I saved this post for last to wrap up my good-bye to Artie.  I think it will be the hardest for me to write.  More than sleeping, more then eating, more than walking, more than anything else, Artie loved us.  Totally.  Completely.  Unconditionally.  He showed it every day in so many ways.  From the way he greeted you at the door to the way he took his guard dog duties so seriously, Artie showered us in love the only way he knew how.

He loved to curl up next to you on the sofa and lay his head in your lap.  If you knelt beside him on the floor, he’d always roll over and give you his belly to scratch.  He loved licking the girls’ after they got out of bath and he’d lick their faces clean after any messy meal.  He guarded us with his big bark and scary teeth.  He’d patrol the front yard and street from our front window so when we pulled up in the car we’d see his head peeking over the sill, ears alert and eyes bright.  Woe to the poor solicitor who knocked on our door and the UPS men would never stick around for me to greet them.  I don’t think he’d really eat them but I never wanted to find out.  Artie took his job so seriously.  He always lay in the doorway or faced the open door.  On walks he’d scan for unruly bikers, vicious puppies or questionable two year olds.  We were his people and he kept us safe.  He kept us happy.  He kept us loved.

For Kevin, it was the nightly greeting.

For the girls, it was never ending patience.

For me?  For me it was constant companionship.

We will miss you Artie but we will never forget you.  We will hold you in our hearts and our memories for the rest of our lives.   You did your duty to the end and though we will miss you sorely, I know you can rest in peace, secure in the knowledge that no harm fell on us during your watch.  I guess we’ll have to take it on our own from here on out.

My puppy, my fat sausage, my farty dog, my sweet old man.  Thanks for all the walks, all the licks, all the snuggles, and all the love…..

For the soul of every living thing is in the hand of God.

Job 12:10

Artie’s third mission in life was to get us to take him out.  I can honestly say that he never turned down a walk.  Not for pouring rain, freezing snow or pounding sun.  Any time anyone made a move toward their shoes, Artie was there, wagging and dancing, and talking to us trying to say, “take me too!  take me!”

Recently, I started having trouble sleeping and I thought perhaps I had turned into too much of a slug.  So I decided to started waking up early before the household stirred and getting in a brisk morning walk.  That first morning I rolled out of bed at some ungodly hour with the sun just rising and stumbled into my sweats.  Artie snored away on his bed.  The idea that mom was going to go for a walk at this hour of the day clearly never crossed his mind so I stepped over his snoozing form and headed downstairs for my shoes and coat.  I was still pretty groggy when I headed out the door.  Maybe it was the chilly Spring morning air or maybe my sluggish blood had finally started flowing but by the time I reached the end of our cul-du-sac I realized something was very very wrong.  I missed Artie!  I had never gone on a walk without him and it was to strange not to see his fat sausage body leading the way.  So I turned around, hiked back up the hill, and into the house.  He was waiting for me.  I peeked up the stairs and there he was – eyes shining, ears perked, and his tail beating a mile a minute just waiting for the invitation.

“Artie.  Wanna go bye-bye?” I whispered.

The words were magic.  He sprung to his feet and launched himself downstairs.  He was yowling with joy and his tail was smacking the walls as he rushed down the stairs to join me.  He sure didn’t care that the sun had barely risen.  Nothing was better than a walk!

Before Leina, Artie and I went on two or three walks a day but since the kids, Kevin took over the walking duties.  Every night he’d grab his iPod, coat and dog and head out.  Artie was so smart about watching for signs of a walk that whenever Kevin approached his iPod, Artie’s ears would perk up and you could see him straining to hear those magic words.  Even spelling W-A-L-K didn’t fool him.  That dog had a PhD in walking!  The only thing he didn’t like was his coat.  Wet dog = stinky dog and to combat this we bought him his very own fleece lined rain coat.  I’m sure the other dogs teased him because as soon as you put it on him, he’d get all subdued and mopey as if to say, “ah man, I can’t believe you are making me wear this.”  But it never slowed him down for long and soon enough he was bounding and yowling for you to hurry up and open the dog and get going already.  He was quite a pooch.

My walking adventures with Artie are too numerous to count but the one that gets retold every year is the story of Elmo, Artie and the Squirrel.  It’s a classic that will be passed down to future generations as it perfectly sums up Artie and my dad.  From the Archives, dated June 17th , 2003, I give you… The Chase

So my dad is a big teaser. This is a well known fact. As a kid, he used to tease his dog which was a little cocker spaniel. I guess old habits die hard because when he comes to visit, he loves to tease Artie too. Now, there is one very large difference between Artie and a cocker spaniel… about 60lbs as my dad found out the hard way.

