Silence is a loud reminder of the loss of a pet

 

It’s the quiet I notice more than anything else now that Daisy is gone.

After almost 11 years of perfecting her role as the most stubborn dog on Earth, our family bichon frise fell victim to some mysterious doggy infection and died over the holiday weekend.

She was an uncommonly smart little dog, which was her problem. Actually, her high level of intelligence became our problem.

We picked her out from a litter of white puff-balls in early spring one year, as a birthday present for my kindergartner daughter. While the other pups wandered around their pen, Daisy charged over and wouldn’t be put off when we looked at the other pups.

Big, red flag was ignored.

She loved being around people. She loved playing with kids, even little ones who got way too rough with her. In almost 11 years, she never once snapped or snarled or gave me one moment to worry that she would hurt anyone or anything. She loved any kind of attention, and she really loved her dinner.

Second big, red flag.

If you’ve ever seen one of these dogs, you would immediately think, “priss,” and that she probably spent most of her time on the end of a shiny, pink vinyl leash hooked to a sparkling collar. When groomed, these dogs are electric-white puff balls. But those who’ve spent any time with the breed know that they’re funny and determined pigs in a white blanket, which is rarely ever white.

Daisy’s favorite couture was grayish dreadlocks adorned with a few smatterings of squirrel poop and something that died under the rose bushes. She was the queen of eye gunk and had an uncanny talent for getting little balls of doodie stuck in the fur under her tail.

For almost 11 years I had to do things to orifices on that dog that I wouldn’t do for my own kid, or even myself. Even a hint of moisture could set off a chain reaction of smells that could make you stagger. I never ceased to be amazed that something so cute and furry after a grooming could be such a doggy Dorian Gray by nightfall.

And there was no preventing it. She would lie faithfully alongside us in the backyard, pristine and pet-able for hours at a time. But the second we were out of sight, the rolling, the rooting and the romping would begin.

She was like that with everything, even as a puppy. My wife, Melody, was determined that Daisy was going to be a well-behaved pet. Daisy was determined that we were going to be well-behaved humans. The battle lasted for all of her 10 years, leading to little more than an occasional truce and an inevitable detente.

Melody insisted that our dog never jump up on people, sit on furniture or beg for food or attention. Daisy insisted on the left side of the sofa, to be picked up rather than having to jump and fresh cheese on her eggs on the weekend, extra sugar in the coffee, please.

I insisted the dog stay out of the vegetable garden. Daisy insisted on pooping there out of plain sight but always in a place where I would eventually step in it. She would occasionally sneak out of the backyard if there was a gate left open, only to come to the front porch and bang on the door to be let in. She loved to play fetch, as long as I was the fetcher. She loved being outdoors, even in the winter. She had a pillow that she would drag from place to place all day long to get the best place in the yard for sun in the winter and shade in the summer. She loved to laugh at the backyard birds and drink from the side of a dribbling ceramic fountain, as if we’d installed it there just for her pleasure.

The party came to an end several years ago after a particularly ugly episode involving some patio table dancing, and Melody insisted that Daisy go to the women’s prison in Cañon City. The sentence was one month. It’s a remarkable program where inmates live and work with dogs around the clock to teach them what’s what.

When Daisy came home, she cussed like a sailor and slept with her paws hanging out of the grate of her kennel. The prison people taught us how to make this awful guttural “barking” like sound that was supposed to be “the sign” to behave. It worked amazingly well, for a while. After two more trips to prison and years of faithfully grunting for compliance, Daisy agreed to stay away from the table when we ate, and she instead gave us crusty looks and long, loud, annoyed sighs. After the last trip to prison, I found what looked like a shank made out of chicken bone in her kennel. She made her point.

I never got the feeling that we ever won with her; instead, she would go all Queen Elizabeth and patronizingly acquiesce to make us think we won. After every meal, there would be a few moments of obligatory disdain, but then we were all friends again.

Over the years, we each became accustomed to all our weirdnesses. I tolerated her pooping right outside the back door when it was icy. She tolerated my singing and my penchant for digging up her backyard.

My morning routine is suddenly different now. No thumping tail sounds from the inside of her kennel when I shuffle into the kitchen in the dark. No huffy sighs when I coax her out to go outside. No barking at the neighbor’s dog. No tinkling sound of her kibble hitting the porcelain breakfast bowl and her looking at me every day as if to say, “Would you eat this crap?”

Just quiet.

Dave Perry is editor of The Aurora Sentinel. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com.