That's a Wrap on Childhood Dogs

 Yesterday, my mom lost her Very Old (15 I think) chihuahua, Gizmo. As my brother Jon pointed out, his passing closed the chapter on childhood dogs for us. He was my parents' last dog together and the last one any of us would consider our old family dog. (My mom and Steve have a yorkie named Scooter, but he is a new dog, you know?)

Here is Giz looking handsome in pro pics from my dad's 70th birthday party in 2017, when he was already a little gray old man:

First we had Bud, a basset hound who was never neutered and was extremely grumpy because his privates dragged on the ground (fair). He was super cute but also would drag his ears in his food and water bowls so they got all stiff and smelly. He also loved to eat leftovers, so my mom would empty our plates in his dish. He hated veggies, though, and he would save them up in his cheeks and spit them out all over the kitchen floor at the end of the meal. He also liked to start going for walks, but, midway, he would decide the walk was over, and he would plop down in whatever shade he could fine. This was troubling for me, his walker, because I was an elementary schooler, and he weighed 80 pounds. I would also just have to sit in the shade and wait for Bud to be ready to go home. He loved chasing birds in our big, flat back yard. Once, a robin tried to fly away from Bud (I honestly think she had been taunting him by running along in front of him) but got stuck in the chain link fence, and Bud's wildest dream came true-- HE CAUGHT A BIRD. And ate it. SO DISGUSTING YOU GUYS.

After Bud came Daisy, a sweet, older overweight beagle who had been abused in her previous home and always expected the worst from everyone, even though she lived out her life with kindness and lots of delicious snacks (she looked like a Hoover canister vacuum). She was just so darn grateful for pets and silly voices and head rubs. Jon and I decided that my grandpa needed a dog after my grandma died, so we adopted Daisy from a shelter by ourselves (I was in high school; Jon was in like 5th grade), stuck a bow on her head, and brought her to my grandpa's house. He took one look at her and said NO DOG, so we just... took her home?  My parents came home to see an elderly beagle all moved in. Daisy was a great dog-- no trouble at all and so nice. She spent the night with Ben and me in college one time, and everyone loved her. She got her own pizza and a Happy Meal. She was scared to be in a strange house, though, and was so happy to go back home the next day. She had a traumatic death after my brother Ben took her for strenuous walk, and she had a heat stroke and a heart attack. She sent the night at the emergency animal hospital, but it was no use, and we were all so sad to think of her alone in a strange place. Especially Jon, who was Daisy's person. He was on spring break in the Bahamas and came home to find his dog dead and his BMW sold-- rough re-entry, huh?

Next was Tripod, a 3-legged Westie my brother Ben saved from a breeder who was going to kill her. She was the grumpiest, meanest delight of an animal. She and Daisy overlapped each other by several years, and Daisy tried to make Tripod understand the rules, but Tripod always just sort of did whatever the heck she wanted to do. She was my dad's Dog of a Lifetime (everyone has one-- my grandma's was Sadie, a golden retriever/newfoundland mix who is in the running for MY Dog of a Lifetime, too), and he loved her so much he started collecting things with westies on them like pillows and ties.

In Tripod's twilight years, my parents got Gizmo, another dog brought home by Ben. To be fair, I never really enjoyed Gizmo because he looked like a black cat when he was a puppy and had a weird natural body odor that just didn't do it for me. Like, on a phermonal level, we were not a match. But! He was very very nice and very very tolerant. He wore all of the dumb sweaters and went for all of the walks in a midwest winter. He even tolerated my mom pushing him in a stroller these past few months when getting around was tough.

Except for Bud whom we went to pick out from the farm where he was born and chose from a pile of darling basset puppies, my brothers and I brought home the rest of the dogs and just sort of assumed my parents would be cool with them. And they were! I would NEVER want my kids to bring home a random dog! I am clutching my pearls just thinking about it! Also what kind of shelter lets 2 kids take a dog home? The nineties were WILD.

We saw Giz a couple weeks ago and asked my mom if he was dead during the visit because of the way his body was sprawled so stiffly on the kitchen floor, so, I mean, his death is not shocking. It's a sad end of an era, though. The last childhood dog: such a good boy.