Goodbye, Maggie

You do not own a dog, the dog owns you.

– Unknown

This was the dog who owned me. Maggie left this earth yesterday, hopefully to a place where she can run and play and have all of the cookies she wants.

Today the house is much too quiet.

Maggie was not a well-behaved dog. I had to tape down the trash can lid to keep her from stealing trash. No throw pillow was safe from her. In her chewing phase she ate my phone headset, credit cards, a library book. There are still teeth marks on the cable box in the back yard.

When I was working, she liked to shove her nose under my mouse hand to get me to play with her. Her favorite game was “Chase me around the dining room table when it’s time to go for a walk.” Eventually, she’d sit and let me put her leash on her. We also played “Freight Train Dog.” I’d chase her around the house and she ran in wild circles from living room to dining room, sliding through the kitchen and back room until she was exhausted, tongue hanging out, eyes sparkling. She was, as my friend Joyce said, a joyous dog.

She loved walks. Not the exercise so much as the socializing. Hardly anyone in my neighborhood knew my name, but they knew Maggie. She would lay down flat on the sidewalk to wait for people and dogs she wanted to meet. “Awwww! How cute!” and they’d stop to pet her. Maggie was in heaven.

Last week she was playing with a neighbor’s dogs in the park when she came back limping. She couldn’t walk. An x-ray showed a ruptured acl in the right back knee. Surgery was scheduled for today, Oct 27. She hopped around the house on 3 legs and still wanted to play. Tuesday she hopped up on the patio from the grass and ruptured the other back knee. She couldn’t walk. Surgery and recovery would be too difficult for a 9 year old dog who couldn’t sit still.

Yesterday we made the heartbreaking decision to let her go. I sat on the floor in the vet’s examination room, held her, and said goodbye.

Today the house is much too quiet.