The last time I did this, it was with him.
He was old, even then, but still running with me.
I got Akela, a beautiful Alaskan Malamute, when he was five years old. For a big dog, who ages nine years to one human year, that didn’t give us a very long life with him after bringing him home, and I knew it then.
What I didn’t know was how hard it was going to be to let him go.
The reason I got him was to run with me. We ran and we ran and we ran. We ran for a lot of years. He was my bodyguard, and more than that, he was my companion and buddy. He weighed around 120 lbs, and was breathtaking when he ran. People would stop me on the street and tell me what a beautiful dog he was, and many times owners of female huskies would stop and ask if they could breed their dog with him. When I went to the zoo and looked at the wolves, they failed to impress me since my own dog was bigger and better looking than any old wolf.
He wasn’t always a good dog. He loved to run free if he ever got out of the backyard, and once the animal control officer had to bring him home; another time we picked him up at the police office where he’d been crated after capture.
That was the first time I noticed his age. He could hardly stand up after sitting inside that crate. His back legs shook so hard that he almost fell over. I knew he was old, and the day would come when he couldn’t run with me anymore, but it was hard seeing the evidence of it that evening.
When he would get out, his face would split into a grin from ear to ear and with tongue lolling, he’d dash around the neighborhood, peeing to his heart’s content. He was naughty, and didn’t obey when we called him back. We’d have to bring out a hot dog and wave it at him. He never could resist a hot dog.
He didn’t like to ride in the van. He wasn’t like those dogs that hang out the window and let their ears and tongue flap in the wind. Akela would hunker down as low as he could get, and sometimes we had to half heft him up because he refused to get in. Whenever we could, we’d let him run along the side of the van, holding onto his leash with our hand out the window. He was happier that way.
The first year we had him, he had the misfortune to mistake a skunk for a cat, and he got his come-uppance for it. It was Halloween weekend, and having never had such a close encounter with a skunk before, not a one of us knew what to do. We opened the garage door, and the smell whooshed into the house, and stuck on everything. Akela was the worst. You could see the yellow film of skunk spray across his face, and he’d clawed at his nose and scratched it up, trying to free himself of it.
We didn’t know what to do. We brought out the washtub and scrubbed him down, in the cold dark night, and since we’d heard tomato juice was supposed to neutralize the smell, we went searching in the pantry. All we had was a few cans of diced tomatoes, so we dumped them on his fur, chunks and all, and left it there to neutralize through the night. All it did was dye him orange. He still stunk. It was awful at the time, but now when I catch the faintest whiff of skunk, it’s almost nostalgic.
He loved the kids, he loved to howl at sirens, he loved to boss smaller dogs and he loved to chase cats. He loved to dig to a fresh layer of dirt, and lay in it. He loved to pee, and he loved hot dogs. He loved to roll his face in the snow until snowflakes hung on his whiskers and the fine gray fuzz on his cheeks. He loved to run. I’d take him ten miles in the summer time, and he was always ready for more. He loved to be brushed, he was that vain, and most of all, he loved us. There’s nothing like a doggy grin to warm your heart. If you opened the back door, he’d sidle up with his head ducked, and tail wagging, and his paw coming up like he wanted to jump on you, but knew he shouldn’t. All the way, his mouth would be grinning because he was happy to the core to see you, and he didn’t care who knew it.
He was sometimes clumsy. Once he was out playing with the kids, and he ran up onto the porch, and couldn’t stop in time, so he crashed into the house. We had a dent in the siding to show where he hit.
Another time he was rolling over onto his stomach to be scratched properly, and misjudged where he was. He rolled right down the porch stairs.
Then came the day last spring when he couldn’t get home after a run. It was only four miles, which even a few months prior, would have been nothing for him. He dragged at the leash, and finally sat himself down on the sidewalk. He was far too big for me to carry home, and it took hours to limp him the rest of the way. I never ran with him again after that.
It was sad running by myself. I missed having him there, and I’d find myself talking to him now and I’d still stop by his favorite drinking spots out of respect for him. When a small animal would skitter away in front of me, I’d tense, remembering how I used to have to ground myself against the pavement to keep him back.
That next summer I took him to the animal shelter. It was an act of pure cowardice. I knew it was time. He couldn’t hardly stand up anymore, and he could no longer control his bowels. He wasn’t happy, and I couldn’t watch him suffer. I knew they would have to put him down, but I told them I was putting him up for adoption.
We’d moved. We didn’t have a place for him. These are the excuses I told my kids and the women behind the desk at the shelter. Someone else would adopt him out and he’d be happier. It was because I couldn’t tell them I’d brought my dog in for them to kill.
He peed on the rug under their desk when I was filling out the paper work.
My husband checked in a week later and they told him they’d put him down. We still haven’t told the kids. To them, he’s living somewhere in Idaho on a ranch where he runs free and chases cats and rabbits and sleeps in the shade of two hundred trees. That would be heaven to Akela, with a hot dog thrown out for him to catch in his mouth, and so we assuaged our guilt by telling them that, and almost it was true, except for the Idaho part.
For a long time after he was gone, I felt him out there, standing guard over the house. I still feel it sometimes.
Now the weather has turned cold again, and for the first time this season, I bundled up in my gloves and earmuffs to go running. He was with me the last time I did that. I remember holding his leash through these same gloves, and the way his breath would huff out of him as he ran along beside me. When we were done, he would roll his face in the snow and cool off.
I was getting used to him being gone, but it turns out I miss him still.