March 17 1978 —- Dec. 23 1993
Golden Lab
Max wasn’t bought for me. He was family dog.
But over the next fifteen years he undsiputably became mine.
When we brought him home he was smaller than our miniature doberman
but quickly grew to an enormous size. Max spent his first six years with our family
on a big farm in rural Ontario and in the summer he would bring us gifts –
sometimes a groundhog whose neck he had snapped once a removed calf leg
from a neighbour’s farm and once – horribly – a bear trap laid in our woods.
Max lost two front toes from that trap but the most amazing thing is how he
managed to drag home the best part of an old oak that the trap had been shanked
to and slept that night in the barn until we found him.
That trap changed Max’s life. He discovered that by holding up his injured paw to us
and to visitors especially he could obtain great attention and much affection.
Max loved his frisbee. When I was with him I would throw it over the
five foot barnyard fence and without looking back he would sail over it
clearing it to bring that frisbee back to me.
It was a trick he should never have learned.
Max was terrified of thunderstorms and even after we moved to the
outskirts of the city Max would slip his collar and take off at the first
loud boom before we could get him in.
Once we found him stucked inside huge culvert pipes in a builder’s yard
making friends with the workmen.
Max would do anything for me – I dragged him around County Fairs made
him ride in wheelbarrows suffered him through pet shows at retirement
homes – anything I wanted him to do.
The Christmas before I was married my then fiance spent the holiday
getting up each night at Max’s cries to take my old incontinent dog outside
waiting in the snowdrifts until he had finished then carrying him back in
as he could no longer walk at night from arthritis.
It was not my decision to put Max to sleep. My family and fiance decided
what was best and two days before Christmas my father my fiance
and I took him out to the car.
Max loved the car. Max loved the vet. Max loved everybody.
He was more lively and excited that day – going in the car!
It was killing me to take him. We all cried and I held his head and
told him what a good boy he was and how much I loved him.
That’s what I remember saying you are such a good boy such a good boy.
And then he was gone. Sometimes my father will tell me something I didn’t know –
some experience walking Max that I had not been a part of.
How he wore a path in the grass all the way around the house waiting for
us to pay him attention. Or my mother will suddenly remember how he used
to growl at her and put his big paws on her chest if she pretended to
be angry with my brother or I.
I remember most my friend – my friend who waited every day at the
end of the drive for the schooolbus to bring us home.
What did he do all day while I learned about Africa and Canadian Prime Ministers
and the square root of whatever.
I have forgotten those things but I will always remember Max.
He was my dog. He was my friend.
He would have liked the dog I have now Shelby.
She would have loved him.
We all loved him.
I miss you boy. I know you are happy and pain-free and sometime
you and me and Garf and Muppet and Mindy and Binky and everybody
will all be together with Shelby and Charlie and Shadow and BJ
and Cobweb and Bailey and Pye.
I promise.
Heather
| Max |