The Last Trail...
Our Simon's life was another in a long line of lessons in love and grace from dogs
Three years ago, the world went mad. As you read, you may disagree, and that’s OK—but it’s not the point of this piece and I will not perseverate on the sad nature of the lies we all bought, consumed and choked on during these last three years. The enormous costs of that time have been visited on all of us, my family took direct hits from my mother’s death to a heavy impact on my immediate family that I cannot share here.
In March of 2020, teachers in California were sent home to begin the now failed, and fully avoidable experiment of schooling over computer. We know the costs now. We know it wasn’t worth it—nor was it necessary. But it happened, and I had to do what I was told to do. I hated nearly everything about it, with the exception of one simple fact, it gave me time to be near most of the people—and the dog, that I loved.
During that time, there was a running joke that the lockdowns had been manufactured by a vast meeting of dogs who wanted their people at home. If it were true, Simon was an advocate, a definite yes vote in the crammed and smelly dog-meeting hall, where conferences of grumbling and growling, and wagging tails offered amendments and talked of splinter-groups who believed a partial shutdown would do and a whole faction of dogs who said they couldn’t vote yes unless all leash laws were revoked. Simon simply listened in—he would never have been in leadership. He wasn’t that kind of dog. But seriously, his very favorite routine of walks increased a bit, and he was never without someone in the house. He sat with me just off camera while I taught, and he recuperated from a serious surgery on a bed I made for him near my working desk where my feet could reach and rub his belly gently.
From March of 2020 until yesterday, Simon was nearly my constant companion. From grocery store runs to watching television, visiting neighbors, going to the gas station, the bank, the pet shop or even to my sister-in-law’s house, Simon was by my side nearly the whole time. When we took a trip, Simon had the best dog-sitters we could afford, and together everyday that we were home, he and I took long two and three mile walks, with the last nearly two years here in the Pacific Northwest woods that he so loved. And every evening, he was curled up at my feet on “his” ottoman that sat adjacent to our couch under a purple handmade quilt, occasionally nosing up to see if I was still there.
Before 2020, we think that he was born in either 2008 or 2009, and he didn’t come into our lives until December of 2010. We adopted him from a rescue group in Ventura County, California and he succeeded Scoop, our previous dog of 11 years, another rescue with an altogether different and more aloof personality. Scoop loved our family, but he was my dog. Simon loved everyone, and he was my daughter’s, my, my wife’s and my sister-in-law’s dog. When Scoop died, I mourned fairly hard, and when Sue introduced me to Simon, I didn’t want him at first. So, Sue agreed with the rescue group to foster him. An hour after he was with us, he sat next to me on the couch and put his head in my lap. He never left us after that.
He had to get to know Lucy, Sis-in-law Laurie’s beloved dog whose own passing in 2019 caused great grief in our homes. Simon mourned her loss as she was his pack leader, but by then, he was an older dog and was content to live his life mostly quietly with us. Laurie succeeded Lucy with Sadie, and Simon met her when she visited from Washington where Laurie had already moved.
Simon had a great capacity for simplicity and love, as so many dogs do. Laurie would always say he was a “dog of little brain, but big heart.” He wasn’t daft, but his curiosity was largely limited to the end of that glorious hunting nose of his, and generally involved either food or bad smells, which he seemed to thoroughly enjoy getting close to. He was never aggressive nor did he attempt to be an Alpha male. In his youth, his agility and speed were things of wonder, and I would bring him to the dog park if only to show him off to the other dog owners there as he raced distances of a quarter mile in a few seconds. He earned the nickname “Flash” at the dog park closest to our home, and it got to the point where newcomers assumed that was his name.
He loved everyone that came to us. He loved my dad, my mom, my step-mom and my brothers. He loved our good friend Shawn, and he loved our neighbors, Ron and Lisa. He loved my friend Ron’s dog, Pebble, and when we walked by her house, he whined and pulled to the front door, wanting to see her, and to play. He loved our friends Brian and Karen, he loved Paul and Tracie and he loved Shannon’s friend and roommate, Jackie. Both Shawn and Jackie would “dog-sit” for us in Simon’s later years because he couldn’t be alone. There was no physical reason for this, but it became apparent quickly after I began teaching at home, that he had become co-dependent. In a human relationship, counseling would be sought and a re-working of how one looks at their relationships would be enacted. But with a dog, one learns to live with it.
