The Hardest Goodbye

I can hardly type through the tears.

How do you say goodbye to someone who’s loved you like no one else in your life?

Hank came into my life almost 10 years ago. I desperately wanted a dog and had for years. My husband said, “No dog until we have a house.”

The day we closed on the house is probably the same day I started pestering him for a dog.

But it took about six months before we got settled and were ready to find the right one.

I love animals, and I want to adopt practically every homeless critter that crosses my path. But when it came to choosing OUR dog, we had certain criteria. Ray wanted a Labrador, the dog of his childhood. We both wanted a shelter dog, and I wanted one a big dog, one that looked as much like a full-blooded Lab as I could find.

Ray did not want a hyperactive puppy. I was OK with an adult dog as long as it was still playful.

It took me several weeks of looking before I met Hank. Of course, that was not his name. The shelter had dubbed him “Liberace,” for reasons I can’t fathom. I had dragged my friend from work to the animal shelter in Winston-Salem to look at another black Lab. But when I saw “Liberace,” I just knew he was it. He was exactly the block-headed, goofy dog I envisioned when I thought of a Lab.

We asked to see him out of his pen, and boy, he was wild. He jumped all over us, licked us, climbed on us. Everything Ray did not want in a dog.

I drove my friend back to his house and said a little prayer that I could convince Ray. I called my husband, who thankfully was having a busy day at work. I laid it all out there: “This dog is so handsome and goofy but he’s a bit exuberant. But he's perfect and I really want him.” Ray was too swamped to come look at him that day. “Go ahead and get him if you love him,” he told me.

That was the beginning of a love that only grew.

Hank was the quintessential Labrador in so many ways.

He was super smart. He so hated the crate that we bought a gate and locked him in the den. He quickly learned how to unlatch the gate and let himself out. He picked up many commands, and he knew tons of words. I often had to spell W-A-L-K to go out without him. 

He was sneaky. If you weren’t paying attention, he’d snarf down the sandwich in your hand. He dug his way out of our backyard so many times that we installed a zipline so he could roam the yard without getting loose. He busted out of that a few times as well. If he saw an opening at the front door, he made a beeline outside. He never ran “away,” but he enjoyed the running and the being chased. And if you gave him enough time, he’d always show back up on the front porch, adventured out and ready to come back in.

He was a fierce protector. He barked at every person that came up our sidewalk. He scared many a passer-by to the other side of the street on our walks around the neighborhood. When Ray hugged me, Hank did not like it and he generally tried to break up our hugs. When Sawyer was born, he often slept on the floor of his room, just to make sure he was OK. We’re not sure what he would’ve done if someone had been truly mean to me, but I feel certain he would’ve turned off his Lab friendliness and rescued me.

He was always by my side. Wherever I was in the house, Hank was with me. If I was cooking in the kitchen, he was there. I gave up trying to shoo him out. He never got in the way. He just wanted to be near me. He slept on his bed in our bedroom; you could not keep him from his pack. If I got up in the night, he followed me downstairs.

He chewed up a zillion things: trash, cardboard, books, shoes, brand-new leather gloves (more than once), an expensive leather coat of Ray’s. Besides leather, his favorite treat was peanut butter, and once he managed to get a nearly full jar off the counter, open it and consume the contents. I thought all those things might make him sick, but he had an iron stomach.

He hated water — the only non-Lab thing about him. He hated going out in the rain. He would avoid puddles. He loathed baths. He swam only once in all his years with us. We took him camping and went swimming in a river. There were tons of other people and dogs. Hank dog-paddled one little circle back to land and gave us the look: “Don’t ever make me swim again.” I even took him to the lake with my uncles’ water-loving Labs. They dove off the dock again and again. Hank never considered following them. The only water he liked was frozen. When it snowed, he ran around and rolled in the fresh powder like he was having the time of his life.  

We walked thousands of miles together — just Hank and me. When I put tennis shoes on, he always got excited. Those miles dropped significantly when Sawyer came along, but Hank was a good sport about it. He learned how to walk with the stroller and not get all tangled up. He learned to share the backseat with that grubby toddler who might drop a Goldfish or two.

Seeing Hank in pain for the past two weeks has been one of the hardest experiences of my life. To have your dog go from totally normal to barely able to walk overnight is shocking and traumatic. And when we had explored all our options and knew extreme measures like a painful surgery and long recovery were the only possible sources of hope, we knew we had to end Hank’s suffering. Even if that choice was the hardest one for us to make.

The thing I will miss most about Hank is how unconditionally he loved me. He loved me through some of the hardest days of my life — when work sucked, when Ray and I were at odds, when I miscarried during our first pregnancy. Hank was always there for me, with a wagging tail and warm nose and soft ears begging to be scratched. And his presence always made me feel better.

On days when I felt no one else loved me — or showed it — Hank never let me down. He always greeted me at the door as if seeing me was the best part of his day. He forgave me when I was too busy for a walk. He eagerly went along when I said, “Hey, buddy, let’s go for a ride.”

No one can make you feel quite as loved as a dog makes you feel.

I know that we have given him a good life. He has gotten to do so many things: Run on the beach, romp through the mountains, camp with us, go to baseball games and birthday parties. Be the star of a fake children's book. Go trick-or-treating. Be blessed at church. Hike all over the state. And be part of a family that loved him. 

And I know that we’re doing the right thing by ending his suffering. I hope he can feel the love we have for him, the love we’ll always feel for our first baby, and know that we will miss him terribly.

Goodbye, old friend. Thank you for these amazing years. Thank you for all the love and licks and tail wags. We love you so incredibly much.

I hope Dog Heaven is ready for such an amazing creature. And I hope it has plenty of peanut butter.