Nostalgia Friday: Empty Backyards, The Story of the Luckiest Unlucky Dog, Roxy

When I was a kid, my uncle used to live with us. He occupied the guest room of our house for some time. At the time, I wasn’t sure how long he was staying there for, I don’t think anyone knew, but my parents seemed okay with that. He’s the kind of uncle that’s always joyful under any negative circumstance, the kind of happy go lucky uncle that’s fun to be around. So naturally, when he brought home a puppy without notice, he didn’t think anything of it. My parents on the other hand were none to happy about our new, unexpected roommate. Nonetheless, we were promised that the dog was only temporary and that it would be gone the day he moved out. We named that dog Tito, after Michael Jackson’s brother, even though my sister and I were well aware that our dog was a girl. My uncle tried to sway us away from our naming decision, but we wouldn’t hear of it. There are some arguments you just can’t win against kids.
My family tolerated that dog, and it’s not like we had to tolerate much because that dog was extremely well mannered. She never destroyed anything, never barked too much, and never had fits of rage. Perhaps it was because every time I saw Tito, she had fear in her eyes. She wasn’t exactly the bravest dog around, and she was always too scared to cause any trouble.

When my uncle finally decided to move out of our house, he broke his promise. The dog was staying with us because his new place didn’t allow pets. Thus, the dog was officially ours. Yet in a sense, it really wasn’t. We fed her, we bathed her, we took her on walks, we played with her, we did things that all good dog owners do. Yet, every time I spent time with that dog, I just did it because I felt sorry for her. She would look at me with her sad eyes when we played, and I never understood why she was so sad. Basically, Tito was kind of a wet blanket, so it was hard to have a connection with that dog.

Tito lived well past her prime, all the way until 17. When I got her, I was only 4. When she passed away, I was 21, and a junior in college. The course of Tito’s life was rather uneventful. She never really liked to play fetch, never chased things, was never really active. She just slept a lot, even when she was healthy. As she got older, she started to break down like all things do. She got a little blinder, a little deafer, and a lot sleepier. By the time she was an old maid, you could tell, she was ready to go.

I remember the night she passed away. I had just come back from a night out at Dave and Busters. The only key to the house I had was through the back yard, so I decided to see how Tito was doing. At first glance it looked like she was sleeping, but when I clapped my hands and she didn’t wake up, I knew. The next day, we took our 17 year old dog that had passed away to the Humane Society to cremate her.

When Tito passed away, I wasn’t really that sad. I mean, we had the dog for a long time, but like I stated earlier, I felt no connection to her. Throughout all the years we had her, Tito wasn’t exactly man’s best friend. She did as she pleased, and what that meant was just a bunch of moping around. Perhaps we never bonded because we weren’t her original owners, our uncle was. The only thing I was sad about was just the sense of normalcy she gave us, because I had her for such a long time in my life that it became a routine thing to see her trot in our backyard. When she died, that feeling was gone, and inside I felt like life at home was out of whack.

I didn’t feel right though that I wasn’t sad. I felt like I should have mourned her loss more, but I didn’t. Thus that day forward, I vowed that if I did have another dog, and it did pass away, that I would mourn, not because it was gone, but because I loved it.

A few months have passed, and home life still seemed out of whack. Every time I would come home from Berkeley, I would expect a furry little friend there scampering in the backyard like Tito would. That was not the case. Thus, around Christmas time, I convinced my parents we should get another dog. My parents were skeptical at first considering I was in college and only came home once every few weeks, but I was graduating soon, meaning I would be home a lot more often in a few months. Thus, they agreed.

We went to the pound during my Christmas break to see what lovable little mutt would be our new family dog. I looked around at the different pens. Some dogs were so excited to see human interaction. Some of the older ones were more withdrawn, probably heartbroken because some cruel owner abandoned them, and now they were stuck wasting their days in the pound. After I looked at few of the cages, I came upon a curious sight. There in front of me was little pup, but she was a bit different. While all the other pups were excited from the get go to see a new potential owner, this one just sat silently in her cage observing me while I was observing her. It was unique, so I decided to tell the worker that this dog was the one.

