Dog Gone It

Four months ago, we had to put our dog Kramer, our first and only dog, to sleep. He had been with us since he was 7 months old. If he had lived a few more months, he would have made it to fifteen years old. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss him. Though I have gotten used to not tripping over him in the kitchen where he always managed to lie right in the middle of foot traffic, I still expect to find him every time I enter the kitchen.

I also feel a little guilty that we decided to get rid of the mysterious multilevel deck in the back yard now, when he will never benefit from a straight forward patio instead. I can’t forget the first time I let him out on that deck. He stood there confused, trying to figure out how the heck to get off of the thing.

You see, this was no ordinary deck. It had three levels, but no railings in between the levels. Additionally, it was replete with switch backs and stairs that did not flow from one set to the other. I think my husband was probably right when he ventured a guess that the deck was the work of an over eager architecture school student, undoubtedly a direct descendent of the former owners. What really was the deck’s most sore spot was the “lighthouses” as we affectionately coined them. In reality they were two storage sheds with a tapered look and a nautical light fixture on each. The bizarre thing about them was that, like the rest of the deck, they made no sense. In fact, you could not get from one to the other from the deck. In order to achieve this feat, you would have to jump off the deck and walk around and climb up the other side. So, you can see why Kramer was confused and ultimately opted to give up trying to find the path to the lawn and instead peed right on the deck.

Yesterday, I was preparing salmon for a Father’s Day picnic and it broke my heart remembering I had no eager Kramer to whom I could give the salmon skins (a favorite of his, though he would take anything he could get, quite literally sometimes, which earned him the reputation as a thief). These days when I pull out the middle of the loaf of bread to make a smaller, less dense sandwich, I have no one to whom I can give the extra bread. It seems that I remember the things I used to do for him the most, rather than the other way around. But what he did most for me was to be a first rate walking buddy. That is why I miss him the most when I go for a walk.

I feel naked without Kramer when I walk through the neighborhood. It’s like I don’t know what to do with myself. There is no one to talk to (yes, I did talk to him on our walks, I love a captive audience). I don’t have to keep my eyes peeled for squirrels or chipmunks. But I also don’t have Kramer to coach up the big hill. Towards the end he didn’t relish going up hills as it was a great deal of work for him. It was far easier for me to focus on getting him up the hill than to focus on me getting up the hill. Now it is just me and the hill, and it is much less fun.

Of course, not every walk was exactly fun with Kramer. Back when he was a puppy, there was the time that he dragged me around a tree in hot pursuit of a squirrel. I returned home with a bloody hand and the realization that I was going to have to spot the squirrels before Kramer if I was going to survive the relationship in one piece.

It is, I must admit, much quieter at dinner time without Kramer around. You see, Kramer had trained my husband to give him any leftovers, so lingering over dinner was met with much barking from Kramer. If we were done eating, it was his turn, and he was going to make sure we knew it.
Sure, the house is cleaner and quieter than before, but I miss having a receiving line of one big white fluffy dog whenever I get home. It is so nice to have someone always happy to see you when you get home. Dog gone it, four months has gone by and I still miss him!