FACT: The only piece of media that has ever truly made me cry was Where the Red Fern Grows.
The day my mother picked our new puppy up from the shelter when I was in fourth grade, I held her contained neatly in my two cupped hands the whole way home from school. That night, I slept next to her on a cot in our laundry room as she whined for hours to be let out of the cat carrier that would serve as her bed until she grew large enough to require an actual dog crate.
FACT: Nearly 40 percent of American households own a dog.
It wasn’t long before she outgrew her temporary bed. My sister was the first one to notice when she started getting fat. When she was only a few months old, we began to have to open our sliding door wider and wider to let her through. I denied it: “That was just her ribs sticking out,” I said, grazing my hand across her belly. But my sister was right. Her pudge would be a mark of happiness, though, and a good excuse to nap the day away instead of chasing crows in the backyard.
FACT: I refused to see I Am Legend, because I knew from watching the previews the dog would die.
When we brought another dog home a year or so later, we found out Coal was territorial. The shelter told us she was a Lab, but we called her Pit Cow because she was determined to take down any other dog on her turf. She came back bloody every time she started a fight, and she accumulated gray scars on her legs to commemorate each battle.
But she wanted nothing more than to be every human’s best friend. Walking near the beach in the middle of a blustery weekday afternoon, a lonesome transient asked me if he could have her. I told him no and power-walked away, secretly terrified that he would take her and she would gladly go.
FACT: When I went away to college, my greatest fear, above failing out of school or not making friends, was that my dog would die while I was away.
Coal got hit by a car when I was in 8th grade, early in the morning before I went to school. We live in a rural area and the rains always washed the mud from under the fence around our two acre property. After the first few years of unsuccessfully trying to plug the gaps and holes, we trusted that the dogs would come back and that was that. Our neighbors bought them treats and invited them into their houses. They would be gone for hours at a time and I became jealous that I wasn’t good enough.
My mom pulled me out of class to tell me she would live. But she had broken her spine, and they were thinking of amputating her tail — she wouldn’t be able to move it again.
Just before surgery, at the sight of my mother, she began to wag it, and it was saved. Now, instead of curling up over her back like a question mark, it hung limply behind her. When she got excited, she lifted it up and it curled out sideways like a flag flying from a ship’s stern. She seemed to twist her body accordingly, in the perfect picture of animal joy.
I remember visiting her at the clinic, keeping my hands on her as the vet pointed at the x-rays. You could even see the little post-digested food ready to be pooped out. She would have looked so fat without a tail.
FACT: A 1988 study found that one third of dog owners surveyed were closer to their dog than any human family member.
When away from home, I never missed my family. I always miss my dog.
When I hear the crying of coyotes at night, I sit up straight in bed, wondering where she is and if she is safe. Even when I know the answer is yes, I can’t stand the sound.
I once heard that my neighbor’s puppy was lured into a pack of coyotes by a friendly coyote pup and was then killed. I typically assume this is what must happen all the time.
An incomplete list of movies in which the dog dies:
Marley and Me
Old Yeller
American Gangster
My Dog Skip
All Dogs Go to Heaven (Doesn’t count, now does it?)
I Am Legend
Where the Red Fern Grows
Apocalypse Now
The Royal Tenenbaums
Dances with Wolves (It was a wolf. Close enough.)
Signs
Secret Window
Stone Fox (We all know TV movies don’t count either, but hey, it sure was sad.)
Like a bad boyfriend, Coal snored and didn’t understand the concept of sharing my twin bed she liked to lay straight across it, stretching out her legs preferably as close to my pillow as possible, which left me no room to lie down. She kicked in her sleep while running across dreamy landscapes, and she scratched her nails against my wall. I still let her sleep with me whenever I came home. I knew she was getting old when one night she fell off the bed into the foot of space between my wall and the mattress, and she couldn’t get herself back up.
FACT: The night before my dog was put down, unbeknown to me and 1,500 miles away, I dreamed of her.
I called my dad the next day, still upset from that night’s violent dreams, to be reassured that it was all in my subconscious.
“I have bad news.” A heart-stopping preface.
“What! What is it?!” I almost yelled at him, irrationally, almost angrily.
Afterward, I sat in bewildered, stunned silence. I didn’t want to talk anymore or make idle chit chat about my day. It felt like my fault. I should have known, somehow. I didn’t pay enough attention. Why didn’t I know?
FACT: I told a friend that my dog had died. She asked, “Wait, did you like her?”
I said “of course,” but that didn’t cover it. I still don’t know how to fully cover it.