As a child, I was always surrounded by pets. I grew up with animals in my life from the time I was born. As a family we had three very large goldfish (you would be surprised how big they can get), three dogs, mice, and a baby chick. There was never a dull moment with animals in our lives. There was always a pet to look after or one to talk to when you did not want to talk to any human. Even though, you might think that death was a big part of all that was going on with our pets, this was not the case in my family. We never really witnessed or had a big acknowledgement of it. For that reason, I still really wanted to have a pet of my very own. The day finally came when I got my very own puppy, but there were some important things that preceded the event.
(Boscoe and bone, 1984)
The first pet I was introduced to was my parents’ dog Boscoe. Boscoe was the first dog my parents bought together and they got him before they started having kids. He was a beautiful black and white Australian Shepherd with big, bright blue eyes, but he was born deaf. He was my parents’ first child, so to speak. I could never really tell if he was fond of us or if he just accepted that we were taking up his territory. One thing I was sure about was that he enjoyed having little children around as they constantly dropped food on the ground. His favorite spot in the house was under the high chairs. As he got older he liked to stay out in the garage where it was cool. He had a doggy door leading from the garage to the back yard so he was able to run and play as any dog would do. He was an integral member of the family.
As the years went on and he got older, he could not see as well, and his legs started to give out. He got to the point where he could not stand up or walk, so my parents decided that it was time to have him put down. As a little kid, I did not have any experience in losing an animal and, like from the Oxford Dictionary, “when I use the word ‘animal’ I mean all living creatures except man and women”[1]. At that time in my life, that is what an animal was to me; a family member that I was sharing my life with. I had no emotional tie to any animals so I did not really have a bond with the pets I grew up with. I cannot actually remember a time when an animal died and I was there to witness it. My parents were so sheltering that they dealt with the death of our pets themselves and I never really had to take on that burden when I was younger. I never really felt the deep love for Boscoe that my parents did. He was their dog, and they had true feelings for him. I never really thought I would have those kinds of feelings with an animal, but that was before I got my dog Maximilian Locascio, also known as Max.
(Maximilian Locascio, 2000)
It all started when I was in the sixth grade. For an English assignment we had to write about something that we really truly wanted. At the time, I was not really sure what I wanted, but other people were writing about wanting pets and so I decided that I too wanted ask my parents for a pet. We had to make a list of why we wanted a pet and then I decided to take the list home and let the begging commence. My father’s immediate reaction was no. He assumed that I was not going to take care of the dog and that we really did not need a pet around the house. My mother, on the other hand, was kind of neutral on the subject and that is where I knew the weak spot would end up being. I, like John Graves in Blue and Some Other Dogs, wanted a “[n]ice dog, a cleancut fellow who obeyed a few selected commands, was loyal and gentle with his masters, and refrained conscientiously from ‘bad’ behavior as delineated by the same said master”[2]. That was my ideal dog, a dog that would be there for me to take care of and be the best companion that a dog could be. I had no idea at the time that Max was not going to be that kind of dog to me.
When I finally got my mother to agree that we could go look at dogs I knew I was going to find my dog. We started going to humane shelters, which are not really humane at all; they are more like captive, uncared for, inhumane shelters. But I digress, these shelters were filled with animals of all kinds, but I could not really find the animal I was looking for. I guess I was a little biased. I wanted a puppy of any sort and just knew that when I saw a cute puppy I was going to make him mine. As a child I did not realize the harm of what happens to the dogs that just stay in shelters. As I think back to when I was younger I was so sheltered in life and I believed there were bad things in this world. I had no idea what goes on in shelters and as a kid I wish maybe I was a little more informed so I could have picked out a dog that was not a puppy and was just an older dog that would have been a good fit. Talking with the shelter workers, it appears that most people want newly born animals that have not been trained by other people. People want a pet that they can train and bond with from birth. What people do not realize is that picking a dog that is well suited and is not a puppy is great and can be perfectly loving as much or even more then a puppy that was raised with you.
A couple of months went by, and I had not found my faithful companion. Oh how I longed to find this “puppy of my dreams”. I would convince my mother to go to Petco just for the reason of seeing what animals they had in that day. Before long it was May and I still did not have a dog. By then I had finally given up on ever getting a pet of my own. On June 10th, my mother and I were out near Petco and I asked her if we could go look at the pets inside the store. She agreed and off we went. I walked to the back of the store, where they have about ten cages filled with animals. The cages are so small, the animals can barely move. The intent is probably to make the customers sad enough to want to adopt these animals, which obviously works, but when we got to the cages, there were already a few people standing holding puppies. I ran over to the cages and there were two puppies sitting in one. One was female and the other was male. The female puppy was running around biting her brother’s ear while he tried to sleep. He finally awoke and, like Alice Walker in Am I Blue?, “he looked at me. It was a look so piercing, so full of grief, a look so human, I almost laughed (I felt too sad to cry) to think that there are people who do not know that animals suffer”[3] (pg 245e). I reached into the cage and pulled out the sleeping male puppy and knew that he was going to go home that day with me. My mother signed the papers; and it was on his way to his new—and what would be his last— home. On the way home, we called my father and asked him if we could bring a puppy home. We told him that he had to say yes because we were on the way home with one anyways.
