Gene's Blog

Man’s best friend, My bff, My Cisco

This week I lost the best friend I have ever had in this life. Cisco, born 11/14/1995, died 08/07/2009.

I want to just talk a little about this furry wonder who came into my life when he was 7 weeks old weighing 7 pounds, 7 ounces and full of spunk already. He was a Lab/Shepherd cross, though he looked all Lab but he held his ears like a Shepherd, which made a lot of people think he was a wolf, because he was so big, and jet black, but for the tips of his toes and a splash of white on his chest. But there was nothing wolf-like in his being, he was just a huge bundle of love.

I consider him to be my furry grandchild, my Cisco. He originally belonged to my youngest son, Brandon. All Brandon wanted for his 20th birthday was a dog. So we went to the local Humane Society, Anoka County, USA, and as we walked in, there was this little guy in a HUGE cage all by himself out front. They said he was too little to be back with the others. I don’t really understand that because all of the others were also in cages. I think it was so we would see him first. We looked at all of the beautiful animals they had back there and Brandon couldn’t make up his mind, so I said, let’s look at that little guy out front again. I stuck my finger in his cage to touch him and he bit me. Then sat down and smirked. I told Brandon I think he’ll be fine, he said okay, dad. After I wrote the check, they said you might notice he’s a little noisy. He was the last of a litter of 7, 7 pounds 7 ounces and 7 weeks old. What could go wrong?

That first night we had him in a big box next to Brandon’s bed, his room adjoined mine. Cisco cried all night long. He’d cry and cry until his voice got hoarse and would give out, he’d be quiet 30 seconds and start again. The next morning Brandon said, Dad, I don’t think I can handle another night like that. I said, I don’t think I can either. From that night on, Cisco slept with Brandon, that was all he wanted, companionship. They told us he’d get to be about 60 pounds, but he stopped growing at 7 months and 115 rock solid pounds, tall and strong as a bull.

Brandon got caught up in a horrible drug, crystal meth, over that next year and a month after his 21st birthday he committed suicide. He’d had Cisco for 13 months, though all but a few weeks of that time he was with me in my home. Cisco is how I got through that. There were so many days I didn’t want to get out of bed at all but I did because he needed me.

Labs have horrible separation anxiety. I thought it funny that when Brandon was out, Cisco would chew his shoes. But when Brandon died, he shifted his love to me. I’d leave for work and as I got in the car, I’d hear him cry as if the world was ending. And while I was gone, he’d chew. Walls, floors, furniture, woodwork, I couldn’t believe he could get his teeth into some of those things, but he did. They say dogs can’t remember what they’ve done wrong so they have to be corrected immediately, in the act, or they won’t know why they are being chastised. Bull.

I have two ways into my house, through the garage door and the front door. A couple of times I left through the front door to go across the street to a convenience store and came back in through the garage door. Cisco would be sitting at the front door watching it. So I’d say, what are you looking for? And he’d jump like I had scalded him, I only got away with that a couple of times, from then on and to this day, when I leave one door, he goes to a spot where he can see both doors and greets me from there.

For 11 years he did that every time I left and came back. Unless he’d done something he knew I wouldn’t like, if he had, he’d be on the other side of the dining room table, where he could still see both doors but be hidden, and I’d find him peering at me from under the table. Some times I never did find out what he’d done. Others were obvious and some as I looked around I found. But he could not help himself, he busted himself every time. So those who say dogs don’t remember are full of it. Cisco was living proof.

We were so fortunate he and I. Both had good health, he used to run with me until knee surgery stopped my running. But we explored the world together as much as we could. And then two years ago, he began to age. Since then there have been many good days but also many where we had to be content to just be together. And truthfully, that was enough for both of us. As I told him often, we were just two guys who lived together, loved each other and took care of each other. Believe me, I have had many moments where he alone has kept me grounded and sane, when I was lost and through his love, he found me and brought me back to life, through my grieving, through the travails of life, he always stood firm against anything that wasn’t pure love.

But a year ago he got arthritis in his hindquarters and had been on pain/anti inflammatory medication since, and we couldn’t take those long middle of the night walks anymore. He started coughing about two months ago, a month after his annual checkup, I thought it might be allergenic, those darn cottonwood seeds that float through the air. But it didn’t pass and I took him back to his doctor. It turned out he had an enormously enlarged heart and the larynx in dogs passes right over it, that pressure is what is caused his cough. He knows that disturbs me, because he sounded as if he was hacking up his lungs, and I’d ask him, are you okay buddy? So somehow, he managed to suppress that while I was downstairs with him, but when I go to bed, I’d hear him start and he not stop all night long.

