Dog days

I do not understand people who don’t like dogs.

They’re fluffy, they’re understanding, they love you no matter what and their whole universe revolves around when they see you next.

It’s hard to find that kind of love these days.

Last weekend I had to put my dog down. She was the second dog I’ve put down this year.

I grew up with the both of them. They have remained constantly by my side, and that’s not just an expression. They were literally by my side.

There was no getting rid of them.

There’s never been a time in my life when I haven’t been surrounded by animals, coming to college has been the first time I haven’t had a pet.

And now that I’ve left, they’re gone.

It’s a strange rite of passage, the last hurrah of my childhood.

When I go home now, it will never be the same.

My family will be there, my room will be the same, the house will remain, but it won’t have my dogs.

And that somehow makes it not my home anymore.

This isn’t meant to be melodramatic. If anything, it should be hopeful. It means that I’m officially starting a new phase of my life.

But it still sucks to put a dog down.

It seems incredibly unfair that you spend 15 years with dogs.

They become your best friend, and then they leave. I demand 18 years, at least.

They are the weirdest, funniest little animals, and their whole lives are dedicated to loving you and proving their loyalty to you.

Even while some work, like police dogs and seeing-eye dogs and sheep dogs, they serve no real purpose. They generally do not hunt and they are not hunted. They exist solely because they make us feel better about ourselves.

And then you have to put them down, because at the end of the day they’re animals, and that’s just the unfairness of the circle of life.

Their death represents an odd rite of passage for me. It means I am really no longer a kid, but an adult with adult decisions and an adult life.

So while my dogs will always be a part of me as a person, I may never really understand why they were in my life at all.

But they were, and they loved me and I loved them.

­— ewenning@indiana.edu