Oli's gone. But he died surrounded by love...and there's an empty space now...

Oli’s gone. He died a week ago Sunday, waiting for my son to come from a visit to the girlfriend. He died in my son’s arms, and my son’s 29 years of toughness disappeared as he begged Oli to get up and go for one last biscuit. Food always worked in life, but after 13 years, the desire for biscuits surrendered to death's inevitable call.

Families who have had pets and lost them will understand the heartbreak of losing such a special dog. I grew up with dogs, and have vague memories of them, but Oli will remain a presence in the house and in my mind until I, too, leave this earth.

When my son asked for a rottweiler as a graduation present, my first impulse was to refuse. I made him go look at retrievers. I trotted out statistics and lectures about responsibility. Still, I was overjoyed that my son finally had gotten over being afraid of dogs. The fear came about when, as a five-year old, Nuevo Laredo, Mexico had a rabies epidemic that began in our own neighborhood. I worked, and to be sure that he wasn’t bitten, I encouraged him to avoid all dogs. His babysitter must have been even more energetic than I, because after the epidemic, when I took him a puppy, he was terrified—and never did accept Georgia, a placid, unflappable St. Bernard.

At length, I started looking for a rottweiler puppy, in spite of my own trepidations. I’d heard horror stories about the breed, and only seen them once at a lake—two well-behaved, impressive dogs who hadn’t seemed to be blood-crazed killers. We found a rottweiler in a neighboring town—a large puppy with a flea problem. He’d been sprayed, and obviously wasn’t hungry, but I wouldn’t find out until later that he’d also been plagued by ticks, and would have health-related problems much of his life from them.

We almost didn’t choose Oli; the seller brought Oli and a brother to our house, and I wanted the smaller, but more active brother. He just looked smarter than Oli, and I figured he’d grow. But everyone else voted for the big, sleepy-eyed pup, and I’ve always been glad that I lost that fight.

As dumb as he looked that first night, Oli soon impressed us with his intelligence…and his cowardice. Nowhere was the snarling beast; Oli hated storms, loud cars, and dogs in equal measure. As wimpy as he was, though, he adored my son—and would push us away if we tried to hug or kiss. If the kids wrestled, he’d go bonkers trying to protect them from each other.

Over the years, Oli developed an amazing repertoire of tricks. He could crawl, sit up, beg, shake, roll over, play dead—he hated to do that, though—and fetch. He also deposited things in the trash can for us. Unfortunately, he’d throw things out to earn biscuits, and once threw out a paper bag with rings. We didn’t find out until after the trash had been picked up and one of the kids remembered giving him a treat for throwing out a small bag.

Oli endeared himself to my far-flung family by talking on the phone. He’d bark and growl into a phone as if he understood, and when I’d called my mother in Florida, she’d get a huge kick out of talking to him. She only got to meet him once, and was a little taken aback by his means of communicating—he’d growl ferociously when he was telling us his troubles. We knew after so many years that he was just chatting, but she thought at first we were going to be mauled.

In the weeks leading up to Oli’s death, he lost a little weight, he slowed down a little and lost some gloss in his coat, but he remained, until the end, a healthy-looking dog with few problems. We were blessed by that.

Also before his death, I had the unfortunate luck to see two incidents that just broke my heart. On a busy Laredo street, a gorgeous chow puppy darted out in front of the car ahead of me. I’ll never forget the sound of that stout little body being hit. The pup was thrown back, but almost immediately, hit by a second car.

A few days later, walking to the corner store, I heard a car brake hard, then heard a dog yelping, a street or two away. On my way back, I happened across a large gray and white dog, a beautiful dog, taking its last breath.

That image also continues to plague me, and I ask myself why there are so many people who own dogs and simply shouldn’t. The chow might have been kept up and escaped, but the gray and white dog had probably been running loose. Either way, the unfairness of their lives and the pain in their deaths stood out in such stark contrast to the way our dogs live, and the way other responsibly kept and well-loved pets live.

I thought of those incidents in the grim hours after Oli’s death, wishing they had known the comfort that hopefully, Oli did. The morning Oli died, my daughter and I spent over an hour petting him. His breathing wasn’t right, and we had an idea that he might not be able to survive until the next day. We have no emergency vet service in our town—none closer than 150 miles away—and in spite of the fact that we suspected it was just old age, we literally prayed that he could hang on until Monday morning so that we could take him to the vet. He ate one of his beloved biscuits that morning, and a piece of bacon. He pricked up his ears when we talked of his 13 years of companionship, and of the laughter he brought to our home. He wasn’t alone when he died, and he didn’t end up thrown in the weeds at the side of the road once he was gone.

He died the way he lived, surrounded by the same love he always showed us.

Oli’s gone, though. That remains, a stark, empty fact of life. He’s not there when we get up in the morning. Not there with his whole body wagging with happiness when we come home after work or school.

Those intelligent eyes don’t focus on us when we talk about him, or about cats (which he learned not to chase, but never to like) or when we talked about “m’hijo”, my oldest son, and always, his person of choice. We’re talking about getting another puppy this summer. There’s just so much emptiness now. But not a rottweiler. No other animal will fill the empty space—and no other rottweiler could come close to meeting our expectations. Not now that Oli’s gone.