The email said “Free puppies.”

Yes, we’d talked about getting a dog in the hypothetical, “Sure, it’s a good idea” sense, but…

And, Yes, it was Valentine’s day…

And, certainly, the puppies were free to take and they needed good homes…

But there’s no such thing as “free puppies…”

…

Winston August Guiffre-Jensky died today. He was two months shy of his twelfth birthday. That’s a long time for a big dog, and Winston was a big dog. When asked what type of breed he was, I’d always reply, “Part black Lab, part dalmatian, part horse.”

He wasn’t really part horse, obviously. That third part? Rhodesian Ridgeback. Honestly, I didn’t see it in him until I was dropping him off at a boarding facility for Thanksgiving Weekend. When Winston was happy to meet you, his favorite thing in the world was to walk between your legs. Much to my shock, he started straight for the facility owner’s legs. “Oh, I see he’s part Ridgeback! That’s a classic Ridgeback trait!”

…

He had been going downhill for a while now. A few months ago his back legs stopped working properly. At first it just manifested as a wobbliness, but in a surprisingly short time he had trouble standing up. He’d get his front legs up fine but then he would have to do this lean-tuck maneuver to pull his only-partly-useful legs under him. It worked on carpet or his bed, but on tile or hardwood… forget about it. But if I lifted his butt up to get his legs under him he could coax enough movement out of his rear legs to walk, but it was tenuous.

…

Anna picked him up in what we called a “puppy drug deal.” Winston’s family was from Vacaville and when Anna called them, the mother was already en route to Napa to drop off two of Winston’s brothers – could Anna meet her somewhere halfway? Maybe Sonoma?

They met at the historic square in Sonoma, a pickup truck full of boisterous, jumpy, oversized-puppies in a pickup truck. Anna looked at the already enormous and hyper dogs and wondered whether these “free puppies” were maybe too much… And then she saw one dog – the runt – asleep on the lap of the boy in the cab.

“That one’s not available, is he?”

“They’re all available. We can’t keep them.”

Anna eventually got over the stigma of taking a puppy from a developmentally disabled boy. “His name is Levi,” the boy told her. “Please keep his name!” he requested.

“I will,” Anna told him.

We totally didn’t.

She voted for August. I was pitching Winston. I think she gave me Winston for the first name because she thought it would assuage my reticence about this “free puppy” that already was costing us vet bills, and toys, and a crate, and…

Winston August.

…

His labored breathing caught my attention this morning first. It came on suddenly. His lousy hind legs meant that the squat-poop that all dogs do was no longer an option. Instead he just kind of pooped where he lay. If I was lucky he would be on his side and wouldn’t notice and I could clean it easily and disinfect the surface. If I was unlucky he’d be realize he’s pooping and try to stand and end up smearing it everywhere. Every. Where.

He pooped at 4:30 this morning and I was able to get to it and clean it and the area without any issues and was back in bed surprisingly quickly. His breathing was fine. But by 5:30 his breathing was really labored, coming in quick deep breaths. Not panting – that I was used to. I thought maybe he was in distress because he had to pee, so I went to lift his butt to help him to his feet.

He flailed his front legs uselessly.

And then he peed himself.

Sure, the poop thing was annoying, but it was livable. One trait I found remarkable about Winston was that he had an iron bladder. That dog could hold his pee for an eternity! Seriously, 12-13 hours? No problem.

I can count on one hand the number of times he had peed inside over the course of his adult life (not including puppyhood – if you raised a puppy, you totally know what I’m talking about).

I set him back down on his bed, and he settled back into that labored breathing.

Thirsty? I brought his water bowl in. Not interested.

Hungry? I brought a piece of pork from last night. Not interested.

I sat on the floor with him, listening to his breathing and knowing what this portended.

“I don’t know what to do!” I said to Akilah.

…

People had a hard time believing this 100-pound dog was the runt, but I believe that utterly informed his personality. He had this inborn sense of compassion and caring that was palpable.

I took him to the dog park at Ragle Ranch in Sebastopol. Just as we came in a mastiff and a pit bull were going at it in the middle of the yard. The owners stood nearby, watching, sure this was just a territorial dust-up, they’d figure it out. But it started getting heated, the dogs more than gentle nipping each other, and by the time they got excited both owners feared for their own safety trying to break up what had turned into a dog fight.

Winston bolted for the fight at a full galloping sprint. Before I could even call him back, he was at the melee where he jumped right in between the pit and the mastiff. Both dogs were so surprised that they stopped for a moment. You could practically hear Winston saying, “Look guys, let’s just play!”

At my friend Jen’s cabin, up in Fish Lake outside of Yosemite, Winston earned the moniker “Big Dog Ambassador” when his patience and calmness helped a Chihuahua terrified of dogs bigger than her (read: all of them) reconsider her position. It was just a weekend, and he wasn’t a miracle maker, so the small dog never completely let her feisty guard down, but she came pretty close.