(Justin and Max, 2000)
I finally had my own dog. The kind of dog that was going to be my best friend, but that is not how he really saw it. I ended up being more like a brother to him in his eyes and my parents were more like the alpha dogs. He would barely listen to me or my brothers and would want us to play with him all of the time. Whenever my parents yelled at him or yelled for him, he would automatically do what they wanted without any question. I deemed it unfair that he would not do that with me, but I guess since he grew up with us that is just how those things went. He was not really introduced to other dogs, so he acted as if my brothers and I were actually his brothers. It was really interesting to see and now that I am older I question what people say about animals and humans. I have read that animals and humans are different because they do not share the same emotions, but you would not have been able to see that from Max. It was as if he was a child. When my mother would go outside he would instantly want to go outside just to be with her and he did not seem to mind that most times it was just for a few minutes. To me he was as human as anyone for the fact that I believed he had the same feelings that I had when I was a child. When my brother would take away a toy from me or if he played with a toy I wanted to play with I would cry simply because he had it. Max used to do the same thing when you would take away his toy. He would either cry because he really wanted it or if you grabbed another toy he would go after that one because you had it. When Max would do something wrong we would put him in his cage as a punishment the same way you would send your kids to time out in their room. We treat our pets as humans; as if they were simply something we birthed and took care of. Our pets are apart of us and to me that is what makes them human. I had the best dog in the world for six years. Six years. It was not long enough. He was taken away too early. It started about two weeks before the end, he was not acting like himself and was more or less just moping around the house, not wanting to eat, play, or really do anything. When my mother would walk through the door, instead of running from where he was and meeting her, he just dragged himself over. As soon as he started getting worse we took him to the Veterinarian and they told us that he had a tumor in his brain. There was about a 5% chance that he would make it and even if he did make it the Vet told us that he would probably never remember who we were and would never be the same as he was before. I was at work when my mother found this out and she told me to come down to the Vet because they were going to put him to sleep. My father could not go down there because he had a hard enough time doing it with Boscoe that he just could not put himself through that again. I never really understood why he did not go down there until after this happened. Neither of my brothers could go because my younger brother was in school and my older brother was in
I went down there not really feeling anything. I was not sure what to expect when I got there. I just knew that I was going to go in with a pet and come out without one. I got there and my mom had me follow her into a room where Max was lying on the ground not moving. The Vet said that we could say our goodbyes and then he would give him the injection. As soon as we said our goodbyes and the doctor injected him I could not deal with him being taken away anymore. I told my mother goodbye and I went back to work. She took the rest of the day off to grieve. That is how I dealt with the loss of my pet. The first time to see an animal actually die in front of me, I shut down and I just moved on. I did not forget, but I went back to work and just decided not to dwell on it. I guess you could say that is just one of those things that happens in a person’s life when they are not use to death. They do not know how to deal with it so they just decide not to.
It is interesting to think about how we deal with the death of humans compared to the death of animals. We pretty much deal with it the same way. We grieve, we buy them a burial plot or cremate them, and sometimes we have a funeral. It is interesting that we care for these creatures just as if they were part of our family. Simply stated, they are part of our family. You can tell by the way pets react to the death of their human companion all of the time. There are actually pets that are affected by their owner’s death just like the owner would be for their own pet. For example, “The body of 25-year-old Jake Baysinger was found Sunday on the Pawnee National Grasslands about 75 miles northeast of
I have talked to plenty of people and have asked them why pets are so dear to them and why they are treated like part of the family. The fact is that when we adopt a pet and take care of them they end up becoming part of the family. We even use the word “adopt” for pets, just like for children. I am like everyone else; I can fall in love with an animal and have an emotional relationship with it. When that animal is taken away from you, it is hard to let go. Animals feel the same way towards humans, and I believe that this should help people be more kind and loving to animals, and more sensitive to how animals are treated. Maybe we all just need a pet to show us that.
(Justin and Ryan with Max being brought home for the first time, 2000)
Word count (with quotes): 2,598
Word count (without quotes): 2,477
[1] Note: HELPS, Anim. & Masters iii.
[2] John Graves, From a Limestone Lodge: Blue and Some Other Dogs.
[3] Alice Walker, Am I Blue?
[4] MSNBC [Web Site] (2008); available from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26164669/?GT1=43001/; accessed 16 February 2009.
