Eulogy for my Noble Dog

 

            Anyone who has ever met Wesley has been touched by him.  In fact, it was so common for people to stop their cars on the street to ask about him that it didn’t even seem strange to us anymore.  At times we had talked about investing in a set of autographed headshots for his many fans.  His unique appearance was certainly part of his charm.  He has been compared to Master Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a skeksi from The Dark Crystal, and Gandalf from Lord of the Rings.  One of our friends just called him Narnia.  But it was more than that.  There was something about his spirit, a certain gentleness in his eyes, that people responded to in a way that didn’t often happen with other dogs.  Or any other beings, really.  No one has ever forgotten meeting Wesley.

            Wesley began his life as a wild Irish rogue.  This little lurcher grew up as a Pikey dog, traveling across Ireland in a gypsy caravan.  Sometimes he was tied up to an old crate with a piece of wire, and the rest of the time he was racing through traffic, eating out of trash cans, and hunting rabbits.  His rescuers tried to catch him for six months, but he was so fast that they finally had to break down and buy him from the Pikeys so that they could treat his severe case of mange and take him to America. 

            I fell in love with Wesley from the moment I first saw him.  He was still recovering from his mange and had hardly any hair, but he was a handsome lad and so full of spirit.  On our first meeting he sprinted around the yard a few times, then ran right over to me for a belly rub. You could see that he loved life and wanted to live every full minute of it.  “Joyful” was always the first word that came to mind when I thought of Wesley.

            Wesley’s introduction to his new home was not easy.  He had never spent a moment in his life alone, so his initial separation anxiety was intense. The first two days he was with us he barked for hours, tore up two dog beds, and pooped all over himself.  I used to have to drive him to work with me and just leave him in the car all day because the car was the one place he felt relaxed and secure without me. Wesley stole food constantly, once snatching a freshly-iced birthday cake right off the table, another time eating an entire chicken carcass.  I would regularly find a combination of both treasure and trash hidden in his bed:  empty cottage cheese containers, my checkbook, a chewed-up Bluetooth, loaves of bread.  Once he ate a whole package of flour tortillas and didn’t poop for days.  It was not unusual to see Wesley scampering off with an open jar of peanut butter, or standing on top of the piano with a package of hot dogs in his mouth.

            In his youth, Wesley was always up for a scrap.   We were initially worried about this, but our trainer assured us that Wesley wasn’t dog-aggressive, he was just “Irish socialized.”  As the trainer put it, Wesley was basically running around the other dogs yelling, “Come on, everybody!  Let’s go blow some shit up!”  He was a known murderer of small animals and even tried to kill our own cat early on before he learned to treat her as one of the pack.  Even as he mellowed with age, he always carried a hint of the feisty rascal within. 

            Wesley loved being part of the pack.  He was devoted to his first sister, Lupe. Then after my first husband and I separated, Wesley and I moved into a duplex owned by the Dunmore-Hodge family, who welcomed us both into their pack.  Scott Dunmore is a gifted dog trainer, and Wesley spent as much time upstairs in their apartment as he did downstairs in mine.  On one occasion, Scott took a group of dogs out to try dock diving at a nearby pond.  Wesley was thrilled to tear along the dock with the other dogs and leap off the end.  However, as soon as he hit the water he gave Scott a look of instant regret as if to say, “Wow, I did not expect this to be so cold and wet.”  Scott fished him out, dried him off and warmed him up, and that was the end of Wesley’s dock-diving career.

            Wesley loved every person he ever met, and he was famous for leaning his full weight on you whenever you pet him.  He regularly hogged the couch and was not shy about putting his head in your lap whether he knew your or not.  He was incredibly  gentle and kind.  I once caught a toddler trying to pluck out Wesley’s eye as he lay patiently beside her.  He warmly and trustingly opened his home and heart to his new dad, his loving uncles, and any number of foster dogs, friends, and houseguests.  Wesley was a gracious host and a terrible watchdog.  One day I came home to find the house burglarized and Welsey lounging comfortably on the couch.  I have no doubt he had helpfully offered the burglars a fresh pot of coffee as they were ransacking our belongings.

            Sometimes Wesley could be aloof and he would sit like a pharaoh receiving tribute when you would come over to give him a cuddle.  One of the reasons we got a second dog was because I was worried that I loved Wesley too much, and it didn’t always feel like he had the same devotion to me.  However, I was proven wrong in that regard on the day he was attacked.  Wesley was in horrible pain, lying in a pool of his own blood, but as soon as he heard me pick up his leash, he stood up and came to me.  His wounds were so bad that I could not carry him, and so he slowly and painfully walked himself down a flight of stairs, in and out of the car, and into the vet’s office.  Simply because I asked him to.  On my last visit with him he stood up for me, ate from my hand, and shifted his body closer to me so he could put his head in my lap.  So while Wesley did not always carry his heart on his sleeve, no, I will never again doubt the devotion he held for me.  I will never again doubt that he loved me as loyally and as fiercely as I loved him.

            A friend once told me, “All animals dream, but dogs are the only animals who dream of us.”  Wesley’s life was an eventful one, and there were times over the past ten years that we were certain we were going to lose him.  He almost died of bloat in 2009, and last year a bad reaction to medication made us believe he was near the end.  However, he was always a fighter and he fought fiercely each and every time so that he could come home to us.  His people.  His pack.  We were always at the heart of Wesley’s dreams, and even in his last days, his dearest dream was to live and live and live so that he could return home to us.

            Wesley had the soul of a poet, the heart of a lion, and the iron will of Margaret Thatcher.  His gentleness, loyalty, and incredible courage will be forever unmatched.  Sir Walter Scott described his own deerhound as “a most perfect creature of Heaven,” and I can think of no more apt description for Wesley, my beloved and dearest heart’s companion.  Complicated and flawed, yes, but perfect, nevertheless.  No dog could be a greater blessing to his people than Wesley was to us.

            As human beings we always want to learn things.  We want to come out of an experience feeling wiser, feeling enriched.  We always say that our dogs teach us about things like loyalty and compassion and unconditional love, and all of those things are true.  But what else did Wesley teach me?  Wesley taught me about courage.  And grace.   He taught me to believe. To fight fiercely for what is dearest to your heart.  But Wesley also taught me that all things end.  That suffering is real, and unavoidable.  That our worst nightmares can and do come true. However, what I learned most from Wesley is that suffering, pain, loss…none of that really matters. Because everything that is worth doing will break your heart eventually, but you do it anyway.  Of course you do.

            And that, I think, is why dogs do dream of us.  Because dogs understand that we know they will leave us, that they will devastate us, that they will break our hearts, but they never doubt for a moment that we will love them even so. 
          And so it is in this spirit that I bid farewell to our Wesley, the most gentle, valiant, and gracious of creatures.  The joyful, blessed treasure of my heart.  Gypsy, thief, and soggy-bearded rogue. Dearest companion and cherished friend.  Our pack will forever mourn your loss, beloved one.  May we ever honor your memory. And when it is my turn to leave this earth, if our afterlife is truly a return to all those we have lost, I dream that it is you, precious one, who will come to lead me home.