A Boy and His Dog

When I was very, very young, Mom and Dad got a puppy. Dad was in the army at the time, and away a lot, so a dog seemed like a good solution to keep Mom company. So they got a little Yorkshire Terrier and named him Rolly. A couple of days later they discovered that Mom was pregnant with me. Well, she didn't know it was me at the time, thought I think she suspected as much.

So Rolly and I were pretty much constant companions from square one. I was born with dislocated hips, so I spent the first year and a half of my life in a body cast. So Mom would put me in my little... baby cart thing. Damn, can't think of the name. Anyhow, they're probably not sold anymore because their unsafe or something.

I guess it was like a high chair, with a tray and all, except it wasn't high, and had wheels. I could touch the ground with my feet, and with some effort, could wheel myself around. Plus I had all this cool space for cereal, and blocks and probably Rolly on occasion. It was great for me as it allowed me to be upright and get a little exercise. Keep in mind, I'm going by what Mom tells me; I have very little recollection of this time in my life.

There's piles of pictures of me in this thing, along with Rolly helping me eat whatever happened to be on my tray. Cereal, ice cream, blocks... you know the drill.

So, fastforward six years or so, and my sister is born. Rolly and I are best friends; a boy and his dog. In the intervening years, Mom and Dad had gotten another pup, a neurotic little bag of incontinence, which Mom named Monty. He was a Chihuahua, and bit anyone who was not Rolly or Mom.

Rolly and Monty (or the Boys) got along famously. Best of pals, the pair of them. Once, they'd snuck out of the house while Dad was taking out the garbage. It was a mid February night, and one of the coldest nights on record. Dad noticed that they were missing almost 3 hours later, and found them out in the yard. Rolly had wrapped himself around his short haired friend in order to try and keep them both warm and alive. If that's not friendship, I don't know what is.

Anyhow, the Boys and I were not thrilled with the appearance of this squwaking little bundle that was my sister, but she peed on Dad on a regular basis, so she couldn't be all bad.

Three years later, the boys were longer in the tooth, and starting to get snippy. And then my brother was born. Rolly was not impressed, and neither was I. My sis and Monty got along great, which figures.

A year later, the boys were at each other's throats constantly. These former best pals couldn't be in the same room with each other without biting and snarling. Rolly started losing his teeth, and Monty went blind in one eye. I would have been about 10 at the time (as were they), but I knew that they were getting old and snippy. Didn't think much of it though.

Then it happened. Dad got a new job, 1200 kms away, and we were going to have to move. I was pissed. I would have been starting Grade 5 that year, and had all my friends, and so on and so forth. Angry ten year old, oooh scary!

Dad left to start the new job, and we would follow as soon as the house sold. God bless my Mom, I have no idea how she managed to pack everything up with us gaggle of kids (surly 10 year old, precocious 4 year old, and lumpy 1 year old), plus two geriatric dogs with bladder failure, all the while keeping the house presentable for viewings.

After a couple of months the house sold, and we set our moving date. I came home from school one day to find Mom crying. She'd just gotten off the phone with Dad, and they'd decided that we weren't going to be able to bring the Boys with us. They'd decided that to subject the boys to the 16 hour car ride, plus new surroundings at their age wasn't fair.

Okay, I thought slowly. Who are we going to give the boys to?

It turns out that we weren't going to give them to anyone.

I can clearly remembering driving with my Mom to vet, the Boys on my lap. They knew something was up; they were quieter than they'd been in months. I sat silently in the passenger seat, tears streaming down my face.

I stayed in the car when we pulled into the parking lot. Mom gathered up the boys and went into the vet's office, and minutes later emerged alone. She couldn't bear to stay.

She pulled the car over at least a half dozen times during the 20 minute drive back to the house. Mom couldn't stop sobbing, and there was nothing I could to help.

I think it was the first time I'd ever seen my Mom cry that hard. Mom's always been a little teary eyed at sentimental things, but watching her sob made me angry. My ten year old mind reasoned that she should feel sad... she'd just had my best friend killed.

Looking back now, I don't have a lot of clear memories of Rolly. I'm not sure if some of the snippets I do remember are the result of pictures that I've seen, or if they are actual memories. But I can still clearly remember the weight of the Boys on my lap as we made that last drive. Rolly had always been there, always been part of my life. I didn't know life without him.

I was angry for a long time about this. After a time not in an everyday way, but I'd think about it a couple of times a year.

Having written this, I've got to give my Mom credit. It was a bad situation to which there was no good solution. She did the best she could under the circumstances.

And I'm not angry anymore. I know Rolly is in a better place, and that to have taken him with us when we moved would have been selfish on my part.

Thanks Mom for being strong then. It's helped me to be strong since.

And thanks Rolly. I hope that I was as good a friend to you as you were to me.