I didn’t want to go. I knew once we went into Animal Care and Control, we wouldn’t just be “looking around”. I knew once we went in, we were not coming out without adopting a dog. In the middle of a dozen barking pitbulls, there sat this one quiet dog. As we walked up to its cage, she looked up at us with those puppy dog eyes; I knew right then and there it was over. They called her Tabitha; she was all bones. It was pretty clear she was mistreated in her previous home, if she even had one. We would make up stories about her past… like jumping out the window in Chinatown before being eaten, or drug running on the West Side. Her past did not matter; in this very moment, only her future, which was decided when we adopted her more than 11 years ago.
We called her Maxie; it was my newly minted wife’s idea. She was named after my first car, a 93 Nissan Maxima, who I referred to by the same name. Maxie got used to us pretty quickly; we fattened her right up. In her prime, she was a solid 65 pounds; she was a ball of energy. She was so fast, one of the quickest dogs in the park. Somebody forgot to tell her that she shouldn’t have had that puppy energy so long; she acted like this for about 9 years, up until her hind legs slowed her down a bit. Yeah, she was the first addition to our family. After getting married in March 2011, she joined 3 months later. Oh the stories we could tell… like how she refused to be crated. She broke out the first cheap one we picked up off Craigslist. She broke out of the second one we got. Finally, the third one, she couldn’t break out of, so she snapped her tooth right off. With blood spewing from the half tooth when we got home, we decided it wasn’t going to happen. She would roam loose. One time, when we saw our screen window laying in the parking lot in the back of our condo, we hoped she hadn’t jumped out after it; we lived on the 2nd floor. She didn’t. She did mess up our condo pretty good, but only the 2 entrances, constantly scratching to get out when we left; back to that whole previous life thing I’m sure. That was OK though; we got used to it. We had to pay to get it all fixed before we moved, but all good.
In the meantime, our 2nd addition to our family came along the following April; boy did Maxie love her little brother. She slept next to him when he took his naps in our living room; she slept outside of his door when he slept in his crib at night. She almost killed him… OK, not quite, but one day at the dog park, as she was running around like a maniac, she lifted him up with her snout. As my son “surfed” on her back for a few steps, MY future flashed before my eyes. Thankfully, he landed harmlessly on his butt, as Maxie continued her sprint. She loved to play. More importantly she was always there. We couldn’t take her on all of our trips, but she made it to a few; I think she hated when we left her, although I think she liked going to Doggy Day Care… before the “incident”. She supposedly bit some small dog’s ear, but PetSmart couldn’t show us any proof… safe to say they were boycotted after that day. Not our Maxie… She wasn’t about the drama. Sure, if you messed with her, she would let you know, but for the most part, she was not a big barker, unless you were talking about Boxers; she hated Boxers. She loved pretty much everybody else, nobody more than our family.
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Truth is, I wouldn’t trade these last 11+ years with Maxie for anything. When they say a dog is a man’s best friend, they ain’t lying. I could always count on her running to greet me as I came home from work each day. She was always so happy to eat, to go outside, to play, to be around us. I swear, she could beat somebody up with that wagging tail; we hadn’t seen her tail wag in a long time… Yes, we decided it was time. We all said our goodbyes; we took some final pictures with her. My son made her a card. We all took that last long car ride with her; she always loved being in the car too. She went quickly, peacefully…
Right about now, she’s running those big circles in the grass, having regained all her energy and youthfulness, because as they say, and as we believe, all dogs go to heaven. We’ll miss you Maxie. We will never forget you.
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