Darling Dog, Domino
I came home tonight around seven, completely exhausted. I got into my room, leaned my crutches against the wall, dropped my backpack, and lowered myself to sit on the side of the bed. Only able to pull one shoe off before calling it quits; my head fell backwards into the comforter. I just wanted to sleep.
My mom called, maybe half an hour later. I was still laying sideways on the bed with my legs hanging over the edge and one shoe on. She called to tell me that our dog died today.
I was crying and laughing as we talked about what a great dog Domino was. When we first got her, I was seven years old. I remember driving home with her in the backseat standing on the imitation leather between me and my brother. She was so small. It was her first ride in a car, and she was a bit freaked out. On the phone my mom recalled me saying “Mom, the dog just threw up on my lap.”
When my brother and I drove across the country in the summer of ‘06 we brought Domino with us, laying on her bed in the back of the station wagon beside everything I took with me to school from New Jersey. She must have peed in at least ten different states on that trip.
My grandma’s been living out here in CA with my mom and step dad since the winter. Domino would sit next to her at every meal, with her head resting on my grandma’s lap. My grandma has lost most of her vision, so she’ll occasionally drop food from her fork and not notice, and this won my Domino’s heart.
Grandma started intentionally feeding Domino at the table, and every time my mom would tell her not to. The next time my mom would look away (or the next time my grandma thought my mom was looking away) she would sneak more food off her plate to the happy dog in her lap.
“Mom, I told you not to feed her!”
“I didn’t”
“You may be going blind, but I’m not. I saw you feed her”
“I didn’t feed her”
“Mom, yes you did”
“Oh, you saw that? Huh.”
Domino’s back legs had been going bad for a while, and my mom and step dad almost had her put down twice in the past few months, after really bad episodes. I think she might have had a stroke. But each time they got her to the vet, she would have perked up again, the same idiot puppy grin across her face as always.
As my mom explained it, Domino stopped eating yesterday, and my step dad found her dead this afternoon. It sounds like it might not have been too bad. I’m glad she was at home, and I’m going to miss her.