A Boy and His Dog

I grew up on a farm, more of an acreage, really. We had a few cows, pigs and chickens and a tractor. Some of the trappings of a farm, but it wasn’t meant for production. Just part of the pleasure my dad found by living in the country.

With this country lifestyle came a certain sensibility towards animals. Don’t get too attached because that cow might be on your dinner plate soon.  One of my chores was to feed the beasts, and while I did give them names, I followed the instructions and didn’t form any bonds with any of them.

This rule was also applied to dogs. Farm dogs came and went.  We never bought a dog. They just showed up on the property on their own.  I remember my mom’s dismay when my brother-in-law purchased a dog. She exclaimed in shock, “Can you believe he went and paid good money for a dawg?!?

Our dogs were fed a coffee can full of Purina Dog Chow in an old hub cap once a day, in the morning.  If they wanted more to eat, they would go track down their own game. A farm dog earned his keep by keeping patrol of unwanted guests in the form of rabbits, squirrels and prairie dogs. There was no catch and release. The dog was rewarded with the prize of his own hunt.

Fast forward to 2015. My farm days and countryside living are long over. But the DNA is still in me. I treat my backyard now like a little farm, always planting a garden every year, and creating a little diversity in my urban garden economy, like adding a beehive and fruit trees. I don’t think I’ll get chickens, though I hear roosters crowing in the neighborhood in the morning.  Too many foxes living up and down the swale along my street.

In comes Hank, a pitiful looking rescue dog that my wife brought home that year. He was skinny, with a patchy coat and skittish towards everyone. I thought to myself, “What on earth did she see in this mutt?”  He was somewhere between a year or two old. He had been kennel trained and went to lay down in it without instruction. My hunch on the reason he was back at the shelter because he spent all day in a kennel while the owner was off to work. Hank slowly began the process of adjusting to his new home.

Hank quickly became my dog, sort of like the many farm dogs I had as a kid. I knew how to feed him and pay attention to what he needed. It’s funny what dogs know and pick up on in people.  He was a chewer and took to my wife’s shoes and pillows, finding comfort in tearing them up. He was a methodical chewer, though. He didn’t just rip something up. He would neatly deposit all the pieces into a tidy little pile.

My wife spent 8 months at home in hospice care as she succumbed to the cancer that eventually took her life. On the day she died, Hank immediately went into her room, jumped up on her bed and began to sniff her lifeless body. Then he laid down there until the representative from the funeral home came to take her away. I told his vet about it and she said, “One of the pack died, and he was making sure it was final, so he could let her go and not wonder what happened.”

Dogs need closure too.

That dog became my constant companion. My daughter called him my shadow. He went everywhere I went in the house. If I went outside, I knew to leave the door open because he would be quick behind me. And on the day he didn’t, I knew something was wrong.

Hank had been declining for a couple of weeks. His breathing became labored and a visit to the vet showed fluid on his lungs, but the diagnosis was not precise. He underwent a regimen of antibiotics but that was ineffective and showed no improvement.  On Tuesday I took laundry downstairs and Hank followed me down like always.   When I brought the basket back up, I realized he hadn’t come with me. I descended to investigate.

He was lying motionless on his stomach on the carpet. He was barely breathing. I thought this was his final moment. So I got down and joined him on the carpet, petting him gently, letting him know it was OK for him to pass.

But he didn’t pass. After about 30 min of unresponsiveness, he suddenly sat up and looked toward the door. I thought one of my kids had stopped by, but it wasn’t the case. I’m sure Hank saw something, just like the many stories of hospice patients I had read about five years ago.  Hank was definitely near death, and probably could see through the thin veil that separated him and another realm.

Even though he had rallied, he hadn’t improved, but instead, the opposite. He kept struggling to get air but couldn’t. All night he fought, and somehow made it through, but we knew it was time to help him cross over.

Putting an urban dog down is a much more gentle process than a farm dog. The latter usually involved a pistol and a shovel. My dad taught me a lot of things but I’m glad he never made me pull the trigger or dig the hole.  He sheltered me from that pain.

On Thursday, March 13, 2025, Hank passed quickly and peacefully at the hand of his vet. She sat with me in my sudden loss and knew what not to say. I witnessed a beautiful transition thanks to her.

I’m no stranger to watching Death come and go, as it takes with it only what it has been given permission to take.  Death has rights to the body, but the spirit gets to live on.  So does this apply to animals too? Do all dogs go to heaven?

The pain of grief is just like any other pain; it demands to be soothed and relieved. And one of the ways we do this is to try and answer the why question. Why did this happen? Why did it happen to him? Why did it have to happen this way?  All normal and understandable inquisition.

But the why questions can be answered poorly and insensitively. One of the worst is, “Well, I guess God needed another dog/angel so He took (your loved one).”

Please don’t say that outloud, even if you fully believe it. Keep that little nugget of advice for yourself.

My faith informs most everything I do in life (and regarding death). And certain texts of Scripture provide a context to my why questions. Two words from Romans 8 make sense of my pain today:

The children

The creation

Think, a boy and his dog. A child with his four legged companion.

A child can become attached to an animal easily. For a child to learn at an early age how to care for something living is an important part of her development. The animal doesn’t have the capacity to live in its potential like it can with the assistance of a caregiver.  My faith tradition holds to a belief that there is mutual benefit between children and creation. Today, as a 61-year old child, I was given the task of taking care of a dog’s life and ultimately, its death. Hank looked to me to feed him, clean up after him, protect it by keeping him out of the street. He looked to me to know what he needed to be comfortable and keep him active so he wouldn’t become sedentary.

And he trusted me to know when it was time for him to go.

To see myself as a child chosen to care for creation helps me frame the why questions about Hank.

Why do we all have to die?

My faith is rooted in the belief of redemption and restoration.  All living things die. All humans die. Death is the great equalizer of all life and humanity. No one escapes, neither the rich or poor, educated or illiterate. But death always gives way to new life. And what is seen now, will be played out on the other side of death.

Will I see Hank again someday? I don’t know the answer to that. I assume I’ll only know that after I leave this body behind.  But I take comfort in knowing that I played a part in caring for creation that was given to me to steward, and I cared for that little beast all the way to the end.

"the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God". 
Romans 8:21