Spirit - The Dog Of Dogs, and Champion of Champions

When I was in the fifth grade, my dad and I talked about getting a dog.

I don't remember the actual conversation, but I do remember us being at Mark and Monica's (a pizza joint where he would eat a sandwich and drink a beer, and I would eat a personal pizza and drink a root beer (because it had 'beer' in it, and I wanted to be like my dad)) coming up with a few basic guidelines. a) the dog should, obviously (due to my love for all things golden) be a Golden Retriever and b) the dog's name would be Spirit. (My recommendation, based off a She-Ra's horse. Because I was/am awesome.)



Months later, I was in a terrible mood when I got home and my dad demanded that we all go to the bank. (We all = me, Dad, and Cherie.)

I was, to say the least, in a huff.

I did not want to go the bank. I was old enough to be left home alone, and the bank was a boring place where boring people went to do boring things when they had nothing better going on.

Alas, my dad was (is) a stubborn fellow, and I had no choice but to go along with his stupid 'family outing' plan.

So we drove, and I found myself frowning as we passed our local bank, our non-local bank, and our decidedly-out-of-the-way bank. But I was in a mood, so I ignored these things and kept being a sophisticated ten year-old in a humph.

Then, we stopped in some odd driveway. I was confused, obviously, but I got out of the car and followed the lead of the parental units, who easily talked to the other adult and walked into a garage filled with yellow puppies.

The bank was forgotten and my life became instant bliss. (This was/is one of my dad's favorite ploys. Make you irritated as shit, and then surprise you with something so delightfully fantastic that you can't help but love him and his evil ways.)

There were at least a dozen puppies. All of them, according to the Garage-Owning-Dude, Lab/Golden Retriever mixes and six months old, and all very adoptable.

I don't remember much of this puppy paradise, but I do remember asking if there were any girl puppies. Garage-Owner-Dude said that there had been two, but one had already been adopted. I, obviously, wanted the other girl puppy. Because girls were so much better than boys.

So, Owner-Dude pointed out the last remaining girl puppy. I played with her, and decided that, yes. This was the puppy for us.

With little ado the puppy was in the back seat of our car, looking out the windows and being super excited as we took her back to her new home, our house. I was enthralled. Dogs had been a constant part of my life since I was born, and the fact that I didn't have a dog at the new house that Dad, Cherie and I shared was very much an Odd Thing. So we got home and let the puppy (who was, of course, named Spirit, as per Dad's and my conversation months earlier) explore her new place.

An hour and a half later, said puppy was passed out in the middle of the living room, in the exact center of the carpet. She wasn't shy, didn't have any problems exploring, and didn't for a second think that she was at all unwanted in the center of the household's universe.

And as such she fit right in.

My childhood is very much fragmented. There are years I don't remember - for no particular reason - and even the years that I do remember are split between my mother and my father's houses.

For example, I know that soon after we got Spirit, I went on a camping trip with my mom and missed the first week or so of Spirit's puppy-hood. All I know for certain is that one day, I was looking at Spirit passed out in the center of our rug, and the next time I remember seeing her she was twice as big as what I had thought, and as such no longer a puppy.

I'm obviously skipping some bits, but in my memory, in the time I had been gone my dad had done his classic house-training trick (the man of the household just has to go outside, with the dog, and pee on a tree. The dog will never again pee inside the house (has worked with three different puppies, so I think it may very well be an actual method of house-training dogs...)), Spirit had caused a lot of trouble, and I was left without my gleeful 'puppy-period'.

No longer a kid-dog, but not quite a dog-dog, Spirit was a handful. I was only at my dad's half of the time, but whenever I was there I just wanted to play with 'my puppy.' Alas, my 'puppy' had become bigger and stronger than me (making walks around the neighborhood a lot of fun, but also far more of an 'adventure' than I suspect my dad or Cherie ever knew about), had become jealous of my stuffed animals (I have no stuffed animals left over from my childhood at my dad's house - Spirit chewed them all up), and *loved* to play inside the blanket forts that my friend Emily and I would make. And by play, I of course mean destroy them instantly and get lost inside of the blankets.

