The Great Big Piney in the Sky

Last week, I had to do the unthinkable. I had to play God. In the aftermath, I'm left with only the hope that I gave Cassady a decent home, a decent amount of love and a decent passing to the Great Big Piney in the sky. Friends assure me that I did, but when it's just me and my thoughts...I have regrets and I wish I could go back and do things differently.

When I start to struggle with those regrets, I'll be able to look back on this entry for posterity. Like I told the vet after the deed was done, Cassady taught me a lot. Not because he didn't have any issues either - it was because of his issues (and mine) that I was able to grow and learn so much about life and love. Here's to the good and the bad of a 14-year relationship with a dog. A great, great dog.

Random things I don't want to forget about Cassady:

• I got Cassady from the Animal Protective Agency on Christmas Eve 1994. I'd gone there every day on my Christmas break from school looking for just the right dog and on day 5, I saw him and his brother as 8-week old pups. When I stuck my hand in the crate, the dog I'd later name Cassady is the one that came and licked my finger. I had to lie on the application that I had permission from my landlord and my Mom came and pretended to be my landlord so they'd let me adopt him.
• I made him wear a collar of bells for the first few months, so I always knew where he was...which usually ended up being in my bedroom, eating my dirty underwear.
• He liked to eat the crotch out of my dirty underwear. This in itself is really disgusting. But what always made it worse, was finding the digested pieces in the yard. Or when he couldn't pass them easily and he'd be squatting around the yard with a clearly visible panty hanging from his bum.
• He also fancied eating the following non-food items: my brother's hockey gloves, Surfer Boy's steering wheel, window screens, doors, dog beds, shoes, electrical cords (that were still plugged in), hats, entire loaves of bread, entire chicken carcases, plates of meat waiting to be served, all manner of plastic things. Those are the highlights.
• He was a natural frisbee dog. Even at 70+ pounds, he'd launch himself three and four feet into the air and twist about, catching that flying disc with flair. I think he loved the attention, as he'd always have people stopping to watch. When he was really tired after about the 50th throw, he'd be trotting back to me and all of a sudden just collapse to the ground, panting with his throat hole as big as it would go.
  
• He didn't mind stopping to poo while holding the frisbee. A hilarious sight if you weren't used to it.
• I named him after Neal Cassady, the driver of the Merry Pranksters' bus according to The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Cassady narrowly beat out Ahkenaten, a tribute to the dark "eyeliner" around his eyes. I chose Cassady because I wanted him to be a good car dog...I wanted him to go everywhere with me.
• And he did. Cassady visited Illinois, Tennessee, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, California, Oregon and all the states driving to and fro those places. When I had my Jetta, he loved to wedge himself in the back window, so much so that on the drive to Memphis, he was up there the whole time because all the seats in the car were full of people. He didn't mind one bit.
• A wide variety of words were known to him and would make him perk up his ears and tilt his head. Words like: Piney, Jasmine (who was up there waiting for him), outside, hungry, and the mother of them all...Frisbee.
  
• My Mom swears that during the year he lived with her and the family while I was in CO (and living in a pet unfriendly apartment), he'd sit next to her while she was at the computer and make noises like he was talking to her. She always replied "Dawn's coming back, don't you worry".
• Most likely stemming from that yearlong absence, he had terrible separation anxiety. It got really bad there for a while and we had to pretty much re-train him to not freak out when we would start making preparations to go somewhere. I don't think I'll ever be able to leave another dog without saying "I'll be back". Corn Dog has no issues like this, but I say it nonetheless.
• I used to pick up his front paws and make him dance with me. He would look at me like I was full-on nuts, but go along with it anyway.
• After one trip to the Piney a few years ago, he was limping pretty badly. The vet determined he'd torn his ACL. We got him the surgery, but his Frisbee days were over after it.
  
• I made him wear clothes on several occasions. Half of the humor of it came from the look on his face once it was on him.
  
• On a camping trip in Utah, he saw a lizard run into a yucca bush. For the next two days, he refused to remove his head from that bush. On a hike that same trip, he ran off the path and came hobbling over to us with this look that practically screamed HELP ME!! He'd run into a patch of tiny cacti that were literally covering each of his feet.
• He could be entertained for hours in a lake or river by throwing rocks just out of his reach. He loved to swim. He almost got swept down the Colorado River because he wasn't used to swimming in a river with such a robust current and so just kept swimming straight toward the shore and not making any headway.
  
• He walked me when he was on a leash. And I'd always get compliments like "That's a good-looking dog".
  

I guess I'll stop there for now. I have a lot more memories bottled up, but I think I'd prefer a slow release. I don't want to forget anything because all I have now are pictures and memories. Fourteen years' worth.

1994 - 2009