For Riagan

I’ve been kind of stubborn for as long as I can remember. Whenever Mom makes me do something I don’t want to, I show her my teeth and growl, and sometimes I snap at her. She gets mad and she calls me a bad boy and says “don’t you dare bite me”. I don’t know why she says that. I’m her buddy and I make her feel better when her “anxiety” is bad; she tells everybody that. She tells them too that she talks to me all the time, and “he understands most of what I say”. I do.

Sometimes Mom and Dad talk about me and it feels…not exactly bad, but not good. Mom tells Dad when I snap at her, and lately she’s been telling him that I’m doing that way more than I used to. Every time she tells him, Dad tells her, “If he ever bites you, I will put him down”. Then Mom gets sad and the water gets in her eyes, like it does before she cries (that’s when the water comes out and falls down). I don’t know what “put him down” means, they didn’t explain it to me, or each other. But if it makes mad and sad feelings, it must be a bad boy thing.

A couple of suns and moons ago they were talking about the “put him down” thing, and Mom told Dad that Dr. Gaffney said I could have “doggie dementia”. I heard him say it too, and now I think it might mean the same as “put him down”. I’m not sure. This “doggie dementia” is another thing they say, but don’t explain to me or each other. Dad said, “That might be the case. But I’m telling you, I’ll put him down if he bites you”. Why does he keep saying that?

Of course I won’t bite her. Except…now sometimes I feel like doing it. I won’t do it, I really won’t. Why would I? She is the best Mom; other dogs have told me their moms hit them, or are mean to them, or make them stay outside. So why do I feel like biting her? I’ve never been mad enough to bite. But sometimes I can’t even remember why I get so mad and do the bad boy thing. I don’t like being a bad boy; I am a good boy. The goodest boy.

Even if I feel like I want to bite her, I know that Mom still loves me. She holds my head in her petting paws and puts her head so close to mine that we can only see each other’s eyes. She tells me “I love you”, and “who’s a good boy”, and “you’re the goodest boy, yes you are”. When she tells me all of that, she uses her almost-all-the-time voice. When I don’t listen to her, she uses her louder-but-not-a-lot-louder voice. When she gets really mad, she uses the loud voice. Usually that’s only when she tells Dad things like: “Dumb bitch! Almost took the front of my Jeep off, acting like a maniac!” or “I get so tired of people not doing their damn job! Every damn day it’s another moron screwing something up!” Dad always tells her “You’re so cute when you are mad”. Mom doesn’t like that and tells him in the louder-but-not-a-lot-loud voice: “I Am Not!” Dad thinks that is funny and he laughs.

Dad loves me too. He is a lot bigger than Mom, but he doesn’t love me bigger than she does. Still, I do what he wants a lot faster than I do for Mom. I do love her bigger, but I really don’t know why I listen better to Dad than to Mom. Just like Mom, Dad has different voices too. He has his almost-all-the-time voice, but he uses it more than Mom does. Sometimes if I don’t listen to him right away, he will use his louder-but-not-a-lot-louder voice. I have never heard Dad use a loud voice. I don’t think he has one.

The sun is gone now, and Mom says “let’s go outside Riagan”. She heads to the back door, and I jump down off the “sofa” to follow. Dad is going into the sleeping room, so I know this is the last time out until the sun. Mom sits down to have her last “smoke”. I know this word, she says it when she makes the end of the stick light up with fire, then she breathes it in.

I sit on the porch at the steps, looking out into the dark. I have to be ready just in case there is something interesting or dangerous to check out. There! Something at the end of the fence. I turn my head toward the sound; my ears perk up and I stretch my snoot up into the air to catch a whiff. If Mom had been looking, she would have said “Riagan, you look just like a little fox with that skinny face and long nose”. I’m sniffing, and there it is. A heavy, wet smell, like when the leaves have been on the ground for a while. And…slimy. The slimy smell is also a taste, and it’s really bad. I’ve tasted it before, and even though it makes me sick, I will still chase it and grab it in my mouth when it tries to hop away. I take off down the steps, run-hopping like a deer trying to get away from the hunters (another thing Mom says). I have to get to the end of the fence before it hops through to the other side where I can’t get it. I’m still trying to find it when I hear Mom.

