One day when I was eight years old, my parents took me to the local animal shelter. "We're just looking," they emphasized. The famous last words: "We are NOT taking a dog home with us today."
My brother, Brett, had recently decided he wanted a basset hound, and he asked if they had any. It turns out they had no purebreds, but they had one skittish fellow that was half basset, half German shepherd. When he was lying down, he looked like a German shepherd with finer hair and a rounder body, but when he stood up you noticed his legs were probably no more than eight inches long. Brett fell in love with him, Mom fell in love with another handsome and equally stubborn dog, and before you knew it, we had two mutts and three kids in the back seat.
I think my parents thought they'd made the wrong decision, at first. The basset, whom Mason named "Batdog," was more than likely abused by his previous owner, and peed whenever you raised your voice (even if not at him). Eventually, however, he grew to love us, and we grew to love him.
I loved him when his ears perked up every time he heard whistling sounds emanating from the TV during our morning cartoons. I loved him whenever he'd sit under the table, lay his head on my chair, and gaze up at me with soulful and entirely pathetic-looking eyes... and then he would move on to everyone else at the table. I loved him when he would get SO excited at the prospect of a walk that he would jump around so much it was damn near impossible to get the leash on his neck, and then he would insist on holding his own leash until we left our property. I loved him when he seemed to think that if he acted excited enough after I returned from walking his brothers, that I would magically forget that I already walked him just 20 minutes prior.
He started getting older as I went to college, but he was always there jumping and wagging his tail every time I came home. It broke my heart a little bit the time I came home and realized his knee was so arthritic I couldn't take him on walks anymore. It broke my heart a little bit more the first time I came home, and he didn't rush to meet me at the door when I called out to announce my arrival. Our baby was no longer a baby, and his always-troubled hearing finally had left him entirely. Of course, being the smart beast that he is, he learned to wake up for breakfast when my Dad switched the lights on and off.
When he was young, he waited at the laundry room until someone (usually me) felt guilty enough to grab his leash and take him out. He'd do this several times a day. Old age proved to be no different: he sat in front of his food dish, angling himself directly between my mother and the kitchen sink when she was trying to do dishes, and would not move until he got a treat. In the very end, he was getting two or three "desserts" a day.
I'm gonna miss this pup when I come home for Christmas.
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