While he was an only dog, Winston’s fur family consisted of up to three other cats, to which he was always deferential despite his size. When he was a puppy, our smallest cat, Clementine, took evil delight standing on the sofa swatting his tail so he started bounding around the couch as she would run to the other side to swat at his tail again to keep him moving. He never turned on her, never even complained.

We would get big beef knuckles from the butcher and they were Winston’s absolute favorite thing in the world. On warm summer afternoons we’d let the chickens have free rein of the yard and throw Winston a meaty bone. Chickens, in case you didn’t know, also like meaty bones and they instantly found Winston’s bones very interesting, crowding his space. But he didn’t bark or snap. He’d pick up his bone move to a chicken-free part of the yard, place his bone on the ground and start up again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

…

The discussion with the vet was brief and had the feeling of a fait acompli.

When Winston hobbled on his mostly-useless rear legs, his toes would often curl under and he’d walk on them without noticing. At one point recently, his folded paw caught in the gap between driveway and walkway and Winston fell. But he didn’t howl or let out any noise of pain whatsoever. He just sort of fell over with this look on his face like, “Well, this is annoying!”

David Erik was the first to put it into words.

While I initially thought his legs were the result of the deteriorating hips of a big dog, DE suggested the folding paw and dragging legs didn’t look degenerative. It looked neurological.

This morning, the vet agreed. She couldn’t say whether his inability to now use his front legs well enough to stand was a progression, but it didn’t really matter at this point.

His breathing, she said, “scared” her. Scared. That’s the word she used.

She looked at his gums to check his circulation. It wasn’t good.

She said we could do a full run up on him and see if we could figure out what was going on, but…

…but…

…I had said Winston had started to go downhill a few months ago. At one point recently as he lay on his bed panting, I said, “Winston, we know what’s coming. I don’t want you to suffer. When it’s time, let me know, please. Please…”

This morning Winston told us, in unequivocal terms, he was ready. It was time.

…

I will miss his booming barks.

I will miss him insisting on walking between my legs as a greeting.

I will miss the comfort of him breathing softly in the middle of the night.

I will miss him asking with his eyes “Are you done with that?”

I will miss his Dalmation spots on his chest and his “socks”.

I will miss the equine-like gallop he got into when he started running.

I will miss his expressive eyebrows.

I will miss countless more things that I can’t think of right this second because my dog died this morning and, yes, I’m absolutely sobbing as I’m typing this and I know that a light in my life has just winked out and that light will never re-light and it’s one light in a constellation of lights in my life, but that light is gone, and as the years go by other lights have flickered and gone out and for many of those dimmings Winston was there for me to bury my face in his thick black fur and cry until he turned his head and licked my tears….

…

You may not want to read this next part. But you’ve already come this far with me…

In the room at the Vet, Winston lay on his side on the cart they wheeled him in on. I sat with him, his head on one of my hands, the other petting his side. He looked up to see what was going on when the vet techs came in. He looked at me and we made eye contact. He knew. He was ready. This was okay. He lay his head back down on my hand. He didn’t move at all when they put the catheter in. Minutes later when the vet back in with the syringe he didn’t move. He lay there, his body heaving with his labored breathing, his mouth open, a little drool pooling on my arm.

I had told him a million times that day how good a boy he was. How much I loved him. How thankful I was that he was in my life. And that, yes, it was okay to go, that I didn’t want him to suffer, that I knew it was time.

And then it really was.

And then he was gone.

The labored breathing stopped.

He was at peace.

A minute later, the vet places her stethoscope against his still chest for verification. He lets out a gasp. She turns to say something, but I nod that it’s just muscles. He’s gone. She moves the stethoscope around.

A minute later he starts to pee. My dog held his pee until he died! Best. Dog. Ever.

…

There’s a brief section here where I had Winston’s body released to me to take to the pet crematorium but they weren’t answering their phone and I started to freak out because now I had a 100 pound dog body in the back of my car and nowhere to take it…

…it ended fine – they turned up. His body was wheeled off.

And now I’m home. Alone. Well, with Kione. But not Winston. And the place feels interminably empty without him. I can’t move his bed. I can’t move his food. I can’t move his leash. I can’t, I just fucking can’t…

…

Anna posted a farewell to Winston on Facebook shortly after he died, and people are sharing condolences and memories and I’m grateful and thankful…

If you met Winston, you loved Winston. He was that kind of a dog. He was my friend, my companion, my buddy…

The email read “free puppies,” and in a way it was true.

Winston proved over the course of his life to be so unbelievably priceless and my soul is greater for having spent time with him.

Thank you, my friend. May you enjoy your nom bone in peace.