We both know the end of our time together is approaching, my dog and I, but still we hold on. I lie on the floor, my arm around his furry neck, scratching his chest as I watch a marathon on TV. He's lived a long life for a shepherd-Lab mix, nearly fifteen years, but his black coat is still as glossy and thick as it was in his puppy days. People often ask if he is part wolf.
Watching the marathoners reminds me of all the miles Kliban and I have run through the years. We have probably run ten thousand miles together as I trained for races, through all seasons. I was there when Kliban was born, and I named him after a cartoonist I liked. His presence has been the one constant thread, the singular unchanging color, in the tapestry of the past fifteen years.
Threads of that tapestry have unraveled, people have gone, and there are memories that only the two of us share. 'He's just a dog,' people who have never had a dog might say. But there is a wisdom, born in the shared years, that glows in those luminous brown eyes, now clouded with the blue of old age above a graying muzzle.
When we hiked the Appalachian Trail together, we fell into a pattern that mirrored the way he always lived in my life, his self-appointed guardianship of me. He always trotted ahead to wait for me, standing protectively where he could scan the trail ahead while keeping me in sight. As I slept, he protected me, once even charging a wild boar that rooted around our tent in Tennessee. Twice on the trail he disobeyed me. Once, in Virginia, he returned from his vantage point and blocked my path. As I kept trying to go around him I grew irritated—until I finally heard the ominous shakes of the rattlesnake up ahead.
And in New York, where we had hiked a long two days without water during a drought, he suddenly disappeared for a stretch of many minutes. I yelled at him when he finally reappeared and approached, until he rubbed his wet chest against my legs and then led me to the water.
The words 'good dog' made him quiver with happiness, and that was all he ever wanted.
But now the arthritic hips have finally failed, the vision has dimmed, and the internal systems have worn out. Still, how I dread that last good-bye, that scene at the veterinarian's office when he will be 'put to sleep.'
And yet, as I hold him and feel his thin shoulders, I know it is time. So I tell him so and start to cry. 'Tomorrow,' I tell him, 'I'll make the appointment. You've been so tough and brave, protecting me all your life. It's okay.'
'You're a good dog,' I tell him, and he responds with a quiver. 'It's me you've been waiting for, I finally understand. I love you, and I'll never forget you. I wish you could be with me my whole life, but I'm ready. It's okay. You can rest now.'
I can't stand it. I get up and go into the other room, turn on the computer and try to work for a while. When I return twenty minutes later, Kliban has gone, with dignity and peace, protecting me this one last time.
He is wrapped in a quilt made of T-shirts from the running races he helped me train for and is buried in a shady spot with a view of the mountains. And he is somewhere yonder, on the long trail, where he has gone ahead to wait for me.