The Life & Times Of A Big Black Dog
A Dog Named Moose
This story begins on a hot summer’s morning at 2:00 a.m.
I am finally, finally sound asleep and wake to deep barks and growls just outside my bedroom window. My farm dog’s higher barks are overwhelmed and swallowed up by what sounds quite like a scene from Cujo.
We live in the country. We have coyotes. Big coyotes. But this did not sound like a coyote.
I grabbed a flashlight and big walking stick and headed out into the all enveloping velvety blackness only found in the places with no city or street lights.
My flashlight catches a glint of red, glowing demon looking eyes. What have I gotten myself into? I’m alone in the dark with an unseen demon. No time to retreat as the glowing eyes close in on me.
I say a quick prayer of protection and brace for an attack or something equally catastrophic. My stick is held high over my head and I am thrown backwards off my feet and attacked — licked almost to death by a very large dog. My farm dog Lucky joins in.
I cannot move. Monster dog has pinned me. There is no retreat, no attempt by me to get up because it is futile and I am relieved and offer up another quick prayer, this time of thanks. And so we lay there in the sweet smelling dewy grass— me, Lucky and demon dog —in the very early morning for a full 30 minutes.
My husband never woke up. I could have been eaten and in the morning he’d only have found a large walking stick and perhaps some bloody, tattered remnants of clothing. But he didn’t need to wake up. I was safe.
When daybreak came and I told my husband of the early morning encounter he said, “We already have 1 dog, we don’t need another”. Moose (yes, I’d named him) would have to go.
Where do you take a very large, very clearly still a puppy to? We were new to the area, which made things even more difficult, so I called many shelters and rescues only to find them all full. Still, my husband said Moose had to go.
I finally loaded Moose up into my car and drove to the Dog Warden’s Office. Moose’s large, square head was on my lap for the whole 30 minute drive, his eyes exuding the purest of love. I already loved this big lug and I almost cried (with joy) when the sign on the Dog Warden’s door said, “Pound is full, we cannot accept any dogs at this time”.
Moose had to come back to the farm with me. While I was momentarily overjoyed, I knew keeping Moose was going to be a hard sell to my husband.
Lucky greeted us as we came up our very long lane and Moose jumped out of the car as soon as I opened the door. The tangle of 1very large black dog and 1 very much smaller tan dog was impossible to break up as they rolled and played until they stretched out in the cool green grass in the morning’s sun and slept a sleep of deep and utter contentment.
Long story short, when my husband came home that night to find Moose still on the farm it did not go well. That is until Moose made his move and ran as fast as he could towards my husband (Cujo style), licked him and wagged his docked tail (which wagged Moose’s whole body). When my husband looked at me and smiled I knew it was a done deal. Moose was part of our family.
Over their many years together, Moose and Lucky had exciting adventures together since both were almost impossible to keep on our farm no matter what I tried. I bailed them out of “jail” (the dog pound) numerous times and retrieved them from neighbor’s gardens on many occasions. They loved going to a nearby campground, always bringing back some treasures: 1 shoe, a pillow, even a full pack of hot dogs.
I had hoped to bring the boys to live in the house but that was a definite deal breaker for my husband who did not believe dogs should live in the house — especially if you had a farm.
So we finally built a very large corral for them in the coolness of the woods and when we were gone they stayed there. When we were home the boys were out with us on the farm. It had taken a while, but everyone finally settled into a comfortable routine.
And for years — 12 in all — we were content. Until the day Moose and I went to the vet to see why he was limping. I thought he’d likely just been stung by a bee or stepped on a small rock.
The x-rays showed what I had not even begun to imagine. Moose had cancer. The vet said he likely had just a few months to live. Worst of all, this particular type of cancer was aggressive and had likely already spread to other places. I took Moose for a 2nd opinion elsewhere and was given the same diagnosis.
We were not in a financial place to spend thousands of dollars on Moose, nor did we want to make the last part of his life even more difficult for him. He was already at the top end of a very large dog’s life span. So I cried and prayed and spent many hours and days and weeks gleaning information from the internet, corresponding with others whose dogs had the same overwhelmingly gut wrenching diagnosis. I tried everything these dog owners suggested, even changing Moose over to a raw, grain-free diet.
Summer was always his favorite time and he loved swimming in our pond then laying back in the sweet tall grass and sleeping with Lucky. I promised him as his trusting eyes looked back into mine that this would be his best summer ever. I assumed only I knew it would likely be our last together.
But as I think back to that summer I wonder if Moose knew too. Though he was always a “jubilant” dog, he seemed to relish life even more: he played even more, he ate even more, he ran even more, he swam even more. He loved even more — if that were possible.
And every night I pitched a tent wherever his big, wiggly body landed and he and Lucky camped out under the starry country sky, their tent surrounded by a portable electric fence to protect my sleeping giant and his lifelong buddy.
When Moose could no longer move as freely on his own, I pulled him from place to place on a big blue tarp and, he obviously loved it! Appreciation and love shone in his soulful eyes as he became more mobile with my help.
I was thankful Moose did not seem to be in pain until his last day. We had made the pact that he would let me know when it was time to go and I would have to let him leave. I could not have known ahead of time how hard that promise would be to keep.
That morning, his last morning, he cried and for the first time I saw the love in his eyes overshadowed by pain and I knew I had to keep my promise. I called Moose’s best human friend, Tom, to tell him it was time to say goodbye and we both cried rivers of tears that spilled over onto the soft black fur of a dog whose life had touched ours so very deeply. He had not been just a dog, he was our always there faithful friend.
We held this sweet, dear mountain of a dog as he breathed his last and wondered how we would go on.
But that was years ago and we have learned to live on as we always must. In spite of the pain, life does seem to go on after loss but it goes on differently.
And every time I think of Moose it is with a smile on my face and thankfulness in my heart that he came at all. For what I would have missed if he hadn’t.
What I would have missed!
Jackie Deems Copyright 2019
