I Can't Stop Thinking About My Dog Dying
He's about to turn two in May, though, so hopefully we still have a good bit of time together
e across on social medith my dog, I cannot help but think about how he is going to die one day. I don’t really know why a, which say something along the lines of, “your dog is your best friend for only a fraction of your life, but you’re their best friend for the entirety of theirs.” That’s some real bittersweet stuff, right?
There’s also the fact that, through the course of my almost 30 years on this earth, I have seen four of my family dogs die. With one of them being my dog, Annie, who I do not even have memories of life prior to her being in it. Her death was something that I took particularly hard. I remember all that I did that day after I got home from school was binge watch episodes of The Office to help make me feel a little bit better. And it is probably going to be the same case for my future children with my wife and I’s dog Shep, because I know his death is inevitable and, as long as nothing goes wrong, based on his age now he should be passing away right when my future kids are in the prime, 9-13 years old range. So, they will be just old enough to really be scarred by it.
And they will be rightfully scarred. I mean, I do not think they will ever experience a dog quite like Shep again. How is it going to feel for them to have grown up with the best dog to have ever lived and then realize that pet ownership is all downhill from there? Of course, I could be speaking with bias. Shep is the first dog that I have legitimately done everything for, and thus assuredly is also the dog that I have spent the most time with, and so it makes sense that I love him the most dearly. From the day that we got him when he was eight weeks old we have built pens for him, replaced those pens when he’s figured out ways to escape them, prayed over him to get him to stop screaming in the middle of the night, cleaned up his vomit more times than we can count, grabbed poop out of the hair near his butt when it gets stuck, taken him on hikes, and the list goes on. We have also screamed at him when we tries to eat trash, slapped his nose when he gets feisty with us, and just generally asked “why the heck did we get a dog?" multiple times. But then we look at his face and fall in love all over again.
You may think that Shep’s death being on my mind all the time may somewhat sour my day to day adventures with him, but if anything it has had the opposite effect. Continually reminding myself that my time with him is temporary makes every interaction—every early morning where I have to wake up and stand in the cold drinking a coffee while Shep surveys the yard and finds a place to use the bathroom—all the sweeter. Sure, I still get frustrated with him a lot, because he is an idiot, but I also realize that the annoyances will one day turn into happy memories.
There is going to be a day where my wife and I call Shep an expletive for the last time. There is going to be a day where we will no longer have to keep cleaning the carpet or the couch after he has put mud all over them. And there is going to be a day where we find his hair in our bed or in our food and rather than scream we are going to cry because we miss him.
I dread that day. The thought of not getting a text on my wife’s day off that features her and the dog piled up together on the couch breaks my heart. Yet that day also inspires me to love him all the more in the moment.
In a way, I want to think about everyone’s death as much as I think about my dog’s. To an extent, I already kind of do. In the past couple years whenever I’ve met one of our friends new babies I’ve made the comment to my wife that it’s a little weird to be meeting the people that are most likely going to be at your funeral one day. Obviously, there’s plenty of people, be it friends or family, that you already know and have a relationship with who will be at your funeral as long as they don’t die first. But there is something slightly different when it comes to a child who you know you will watch grow, and who you know will watch you grow until you die and then they have to bury you. I’m getting a little off track here, but I think keeping death in mind allows us to live a lot more intentionally.
I shouldn’t need death as a motivator. All throughout scripture, God has a laid out pretty clearly the way in which I am to treat and love people, and the words of God should be enough to forever instruct and guide my behavior. I, and so many others, know how to behave, and we are without excuse if we do otherwise. Nevertheless, we still occasionally need the old kick in the pants to actually live as we ought.
I wonder what life would look like if we lived in light of the fact that each and every conversation or interaction with each and every person we come across or already know could be the last thing we say and do or the last thing that they hear said and have done to them—this side of eternity at least. Would that change our daily lives? Will it change how we treat our spouses, kids, parents, friends, coworkers, patients, and even—perhaps especially—our enemies?
I hope that it would because it definitely should.
The more I think about it, when it comes to dogs, or any pet, really, we get them with the already established notion that we are going to outlive them. But, with people, no matter if they are our dearest loved one or our most annoying coworker, we sort of implicitly think that we are going to see them again; that we are going to get another chance to right a wrong or apologize, share laughs rather than tears, to start fresh when everyone reports back to work tomorrow, and so on. Unfortunately, none of that is guaranteed. And I want to add an “obviously” to the end of that sentence but it is not obvious. In a practical sense, we can say that it is “obvious” that anyone, including ourselves, could die at any moment, but unless we live accordingly, we do not actually believe it.
So, long story short, believe that every word and action matters—because they do—and believe that every moment with someone is a treasure—because it is. Pray to God for a renewed mind, a renewed heart, and the ability to love and act accordingly. Unless the Lord regenerates us, then we are going to miss out on living as we should, and unless the Lord give us His hope, then we are going to feel paralyzed by the possibility of death rather than empowered by it.
Oh, and get a pet.
Thanks for reading.