The worker took the little Rotty-mutt into a play area and I greeted my new pal. At first she was afraid, cautiously moving toward the stranger person in front of her, but then I gave her a friendly pat on the head. In that instant she was won over. Her tail immediately started to wag. We got all the paper work done, and the little Rotty was ours. Her collar originally read Margot, but that was such an old lady name. I decided to name her Roxy, the fun kind of name that this fun kind of dog deserved.

Roxy was by no means a Tito. Roxy was full of energy, sniffing every little crook and nanny in her sight. I remember sometimes her curiosity would get the better of her. In her early years she decided that her new favorite snack would be charcoal. About five minutes later, she learned that wasn’t such a good idea. It was always that curiosity that made me adore the lovable mutt. She was always happy to learn about the world around her, and even when encountering negative consequences, she basked in the joy she found in discovering life’s simplest things.

Eventually, Roxy grew to be quite a big dog. She easily weighed over 70 pounds and on the outside, appeared to be an uncontrollable beast ready to destroy anything in her path. This couldn’t be farther from the truth though. Upon first encounter, one could be understandably shaken when she charged full speed in his or her direction. But, when she applied the breaks, all you could see was a wide smile and a look that screamed “pet me.” Dogs are such endearing friends compared to the friends that we make with each other. When humans meet each other, it’s never a certainty the affection is reciprocated. But when a human sees their dog, they’re usually happy simply because it’s a guarantee that their dog is happy to see them. If only all friendships had such blind loyalty.

Roxy lived like this for a while, without a care in the world. She was a good dog, and most of all she was a good dog when I needed it the most. Getting adjusted to life after graduation can be a tough thing. All of a sudden you realize you’re a responsible adult, and the real world was actually quite real. There was no longer time to slack around or just lay about because of laziness. Your friends were also just as busy as you, and free time was a hard thing to come by. It’s not like in college when hanging out is often your full time job, and school is your hobby.

Instead, it’s just you in your cube, wondering if about so many aspects of your life. What you did wrong, what did you right, and what got you to this point. Life after college is a time of reflection, often too much reflection. Sometimes the only thing that can put things back into your perspective is your dog, and so many times, Roxy did that job so well. Perhaps it’s because when I looked at her, I thought what a simple life this dog has, yet she still couldn’t enjoy it more. Maybe it’s just easier to adopt that carefree life style. In the end, Roxy often helped me maintain my sanity when it seemed like it felt like it was slipping away day by day.

And then the accident happened. I remember it so fast. One minute I was getting ready for a walk with my dad and the dog, the next minute I just heard my dad call out my name, telling me Roxy had been hit by a car. I quickly ran outside to see the damage that had been done, and boy, was there damage. Right in front of me was Roxy lying in a pool of her own blood, the lower part of her body soaked in red. It was quite a shock to see.

My dad had told me what happened. As he was opening the car door to let her in, she saw something across the street. It was probably a cat or small animal, so she quickly bolted over as fast as she could. She charged out so fast that she didn’t see a car coming straight at her. The car screeched its brakes, but it was late. Roxy was hit, tumbled a little. My dad thought that after the car hit her, it was over, but then Roxy quickly got up and ran to the backyard, as if some kind of miracle had happened. Actually, it was just the adrenaline.

So that’s how she ended up in the backyard where I saw her lying. The odd thing was that even though she sat there in unimaginable pain and blood around her, she still had her patented Roxy smile on her. I wasn’t quite sure what kept that smile going, but I soon figured out when my dad and I went in the house to get some towels. The second we were out of sight, I heard her crying in desperation. I peered back out to see what was the matter, and all I saw was the look of fear in her eye. My dad decided it was a better idea if I stayed with her while he got the things needed to clean her up and bring her to the vet.

Getting her to the vet was no easy task. We were anything but medical experts, so we didn’t know how to properly move her, fearing that one wrong nudge might cause her now fragile body to break. Thus, we had to do things slowly as she struggled in pain, flailing around wildly. After a long, tough task, we finally brought her to see what damage had been done.

After we brought her to the vet and they examined her to see what they could do. After several hours, it was revealed that her lower back had been fractured, but that the damage was not permanent. It was a relief to hear that and I was excited to see my buddy again. Only, when I saw her for the first time since her accident, her smile was gone, and her tail wasn’t wagging. Roxy didn’t look like the dog that I remembered, instead she looked like a different dog from my past: Tito. A dog who had a permanent melancholy about her. I could tell already she looked like a different dog.

