Old Dog Summer

Hey there, powdered sugar face.

Her Highness takes a moment to hydrate.

The early morning hours of Memorial Day, I was roused from sleep by Ava climbing into bed. About six months ago, I took the ottoman from my living room and staged it on the side of the bed to make it easier for her to get up.

Previous to that, she’d jump straight from the ground, sometimes with a running start, sometimes not. One day last fall, I came home from work and Ava seemed a little shaken up, as though she’d taken a spill. I had observed a couple times in the months before her jumping into the bed, but it wasn’t quite as smooth as it had been over the years, or she had just barely cleared the edge. I deduced something went wrong getting in or out while I had been gone, and came up with the inelegant-yet-effective solution of the ottoman.

There’s a tedious online debate that crops up around this subject from time to time. Some folks swear that they would never allow a dog to sleep in their bed, because they believe that’s not showing sufficient dominance over their pet, or whatever. I don’t care if anyone judges me for it. I sleep better when she’s in the bed. And anyone that fixates on domineering every creature they encounter, even the ones they presumably love, will likely find some other contrived, stupid reason why I’m not Alpha, and I’ll just have to live with that.

No hiccups with Ava for a while after moving the ottoman. However, about a month ago, she suddenly stopped getting in the bed, or she would get in, and only stay for an hour or so before vacating to sleep on the floor. If she didn’t start the night in the bed, she’d stay on the floor all night, which is what made the Memorial Day appearance such a pleasant surprise. She’d had her first bad potty accident in the bed just before the change, pissing on the comforter and the sheets. I was certainly not thrilled that it happened, but I didn’t go nuclear on her. In the rare instances she has accidents in the house, I can tell she already feels bad about it. Still, I wonder if the dread of having another accident is what has fueled her reluctance to sleep there.

In short, my girl is gettin’ old. Happens to the best of us, I know.

We still go on the two- and three-hour walks that have defined our day-to-day existence for the past five years, though a little less often and her gait is overall more sluggish than it used to be. In 2020, she got booted from the doggy daycare I worked at as a side job for the second and final time. I only kept that job so she could get free daycare, and once that was off the table, I REALLY didn’t give a shit. And who could blame me - I made a paltry $10.50 an hour, and one time I saw the position being advertised on Indeed with a higher starting pay than what I was currently making. I approached the owner about it, and he claimed he was about to raise my pay to that level, too. Yeah, I’m sure you were, dickhead.

For the job’s many shortcomings, having Ava there as Deputy Dog was a priceless experience. Beyond thinking she was second in command of daycare, she’d get jealous if other dogs rubbed up on me or wanted too much attention, and try to shove them out of the way. The play area was divided into two sides and if I was assigned to the other one, she’d stand up on her hind legs and look over the partition for me from time to time before returning to the chaos.

With daycare out of the picture, I had to find other ways to keep her active. She’s half-Boxer, a breed that needs a ton of exercise. And so we got well very acquainted with the two to three mile radius around where I live. Maybe a year ago, we were passing this body shop up the street from me when one of the mechanics popped out to inform me that he sees us walking everywhere. Initially I didn’t feel great about that. After all, I don’t wanna be some area’s signature loner and oddball, but sometimes that’s the role you gotta play in life.

I’m confident Ava will make her 13th birthday this October. Ava is the first dog I’ve had, after growing up exclusively with cats. I’m grateful I didn’t make a disaster of it, and she’s enjoyed a long and healthy life.

There’s a decent chance I’d be dead now if it weren’t for her. When I was at my lowest, suicidal, the thought of her abandoned drew me back from the brink. If I died, there’d be no one to take care of Ava. Saddling my parents with her would be a non-starter, given that she doesn’t get along with one of their dogs, and she is almost twice the size of the biggest of their two dogs, who happened to pull my mom down on a walk and broke her wrist a couple years ago, so you can only imagine the damage Ava could do.

Just thinking about the contrast of how my life compares to when I adopted her in March 2013 makes my head spin. Back then, I was working from home as editor of KSK, making pretty good if not fantastic money, was in a long-term relationship, had hope for the future, some purpose and direction, a social life. Now I don’t have any of those things. Once she’s gone, I don’t know what can fill the void. I don’t think adopting another dog is feasible on my current budget, and I’m not working from home like I was when Ava was a puppy.

For a single man, a dog can be a lifeline to social acceptance. A solitary man, especially one older than 30, is very likely to be judged as a threat or a menace or a creep on his own. Add a dog and suddenly he’s okay, a redeeming quality has been bestowed upon him. I don’t talk about what has happened to me and my cancellation with people IRL and certainly not my neighbors, but in the last couple years, others at my apartment complex have oddly begun giving me the cold shoulder for reasons unspoken. I’ve never done or said anything untoward to any of them, but it’s obvious one nosy individual went digging around me online, then let the gossip flow. Of course, lying-ass social-fascist liberals have often victim-blamed me in this regard. If only I had never publicly confronted these authoritarian lies, according to them, it wouldn’t be so bad. Just shut up and accept the injustice, they insist, knowing full well they would never wish to do so themselves were they the target of reckless cancel mobs.

If my dumbass neighbors wanna shun me, that’s their prerogative, I guess. I’m not exactly desperate to win their approval. Most of them are unspeakably lame dullards. Yet I don’t need to receive dirty looks I don’t deserve from people who have no idea of the truth and know that caustic words are being uttered about me behind my back when I’m just trying to live my life peaceably. And they don’t have the guts to tell me why they’re treating me like shit, they just do it, like a bunch of unthinking contemptible cowards. It wears on me psychologically. It would on anyone.

When Ava was a pup, my girlfriend at the time and I had this refrain of “Puppy Forever!” talking about her. It’s probably not worth explaining the whole inside joke, but we naturally knew a time like this was in the offing. You never want to think about it. I hope I’ve set her up for as pleasant a home stretch as possible.

It’s all I have left.