Best Dog Ever

The day we brought her home, I placed her, tiny and squirming, on the big stuffed lion where our last dog, Phobe, had liked to lay, and we had a talk about the big shoes she now had to fill.
Our Boston Terrier, Phoebe, had been loyal, funny, perfect for a family of four small girls, affectionate, and easy to train, and our hearts had been broken to have to put her down after a long battle with cancer.
I remember every single thing about that day.

Now, here was Moxie: Our brand new Frenchie puppy.
We knew she would have her own quirks and personality, and we looked forward to learning all about who she was. We tried remembering she was her own girl,
even though she and Phoebe looked so much the same.

Letting go of Phoebe had been extremely hard.
My heart had been shattered to see her grow old, and deteriorate, but she had been one of the best dogs we could have dreamed of. Other friends even got Bostons because of her.
The perfect family dog.
So many dogs are like that – Looking like little gargoyles on the outside, but quickly becoming something you can’t imagine your life without.
Any dog lover will tell you that every dog is the best dog ever.

I told Moxie about all this on that very first day.
She looked only mildly interested, then took a nap.

Try to fill the big shoes she did, though;
In the way she was with kids, in her clown-like behavior, and in her fierce loyalty.
Like Phoebe before her, we were pleased to see she would stay right by us wherever we went, as well: The kind of dog you could take on walks and not need a leash.
She would never run off. If it didn’t have to do with our family, she simply did not care.

Moxie was wary of outsiders.
She’d watch from the front window huffing her warning breaths, just daring any stranger to try to mess with her family. We told her, “Moxie, that’s enough,” when she’d puff her chest out and act tough every day when the mailman came.
She was an “us” dog. She simply didn’t need anyone else.

We tried taking her to the dog park once and she got so worked up trying to protect us from a nonexistent threat that we had to take her to the emergency vet afterwards because she was hyperventilating herself into an asthma attack.
We all laughed about it later.
A vet bill for a dog panic attack? OK. Got it. No dog park for Moxie.

The pandemic had been her time to shine. She absolutely loved having us all home always.
Our youngest, Paige, would take her out into the yard where they would spend their days looking like they were living off the land. A little Baloo and Mowgli.
I never really knew what they were doing out there. I only knew that if I’d take a peek out the back sliding glass door, they’d look beyond happy.

It was through that time that she became most attached to Paige.
She would go to bed with her at night, and sleep at her feet, like she just wanted to be ready at the drop of a hat for when the next day came.
One could always know when Paige was up in the morning by the sound of Moxie jumping down off the bed in her room.
I think my mind will forever play the sound of the hardwood suddenly under her feet.

She thought she was the nanny, A teacher. Her side-eye ability was insane.
She demanded respect, and would only move over on the couch if you said, “Please.”
None of that “telling her what to do” business worked.
You asked politely, or would be ignored. In the end, she had US trained.

We grew to call her “The Spot Stealer,” because the second you would get up from any seat, she would be right in it; A look of “I was just keeping it warm for you,” would spread over her face when you returned, as you asked her, “Moxie, Can you move, PLEASE?”

It was a thing that would end up describing her perfectly:
She had jumped right up, and taken over Phoebe’s seat.

It was in one of those moments she had done that very thing one day when I first noticed a spot on her left ear, where some hair was missing.
At first, I didn’t think much of it. Maybe she’d nicked it, or something, but as the days went on the patch spread, and a bump began forming.

It would be a couple of years before what we thought was a skin tag or wart would suddenly start to grow and change, and we took her to the vet to have them tell us, they were sorry, but it was cancer. Not again. Not this girl, too. I felt sick to my stomach that day.

We opted for surgery, paid for by a generous GoFundMe, as dozens of my friends wanted to contribute to saving this little dog who had grown from that day on the lion to mean so much to me.
I had to wrap my mind around that how she looked would be different.
I had a hard time looking at her directly for the grief of them having to remove half her ear when I brought her back home after surgery.
She licked me and snorted like usual, though.
That is another thing dogs do: They will fight through their own pain to make sure that YOU are OK.