"Riagan". Mom is done with her "smoke" and is ready to go in. Well, I'm not, so I’m staying right here at the far corner of the fence. She can't see me; I can see way better than her, especially at night. She calls my name again, then goes into the house. When she comes back out, I hear a click, and there is the little bright line of sun she holds in her hand to help her see me.

Here she comes, calling my name, telling me to get in the house. I am a good dog, so I go to her, and walk beside her to the porch steps. Wait, something else is just over there, I need to check it out. Mom says no, we are going in and she pushes her legs against me to get me to go where she wants. Fine. Wait, something else is just over the other way. I start toward it, and Mom immediately says no and pushes her legs against me again. Now I’m mad, so I show my teeth and growl. She keeps pushing, so I flip my head around and snap at her. Of course, that doesn’t scare her, it never does. She puts her hand on my back up near my neck and pushes down a little; that’s how she shows me she is in charge. Now I am really mad, so I flip around and snap again. And I feel something in my mouth. Its soft and squishy, but hard in the middle.

All of a sudden, Mom is crying really hard, and she runs up the porch steps and into the house. Dad is at the sleeping room door asking what happened. Mom can hardly breathe while she is crying, and she says “he bit me”. What does she mean? Who bit her?

 I can tell she is scared, so I stand in the door trying to get to her to make her feel better. Dad is looking at one of the paws that she uses to pet me. Blood is coming out of the paw, and a lot of it. I’m not just a good boy, I’m a smart boy too, and I know what blood is. Dad sees me standing there, and he yells at me to “go lay down” in the loud voice I haven’t heard before. Dad is “pissed”. I know about “pissed” because Mom says it when she is really mad. I lay down and try to figure out what is going on. I can still smell the blood from Mom’s paw. Now I am scared, because something in my mouth tastes like the blood smells. Oh no. The soft and squishy but hard in the middle thing is her paw. Oh no, I bit Mom’s paw! Why did I do that? I am a good boy; I don’t bite paws. Am I turning into a bad boy?

 Mom has calmed down a little, so I go into the sleeping room to see her, to show her I am a good boy and I didn’t mean to hurt her. When I walk over to her, she steps back and I can smell her scared smell. I turn away and lay on my bed. I am not happy. I think I am sad; I don’t remember feeling like this ever.

I lay there and think about how happy I am with Mom and Dad, even when they make me mad and I do the bad boy thing. And I’m scared they won’t love me and let me live with them anymore. I can’t remember much from before I lived with Mom and Dad, but I know I wasn’t as happy as I have been with them. I also know it was a long time ago because Mom has said a few times that the fur on my muzzle used to be brown and black, and now it is gray. I also know that gray means getting older, and it can take a long time. I remember a house that had a lot of other dogs, and we all had our own cage to live in. When I lived at that other place, people would come and take one of us out of our cage and go for a walk, or let us run around outside behind the house. They were nice to us, but I didn’t really like it. The cage was a bad boy; I wanted to run, and chase squirrels, and curl up on a lap.

The day Mom and Dad came and told the people at the house they wanted to take me “home”, Mom also told them she was changing my name to Riagan. She told them that it means “little king” and that I reminded her of a king the way I held my head up and pranced through the yard like I owned the place. I liked my name as soon as she said it. I remember I didn’t like my old name, but I don’t remember what it was. I do remember somebody telling Mom and Dad that I used to be here, then a family took me home. One day, the family brought me back to this house because I “nipped” (?) at one of their kids. She said that this time, I was here for a year and a half. Dad said he wasn’t worried because “he is three now, and sometimes they nip when they are young and playful”. So, Mom and Dad brought me home, and there weren’t any cages and I could go outside and run and run, and chase squirrels, and bark at the birds, and scare opossums to death. Well, only one opossum.

I smelled that opossum for a few suns and moons, but couldn’t find him. When I did find him, I barked and jumped at him until he got so scared he fell over dead! I kept on barking and jumping, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Mom came out and smelled a little scared when she saw the dead opossum. She fussed at me and told me to get away, but she couldn’t make me. I dropped that opossum dead with my bark, and I wanted to stay there, so the other dogs would know what I did! Mom was still fussing, something about “get away from it! He’s playing possum, he is going to jump up and bite you!”

