In Memory of Maxy

Warning: This is a long and possibly tear-inducing post.

Maxy was run over by a car today and died. He was a loving and loyal member of our family and will be greatly missed. This is his story.

When Andy and I married and bought a house here in Alamosa, Jasmine was about four years old. Jasmine and I wanted a puppy very much but Andy was worried, and rightfully so, about the extra responsibility of dog ownership. Becoming a small business owner, husband, and step-dad in one step was enough to ask of anybody. So, it was a few years before he could be persuaded to think about dog ownership, and even then he was of the opinion that a grown dog would be easier for us than a puppy.

Maxy was about a year old when we got him. He'd been taken away from his mother too early and had some issues to begin with, but added to them was the fact that in his whole life he'd only ever known two grown women, one elderly and one middle-aged. He was not a family dog but the woman who had him was a former employee of an animal shelter and she was sick with cancer. She wanted him to have a good permanent home. After meeting this obviously terrified little guy I was dubious about the whole thing and wanted to sleep on it. Andy wanted to bring him home though, so we did.

Maxy spent that whole first day in his crate. The door was open but he was too scared to come out. I had to reach in and pick him up to take him outside and then he'd pee all over me in fear. By the next day he'd decided he could trust me but everybody else in the house was suspect. He followed me everywhere. He was scared of everything. A car ride caused quaking fits of terror.

After he got used to us he calmed down a little, though he never exactly warmed up to Jasmine, and we all fell in love with him. That's sort of the way it works with dogs, even obnoxiously high maintenance dogs (like Mini), after two weeks you just can't imagine life without them. Maxy wasn't high maintenance though. There never was a dog that wanted so much to please. I taught him to sit and roll over and lay down... and the most adorable of all, to play dead when I shot him with a finger gun and said, "bang". Sometimes he'd be so excited about the possibility of a treat that his actual dead time lasted only a few seconds.

Shortly after we got him Andy said, "of course, we can't take him backpacking. It's not like he's a real dog". By which he meant that Maxy was too small to go. I answered, "What does that mean? He's an imaginary dog?" And so Maxy went with us every year. He loved it.

I didn't mark the day on the calender when disaster first struck but it must have been about a year after we got him. Andy was in Denver because his mother had just had hip surgery and Jasmine was in Kansas with her dad. Maxy got into the bathroom trash and ate all the tampons. I called our regular vet and he said to give the dog some vegetable oil, which I did, and keep an eye on him. We were dead broke at the time and I didn't know how I could pay the vet bill if he needed surgery but by the end of the following day it was obvious that Maxy was going to die if I didn't do something. I called a friend who's been a dog owner a lot longer than I, and her partner answered the phone. After hearing the whole story she told me to take Maxy to the animal hospital in Monte Vista and she said she'd loan me the money if he needed surgery. She told the vet to put it on her bill. Maxy didn't end up with surgery. He ended up with an IV to rehydrate him and some expensive flavored Vaseline, and he survived. And we have a bathroom garbage can with a lid now.

Then, for financial reasons and reasons of MIL's health, Andy had to move to Denver without us. We hoped this situation would be temporary (it has lasted several years now) but Andy really wanted to bring Maxy with him, so our family split up. By now we had Mini also, so Mini stayed with us girls and the boys went off to Denver.

It has been a hard few years for our family but Maxy was always home with Andy to comfort him when things weren't going well. Even MIL seemed to benefit from the extra company while Andy was at work (though she didn't always admit it). He was a restful dog to be around; undemanding and eager to please, though he was fierce if he thought his family was threatened (even if the threat was just the elderly woman who brought MIL communion). It's hard to imagine how we can possibly go backpacking without him.