This week, my childhood dog, Toby, passed away at the impressive age of sixteen.
Toby was a bad dog—I won’t hesitate to admit it. Terrible, really. He was a terrier and a terror. He ate underwear, bathing suit bottoms, and leather. He went through at least five pairs of Rainbow sandals before we learned to store all footwear at a higher level. We turned from a family that politely took shoes off at the door into a family that stashed shoes on chairs, tables, and countertops.
He barked at anything, everything, and nothing. He played life on the offense. One time, I had to restrain him from viciously attacking a toddler.
We all lived in fear of this 15 lb terrier, passively observing as he terrorized our home, guests, and livelihood for over a decade.
Demon Dog
Nothing was safe, especially trash. Toby loved trash—napkins, tampons, and sandwich bags with a minuscule crumb left behind—he fixated on finding that treasure of trash until the day he died. Despite turning deaf and blind in his later years, he always found the trash. And in the end, we let him have it. After sixteen years of fighting with a demon dog, you learn to choose your battles.
At first, we wanted to protect him from ingesting plastic and paper; we thought it would kill him. It turns out, he knew better. All those napkins, tissues, and dirty underwear made him invincible. He just kept living, breathing, and eating trash.
In his younger years, if Toby found trash, there was no chance in hell you were getting it away from him without losing a finger. It was you against Cujo.
That used Kleenex meant more to him than any amount of love and affection you could offer. If you dared to grab the trash away from his iron-clenched, sadistically growling mouth, you better be prepared for a blood bath.
To save myself from bodily harm, I learned to hook my demon-eyed dog by the collar with a coat hanger, gently dragging him out from the bed he hid under with his snotty-tissue-delight. I’d snatch the tissue during this moment of upheaval and come out feeling victorious, the shredded paper balled in my pumped fist. I saved my dog from trash! I was a hero.
But I was no hero, and Toby never learned obedience. We didn’t train him; we just hoped for the best. We didn’t change our behavior in any way; we just assumed he’d stop acting insufferable with time. As a family, we let him be. We passively stood by as he grew from a terrorizing puppy into a true nuisance of a dog.
Grieving The Family A-Hole
Months prior to “Toby the Terror” passing away, he had an episode that left us all believing he was going to die. I had come to accept his death; he was old, infirm, and rapidly declining in health. And I was honestly annoyed that he woke my parents up every morning at 5AM .
But I noticed my parents and sister had a different reaction to his brush with death. Even though Toby was an elderly dog and “on the way out”, my family clung to hope for a speedy recovery. My mother and stepfather seemed particularly distraught, dropping all responsibilities and plans to attend to our sick dog.
This was very unlike them, as a couple who plans every hour of their day by following a strict to-do list. My stepdad even has an alarm that goes off the minute my mom pulls into the driveway after work so that he can greet her with a “welcome home” kiss. He does this while holding the terribly old, terribly grumpy Toby in his arms.
For months, my parents sacrificed their daily routine in order to tend to a dying dog, feeding him electrolytes and chicken broth from a syringe at the most critical of times. They barely slept and called out of work for days at a time. And Toby recovered—no doubt due to their meticulous methods of order and care—for a short while.
My family’s grief was palpable when Toby almost died, so you can imagine how it felt when he finally crossed over. Curiously, I don’t share their pain. It’s like I’m looking at a stranger’s family grieving from a bird’s eye view. I’m detached from their sadness.
I didn’t feel much when my stepdad gave me the final news of Toby's passing. There was a sliver of sadness for his suffering—he had to be put down after a bad seizure—and that crawled beneath the skin. But mostly I felt sadness for my stepdad, who took a moment to cry in a room he thought I couldn’t hear him in. And I felt sadness for my mother, who I know can’t help but connect Toby to my older brother, who passed away several years ago. And I feel sadness for my sister, who told me that our brother decided, from the Ether, that he finally wanted his dog back.
NASA’s Webb Reveals Glittering Landscape of Star Birth
Compounded Grief
My parents and sister were all inside my childhood home when Toby the Terror went to doggy heaven. Several years ago, they were also all living under the same roof when my older brother passed away.
I wasn’t present or living at home for either death. Is that why I feel nothing for Toby?
A dog who died of old age reminds my family of the son/brother who died at the age of thirty-one from alcoholism in the same home. Toby, to them, represents a piece of my brother. Sixteen years of memories. Losing this dog was like losing a chunk of time. And I can appreciate this sense of lost time while still feeling nothing. I am stretched too thin.
I am now the same age my brother was when he died. That thought consumes me. How do I create room to be sad for a dead dog who lived a full, happy life?
I’m trying.
I have a clear memory of watching the movie Sinister with my brother late at night on Christmas Eve before I moved out of our family home. At the end of the movie, I was terrified to go to sleep, wanting the company of an evil-but-cute dog. I picked up Toby, who was sleeping soundly on my lap (strangely, he was the perfect lap dog), and started to head to bed, but my brother stopped me. He grabbed Toby out of my arms, laughing with evil glee, and told me the dog was sleeping in his room.
I didn’t sleep a wink that Christmas Eve; my eyes were stretched wide open out of fear. Every time I attempted to close them, I imagined an innocent family being slaughtered alive—hanged from the branch of a thick tree or drowned in a kidney-shaped suburban pool—just like in the movie.
I know my older brother slept peacefully that night with the satisfaction of Freaking Me The Fuck Out, and the comfort of an evil dog snoring warmly by his side.
It’s strange to find peace in this memory now, despite my sickening fear at the time. My brother was the biggest tease. A playful bully. He loved pushing buttons and was annoyingly good at pushing mine. I was angry about his behavior during his life and well after his death. I still am angry. But now I see actions like this as his only way to express love during a difficult and painful time in his life.
The week after my brother died, Toby wandered around the house, confused about where to sleep, finally settling on a blanket at the end of the hallway near my brother’s bedroom. Did Toby know my brother was gone forever? Was he hoping the door would open?
My brother is with Toby the Terror now, somewhere else, smiling. I think they found out what comets, stars, and moons are all about.
Currently Reading: A Long Day’s Journey into Night
*With alcoholic talkativeness
“…Then the moment of ecstatic freedom came. The peace, the end of the quest, the last harbor, the joy of belonging to a fulfillment beyond men's lousy, pitiful, greedy fears and hopes and dreams! And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on a beach, I have had the same experience. Became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like a veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see -- and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason!
*He grins wryly.
It was a great mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a seagull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little in love with death!”
― Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night