But after March, 2020, I spent more time with him than the others. I was home more often and his care fell to me. So in these last few years, if I left the house without him, even in the care of Sue or Shannon, it was me he was looking for, and Sue would often tell me tales of how after I left, he would moan and whine and look at the door. When I arrived home, even if gone a few minutes to the store, Simon’s greetings were legendary and included, even up through last week, pouncing with a toy he dragged through the house to give me. The exception to this was that on occasion, I would drop him off at sis-in-law’s house and he loved his Aunt Laurie. We lived in her home for six weeks upon our arrival to Washington, and we think Simon adopted it. It’s either that, or the fact that she has more couches than we do, and he was allowed on all of them.
In the past three years, he took to sleeping on the bed with Sue and me, and we took to it too. Sort of. I took to it. Sue didn’t like it much, but tolerated his presence because, after all, he really was a lovely, gentle soul as well as a bed hog. He began having tremors about two years ago at night. At first, it seemed he was dreaming about rabbits, or whatever we humans imagine dogs dream about, but as time went on, it became apparent that this was something more than that. His back legs kicked, sometimes powerfully so, and waking him up was damn near impossible. It only happened when he slept, and it just became a feature of his—and our lives.
He was already aging when we arrived in Washington, but our first winter here, 2021/22, was marked by some freakishly cold weather and snow. It took a toll on Simon, and by summer of last year, he was noticeably slower and grayer. What can one do? I spent more time petting him, and covering him with warm blankets—and since I was home all day, either writing or just being the domestic housekeeper that I’ve become since retiring from the classroom, I got to know him even better than I thought I already did.
Simon talked. Ever since he was young, he was a typical German Short hair pointer and he had a series of vocalizations, low growls, grumblings and moans, high-pitched squeals, nasal exhalations and, while he was young, howls and long barks. The howling stopped when his hearing started to go. By the time we moved here, Simon couldn’t necessarily hear anything except if you spoke quite loudly. Even then, if he wasn’t looking at me, I could see his head turn and his ears go up as he tried to place just where that voice was coming from—even if I was right behind him. But he did talk—and he could be quite effusive.
He spoke to me of his aches and pains. He told me that he didn’t love Washington, but he loved us and he wanted to be where we were—with one exception: the woods. He loved the woods close to our home, and we made our way there every day to hike paths that would eventually lead us across a wide meadow, or down by the glacial lake with its encircled walking path, and geese that saw him as a threat. He would trudge through snow to be in the woods, and he would brave summer’s heat to cool in their life-giving shade. He would sniff every leaf, every branch, every tree and its bark and he told me how he loved it.
He told me that I was too impatient, sometimes with him and sometimes with others and he told me how to correct it—how to see beauty in the day’s motion, and how to watch the shadows move across the lawn. He told me to love each moment as I loved each person, and him, and to revel in their unique ability to make me smile. He told me that he liked good food, but he preferred mine to his and he told me that the wine I gave him smelled funny. He told me I was funny when I drank too much and I snored too loudly, and he told me that he worries about Shannon and Jackie, who no longer live with his protection. He told me he slept better when they came to visit.
On Tuesday, the day before he passed, he told me he wanted to go to the woods and we did. He did well, if somewhat slow in the cold, but we walked and it was a triumph. It was our last trail together, Simon’s last trail. If I’d known, I’d have hired a band to play, or celebrated with a party—maybe all his friends from the dog congress who voted with him to keep me home more would have come to celebrate.
And this week, he told me something wasn’t right. He had a series of two “seizures” and while he was conscious, he was tightened and whining in pain. He was having trouble moving and he wanted to walk in a certain direction, and pointed his head in that direction, but his body wouldn’t listen. He whined with pain, and he suffered and I told him that I would not let him suffer because he did not understand it. And I told him over and over that I loved him, and that he made me a better man. I held him and kissed him, and Sue held and kissed him, and Shannon and Laurie held and kissed him—and we all wept—and are still weeping.
Today, I awoke without Simon’s warm and gentle growls, his quiet pawing at me to get up and go make mom’s coffee. Today, for the first time in nearly two years, I didn’t put a leash on him and take him to the woods—and I could not go there myself, because they’re his woods and I need him. I can’t walk there without him—not yet. He taught me to be more, and told me I could be more. He was more than enough for me—my friend, my companion and confidante, my partner, my daily lunch buddy, and my shadow. I am less without him.
I understand.