As she grew up, we realized that Spirit wasn't a Golden Retriever at all. At all at all. In terms of build, she looked just like a German Shepard, and her coat was just like a Yellow Lab. As she got older, her floppy ears started perking up to decidedly German Shepard-ish points. Except for the very tip of her left ear, which remained flopped over for her entire life.

This lead to my dad's nick-name of her; The Lopped-Eared Yeller Dog.

My dad would make up adventures that he and Spirit went on while I was away. He and his Lopped-Eared Yeller Dog had conquered a small country during the weekend at my mom's place. He and his Lopped-Eared Yeller Dog had actually been in space. Dozens of times. They were just saving the glory for the peons who came after. He and his Lopped-Eared Yeller Dog had explored exotic lands and overthrown evil empires in my absence. They, of course, had to keep these exploits undercover, for obvious, government, reasons.

Suffice to say, Spirit was aptly named, getting into a lot of trouble. We went down to the river a lot, letting Spirit off the leash, but she would always wander off, causing Dad to stomp after her in total irritation (she was also terrified of the actual river. Water was fine enough, except when she had to take a bath. Actual rivers were horrifying things that she would avoid at all costs. Pointing a hose into her water bowl, however, would cause her to literally dig for the source of said water for hours on end). She chewed everything. Dad even made a peppery paste at one point, slathering it on our internet/phone wires to discourage Spirit from biting them. She couldn't stop sneezing for an entire day, but she never bit those wires again...

I suppose this is a good enough time to say this: My dad has had a lot of dogs in his life. His favorite breed is the Bull Mastive, which was the sort of dog my dad got when he knew I was going to be born, a huge lovable oaf of a dog, Aslan (because although my dad isn't in the least bit intellectual, there have been some books that have shaped his life. Particularly impressive, since he's dyslexic, and reading has always been an active endeavor which has cost him a lot of trail and torment. Since reading wasn't easy for me at first either, his passion made me *want* to like books from the outset). However, he's said to me on several occasions - the mutt dog that wasn't at all what we expected was the best canine companion he's ever had.

Spirit was always my puppy. I named her, I picked her as my own from the rest of her litter, and I loved her a whole lot. (I also broke her tail during one Thanksgiving. *shame* Dad and Cherie left me alone in the house to go pick up Grandma, and during that time I let Spirit out to do her business, and and then let her back in. Alas, when she was coming back in, I closed the screen door before her tail had made it all the way inside. Prior to that day, Spirit's tail (a very long tail) had always curled up into an arch. After that day, it always started to curl up, stopped half way, and then went straight out at a 90 degree angle. I still feel incredibly guilty about this.) She always slept in my room when I was at my dad's, on my bed (and given how big she was, this was a mighty concession). Whenever fireworks went off (which Spirit always hated) she would come to me. Whenever there was fighting in the house (whether or not I was there) she would go into my room. It was apparent that, even if I was only at the house half of the time, she was very much MY DOG, which made it all the more painful when things went to hell.

After five years, things changed. My dad got into trouble, Cherie left, and the house was empty. Spirit was left alone. I tried to bring her over to my mom's place, but my step-dad wouldn't have it. So, after a week of being left in a lonesome home, me coming by as I could when given rides by those with licenses, I was able to get my aunt and uncle to take my puppy into their place. Alas, Spirit was shaken. Her entire life since she had been six months old had been spent in one place, and that was taken away from her.

After that, Spirit wasn't really my dog anymore. Eventually, my dad was able to settle himself in a new place, and Spirit followed, but I wasn't really able to join them. Two years later, I left for college, and Spirit became my grandmother and uncle's dog more than anyone else's. It pains me to say that I wasn't able to be as good of a human to her as I wanted to be. Especially since she was such an excellent dog.

But every time I was able to visit, she recognized me. She still loved playing our same games (I liked grabbing her long nose, pretending to wrestle over it with her), and she never left my side when I was around.

It's hard to explain, because a lot of people don't grow up with dogs.

It's also hard to explain because my life, as a kid, didn't have a lot of constants.

But Spirit was my constant in a lot of ways.

Spirit died two days ago. She was fourteen years old - which is a long ass time, for a dog as big as she was, and treated the way she was.

She had a long life. And I hope, a happy life.

But fuck.

I'm gonna miss my puppy.