It started out innocently enough. One afternoon, we hooked up the pooch and set out on our afternoon walk through the neighborhood. Artie was huffing and puffing along like the fat sausage he is when we hit the park blocks. These are four blocks of green grass and trees in the middle of our neighborhood. It’s popular with dogs and kids playing ball. My dad must have been feeling frisky because he turned to me and said, “I want to run Artie up the block.” Now, Artie isn’t big on running. He’ll lope along for a while but he usually gets tired and plops down under some shade once he’s had his fill and my dad was going on about how fat Artie was and how he could out run him so I handed over the leash and they took off.

Sure enough, Artie sort of lumbered along and my dad had no problem keeping up with him. At the end of they block, they stopped and waited for my mom & I to catch up. When we got there, Elmo decided he was going to run another block with Artie to really exhaust him so he took off again. Only this time, Artie had different plans.

For whatever reason, Artie perked up. He decided Elmo wanted to play and he turned on the energy. He started jumping up and down, bouncing off my dad and nipping at him. In his excitement, he grabbed my dad’s arm and actually drew a little blood. Nothing major but Elmo stopped running and handed the pooch back to me to calm him down. Artie was disappointed that the fun was ending but settled down nicely as we headed toward home. Round One to Artie.

The lesson was simply enough – no running with the dog. Right? Wrong.

The very next day, we head out for the afternoon walk. All goes well until we’re about two blocks from home and Elmo spots these two fat squirrels sitting in the middle of the road. Instantly, he turns to Artie and starts to egg him on. Now, on Artie’s list of favorite things to chase, squirrels are in the top three. By the time Elmo was done, Artie was straining at the end of the leash ready to make a dash for the squirrels.

“Dad, stop teasing him or he’s going to pull me off my feet!” I told my father.

“Give him to me,” Elmo replied, “and I’ll let him chase those squirrels.”

“He’ll lunge and pull you off your feet,” I warned my dad.

“Nah, I can keep up with this fat dog,” my dad replied confidently.

Now, at this point, I should have stopped and taken a moment to recall the last time my dad took the leash but I didn’t. I did the unthinkable and handed my dad the leash.

“Hey Artie”, he cried, “go get those squirrels!!!!”

Artie didn’t need to be told twice. He took off at top chasing speed across the street after those squirrels. The squirrels weren’t slouches either and took off for the nearest tree. Poor old dad. He also took off at top speed but he didn’t stand a chance. Much to his surprise and dismay, after only a few moments, Artie reached the end of the leash and kept on going. Elmo’s momentum was already forward since he was running at top speed and the result…. well, when 90lbs of dog flesh hit the end of the leash, Elmo was whipped off his feet.

Elmo didn’t just fall. He hit the pavement, flipped a somersault, and was dragged across the street. His only saving grace was that the squirrels ran up a tree and Artie stopped at the base. Otherwise, it’s anyone’s guess how far he’d have been dragged. My mom and I rushed over and once we confirmed there was no permanent injury, we began to laugh. Poor daddy lay sprawled in the middle of the street bleeding from both knees. He looked like a 12 year old kid who was just learning to skateboard thanks to the massive strawberries that were bleeding down his leg. His left hand, which was holding the leash, had been dragged along the ground as well. The result looked like he’s been a bar fight since every knuckle was bloody. Thank goodness he had a long sleeve shirt on or his elbows would have been minced meat as well. Round Two, Artie.

He hobbled home and I broke out the first aid kit. Seven bandages and half a tube of Neosporin later, he was patched up but I don’t think I had stopped laughing. It was like something out of a Road Runner/Coyote cartoon. I mean, how many people get to see their dad dragged down the street by a fat dog chasing squirrels? If only I’d had my video camera, I could be rich.

The good news is that I think Elmo has finally learned not to run with the dog.

At least, I hope so.

Rambling through my photo files, I actually found a picture of my dad post injuries.

