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Max - Maximus, Maxi, Maxwell, Maximilliam, and occasionally Maxi-Pad - he of the many names, was eleven years old this January. We've had him since he was a little puppy that looked like nothing more than a poofy rug than a breed once cultivated by royalty. I was fourteen when we got him and I didn't want him. We'd had two dogs - Dodger and Joe - a English Springer Spaniel and purebred Labrador Retriever respectively for a while. Dodge was probably four or five years old and Joe was just a puppy, about six months old at the time, but he was already shaping up to be an awesome hunting dog. They got out the front door one day, plowing out before their leashes were on and darted across the four-lane-at-that-time-undivivided-highway. They were fine until they tried to come back across the road and then there was a sudden, a little unusual, burst of traffic. I saw them both get hit. I won't go into details here, but even now, over a decade later I still remember how it happened like it was in slow motion and all the weird little emotions and things you remember that come with it.
My sister is big on getting another dog. She's always had dogs and she wanted another one immediately. It's how she copes, I guess. I'm pretty much the opposite. My pet dies; I have the urge to never get attached to anything ever again. I don't want to replace anything. It's not good or bad, just a thing. But she got Max, the little shit, and I spent the first two months we had him not getting attached and calling him the suicide dog because he did his best to kill himself about four different ways.
He weighed barely two pounds probably and managed to sit in an fire ant bed and get covered from head to tail in bites. A few scant days later, he managed to ingest some rat poison. Less than a week after that at a friend's house, it was some bug poison. I kind of hated him for almost dying on me so many times when I didn't like him and didn't want him anyway. I didn't want to care. But the little shit kept living. For a long, long time. Longer than any dog I ever had, except for the first one that I grew up with. I sort of thought that Maxi might be around forever.
About two weeks ago we found out that he had Cushing's disease and his prognosis wasn't looking good. We knew he was old and had pretty bad arthritis anyways. We didn't want him to suffer. Then he got a puncture wound in his paw. We're not sure how - no one was out there at the time. There's a possibility that it was a snake bite. But at any rate after he got the wound, he was way worse. He was shaking all the time and laying around on the floor with sad eyes. He couldn't even jump up on my sister's bed anymore - always, always his favorite spot.
He was a spoiled, whiny, neurotic little shit, prone to barking at people he knew really well at super inconvenient hours of the night. He was worthless and kind of snooty and I'm crying as I type this 'cause I miss him. He was cute and his tail uncurled, but only when he was depressed and he always knew when you were sad or upset and he'd stick close or come up and nuzzle your hand. I miss the little guy. I don't want to forget him. So this is for Maxi. I wish I could pick him up and give him one last hug, scratch his ear.
My sister is big on getting another dog. She's always had dogs and she wanted another one immediately. It's how she copes, I guess. I'm pretty much the opposite. My pet dies; I have the urge to never get attached to anything ever again. I don't want to replace anything. It's not good or bad, just a thing. But she got Max, the little shit, and I spent the first two months we had him not getting attached and calling him the suicide dog because he did his best to kill himself about four different ways.
He weighed barely two pounds probably and managed to sit in an fire ant bed and get covered from head to tail in bites. A few scant days later, he managed to ingest some rat poison. Less than a week after that at a friend's house, it was some bug poison. I kind of hated him for almost dying on me so many times when I didn't like him and didn't want him anyway. I didn't want to care. But the little shit kept living. For a long, long time. Longer than any dog I ever had, except for the first one that I grew up with. I sort of thought that Maxi might be around forever.
About two weeks ago we found out that he had Cushing's disease and his prognosis wasn't looking good. We knew he was old and had pretty bad arthritis anyways. We didn't want him to suffer. Then he got a puncture wound in his paw. We're not sure how - no one was out there at the time. There's a possibility that it was a snake bite. But at any rate after he got the wound, he was way worse. He was shaking all the time and laying around on the floor with sad eyes. He couldn't even jump up on my sister's bed anymore - always, always his favorite spot.
He was a spoiled, whiny, neurotic little shit, prone to barking at people he knew really well at super inconvenient hours of the night. He was worthless and kind of snooty and I'm crying as I type this 'cause I miss him. He was cute and his tail uncurled, but only when he was depressed and he always knew when you were sad or upset and he'd stick close or come up and nuzzle your hand. I miss the little guy. I don't want to forget him. So this is for Maxi. I wish I could pick him up and give him one last hug, scratch his ear.
