own study of two but it’s my life. What’s a guy to do?
Lily always greeted me at the door at my end of day with glee and excitement that was infectious. No matter how long or punishing my day, it always ended with a smile. Luna has happily filled those paws. She’s my daughter’s dog, mind you, but I try to steal the show as much as I can.
© Eric Clark 12/18/20