Remembering makes me feel a little happy again.

Maybe when she opens her eyes next time, she won’t be scared any more.

Mom is finally able to pet me again. She told somebody that it’s been two days, and she can only do it because Dr. Gaffney gave her some “medicine” to give me to make me calm. If Dr. Gaffney gave it to her for me, then it must be good; Dr. Gaffney is one of my favorite humans.

 Even with the “medicine”, sometimes I still do the bad boy thing. Mom is crying again, all the time. She told Dad “He growled and snapped at me when I tried to pick the potholder up off the floor. A damn potholder. He’s never done that”. It wasn’t anything I wanted, so I don’t really know why I was a bad boy when she tried to pick it up. I love my Mom, she is the goodest Mom. So why do I keep doing the thing that scares her and makes her cry?

There was a moon, and now the sun since the “potholder”. Mom and Dad are talking, and Mom is still crying. She’s been petting me and letting me sit on her lap; she even gave me some banana and pieces of cheese. She knows they are some of my favorites. But she is crying the whole time. She is still scared, and I can tell her “anxiety” is really bad right now. Dad tells her she is making the right decision. He says “I’m sorry. I know this is hard, he has been your buddy for so long. You know how I feel, but I think I need to leave it up to you. If you decide to let him go, I know you want it to be you to make that choice.” She says she knows, that the thing with the “potholder” yesterday would just keep happening until somebody really got hurt. She also says that she understands that something is changing inside of me that won’t get any better. Mom is right, I can feel it inside. I just don’t understand or know how to fix it, and it makes me feel like a bad boy.

They have finished talking, and Mom walks over and picks up my harness and leash. Yay! They are taking me for a ride somewhere! I’m hopping up and down like a kangaroo (another Mom word), and she tells me to calm down and sit so she can get the harness on me. Dad walks me out to his “truck” and we all get in and start the ride. When the ride is over, I can tell we are at Dr. Gaffney’s house. I like Dr. Gaffney’s house. There are other dogs here too. They don’t live here, but if they have to stay, they aren’t in a cage very long, then they get to leave with the same family they had before they came here. Mom is still crying, but why? I’m always happy to be at Dr. Gaffney’s.

After we go in, a nice mom (not my Mom) brings us into a room like every room I’ve been in when I visit. She talks to Mom and Dad, then says she will be right back after she talks to Dr. Gaffney. When she comes back, she takes us out of the room, past cages with dogs and other animals in them who are waiting for their families, and into another room. I’ve never seen this room before; it has a “sofa”. The other mom leaves, and my Mom picks something up and holds it out to me. It smells like something Mom never let me have, she called it “chocolate”. I can’t believe it; she is telling me I can have it!

The other mom comes back in the room and takes my leash, and we leave my Mom and Dad in the “sofa” room. She pokes my leg, and it hurts a little, but I remember doing this before so it’s not all that bad. But it is a little different this time, because there is a thing that is hanging out of my leg. She brings me back into the room with my Mom and Dad, then she leaves us alone. Dad is sitting on the “sofa”, and Mom is on the floor cuddling with me. The other mom comes back in and does something with the thing she put in my leg, and leaves again.

I’m starting to get really sleepy; I don’t think I have ever felt this sleepy before. It feels ok, though, because Mom is here and she is holding me, and petting me, and telling me how much she loves me. She says “you are still the goodest boy”. She still loves me as much as she ever did, even after the “doggie dementia” and the bad boy thing that made the blood come out of her paw. She is still crying, then she says she wants me to come visit her when I can. I don’t know what that means.

I hear the door open, and finally Dr. Gaffney comes in. I’m so glad to see him, but I can’t even lift my head I’m so sleepy. He pets me and says hello, then he messes with that thing in my leg just like the other mom did. Dr. Gaffney pets my head, then puts his paw on my side. Mom also puts one of her paws on my side, and the other on my head. She is crying even harder, still telling me how much she loves me and what a good boy I’ve been, the goodest boy. I want to look into her eyes, so she knows that everything is ok, because now I will be the goodest boy forever. As I fall asleep, I think: I am…the…goodest……boy……….