Finally one morning, expecting the usual message, I heard "4 year old black and white male shih tzu available for adoption". My heart leapt. I had been thinking of this dog for so long, dreaming about him without even having met him. I figured it was too much of a burden offering the two dogs together, one holder with health problems and her son who was healthy and happy. Whatever the reason, I didn't care. The shelter opened at 1:00 p.m., and by 11:00 a.m., I was in my car on my way to adopt the dog who I didn't know at the time would be my soulmate and closest ally for the next 12 years of my life.
I was the first person to arrive at the shelter, but not by much. Soon after I arrived, several people showed up for the same dog because he was believed to be a pure bred and was not fixed. These people did not look friendly and I imagined were not much unlike the breeders he had previously run away from. The important thing was, I was the first person there. I coaxed my boyfriend into leaving work to come meet me and when the shelter opened, we had dibs. The black & white shih tzu was lying on his stomach with his legs outstretched behind him and looked at me with his huge brown eyes.
"I want him", I told the lady, "Can I take him home today?"
"Sure", she said, "We just have to fill out some paperwork and make sure you have a fit environment."
She let him out of his little room and instead of going wild, he just looked up at me and walked beside me. I clearly remember as we were walking into the office to sign the paperwork, an older angry looking gentleman passed me, looking me up and down, looking at the dog, shaking his head in disgust, and then leaving the shelter.
"That's right, asshole, he's mine", I thought to myself.
We took the dog home and the next few months were a combination of getting to know him and being surprised at well behaved he was. My boyfriend's mother had warned us how hard it was to take care of a dog and she didn't think we were ready for it, but I remember thinking how irrational she was because it was ridiculously simple.
He wasn't like other dogs; he wasn't interested in cuddling or being touched. He seemed scared when we would lean down to his level to pet him or to pick him up. However, he never wanted to be left alone in a room and from the first day we took him home, we would follow us from room to room, as silent and independent as a shadow. I walked him without a leash and he never left my side and soon we began calling him a brown-noser, always trying to get brownie points with us for being so good. And soon enough, we settled on a name that came completely natural to us…
Brownie.
Oh little Brownie……Brownie won the hearts of everyone he met. He was calm and cool, but still got excited when you would come home from work, or when he would meet someone new. He would come sit with you for a while, but not beg you for attention. It was impossible to not like him. People quickly created nicknames for him which would stick throughout his entire life as he would affectionally become known as Browntown.
After a year long break-up and then reuniting, my boyfriend and I decided to drive across the country and start a new life in B.C. We packed up whatever we could fit into our tiny Mazda 323 hatchback and Brownie came with us on the floor in the front seat. He was such a good traveller, just so happy and content as long as he was with us.
Eventually, we ended up in Vancouver. We spent our first night on a friend's couch with all of our belongings in the car, Brownie content sleeping soundly beside us. The next morning changed the course of all our lives forever.
Our car, which was still full of all of our belongings had been broken into and everything was stolen. Everything. I was devastated. After extensive searching of a place to live that allowed dogs, we were able to find an apartment, however this didn't improve our situation much. My boyfriend and I were fighting daily and the apartment we had found was in the ghetto of New Westminster with cops at our building every night and bloody tampons strewn about in the lobby. It was a bad scene. Not surprisingly, our apartment was infested with fleas. So at this point we had no possessions save for some clothes, a mattress from the alley, and a flea infested but loyal dog. Something had to give, and it was my boyfriend. After two weeks of living in squaller, he decided to turn around and move back home to Ontario.
And I decided to stay. With Brownie. The year was 2004.
I held Brownie in my arms as we watched my boyfriend drive away, waving as tears streamed down his face, leaving the two of us to fend for ourselves in this flea infested, ghetto ass city where we didn't have a single friend. Brownie and I never saw him again. And ever since that day, I have felt that I could overcome anything because no matter how alone I was, I always had Brownie with me I knew I would be ok.
The next 7 years that followed were the most amazing and magical years of my life, filled with the most wonderful people anyone could know. Brownie quickly became the most popular dog in town as people were always mesmerized at his good behaviour and his cool, nonchalant attitude. I often took him for granted, leaving hi home alone for far too long some nights, which I will always regret. He was better than any boyfriend I could have had; never getting mad at me for coming home late or not at all, just always happy to see me. He always looked good in a sweater and I'm pretty sure he was happier when he was wearing clothing of some kind.
Brownie's teeth had been a disaster zone since the day I got him and thought his time in Vancouver he had several surgeries to remove teeth in the worst state. His bad breath from tooth decay became infamous and synonymous with the name Brownie, yet he never showed discomfort or pain so it was hard to gauge exactly how much it affected him.
