COLUMN: Good Dog Gone

By Tobin Barnes
Well, Matty’s gone now.

She was a good old dog. We couldn’t have asked for a better one. A real sweetheart. She fit the bill in every respect of the description, “good old dog.”

We had to make the tough decision to put her down. She had kidney disease and had lost a lot of weight in the last weeks. In many ways, the decision had been made for us. It was our final realization that had held us back.

You know a dog’s in tough shape when it won’t gobble down the things it used to enjoy or even kind of enjoy. My wife tried everything, including cooking things for her, to get her to eat. Some things would work for a while, but gradually, or sometimes quickly, she’d lose a taste even for them.

Not wanting her to continue in a sickly lethargic state, we thought we had no choice but to let her go. Even at that, with all the best intentions, it’s tough, as many of you well know. We had hoped that something would change for the better, but it didn’t.

In addition to the kidney problems, Matty had obsessively begun licking and chewing at her paws to the point that the hairs came off, all in trying to alleviate symptoms of what we were told was arthritis.

Yeah, it’s hell getting old. And it happens so fast for dogs.

It was just the other day that she was a romping goofy puppy, young and dumb, chewing on everything including the front door frame, for crying out loud.

But the dumb stage didn’t last long before she started becoming our good old dog. It doesn’t seem like we taught her very much, but she quickly learned on her own how best to live with us and, especially, what we could do for her.

However, no matter how much she manipulated us, she was always gentle and considerate.

She hardly ever barked, which is a godsend with any dog, unless maybe you’re training up a coon hound, which we most definitely weren’t.

Rather than barking at a door to get into the house like some dogs will, she instead—right from the start—came to a window or the sliding glass patio door and tapped on it with her claws. How thoughtful, if it’s possible for a dog to have thoughtful thoughts, and how much appreciated by us.

In this and many other things, she instinctively knew what we liked and didn’t like and tried to accommodate what she, in her dog mind, must have thought were our quirks.

But that didn’t mean she was a pushover.

After some years of spending her nights in the garage, she decided to unilaterally upgrade her amenities by heading over to the neighbors for better accommodations. Kindly people that they are, they began bringing her in to their home at night and allowing her to nestle by the stove or wherever was amenable.

We comfort ourselves in thinking that Matty had led a pretty good dog life. We know for sure that she contributed much to ours.

Yup, Matty was a good old dog.