He’d been falling, since this past winter. I have a screen door, with a lift-up glass pane for the winter, and when I’d take him out sometimes my hand would slip off the handle and the door didn’t open, it is full of dents from him hitting it at full speed, which is the way he has always exited our home. He suddenly couldn’t do that anymore. This past winter when he’d try, he’d slip and fall, never before did he do that, he always navigated the snow and ice as if they were nothing.

In the past month, he has begun falling in the grass outside, wasn’t always able to get up from the linoleum in front of the door, his preferred spot. I’ve had to lift him up and once on his feet he’s been okay. He lost 25 pounds over the last year, which still left him a very big dog at 90, but in the past two weeks he’d been increasingly unable to stay up at all. His doctor added two heart disease medications and another pain reliever over the past two weeks but none of them helped.

Two weeks ago one evening when I got home and took him out, he stumbled like a drunk, his head and legs moved one way and his hindquarters another. He had bone spurs throughout his hindquarters. Were that me, I wouldn’t even try to walk. But he did. He didn’t want me to know he hurt. But when he’d fall, and that particular day he fell 10 times, he looked at me with the clearest communication we’ve ever had. His eyes said “help me”. So I did. He’d squat and fall into his stool, so I wiped his butt and brought him back in telling him what a good boy he was.

When his doctor told me, last week, that there wasn’t anything more we could do for him, I knew I had to let him go. He was suffering, though he tried SO hard to hide that, I couldn’t let that just and so the day I’ve dreaded for years finally arrived. It is his time, I know, but somehow I always hoped he’d outlive me and yet in another part of me, I’ve had this vision for years of him passing quietly in my arms. And that’s what was. That little bundle of love who gave me reason to get out of bed each day when Brandon died because he needed me, well, I determined to give him the love and respect he deserves. He’s the background on my phone and the reason I’m still here – love that knows no bounds. If he can, I can. We all can. God made no mistake in creating dogs, and it is no coincidence the dog spelled the other way is God. We could learn so much from them, I have, unconditional love, unconditional forgiveness, no matter what you do to them or let be done to them, they love you without reservation anyway. We humans could take a lesson from that. If Cisco has a legacy, let that be it. I love you no matter what, no matter why, and forever. That’s his answer. And my own commitment to the dear ones in my life. I want to thank all who have been, and are, so important a part of my life. If you have need, call me. I WILL be there. Cisco taught me that.

I still, a day later, can’t believe we have had our last everything. Thursday afternoon I took the afternoon off and we visited places we used to go all the time, that was HARD, partly because he hasn’t the strength to get in the car and I have to lift him and he doesn’t like that and partly because it was the last time we’d ever be there together again. But we did it, we walked where we walked when he was a baby, we looked at the bank of the river that he flung himself into when he was 6 months old. I have to tell that story here, we were walking in a nearby wooded area through which runs a creek, I had him off leash so he could sniff as he pleased. We came upon two boys at a bend in the creek, they were on the other side swinging on a rope out over the creek and dropping into it. He looked me right in the eyes and as was so often the case, I could read his mind, he was asking, can I? I smiled and said go ahead, buddy. He started running AWAY from me but turned into a tight circle and headed for the bank. It was at least a six foot drop to the creek and he sailed out to the middle where he landed with a huge splash, the two boys on the other side shocked as all get out and laughing so hard I thought they’d fall over too, he came up sputtering, looked at me as if to say, WHAT did I just do, swam back, clambered back up the bank and did it again, at 6 months his Lab instincts were very much there. He loved water in any form, snow included. So on this past Thursday we walked slowly and he snoofed as much as he pleased, and then I cooked him a very rare steak. He can’t manage the stairs anymore, so Thursday night I slept on the couch downstairs near him, as for most of his life, he slept upstairs next to me, I didn’t mind the coughing, not at all.

I’ve seen several stories about this experience, one of my favorites is the one where a man dies and meets his dog and won’t enter any place that won’t allow his beloved friend in too. And as someone, maybe Will Rogers, said, if dogs aren’t allowed in heaven, then I want to go where they go. But the story I like best is the Rainbow Bridge. There one day I hope to re-unite with Cisco, and a few others of his loving kind who have been important too, in my life, though none more than he. Along with many humans who have been too. But this is not about them, it is about him.

I will never stop missing him, I will never stop loving him. I will be 69 in a few months and he is the last dog I will ever have and he wasn’t even mine. I’m his grandpa, not his dad, though as has been pointed out to me, he IS my dog. Which I do know. And I love him with all my heart still. 12 1/2 years alone together, and 13 1/2 years of life is not nearly enough. I am NOT done loving him and he is NOT done loving me. He has been my rock, strong when I’ve been weak. And had I the power I would have spared him this weakness. He has been a monster, strong as any truck all of his life, that he cannot be what he has always been was killing him. And me. I know it is his time, but I feel a Judas nonetheless. I pray he will forgive me for what I have done. I WILL never stop missing him. My furry grandchild, my beloved Cisco.