For a couple of months we thought she was in the clear.
The vet told us they had gotten all the margins, and didn’t anticipate anything more happening,
until one day, the day before we were set to go on a family vacation,
I noticed another lump that looked like a mosquito bite forming at the same ear’s base.
I tried to brush it off. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe I was overreacting.
I asked my mom if she’d take her in to have it checked while we were gone on our trip, just to be sure, and we packed up our stuff, and left for Santa Barbara the next day.

When the call came that the cancer was back, I cried on my hotel bed, and cursed myself for being so far away when she needed me. It’s hard to not feel guilt when you know that if you needed anything, they would be there for you. You want to do the same.

The prognosis wasn’t good, they told us.
Another surgery would be $20,000, and even then would have only a 40% chance of working.
Chemo pills would be dangerous if she were to lick my granddaughter’s face.
The vet looked at us with sorrow in her eyes, wishing there was better news, and sent us home with a prescription for comfort care meds.
She weakly tried telling me to have a good day.

For five months from that day we did everything we could to make Moxie comfortable and happy in her final days:
Extra snacks, extra scratches, extra long talks at night to tell her how much we loved her, and that we were so sorry this was happening.
We had to have painful talks about how we’d know it was time to let go,
and then, last week, crushingly, that day came.

On Friday afternoon, after one last walk, a hundred kisses and cuddles, one last bath, and not one but two In-N-Out cheeseburgers, the vet was suddenly standing at our screen.
We lit candles, and bought her a soft blanket and a bouquet of flowers.
None of it helped to ease our ache.
As is common in life, though, sometimes doing what is right means doing the hardest thing.

Moxie passed peacefully, just us and her, the way she liked it, and with her head on my leg.
Afterwards, before we placed her in the spot we’d made for her,
I brought her something:
Into her paws I tucked a small stuffed lion toy that I had found the night before.
I had seen it from across a room, and knew, though the thought of it brought tears, that it would be just the thing: A symbol of what she had been to me – Courageous, and brave.

She had listened that first day about filling big shoes,
and she had worked to do exactly that every single day through a series of smiles and laughter given, comfort, friendship, and unwavering companionship.

There is now a huge missing piece.

The days since have been filled with tears that have felt unending at times.
The first day, Paige sobbed, “The hard part is I’m so sad, and when I’m so sad, she’s the only one I want;”
Just her understanding gaze, her heavy head, and no need for words exchanged.
She asked me if it’s normal to keep feeling sad, then not sad, then sad again, on repeat.
I told her grief is not linear, and that it happens just like that.
You cannot predict its waves.
You cannot compare yours to the grief of someone else.
I told her that I, too, will feel fine one minute, then it will hit me all over again.
I keep expecting and hoping to hear her noises; Even the ones that used to bother me.

Losing a pet right now feels like just one too many things.
So many of us are grieving so much.
So many of us are missing the way that things used to feel, with those we loved around us, and how easier a lot of things used to be.
Maybe we are grieving our sense-of-self, or what our country was.
Maybe we are grieving a whole different thing, but the fact is, that
grief only ever exists because of how deeply you have loved a thing.

We lovers and feelers will always feel both joy and pain, holding hands within us.
The ability to feel both is how we know we have held onto our humanity.

Love is what leaves us always anticipating the return of a lost thing.
It leads us to remember the way that it was when it existed, and to not give up hope that the tears and the waiting will be over one day, because one day we will experience its brand of goodness again, and that is probably the main lesson that Moxie spent her life teaching me:
Love does not have to ever truly end. It can live in our heart forever, and it can repeat, and repeat.

I’m sure, one day we will bring another tiny puppy home, and place her on the spot where she used to lay.
We will tell her about our dear, faithful friend, Moxie.
We will tell her about the big shoes she will have to fill;
About how we once brought a tiny puppy home, and talked to her about becoming something great, and then she spent her days filling our hearts with love as she did exactly that, but
(as every Best Dog Ever does)
in her very own way.

Mom Outnumbered

Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.