Essay: My First Dog

I have two dogs. One is Alice, the dog I write about all the time. She's my baby, the doggie that lives with Don and me, walks with me every morning, sits between us on the couch every evening, and regularly gets into the kitchen trash and thoughtfully spreads it around the house. She's our rescue dog, our shelter-puppy, our no-breed-at-all is-she-even-all-dog problem child. Seriously, when Don and I talk about having a baby, Alice comes into the conversation, as in How Will This Affect the Dog? or Will This Be Detrimental To Our Relationship With Alice?



But long before Alice came into my life, I had Max. Max is my family's dog, and when I was nine he was my dream-come-true. Seriously, is there anything more iconic than a Dad walking into the house with a cardboard box full of squirming puppy for his children? I will never forget that first evening, my sister and I racing all over the backyard with this tiny, fluffy baby dog. Max was and is a perfect family dog: he loves people, any and all people. Always a runner, if he got free we could shout to a random stranger-- "Catch that dog!"-- he'd run to them because Hey! New People! A house-full of family is his dream come true, and nothing upsets him more than an empty house. Max is a papered Bichon Frise, a perfect example of the breed and the cutest one I've ever seen. Bichons are frequently mistaken for puppies, even late in life. Many times after Max perfected his Houdini escape act, we'd get calls from neighbors... "We found your puppy in our yard, poor little baby!" Even after he was 5 years old, or 9, or 12. Bichons also don't shed, they don't smell like "dog", and are the best possible breed for dog-allergic folk or asthmatics like my dad. At 12-14 pounds for most of his life, Max is the perfect lap-dog size, and loves nothing more than curling up in someone's lap, against their leg on the couch, or at the foot of the bed.

Max is pure alpha-dog... nothing scares him or intimidates him. I've never seen him look sorry, sheepish or hang-dog--which is Alice's usual expression. He has never tucked his tail between his legs, or turned and ran from anything. The only member of the household he ever listened to occasionally was my mother. In a larger dog this may have been obnoxious, but in an adorable little Bichon it was nothing but charming; so self-confident! He is quite self-serving for a dog, and very self-sufficient. He has always known how to get what he wants-- a biscuit, a scratch behind the ears, up on the couch. When my parents' house burned down, he was the first out of the house, and that was in 2001 when he was already a "senior" doggie. He was found, as usual, in the arms of a neighbor.

Max is turning 17 years old this month. The puppy that we got when I was nine, is still chugging along now that I'm twenty-six. He weighs only 10 pounds now, and he feels fragile when I pick him up. His vision and hearing are both mostly gone, but not his sense of smell or love of a good cuddle. Even so, every time I go home and see him, I fear that it may be the last. It's hard to imagine loosing something that's been part of my life for so long, but I have to face reality; he's an elder doggie now. Having a dog like Max, though, has guaranteed that I will always have a canine member in my family. It made me a "dog-person" for life.