Benji, My Teacher

Benji, September 2022

You snuggle your skinny body up to me, press your back into my belly. I can almost feel the bony ridges of your spine through the covers. It’s rare we cuddle this way, and this may be the last time.

Ever.

So, I wrap my arm around your once strong chest and hold your heart in my hand. It thumps under the rib cage, under your silky fur, under your skin and muscles, now soft with age.

You rest your head near mine, and on occasion you press it back into my face. I kiss the top of your hard, bony skull. We lie there and I feel your breath move in and out and notice you take some longer, deeper breaths. I naturally follow your rhythm and take a longer inhale, exhale.

You’ve always been my teacher.
“Breathe” you seem to be saying.

As we lie here, I remember why we called you Benji the Bullet. How you took off in the woods after deer one day in the middle of winter. How I was alone with you and Zara, how the landscape was bleached by snow, how my fingers were frozen, how I had no sense of direction. How I thought I’d lost you.

I remember the days of tug of war with the blue Kong toy. You and Erez on the living room floor, rolling and tossing, jumping, and you growling – all for effect. Both of you gripped the blue Kong tug of war toy for life. Fierce, strong, determined. You drew sweat and grit from Erez. And most of the time you won! You taught me to never give up.

I remember keep away in the living room, how Erez and I would station ourselves at either end, no furniture in between us, and we’d throw the ball back and forth, you’d run this way and that to catch it and then leap in the air, pirouette, and snatch the yellow ball out of the air like a crocodile snaps up its prey. You taught me to keep my eye on the ball.

I remember all your nose nudges to my elbow while I sat at my computer. You’d tell me, “Time to take a break. Let’s go play, let’s go for a walk,” and me always answering with “in just a minute. I have just one more thing to do.”

As you’ve aged, you’ve taught me to chill, to sit still, to watch life go by, look out the window, watch the leaves flutter, listen to the birds.

Yes, as I lie here, you teach me again to be present. Present to this last moment with you, arms wrapped around you, feeling your heartbeat, listening to you breathe, feeling the warmth of your body pressed against mine.

Present.
With this.
Here now.

Sniff Sniff Sniff

Our walks have changed. 

They’re more like sniff fests, moving from  bush to bush, post to post. I wonder what he smells, what information he discerns. Sometimes I imagine it, “Oh, this is the terrier down the street, the three year old who eats dry kibble and has a cat at home.”

Or  perhaps it’s more like, “Oh, I’m going to let you know I’m tough big guy. You can’t scare me you rottweiler you. No sir.” And then he lifts a leg to make his own mark.

Truth is, I have no idea. 

What I do know is that he’s a prancer. He always has been, but now there’s a lightness to his step, and an occasional giddy up in his back legs that seem like they might collapse out from under him in any moment.

As we walk the snow free street in February sun and soak in the winter warmth he stops when we get to the corner. I’ve learned that this is his way of taking control. His way to say, “I’m not going that way.” 

So we do the dance. 
I ask him, “Which way are we going?” 
He stares at me motionless.
I then point my body in a new direction to see if that’s the way he wants to go. 

Nothing. 
No movement.
“Ok, Boo, which way do you want to go?” I ask.
I turn again, choose another direction.
Still nothing.

Depending on my day, and what’s waiting for me on my desk, or if I have somewhere to go after our walk, I play his wait and see game to give me directions. Today is one of those days. I simply wait.

And when I find the right direction, just like that, as though he were a toy dog that’s been wound up again, his legs begin moving and he’s prancing again. Until, we get to a bush just a few steps down the way.

Sniff, sniff, sniff.
Sniff sniff.
Sniff.

I wait. 
I purposefully left my cell phone at home.
I watch him. I listen to his sniffing. I marvel at his thorough inspection of the bush.

It takes a while. 

Today, the sun helps me stand there. When it’s sub zero weather, I’m more apt to pull him along and tug at his collar.

Though our pace is slow, I ponder the days ahead when he won’t be around to take me for walks. I wonder if I will take myself out for a walk without him and sadly, I think, no.

And with that thought, my heart bursts open just a bit. I’m so happy to be with him, watch him sniff and let him direct where we’re going.

Benji the Bullet

He walks up the 3 stairs to my bed with pause, not sure if his back legs will cooperate, each step carefully considered one paw at a time. His front leg moves up to the step above, he hesitates as his back leg dangles for a split second before he finds the muscle control to pull the leg up high enough to place the foot on the next step.

Once he arrives on the soft red blanket, surrounded by pillows, he slowly turns in a circle and lays himself down. I can almost hear the creak of his vertebrae as he does this.

He is twelve, this dog we used to call Benji the Bullet, so fast as he whizzed through the park single-mindedly focused on the yellow tennis ball in flight, legs scrambling underneath him, every ounce of his will engaged in each muscle to get the target as fast as possible. When he reached the ball, he’d thrust himself, full force, to catch it and I’d see his body twist and contort. I couldn’t help but worry how his full force speed would impact him over time.

He loved to jump, to shoot himself in the air like a gush of water, do a little pirouette and land with the frisbee, the ball, whatever.

The four of us played keep-away together with the floppy frisbee on a regular basis – one dog in a “sit and stay” on the side, the other dog running fiercely between us to catch the pink flying disc, hoping for us to fumble. And with Benji between us, if he and I came in close for the catch, I always snatched my hand away to save my fingers. He just couldn’t help his intensity. Those frisbee games always ended with happy panting dogs who’d then need a nap.

We’d swim him at the river in summer, throw huge branches out as far as we could so he could paddle back with his prize. He wouldn’t even make the effort for a skinny, wimpy stick. No, he’d tell us, this one… the big one. His effort and focus just the same as when he ran, one pointed, determined, like a good soldier.

The first year he lived with us, sometimes he’d go rogue in the woods after the scent of a deer or a moose. A few times we thought we’d lost him.

Brave and fierce as he was, he would occasionally shake like a leaf at home, unable to move between rooms as though something from another dimension was blocking his way. Eventually, we called in an energy worker to get help and she said our house was haunted and that the spirit was picking on Benji. It seemed far-fetched, but we couldn’t deny his strange behavior and how his freedom to move about returned after she’d cleared the house.

Now, he spends his days lounging on my cozy bed looking out over the street – my room, now dubbed “the watch-tower.” He walks like a hunched old man and on occasion trips down the stairs. I cringe every time.

His vertebrae discs are compressed. 
He takes daily pain meds in a variety of forms.

He’s one of three elders in my life and I’m bracing for their inevitable departure. I suppose this is what we sign up for when we get dogs, that they will leave us first with a gaping hole in our hearts, their loyal friendship gone.

And then there’s my mother. Ninety-three and counting, still playing piano. She’s making a CD this year. But just last week she told me her knees hurt more and she’s sleeping a lot and the cold she got hasn’t gone away.

Bracing. Or perhaps softening into what is coming.
What is inevitable.