Fakename, one of my favorite bloggers, did a post back in mid-April called “One Dog’s Tale.”

Her story awoke one of my own sleeping dogs that I normally prefer to let sleep because it is a bittersweet tale.  But I decided to go ahead and put it out here since it may have a cathartic effect.  I’m only getting around to posting it now because it’s taken all this time to write. I’ve started a good half-dozen times, got part way and then had to stop for awhile. You’ll learn why….

So Fakename, this blog’s for you!

As a child, I was surrounded by dogs but didn’t have one of my own for most of my 18 years until about the last two years of high school.  My mother was a dog rescuer; she took home strays that she felt wouldn’t survive on the street. (Since dog is a delicacy in a number of Asian countries, any stray is a potential meal.) But all these dogs had physical (distemper, blind, etc.) and/or psychological problems because they received little affection. How can anyone spend any “quality time” with some 20 dogs? (We had 18-22 dogs at any one time.)

So I had little interest in any of these rescued dogs. Besides, as  teenager, I had other interests, was out of the house most of the day, and so there was little time for bonding with a dog.

One day, my mother came upon a dog which had just been hit by a car and left to die on the street. She rushed it to a vet, who managed to save the dog because it was young and strong. After a recovery period at the vet, the dog came to our home.

Naming protocols for our dogs was very basic and often “visual.”  This was our largest dog (shepherd size) and all black. So of course his name had to be “Big Black.” (There was no “Small Black.")

To my surprise, it didn’t take Big Black too long to become my dog. Not that I was looking for a dog but because he took the initiative to gain my affection and persisted until he did. Whenever I came home for the day, he sought me out….apprehensively at first because I initially was not receptive to his entreaties. I don’t really know why I ended up being responsive to him but he somehow knew we needed to be together.  I went from perfunctory pets to just being sucked in by this dog and we became very close. Very close.

As with all close friends, we developed a routine. When I came home, he was waiting at the front door and jumped up on me, putting his front legs on my shoulders and licking me all over the face while I laughed and petted him.  Often, we wrestled and although he could easily take me out, he always let me win... but not too obviously.

Before I allowed Big Black to sleep in my room, he’d sleep outside the bedroom door and usually be sitting there at attention when I came out. When I first let him sleep in the room, he always wanted to sleep in my bed but I’m a light sleeper and that wouldn’t work during the week. But he learned that if I didn’t slap that bed, he wasn’t supposed to be in there and so slept at its foot, between the door and the bed. No one was going to get to me except through him! Weekends, he slept in the bed.

Big Black’s favorite activity was “walking.” He was a big dog and needed to stretch those legs! When he saw the leash, he went completely bonkers, jumping all around and it took a few minutes to calm him down enough so I could even get the leash on him. Once we were outside the house gate, it was all over. He immediately charged out running at top speed and it was all I could do to stay with him. Since I was a sprinter on the track team, I could hold on for maybe 200 yards but after that I was too winded and he just broke away. But he knew never to get out of my sight and always kept an eye on me as he explored. Since we were in a gated subdivision, there were rarely any other dogs on the street. And he was a gentle dog, not a fighter.

But “The Day” I always knew was coming, and which may have been responsible for my never previously wanting a dog, finally arrived. I graduated high school and it was time to come to the States for college. No dogs allowed.

That last night, I hugged and petted Big Black in my room for a good hour, knowing that in about 12 hours I would never see him again. I’m sure he appreciated all this extra attention. I think dogs are very perceptive, and I wondered if he was curious about why he was receiving all this special attention.

The next day, at the front door, I gave him one last big, long hug, looked him in the eye, gave him a last pat and then turned around and walked away without looking back. (I thought I detected a look of curiosity in his eyes.) That was in July 1970.

That first college semester, I didn’t think too much about Big Black. I was half-way around the world, in a new place interacting with new folks completely different from me and it was all very exciting.

In the first half of November, I was surprised to receive a call from my mother. In those days, college rooms did not have phones. There was a pay phone serving the entire dorm and getting through was hit and miss. Someone had to bother to answer the phone and then the student being called had to be in the room and I wasn’t there often. But this call came in at about 8 AM and I was still sleeping when the knock came.

When I got on the phone, my mother asked how I was doing and I said fine. Then she said she had something to tell me and that got me a little worried. Without any buildup at all, she simply said in a flat tone that Big Black had died. I found this very surprising because he was 4-5 years old and very healthy, so I asked what had happened.

Now the shock came…. After I left, Big Black would just sit at the front door during the day and in front of my bedroom at night, waiting for me. He often did not eat or only a little bit. My mother would sometimes open my bedroom door and he’d rush in looking for me and then just look at her, perplexed, after not finding me.

This had been going on since I left in July…four months. One day, my mother heard a pawing at her bedroom door, opened it and there was Big Black. He looked at her, moaned, and then collapsed. This time the vet could not save him. After my mother explained what had been happening, the vet said Big Black died of heart failure from separation stress. This big, strong dog died because I wasn’t there for him.

In a daze, I thanked her for the call and abruptly hung up. Although I was upset at the time, I didn’t cry or become depressed. I was just surprised that a dog could die like that. But years later, I became very sensitive to reminders of Big Black’s death. Often to tears....

There’s a movie with Tom Hanks and a dog, where the dog is badly shot but manages to save Hanks from  the bad guy. I thought this was going to be an Old Yeller ending and my eyes teared up. Big Black had always been there for me but I was not there for him.  Not intentionally, of course. But it doesn’t change the fact that Big Black suffered for a long four months. What must have been going through his mind those four long months?

Sometimes, I wonder if Big Black thought he had done something wrong and that’s why I never came back to him. Sometimes, I think we’d both have been better off if he had not survived being hit by that car. I know that I’ve learned a lot about love, life and death from what happened with Big Black. It just took other life experiences to put it all in context.

And that’s why I’ve never had a dog here, even after 38 years of living in the States. Because I have a dog. It’s just that he’s dead.