We lost Ole day before yesterday.
Tuesday.
One year to the week after we brought him home.
A Bernese Mountain Dog rescued from a derelict property in the presence of adults who didn’t feed him because, “He wasn’t our dog.”
He weighed forty-six pounds at one year of age. He should have weighed eighty.
When I grappled to hoist him into the vehicle with my arms around his loins I had a skeleton with fur in my arms.
He lived with us one year and died at two years of age.
Gimpy from dysplasia caused by a combination of genetics, malnutrition and probable traumatic injury to include such abuse as being kicked, beaten or picked up and thrown as a puppy.
Poor Ole. We named him after that Scandinavian hero of limited cognitive ability who ran with Lena his helpmate and partner as Ole came with Lena, another Bernese Mountain Dog we rescued from the same hell.
Ole grew to weigh ninety-two pounds. He doubled his body weight in one year because we fed him. His coat became black where once it had been entirely brown and curly from lack of protein, even the hairs on his body starving for lack of nourishment. And he never learned to fetch or sit for very long or lie down or heel because we never imposed discipline on a dog that had never been given the chance to be a dog or a puppy or anything but a neglected creature.
Ole was without doubt one of the biggest, dumbest, clumsiest, insubordinate, destructive animals I have ever known, let alone ever owned or taken responsibility for keeping.
I loved him.
He took over my garage, the space I labored ten years to be productive and efficient and tidy as a workplace. He took over the back yard and destroyed in no particular order every plant and shrub we once admired, our lawn chairs at five hundred dollars apiece, a leather work glove which he ate, a piece of carpet which we gave him to sleep on and play tug of war with Lena which he ate, a honeysuckle bush which he destroyed twig by twig, a series of dog toys advertised as indestructible which he shredded, the corners of every outdoor fixture such as a picnic table, a potting table and a wooden shelving unit all of which he gnawed to splinters and standing up on his hind legs when he could and placing his massive paws between the pickets, smeared mud and grime on the once white pristine wooden fence I built that circles the yard.
I loved him.
I’ve loved three dogs in my life. Colleen my Border Collie on the farm for fifteen years; Stetson my beloved Mystic Greyhound and then there’s Ole. Lena will get all our love now because she has never known life without her big goofy friend, but there’s Ole. The crippled boy. The big lunk. The clumsy oaf and named so appropriately a few weeks ago by a neighbor with dogs of her own, Ole the Knucklehead.
I loved him and we rescued him, but as many times as I went out there in the yard to grab him by the fur and wrestle with him and manhandle him and get down on my knees and invite his ability to knock me over, he rescued me. I told him about pain, because I didn’t have to tell him much. He understood and he barked and refused to be combed or brushed or lie still and be petted, because he understood pain and because he couldn’t run or dodge or feint like Lena, because he didn’t have agility or balanced strength in his long ever growing lanky frame, he understood. He walked with a swinging stiff gate in his left hind leg and he couldn’t crouch. He could only plop down. He understood. And he couldn’t get up very well and suddenly, tragically, precipitously in the last week he couldn’t get up at all.
I loved him.
We loved him.
Everybody loved him.
The presence of two massive dogs who had come into this neighborhood like unlikely ambassadors of good will has brought us into conversation and friendship with more people in less time than we knew or were likely to meet in the last ten to fifteen years. Suddenly we could all agree on something to make us human, ironically something not human at all, at least not at first. But the need for love, the need for encouragement, the need for companionship and understanding in those dogs awakened all those needs in ourselves and we shared them out there on the sidewalk while they barked and vied for attention.
Ole waited for me every morning when I opened the garage door at 6:30 to let him out with Lena. He greeted me while Lena still shies away and will continue to do so now because she got the same treatment that hurt Ole and will take time to convince her we mean no harm. She’ll come around, but she misses the Big Guy. She stood by him on the ground up north where they starved and let him eat her food even when she starved and she never growled or snarled or fought for anything if she knew Ole wanted it first.
He died here at home on the garage floor with Jane sitting on the concrete with him and his head in her lap and a neighbor on the stairs up to the laundry room who came immediately when called as I drove back and arrived moments after Ole passed. That neighbor some years ago suffered third degree burns over most of his body in the explosion that destroyed his home and with his brother spent months recovering in a burn unit. So you see how it works? You see how invalids gain strength and share that strength with others? You see how important it is to say Yes when the odds are long and the outcome is uncertain or as dramatic and painful as it is now?
You must see.
If you don’t, if you refuse to see, you must step aside and let those who hurt, those who help, those who hobble along and yet make the lives of others more meaningful, more beautiful and unforgettable, I say let those people and even those animals forge ahead.
We had an appointment, Ole had an appointment, to see an orthopedic veterinarian specialist the next morning. That would have been yesterday. He didn’t make it, but recovery is complete. Ole’s massive head and those incredibly big paws and his perfectly formed and agile legs tread the ruined clouds of heaven and there he waits none too patiently. He licked and chewed my hands incessantly. He could not be told to stop. Nevertheless he could be told but he never stopped. The angels will have to wash their hands, their robes, and preen their wings every time they get near him. He couldn’t be groomed. He couldn’t be subdued. He lurched to greet everyone and God will spend a fortune on dog food. He drank a gallon of water a day.
Get yourself a dog like Ole. Let him train you.
He couldn’t run so I rode my motorcycle today way out into the country on a cloudless day under perfect skies.
By the tears streaming down my face and the sobs you cannot hear as I write on this stupid machine you won’t be sorry.
ƒ