Throughout my childhood, we had pets—mostly one at a time, except for a cat or two to complement the German Shepherd. More than once I experienced bidding a pet adieu.
The first was my cat, Cleo (short for Cleopatra—not sure why). I’m a bit foggy on the details about how I acquired her—I think I brought her home as a stray kitten. No collar, no obvious home to which she belonged, she needed adopting. After lots of begging and promises to clean the litter box (!), my parents relented, and the cat was mine.
But not for all that long.
Cleo
Though the acquisition details are sketchy, the last farewell remains vivid.
Our family was taking a road-trip vacation from Ohio to Florida, with a stop in Somerset, Kentucky along the way to visit my grandmother for a few days. At the time (late 60s), the road from I-75 to Somerset was a miserable two-lane affair with dozens of sharp curves and hills.
Cleo didn’t take it very well. Sitting on the floor next to me in the back seat, she tossed her cookies several times. Dad wasn’t happy.
After we had arrived at my grandmother’s, Dad announced his decision that Somerset was Cleo’s final destination. She couldn’t handle the entire trip back to the interstate and on to Florida, he explained. It was for her own good, he assured me. Well, tried to, anyway.
The next day while I was taking a bath, Dad and Mom took Cleo out in the Kentucky countryside, opened the car door, and shooed her out.
Ever hear the song, “The Cat Came Back”? Cleo didn’t. Pretty much ruined the vacation for me.
For some reason, when it came time to bid farewell to German Shepherds Tammy and then Duke, I didn’t take it quite so hard. Perhaps because I didn’t play much with them; they were more Dad’s pride and joy. And when Timber died, I was out of the home living on my own.
Aubrey
Our first pet in married life came quickly after our marriage—too quickly!
A good friend arrived at the conclusion that we needed a puppy. Every newlywed couple needs a puppy, right? How better to test the strength of a young marriage?!
“Aubrey” was her name—a not so ordinary puppy or name, to be sure. She arrived in our upstairs two-bedroom apartment one evening, and we initially thought she was cute. Within minutes, though, we discovered the fleas. Straight to the bathtub she went, and we spent the next hour or so trying to drown all the pests.
Two huge problems with this tiny puppy. First, she wasn’t housebroken. Second, we both worked all day. It doesn’t work very well to expect a puppy to housebreak itself!
We tried; we really did.
Before leaving in the morning, we closed the bedroom doors, blocked the entry to the living room, and confined Aubrey to the kitchen and bathroom (linoleum floors). Then spread newspapers on the floor for her to do her business.
Every evening we’d come home to a mess. Rarely on the newspaper. This was getting old really fast. My bride was getting justifiably distraught over the messes, the cleanup, the hassle. So was her husband.
Plan A was the dog pound. That was nixed right away—they’d just kill Aubrey, and her death would be on our hands, my young bride insisted.
We started asking around, trying to get someone—anyone—to take this puppy off our hands! Couldn’t get any takers, and the aggravation level was only intensifying. Plan B wasn’t working.
So, I proposed Plan C. I’d put Aubrey in a paper grocery bag (she was a small pup!), take her out in the forest next to our apartment complex, set the bag down, and run back before she worked her way out of the bag. I know, I know. Sounds awful. And it would’ve been.
But for all her desperation, Chris wouldn’t let me do that. “What if she suffered and died out there?” she asked. Ok, good point. She couldn’t stand the idea of not knowing Aubrey’s fate, of being responsible for her demise.
Fortunately on the following Sunday, a family in the church stepped forward and volunteered to take Aubrey off our hands. Ahhh! Wonderful relief. They had some young kids, too—a perfect fit!
Or so we thought.
Two weeks later, the 6-year-old was walking into church, so we greeted him and asked how Aubrey was doing.
“She’s dead,” he replied calmly. No sense of grief, loss, hurt—nothing.
“What?? What happened?” we wondered.
“Daddy shot her. Said she was a no-account dog. Just yelped all the time,” he reported matter-of-factly.
“See,” I said to Chris, “shoulda let me take her into the woods. Probably stood a better chance!” She actually agreed.
Cody
Our next pet didn’t arrive until about twelve years later in 1993. By that time, we were living in Vermont; our children were 9 and 7. We lived in the church parsonage, next to the church, on plenty of acreage.
It was time we got a dog.