I think the best years of Brownie's life were when we lived with Sarah, who became a second mother to him. Despite what it may sound like, Brownie was never a mama's boy and was happy to obsess over whoever was spending the most time in our apartment. He would indiscriminately sleep in Sarah's room, sometimes my room, sometimes switch in the middle of the night…Brownie always just wanted to chill in the most relaxing place possible. He put up with a lot of our late night shit and I can still recall looking into his eyes at an unreasonable hour and feeling like he was so much wiser than me and that I should go to bed.
Unfortunately, he developed a pretty severe separation anxiety problem which led to incessant barking throughout the day or night when he was left alone. This is when he had a heart murmur that took on a life of its own. Our tenancy was threatened on more than one occasion, but miraculously we were able to stick around for 4 years.
In 2011, the time came for me to leave the city and people that had been so good to us and move back east. And just like I did 7 years previous, I packed up my belongings and my trusty dog and we started on our 4500km journey.
I moved to Toronto to be closer to my family. Both of my grandmas weren't doing well and I felt an inexplicable need to return. My grandma on my mom's side looked after Brownie for a month while I looked for a place to live. I called her frequently for updates, worrying that I was burdening her, but all she had to say was that Brownie was great! He seems happy! Soon enough I settled into my own place and Brownie immediately acted as if this had been his home for years. His separation anxiety dissolved as life returned to somewhat normalcy.
Two months later, my grandma passed away. While it was an upsetting time, I felt comfort in the fact that we were able to share her last months bonding over Brownie. If I hadn't moved back, I may have never got to see her again. I shared a special bond with Browne with my other grandma as well, and she threatened to steal him for many years. I brought him to the nursing home where she spent the last years of her life, and he brought such a smile to her face. Then, just over a year after my first grandma passed away, so did she. In a way it was terribly tragic, but also, good timing on my part, being able to share those last moments with Brownie and the two of the people I moved here for.
As Brownie and I settled into our new city and I began a new relationship, things were going well. Brownie immediately took to my new boyfriend and made sleeping on his clothes a regular thing. Brownie never had a weird alpha complex, I feel like he just wanted me to be happy and that was his way of showing me that he approved.
Christmas 2012, I was diagnosed with MS and was blind in one eye, unable to walk, feel my legs, or use my hands. But once again, like every other tragic time in my life, I had Brownie. Brownie knew something was wrong and rarely left my side. When I'd cry at night, he would look up at me, tilt his head to the side, and then squish his little body against mine. He no longer jumped off the bed when I put him there, but instead would stay with me until I moved him. Slowly as my health improved, I vowed to spend as much time with him as I could, just as he did with me. I feel like in those darkest emotional times, I bonded with him the most.
In May of 2013 I noticed a small cyst on his side. It was a bump he always had, but recently had started growing. By mid-month it was the size of a golf ball. I took him into the vet who took samples from the lump, reassuring me it was probably something benign. And then the phone call came in the afternoon.
"I'm really sorry to have to tell you this……but the cells inside the tumour…..they appear to be cancerous", she said to me. She also told me how she had put off the phone call all day because she was so heart-broken to tell me the news because Brownie is such a sweetheart. The worst part of all of this was that he was essentially inoperable due to the strength of his heart murmur. So basically the only thing I could do is to make sure he's comfortable.
The tumour grew exponentially within weeks, days even. It grew so fast it kept bursting open and bleeding. He also started having difficulty breathing which I learned was likely from fluid beginning to fill in his lungs. The whole time Brownie still acted like nothing was wrong. I changed his dressing daily, each day was a little bit worse. Until one day I came home to the most horrifying sight.
Brownie has licked and chewed his way through the bandages and had chewed away 75% of the tumour. It was gone, right off his body, and a little raw lump remained. All still, the fucking dog acted like nothing was wrong. This was when I had to make the hardest decision of my entire life.
Brownie was probably in a lot more pain and discomfort than I knew and it quickly became obvious to me that the best decision was to put him out of his pain. A good friend of mine had said to me "They'll just keep going way longer than nature probably intended out of love and loyalty".
By now I'm sure you already know how this story ends. Brownie put up one hell of a fight through the opiates and the anaesthetic administered and the best I can hope for is that he knows why I had to let him go. I couldn't stand the thought of him suffering, of changing his bandages only to find the wound twice as bad as when I last looked. It hurts so much to know that through all the physical pain, he still put on a happy face.
I thought I'd been alone before, but when I reflect on the last 12 years of my life, I realize I was never really alone at all. I've always had this little amazing dog to help me through the worst times……and I'm so sad that he is gone.
