The first night Alameda came home from the Humane Society, I had to sleep on the kitchen floor. She was rescued from a puppy mill so she’d never seen the real world. She cowered on the sidewalk when a car went by on our first walk. Stairs were impossible puzzles. And settling into a new house—her first house—was difficult. However, we realized that she’d lay her head against my fingers when I stuck them through the crate and calm down. So I slept on the linoleum floor with my fingers jammed into an open slot on the cage so we could try to salvage at least a little sleep together.
It’s a little too easy to project emotions onto our pets. There are even people out there that don’t think animals are capable of having personalities, which is borderline sociopathic. Anybody that met my dog Alameda over the course of her long life knew her to be a sweet, gentle girl. And at the risk of committing emotional projection, we connected right away.
It was rough for a while. She caught a parasite before leaving the puppy mill, a symptom of which was depression. She’d spend an entire afternoon hidden under or behind the couch. Separation anxiety was almost crippling. How can you train a dog that doesn’t have any interest in food? We got her house trained, she learned how to sit, and we called it good enough.
The running joke over the years was that Alameda and I were simply roommates. She’s not my dog. My girlfriend at the time was the brave one to pull the trigger on bringing her home. I wasn’t confident enough in my ability to properly care for a pet as I entered my last year of college. But she charged ahead, and I’ll be forever grateful for that. Her and I split up and eventually, Al came to live with me in Atlanta.
I was incredibly lonely during this time. Alameda gave me something to care for when I didn’t even care about myself. She gave me something to look forward to, someone to share my Cheetos with, and someone to curl up with at night. At a time when I was struggling to find anything to make me happy, she grounded me.
Of course, there were plenty of happy times during our stay in Atlanta. One night that pops out to me is when the BET Awards were held at the Atlanta Civic Center directly behind our apartment complex. My roommate and I walked through the gate in the back fence where all the tour buses were parked—and of course we brought Al. So when Ice Cube walked out soon after we got up to the building, I shouted, “Hey Cube! Say hi to my dog!”
Ice Cube stopped the group of people surrounding him, looked over to us and said, “What’s up dog?” He took a few more steps before he stopped and turned to us again. “I was talking to the dog,” he said.
A little bit later, Snoop came out and I asked him to pet Al, but he just laughed, shook his head, and kept walking.
At this point, Al was well accustomed to the long drive between Wisconsin and Georgia. But we stretched that when we drove across the country to California. She was very excited to get out of the car in Amarillo, TX and ran out of the motel room when I was unloading some stuff from the car. She was ready to play, but I was terrified she’d run into the massive field behind her and get lost. She must have noticed the panic in my voice and actually listened to me when I said to come to me. That was a rarity.
She lived in Koreatown, Hollywood, and Thai Town in Los Angeles over the course of 3 ½ years, making enemies of every neighbor along the way. Beagles are terrible apartment dogs, and Al was no exception. She’d howl the paint off the walls every time we left the house.
We made another cross country trip where Al saw the Grand Canyon and Rocky Mountains. We got pulled over in Oklahoma for suspected drug trafficking and met a blatant racist in Arkansas. She was a surprisingly good camping dog that just wanted to dig a big hole in the dirt with her face and growled into the dark around the campfire when she sensed danger.
In Nashville, her circle of friends continued to grow. We also ran into our first sincere health concerns: everything from suspicious lumps, to an insane amount of tests chasing a disease that didn’t end up existing. At this point, the years had started to stack up and we were forced to confront the reality that she wasn’t going to be around forever. Of course this ended up being a joke because she stuck it out for another seven years.
Her circuit of traveling was complete when we drove back up to Wisconsin almost exactly a year ago. This has been a pretty turbulent time but I always had Al snoozing, whining, or licking directly at my side. I published a book that featured her as a pretty pivotal character, and I received a handful of texts that she better be okay by the end of the story.
She was eight months old when we brought her home and today marks 16 years, four months, and seven days since the world was graced with her presence. Over the course of this time, I’ve grown through at least three distinct phases of my life. I was incredibly immature when I first got Al, and now I’m a married homeowner with bi-weekly contributions to a 401k. And through it all, Alameda was right next to me.
After this long, she feels like a part of me. She’s been as ever-present as a shadow for so long that it feels like a different life before her (because it was). Any time I’d get upset and raise my voice, Al would come running over and put her paws on my leg. She wouldn’t leave me alone until I calmed down. It would annoy me at first until it started to work, and then I’d give her a big hug and thank her.
The change came fast. Two weeks ago, she was acting normal and then suddenly, she lost interest in her food. This wasn’t particularly worrisome; she’s always been a picky eater. But when she turned away from rice, quinoa, wet food, and even a carrot, we knew something was wrong.
Even four days ago, I wasn’t sure if it was her time. But today I moved her final vet appointment up a day because I couldn’t bear to see her get any worse. She deserves so much better than that. I’d always told myself that the moment her quality of life degraded past the point of comfort that I’d make the call. And this was my time to pay up on that promise.
Last night, I put my pillows on the floor next to her bed. I wanted her last night to mirror our first night, except this time I don’t know who was comforting whom. She repositioned herself at some point in the night—I could tell because her dragon breath woke me up—so our faces were next to each other. I pet her neck in the darkness and tried not to think about what it would be like tonight, when I don’t hear her snoring next to me anymore.
I tried my hardest to soak in those last moments just like I did this morning when I had my coffee sitting on the floor with her in front of the fire. Almost every aspect of my life has been configured to make room for her, so there’s going to be a massive hole.
There will be more dogs (there’s another one in the room next to me right now), but there will never be another Alameda. I’ve made peace with the idea that I won’t have this connection again. It was born in immaturity and forged over almost 16 years. This reckless attachment simply isn’t possible anymore. Her and I have been through too much to replicate.
She was small—only 16.5 pounds at the end—but the house feels incredibly empty without her. Every vacant dog bed shouts her absence. I always knew that she meant a lot to me. I’d been terrified of losing her from the first day we brought her home. But now with her gone I can compare the before and after, and it surprises even me how much I cherished that dog. She made me feel needed, loved, and important.
Her form of television was to lie in her bed and stare at me. She was always one step behind me (and if I was cooking, she was between my legs). I was her comfort blanket just as much as she was mine. It will take some time to get used to not hearing her nails clicking across the floor behind me but I hope that sound never completely stops ringing in my ears.
I love you Alameda. I’ll miss you forever.
