It had been a year, maybe two, since our labrador, Nova, had died. She was a tough one to get over. We were all so close to her, especially my dad. So it was a surprised when he mentioned going out to look at a chocolate lab he saw in the paper. Mom and I were still not completely sure we were ready for another one, emotionally speaking, but dad's steadiness was contagious. We got in the jeep and left to go check out the prospective adoptee. I set phasers to cynically guarded.
"What if we decide to get him? What do y'all want to call him?" my dad posed as we drove to the address on the ad.
"I don't think we should talk about names yet. We haven't even seen him. We don't know if we'll even like him..." my phasers fired back.
"How about 'Duke'? I've never had a dog named 'Duke'." he said not missing a beat.
Now it should be mentioned that my dad has had just about every cliched dog name out there. "Bo", "Lucky" just to name a few. I came up with "Nova". Although we did have a "Chisholm" too. That's pretty original I suppose.
"Duke? Ugh...come on we can do better than that. Something more original...that is if we like him." I quickly ammended. Close one, he almost got me caring.
We got to the place and rang the doorbell, Mom and I still teasing Dad for his lack of canine moniker creativity. A nice older woman answered the door and we small talked a bit there at the door. Then she said something none of us expected.
"Well, are y'all ready to meet Duke?"
She turned to let us in but all three of us were standing there dumbfounded, staring at each other with our mouths open in puzzled expression. I think she noticed this too or at least that we weren't moving to come in. Finally our legs unstuck and for a moment I think we contemplated explaining our behavior to her but opted for chuckling instead. I'm sure she thought we were "special" and not the good kind.
My dad swears that he did not know the name before hand from the call he had made to see when a good time to come by would be. Apparently, the lady's husband was a huge John Wayne fan. So after that little experience and then meeting the most gorgeous, fun chocolate lab ever, phasers were set to puppy love.
He was already two, house broke, and had papers if we wanted to register him with AKC. He was from really good stock, not that it mattered. It showed though. He was perfect lab look-wise and personality. Definitely the smartest too. We even had to start spelling around him because he would get really excited about certain words overheard. "Bone", "outside", etc. Anyway, he became our best dog ever and a part of the family.
My dad called last week. "I've got some bad news..."
Duke had been having these bad seizures the last couple of years. Doggy epilepsy. He went on some medication and got better. Well, they started back up even worse last month and they had to try some more aggressive treatment. They said the medication might damage his liver. He slowly stopped being his energetic self...stopped eating.
As my dad told me that he had died my heart broke. I spoke with mom. She said "No more dogs for us. It's just to hard to lose them." My heart broke a little more.
Since there's such a thing as doggy epilepsy I can only hope that there is a doggy heaven. I hope Nova was the first friend he made there because we always thought they would have been such a pair.
p.s. that's Duke on my profile with his bad toupee act. I hope all the dog lovers out there get to have a dog as great as Duke. Now, I have to go read "Where the Red Fern Grows".