I wish I could have one last stroll with my dog.  One last turn around the neighborhood.  He’d bark at the kids, lunge after motorcycles, and look for a treat to be tossed everytime we passed a dog and he didn’t bark.  Artie got me out of the house.  He gave me a break from keeping this house running.  Time walking him was when I could unwind, review the events of the day, and daydream.  As busy parents of two little girls, I think Kevin and I both looked forward to walking Artie at the end of the day.  He was the excuse we needed to take 30 minutes for ourselves and relax and stroll.  It was a gift we didn’t even realize he gave us until now.  It was a gift I will always remember.

Artie and his walks.  Another memory for me to cherish forever.

Beg for it, steal it, work for it.  Just get as many treats as you can!  That was Artie’s motto.

When we adopted him, they told us he was “highly treat motivated.”  Ha!  That was the world’s largest understatement.  That dog would sell his tail for a table scrap.  The Archives are full of crazy Artie food stories.  He managed to sneak quite a bit of food off of tables and counters.  He was always found out though because he had the worse poker face ever.  As soon as we came inside, we’d find him cowering at the front door, ears back and unable to meet our eyes and we’d know that he’d found something to eat.  The girls learned that snack bags and milk cups left unattended were fair game.  I learned anything left near the edge of a kitchen counter was also likely to disappear into the bottomless pit of his stomach.  Even Kat and Josh have their own repertoire of missing food stories during Artie’s overnight visits.  These episodes range from the moment we got him to the moment he left us.  My last clear memory of a food snatch was only a few months ago.  I had recently discovered the joy of baking no-knead bread and had left a large mound of uncooked dough to rise on the counter while I went to pick up Leina from school.  When I can back, Artie was looking guilty as sin.  I quickly went into the kitchen but didn’t see anything amiss.  No ripped open plastic bags, no tipped over trashcans or gnawed milk cups.  But as I walked around the kitchen, I noticed that the ground felt very gritty – like it was covered in sand.  It suddenly dawned on me that there was a fine scattering of cornmeal all over the floor.  The same cornmeal that my rising bread dough should have been resting on!  The whole dough pile was gone and Artie was desperate to get outside.  I can only imagine what his stomach felt like that day!

I often used to joke to Kevin that between our compost bin and Artie, nothing organic was thrown out in our house.  He was better than a Dyson when it came to cleaning up spilled food and you didn’t need to pre-rinse your ice cream bowls.  Artie was more than happy to lick every last ice cream drop out for you.  And the kitchen table?  He learned how to put his front two paws on a chair seat and we’d catch him painstakingly licking every last inch of our table top.  Totally gross but totally Artie.

I found this video of him I took a few years back.  Kulia had dropped her apple and Artie knew the house rules.  He couldn’t take the food out of the kids’ hands but once it hit the ground it was fair game.

And because he loved food so much, he was so easy to tease! I used to hold a juicy morsel right in front of his nose and tell him, “wait…..wait…..wait”. He would focus every ounce of strength on that bit of food as streams of drool puddled around his feet. Finally, I’d relent and tell him, “take nice” and he would reach forward with the gentlest of teeth and then devour the tidbit whole. I never knew if he ever tasted the food because he snorked it so quickly.

Leina, however, had her very own game she played with Artie whenever I served spaghetti for dinner. It was her very own re-enactment of that classic Italian dinner scene from Lady and the Tramp. Artie, of course, was more than willing to play Tramp to her Lady.

Yes, there was no doubt that Artie loved his food.  And he was very lucky because no one in this family could resist those big brown eyes staring so longingly at us.  Leina quickly figured out that Artie would follow her anywhere if she had a handful of his dog food and there were many days when I could hear them squealing upstairs.  Eventually Artie would come tearing down into the kitchen with the girls close behind.  I never did find out what they were doing but whatever it was, it must not have been too bad because as soon as Leina grabbed another handful of kibble, Artie willingly followed them back up for more of the same.  When questioned, Leina claims they were trying to teach Artie to be a truffle hunting dog.  One child would block Artie from the room while the other hid the kibble all over.  Then they’d let him in and watch him sniff out every last nugget.  That would explain all the random dog food I find under dressers and in drawers.

He was only suppose to get two scoops; one in the morning and one at 4pm.  But we never could enforce that rule very well.   And really, one of the biggest joys was watching Artie prance and dance and howl when you spiked his kibble with left over chicken soup or half eaten nuggets.  My fat sausage dog.  How I loved to feed you!

