For years I’ve had a news story in my head based on how my rescue dog’s life turned out differently simply because he made it across Mack Avenue.
It started one day in August 2004 when a 65-pound black shepherd-collie mixed breed navigated the traffic and crossed the east side divide between city and suburbs. He met some Grosse Pointe Farms officers, jumped into their vehicle and rode to the Grosse Pointe Animal Clinic, the holding pen for many strays in the Pointes.
When he got there, Dr. Lawrence Herzog and his staff checked him out, deemed him adoptable, named him “Bear,” and put a Polaroid photo of him on their bulletin board. It lingered there a few weeks until I wandered in one September 2004 Friday. I had a bought a house that summer, it had a yard, it was time to add a dog to my feline herd.
I had planned to call a dog “Brinks” because I figured, at least in part, he would be a home security system. But I couldn’t ditch the name “Bear” for this furry mutt. The name was too perfect. He looked like a bear, lumbered like a bear, and sounded like a bear when he groaned and bayed.
He immediately got a new collar, a bath, a walk, proved he was housebroken, and when the first cat hissed at him, he cowered, just a bit. He passed the tests.
Bear, I would learn, was goofy, curious, affectionate, loyal, patient and a little sneaky. He’d howl along with sirens, go upstairs to bed when he thought it was time and get excited about a walk on Belle Isle when we were about a half mile away from the bridge.
He’d eat anything left within reach when you left him alone – and by “within reach” I mean inside the breadbox in the far corner of the kitchen counter. And by “loyal” and “patient,” I mean he’d go outside and never ask to come in. No barking, no door scratching. Just a faith that you’d let him back inside and he could climb on the couch, put his head in your lap and spend hours being petted if you’d comply.
But Bear also had a wicked racist streak that scared me in the first few months I had him. One on one with friends of mine he was fine, but if he was in the yard or the car, his aggression was shocking. It didn’t help when two junior high-age kids threw a fire cracker at him in our yard. One of them was African-American and the other Hispanic. Bear never lost that memory and would raise his head from a nap to give at least a half-hearted growl if he heard kids near our house.
Bear’s race-specific aggression concerned me so much that I took him to an animal behaviorist within six months of owning him. The assessment: “What you’ve got, Sandi, is a dog that probably was kept in a backyard. He was teased through the fence and taught to bark. His neighborhood was probably majority African American so the yard and the car bring out those aggressive tendencies.”
What do I do?
“Well, I could charge you thousands of dollars and it may not help. Or you can be aware of his issues, manage them by, for example, making sure your gate is always closed, and that he’s leashed, and watching for signs of aggression when people approach him.”
That’s what we did, and over the years he got better.
But the whole animal behaviorist conversation kept me thinking: Was my dog’s personality and behavior really defined by where he “grew up”?
What did “crossing the border” from city to suburb mean for Bear?
And what would his likely outcome had been if he’d gone to the Detroit Animal Control Center or the Michigan Humane Society instead of Dr. Herzog’s office? What were the odds for dogs’ survival in the city versus the suburbs?
I’d always meant to do that as a news story. Interview Dr. Herzog and police in the Grosse Pointes about their rescue animal policies and examine their statistics on adoption. Research the same number, dynamics and outcomes for dogs if they’re picked up in Detroit. Probably find some social injustice and inherent unfairness about the “system” but laud the individual success stories…with a charming photo of my dog as Exhibit A.
But I didn’t. And now Bear’s gone. We lost him Feb. 20 when a cancerous tumor stealthily grew, not revealing itself until it shut off his bladder function without any warning.
Every day for about the past four years I’ve looked at Bear and thought how lucky I was to have more time with him. See, that Polaroid photo said he was 8, so when I adopted him so I never thought I’d get these nearly 8 ½ years.
I did consciously recognize that each moment with my dog was special.
Working out of town most of these past six months, I have told everyone who asked that the hardest thing about being away was missing my dog. “Not your husband?” they would asked incredulously. “No,” I would answer. “I can talk to, Skype, text and Facetime the husband. But I can’t interact with the dog at all while I’m away and I know his days are relatively numbered.”
Every one of the days we did have, to use a cliché, was a blessing. Like so many other people whose pets claim a worthy share of the household attention, Bear was our family. His role wasn’t just as protector of the home and official greeter when we’d get there. He’d go to work with us sometimes.
He’d travel. Once he was in a full-fledged parade, he often went boating on Lake St. Clair, and he was in a photo that was part of the Detroit feature in “National Geographic Traveler” last year that we proudly displayed like it was his straight-A report card.
Friends who invite us over for dinner assume he’s coming along. His “Gotcha Day” party in 2011 was an excuse for six friends (and their dogs) to come over for an evening of fun. He made me new friends: once when I was walking him, two women eating outdoors asked me what kind of dog he was, we started talking, and the friendships were launched.
Bear was front and center at our 2010 wedding. My favorite picture from the whole fabulous day is of Bear interrupting the ceremony to make me pet him while the husband patiently and amusedly waits for us.
As it turns out, the saddest exercise of the vow my husband made to love, respect and care for me has actually been for Bear.
Had there been more time between Bear’s steep health decline and the need to do what was right for him, I would have flown home from Louisiana where I’m working temporarily. For years I have braced myself for that day, and I’m devastated that my husband had to do it alone and then make the first trip into the house by himself without being greeted by that waggy, furry tail.
But it was best for Bear not to wait for me. Still, it breaks my heart that I was a week away from a scheduled trip home when I would have seen him again.
We Facebooked the sad news, of course, and friends and family cried with us in their posts, texts, emails and phone calls. I hadn’t realized how many of our friends had shared time with Bear – some of them conscripted into dogsitting for which we are eternally grateful – and now are sharing their memories of him and lovingly recognizing our overwhelming grief at his loss.
Through Bear, our friends and our collective sadness, we are reminded that life is foremost about sharing love of life and companionship and making the most of opportunities to live.
No matter what roads we need to cross to make that happen together.
