Rooney, my 12-year-old basset hound lays beside me as I do what has become a favorite Sunday ritual. I wake up early, feed him breakfast, pour a hot cup of coffee and then sit up, writing in our King size bed, as he and Sheila sleep soundly. I drink my coffee and scratch his head in between thoughts.
This morning as he lays next to me though, his breathing is labored. He is not comfortable and hasn’t been for several days. He has cancer. Lymphoma they think. And so his morning began, not with breakfast but with a cocktail of drugs that I had hoped would lead to breakfast later on.
You know when you sign up to be a dog owner that it’s a short-term contract. Hopefully 10-12 years or more, but there is always the possibility of less, as with any of us.
Sheila gets in the shower and I carry him to the kitchen. He can walk, but not very well, and so I fold his legs into my arms and sink into the chair where I prop him upright on my lap, as I have so many times before.
I’ve written often about the comfort I take in him – the way he lays on me like a weighted blanket while I rest my chin on the top of his head. I take in the corn chip smell that is a basset hound, rub his long velvet ears between my thumb and forefinger, and look out into the meadow behind our house.
His breathing is even more shallow and difficult than it was earlier and I find myself sobbing onto his head and soaking his ear. Because I know it’s time.
And so it is that Rooney crossed the rainbow bridge on Sunday.
Sheila drove as I sat in the back with him, arm draped over his body, scratching his ears and thinking of all of the things Rooney has taught me in our 12 plus years together.
1. You don’t have to yell to get what you need.
A few years ago Rooney and I were staying with a friend when he made his way to her feet and sat, staring at her.
Does he always do this? she asked.
I looked up.
Yes. He always did that when he wanted something. For most of his life, staring was his way of asking for things. For dinner, for a treat, to go outside, to be picked up. Bassets can be a noisy breed, but Rooney seldom barked. And he was remarkably patient. He’d stare at you as long as it took.
In this day of over-communication, where we find ourselves shouting to be heard, I appreciated his method of silence (though maybe not staring at people so intently). He was an ever-present reminder that you don’t need to yell to make your point.
Sometimes you don’t have to say anything at all. But you do need to be intentional in your actions. And Rooney was nothing if not that.
2. Be politely curious
Someone told me once that a dog stopping to smell things was like a human reading the morning paper. It’s how they know what’s going on in their world. Rooney had a nose like no other, as bassets were bread for hunters to follow on foot.
When I came home from a day at the gym or out and about running errands, he would give me the once over – his nose twitching a mile a minute trying to take in all of the smells. He’d wag his tail and let me scratch his neck as he sniffed away, but he couldn’t rest until he’d taken in all of the scents.
As humans we are often too wrapped up in our own stuff to be very curious about the people who walk into our lives. We often can’t see beyond the end of our own nose, beyond the shadow of our own problems to express interest in anyone else.
Rooney could only express interest in everyone else.
3. Be flexible
Rooney loved us as his owners, but he had no real loyalty to us. That sounds like a bad thing, but it actually meant that we could do almost anything with him and know he would be fine. We could leave him with friends for a week. We could leave him with different friends for a weekend. I could ask any client to walk him when he came to the gym with me.
We could put him in the car for the long drive to Pennsylvania and rest assured that he’d sleep soundly in the back seat.
In the end, we had to shove pills down his throat and he let us. Clean his ears on a weekly basis? Yes, he let us do that too. Throw him in a bath tub? He went willingly.
Last week I wrote about the power of “yes, and.” Well, Rooney really lived that.
4. But know when to be stubborn
Bassets are known for their stubbornness, and the idea of clicker training him was a joke. For any of you who have trained dogs in the past, you know the purpose of the clicker – to mark the behavior and give the dog a treat. Rooney liked the training just fine, until his reward was met not with food but with affection, and then he wanted nothing to do with it. For his entire life, if you did not have a treat he wasn’t going to spend his energy listening to you.
Decide what is important to you, and then dig your heels in to get what you want. And never, ever, ever give in before you get it.
5. Be kind and give lots of hugs (when the pandemic is over)
This is, perhaps, the thing I will miss most about my pup. Rooney was not discerning with his love or his kindness (a trait I know to be true for many pups). He truly liked everyone – to the point where, when out on walks, he seemed genuinely confused when someone didn’t stop to say hello.
Dogs don’t hold grudges. They don’t care about political affiliations or status or appearance. They don’t care about race or religion. They care only that you meet their wags with some modicum of the enthusiasm with which they greet you.
Each morning, when I’d let Rooney out of his crate, he’d stand in the middle of the living room rug and wait for me to get down on my knees. He wouldn’t go outside – wouldn’t move an inch until I got down on the floor – and then he’d bury his head in my armpit and I would scratch his neck and we would take a few seconds before we both went on to start our days.
If there’s anything I’ve missed most in the past few days, it’s my Rooney hugs.
We live in particularly divided times where it can feel challenging to extend kindness in the face of such disunion. And yet, if we can learn a little from our pets, perhaps we can find ways to start our days with a little kindness and patience.
And, as the saying goes, try to be half the people that our dogs believe that we are.
