When our 13 year old dog died of natural causes, I told my wife I did not want another. We had gotten her when we lived in a rural area. She was a large German Shepherd/Black Lab mix with dark fur and an intimidating bark. She spent most of her life sleeping outdoors, by choice.
Over the years I hiked a few hundred kilometers with her, and she was a strong, healthy dog, but her final couple years she stopped barking, went deaf and gradually faded away. By then we had relocated to a suburban barrio. We buried her at the base of the rancho where she often slept.
As dogs go in Costa Rica, she had a good life. She was spayed, inoculated, well-fed, and the only time she was on any kind of a leash was when walking her through well-traveled areas. And Ginger (her name) lived 13 years, a good stretch for a dog in the 60 pound range. (If you are wondering why a sleek, black coated 60 pound dog was named Ginger, it was because my daughter, eight years old at the time, named her). Her life, if not better, was certainly longer than any other dog I owned here.
Weird things happened to my dogs when I lived in the campo. They died prematurely– one was run over, another poisoned, another died from an infection after a vet did not stitch a wound properly, another from something called twisted stomach. The sloping backyard of our property became its own pet cemetery.
At this point I was reluctant to look for another dog, but two different family members had new puppies they needed to give away, so we adopted Ginger, and another dog, a 1kilo runt for inside the house. This dog my daughter named Brandy. Some wiseguy asked meif Ginger and Brandy were named for my two favorite strippers. Both dogs are gone now.
With our kids all grown and on their own I did not anticipate any new additions to the household. Then my in-laws became the recipients of two abandoned puppies, left in a box in their driveway. I was in the US on a visit when my wife sent me photos of my new ‘hija’. She named her Dorothy. I had to laugh–who names their dog Dorothy?
I came home to a lap-jumping, pillow chewing, shoe robbing ball of fur. As I work from home, I am now the primary caretaker, which means morning walks to the soccer field, cleaning up dog poop from the yard, and trying to teach a hyperactive pup why it is not good to jump at my lap, racking my huevos while simultaneously scratching my arm and going for my hands with her mouth open.
At this moment, I count five nicks and scratches on my forearms and hands. But I am a patient dog dad, and thankfully for Dorothy, I do not think like the Governor of South Dakota (who calmly boasted of shooting dead a year-old dog she could not control).
Childless people like to compare having a new dog to having a child. Fur babies, in reality are way easier to handle than actual babies, who can’t poop in the yard or eat from a bowl or be left on their own to sleep all night. And as a rule, they don’t live nearly as long, which, of course is the worst thing about dogs: They pass away far too soon.
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Don Mateo
