An Ode to All Good Dogs
Dogs aren’t good dogs because they’re perfect. They’re good dogs because they’re our dogs.
I want to tell you about a very good girl. The best girl. Our English Mastiff, Zoey. She was 10 going on 11, and we had to put her down right before the New Year. That’s considered a long life for a big dog, but it wasn’t nearly long enough for us. Even 20 years wouldn’t have been enough.
I can clearly recall the moment I met Zoey. We already had a puppy and I didn’t want another one, especially not one that would get so damned big, but I agreed to go see her. She was around 9 weeks old and still nestled in a squirming, yipping collection of her other seven littermates. My ex plopped her into my lap, and she stayed there, staring up at me with her big, soulful eyes, like she knew I was the one deciding her fate, like she knew it was meant to be.
And she had me from that moment to this.
Zoey was perfect. Easy to train. Even tempered. Loving. Gentle with our other dog, a rat terrier named Amelie who never got any bigger than 10 pounds. Zoey, on the other hand, got gigantic — 130 pounds at her heaviest — and her…