For the next few weeks, Roxy wouldn’t be able to walk. Thus, my dad and I had to clean her and take care of her because she was completely helpless in this state. She knew this, and you could tell, she just couldn’t understand it. She couldn’t understand why she got hurt or why she couldn’t walk. She didn’t understand why it happened to her. She was depressed, and even though we gave her as much attention and love as we could during this time, it still wasn’t enough to replace the vulnerability she felt. Just like humans, dogs can self loathe too, and rightfully so.

Eventually, she began to move again, and within a month and a half, she fully recovered her ability to walk. Yet, even though physically, she was back to her old self, mentally, it just wasn’t he same dog. The accident didn’t only injure her legs, but it seemed to injure her head too. Roxy started to bark at things that weren’t there, she started to forget how big she was and began to get more physically aggressive, and she started to whine a lot more. It’s as if the accident had made her an emotional wreck. Before she would be happy with a simple pet and a simple hug, but now, it just wasn’t good enough. She would get sad and have fits of whining at things that were good enough before. It didn’t bother me that much, because I knew in the end, she was still the same lovable dog, but it just felt like it wasn’t the same dog. I still loved her regardless of her mental state.

Yet, after all of this, the saddest part in the aftermath of the accident, were the seizures. The first time I witnessed it, it was such a terrifying sight. One minute, I was getting her breakfast, the next minute, she just flopped on the ground and started to shake. It’s like she just went comatose, eyes open, on the ground, and convulsing. Then, a few seconds later she would get up and stumble about in a daze, slowly recovering her balance until she regained full mental capacity again. This was an entirely new experience for me. I’ve never seen a human have a stroke before, much less a dog, so I was very afraid for her.

The seizures happened periodically, about once every month. During this time, we went to the vet again to see what was wrong with her. The results were inconclusive, but they informed me canine epilepsy was not an uncommon thing. Thus, they gave us some medicine and told us to come back in a few months so they could check to see if there was any improvement. That was a few weeks ago.

In a sense, when the seizures started to happen, in the back of my mind, I knew that Roxy’s lifespan was going to be cut short. Yet, I didn’t know how short it was going to be cut, and I didn’t want to dwell on it. I just wanted to enjoy the time I had left with her. And then, a week ago, I got the call from my Mom. I was planning to go home for my weekly visit to my parents house when she told me, Roxy had passed away.

Normally at night, we keep Roxy in a pen that took up about a fifth of our backyard. This would keep her away from destroying the yard at night and also prevent her from wandering out of the house if she broke through a weak spot in our fence. We couldn’t keep her in the garage and my parents weren’t ready to take the leap to house train her. Roxy never enjoyed the pen, but before the accident, she tolerated it. After the accident though, every time we put her in there, she was desperate to break out. We tried everything we could to keep her in the pen at night, and put extra restraints when she was forceful enough to break out. Yet, it couldn’t be prevented, and it was inevitable she would find some way to be free.

Unfortunately, the night she broke out was also the night she had a seizure, and just like some freak accident, she had one and fell into our pool. Just like that, without any notice, in the middle of the night, Roxy was gone.

When I got home that day to say goodbye, I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened. Just a few days ago, Roxy was watching TV with me in our garage. I didn’t even think about what if there was no Roxy to watch TV with. I knew that Roxy’s time with us would not last long due to what she had been through, but I didn’t think how soon that would be. I remember later that day, we had dinner with my older sister who was visiting us from the city, and I was still trying to make sense of the days events. I guess I was mainly just feeling confused. I didn’t understand how a dog who probably thought she was so lucky had such an unlucky life.

Sometimes in life, it’s hard to let go. The saying can be old and worn, but it stands true: it just takes time. I guess I fulfilled the promised I made from the start, I was sad (and still am) that my dog had passed away.

Until then all that's left is an empty back yard filled with a rarely used basketball court and some old chew toys strewn about on the pavement. All you can hope for is that maybe one day those same chew toys will start to move again, and that same backyard won’t be empty anymore.