We are still processing Artie’s death.  This is so much harder than I thought it would be.  He’s been gone for a whole day now but it feels like so much longer.  I find myself crying all the time and I can’t stop thinking about him, missing him, remembering him and wishing.  I know he was “just a dog” but he was my dog.  My first and only dog.  I guess I never realized what a big role he played in our house.  He was always here, you see.  Always.  We came and went but Artie?  We waited just for us.

At lunch today, Kulia dropped her bowl on the ground and her noodles spilled everywhere.  Kevin and I just looked at each other with such sadness because we knew he wasn’t waiting under the table to gobble it up.  He was gone.  It was just us.  So Kevin calmly got up to find a rag while I hung my head to hide the tears from my girls.  Because I miss him so.  I even miss the hair!  Amazing, right?  I’ve spent the last nine years trying to get rid of it and now that it’s gone I’m beginning to panic.  My mom vacuumed for me and man was she thorough.  I’ve checked all the usual spots but they are all empty.  I can’t find a clump of hair to save my life.  Or my heart.  Because he’s gone.

Kevin is equally shattered.  He has decided we are going to have to re-arrange our bedroom because every time we walk past the door and see the empty void at the base of our bed where he slept, it wretches our soul open.  Because he’s gone.  I’m not sure what where exactly I am in the steps of grieving but I know I’m rapidly approaching anger.  I don’t know what else to do with all this sorrow weighing me down.  I guess I’m hoping I can turn it into anger to burn it out of me.  Anger that he’s gone.  Anger that he got sick so quickly.  Anger that I didn’t see it happening and I couldn’t stop it in the end.  But even the anger isn’t working because he’s still gone.

Oh Artie.  My sweet puppydoodle.  I have no regrets.  You wouldn’t let us ignore you.  You were underfoot every day of our lives.  I can honestly say that not a day passed that you didn’t get loved or fed or walked by one or all of us and maybe that’s what makes it so hard.  I have no retreat.  There is no where in this house that I can go that doesn’t echo with emptiness.  No where I can look and not notice that you aren’t sprawled under my feet or whining to go out or eyeing the food on the counter.  This whole house is full of stuff and all I can see is what isn’t here.  You.  My dog.  My sweet, wonderful, dog.  Oh Artie.

I know I need to find a way to make peace with this.  I’m frantic that I’m going to forget you and so I find myself manically pulling together pictures and stories and video of you, my Old Man.  I want to stash them away somewhere safe and maybe then my heartache will ease.  Maybe then I won’t wander around these empty rooms looking in vain for signs of you that just aren’t to be found.  Maybe then I can say “you’re gone” with peace instead of such tearing pain.

So I’m going to try and remember you for the next few days.  I’m going to pick up each precious memory and wrap it around my broken heart and hope that they will be enough to mend it.  I found this deep in the Archives of our website.  It was dated February 25, 2002.  We were planning to leave Artie for the first time with Kat and Josh and being crazy in love with him, we were worried how he’d do on his first sleepover.  Kat and Josh, being pet lovers too, totally understood our concern and graciously agreed to a trial run sleepover.  Little did they know this would be the first of many overnight visits as Artie adored them both.  This post rings so true now.  He’s an easy dog to miss, I guess.

We had a night without Artie over the weekend. It was a scary-strange night not having the big lug in the house. I’d open the fridge and expect to hear him jump off the sofa and come jangling over, confident that whatever came out of the fridge would be shared with him. There was no hopeful little puppy face on the side of the bed that night, whining and trying to look pathetic so I’d invite him up. No one to body slam the bed the next morning to announce that it was time for a potty break. What a sad and lonely life I lead before my pooch.

So where was Artie you ask? He was having a trial run sleep over at Kat & Josh. Since we are going out of town, they will be the proud owners of 85 pounds of puppy love for the weekend and we wanted to make sure they were up for the task. When we arrived the next morning to claim our pooch, they seemed no worse for the experience. They did, however, want to know if he always needed a potty break at 6:45am. We assured them that he was more of an 8:30am dog. Suckers.

So last night, Artie was back on the sofa where he belonged and the girls were shooting us looks of hate for having raised and then dashed their little kitty dreams, and everything was right in the world. I missed Artie so much that when he began begging to be let up on the bed last night, I gave in without a fuss. Of course, I spent most of the night contorted with one leg hanging off the bed and without any covers on the left side of my body because the darn dog kept hogging all the room but it was worth it when he lay his head on my leg, sighed a big puppy sigh of pure happiness, and begin licking the back of my knee.

How I ever managed to live without my dog I will never know.