I saw an ad in the newspaper for pure-bred Border Collie puppies available from a nearby farm, $75 each. So, on a cold March Saturday, after a sugar-on-snow pancake breakfast at a nearby maple sugar house, we went to the farm to pick out a puppy.
“Cody,” we named him, was tucked all alone keeping warm between a couple of hay bales. He seemed perfect for our crew.
What a learning curve! We knew nothing about Border Collies, but soon discovered their penchant for herding and love of running…constantly on the move…constantly looking for something, anything, to herd!
But we learned. And Cody became a part of our family.
He went with us on our first camping trip in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
He played football with us in the field in front of the house.
He came along in the move from Vermont back to the Chicago burbs.
But one weekend in June, 2002, clearly something was wrong with Cody. His gums were very pale. He had no energy—couldn’t even get down two steps to go outside.
A visit to the vet revealed the problem. He had an auto-immune disease that was destroying his red blood cells. We had two options.
We could admit him to the animal hospital where they would give him daily blood transfusions for a week. It would cost several thousand dollars, and there was a 10% chance he would get better.
Or, we could put him down.
After being a part of our family for nine years, Cody went back home for a few minutes to say goodbye to Chris and our daughter. They didn’t want to return with him to the vet. My son wanted to go along, so he and I went, took Cody in the exam room, said our goodbyes, and watched as the vet tech led him to the back room.
To this day I remember Cody’s tired and bewildered eyes as he turned around to look at me one last time while he was being led away.
Berkeley
I just returned a little while ago from going through the experience again.
Berkeley wasn’t my dog—he was our daughter’s—but he’s been in our home about as long as Cody had been. 9 years. A few weeks ago, he was diagnosed with an aggressive soft-tissue cancer; he was given maybe two months. His condition had since deteriorated, and it was time to say goodbye.
Our daughter got him as a puppy 14 years ago. Our nine-year-old grandson grew up with him—Berkeley was his dog. Saying goodbye to a pet that has been part of your life, part of your family, for so long is a difficult thing to do. Very difficult.
Familiar sounds taken for granted–the barks, the whines, the paws walking across the floor—fall silent.
Familiar places once occupied—the dog bed, the spot in the sun, the place next to the table at dinner—sit vacant.
Yes, it’s difficult to say goodbye, even to an animal that’s become a pet and more—a part of the family. Slowly, subtly, unconsciously we become emotionally attached, and don’t realize how strongly until a day like this.
Attached
Twenty years ago, when we said farewell to Cody, I wondered if we become too attached, if perhaps we shouldn’t. I was reminded of those questions today when our grandson’s heart ached and tears gushed as he left for school, knowing Berkeley wouldn’t be there when he came home.
Then I remembered story from the Bible.
You know, the Bible has almost nothing to say about people having pets—especially dogs. In first century Palestine, for the most part, dogs were scavengers—mostly despised. Not all of them, though. There’s an incident in the life of Jesus when a woman came to Him asking a favor. I won’t get sidetracked with the whole thing, but the conversation went like this:
And [Jesus] said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
– Mark 7:27-28
The “dogs” in this case were little dogs that people did apparently have as pets in the home.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t a common thing.
But the story I thought of regarding being emotionally attached to our pets was told by Nathan the prophet in his confrontation of David. Remember the setting?
David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, apparently exercising his authority to take this wife of Uriah for a night of gratification. When Bathsheba became pregnant with David’s baby, he schemed so his sin wouldn’t be found out, even arranged for Uriah to be killed in battle.
Very nasty stuff.
But in confronting David, Nathan told a parable:
“There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”
– 2 Samuel 12:1-4
Did you catch that? This little ewe lamb “grew up with him and with his children…and it was like a daughter to him.” Sound familiar, pet owners?
Remember, the nature of a parable is to tell a story with familiar, understandable elements so its point can be readily understood. David could easily identify with the poor man’s attachment to his “daughter” the ewe lamb, and he was furious with the heartless rich guy!
Of course, in Nathan’s parable, David was that rich guy…the ewe lamb was Bathsheba, etc. The arrow of Nathan’s parable hit the bull’s eye.
But getting back to Cleo and Cody and Berkeley.
Even the Bible recognizes and sanctions a healthy emotional attachment to those creatures God has made that we welcome into our homes and families.
And I’m quite sure many a reader can relate.
