My Goose Caboose

I remember the evening she came into this world.

My father's dog was heavily pregnant and had been pacing and panting for most of the afternoon. We knew she was going to have her puppies soon, though we hadn't expected her to start having them right on my younger sister's lap. The eight year old had been running her hand through the course black fur of the shepherd/lab mutt, when suddenly a mortified look crossed her face; “She peed on me!” Was the screech of indignation. But when Tally stood up, rather than a puddle of pee, there was a small squirming mass still in its birthing sac. A thick boy that would fondly be named Fat Cheese (a name that his future owners would thankfully change). The rest of the evening was a blurred memory of excitement, and by morning our house had twelve new lives in it; eight males and four females.

They were born into an admittedly chaotic home; four young girls -seventeen, fifteen, eight, and four- and their father. In a large white house on the bend, trying to navigate their way through a fresh divorce and a flurry of teenage and preteen hormones. As the angsty seventeen year old, this period of my life felt particularly wrenching and tragic -as most seventeen year old lives are wont to be. I was melancholy, withdrawn, emotional, and stubborn.

The youngest two were promised that we would be keeping one of the puppies. While their love and affections rested on a female they smartly named “Mocha” (as she was the only brown female of the litter), I became attached to another little one, the only one I chose to name -Harlequin. Having been learning about the Italian Renaissance theatre, I thought naming her after the stock characters of humour and love was rather unique. She was the smallest female, and the only one with a genetic abnormality, having only a single little dew claw that would never properly grow a bone in it (I'd call it her cute little dangle claw, as it would jiggle and bounce as she walked).

I'd spend hours after school in the bedroom where we relocated Tally and her litter, cuddled up against the wall holding this precious little thing. It's a wonder how something so small and innocent can fill your heart and become your rock. I had a mission. To train this to be the best dog in the world, to be my dog, so that I'd be allowed to keep her. As she grew, I'd ferry her away to play and train. Within a week, she was sitting and laying down with commands. After every play and training session, we would curl up on my body pillow and I would hold her as I had from day one while she napped, before she rejoined the rest of the puppy herd. She was my little Love Butt.

In the end, my sisters and father decided they couldn't simply sell her, and I was allowed to keep her.

Through the rest of high school she followed me, then on to college. We would go for walks, where she would stop to growl and bark at construction flags in the lawns (because they were awfully suspicious looking things), play keep-away in the ball diamond (because she never really grasped the concept of “fetch”), and dance dramatically as I scritched her butt (because butt scritches are life). Finding my first “adult” job, she would drive with me for hours on the days I had to liaison back to the office. We would have the windows down, her head out the passenger's, and me bobbing mine and singing too-loud to music.

She never did become the best trained dog in the world (though she knew a multitude of tricks). There were many times she would take off, and I'd be running and screaming after her. She barked when people came to the house, and begged for food. No unattended garbage was safe. Often times she would pull and tug at the leash.

It frustrated me, but at the end of the day it never really mattered; she was my silly Goose Caboose and I didn't know what I'd do without her. Never once did she fail to greet me with anything but love, affection, and happiness. Every gloomy day I had was made softer and warmer as she cuddled up to me and I hugged her close. Through thick and thin, she was there for me, and I for her. Together we went through life. Three large moves and relationships come and gone. I told her she would be with me well into her old age, or else live forever.

Her last year with me, her tenth, included a small COVID wedding to her “Dad”, the joy of us finding out we would be expecting a new member in the family, and at the sunset she had the opportunity to meet the brother I'd expected her to grow old with. It was crushing when, the day after we brought him home, we discovered that my silly Goose Caboose was riddled with cancer. For how sick she was, most wouldn't have known it. I could sense changes in her, but I'd hoped through it all that maybe it was just her entering her elder years. She was slowing down, limping a little... But still happy and cuddly as could be.

Those last two weeks were bittersweet, and when the day came that she turned her nose up at her home cooked meal and did little but lay on the floor, I knew it was time. With heavy heart I called the vets to request an after-hours visit. Cuddled up on a blanket on the hard floor, I fed her all the treats she could want while I cuddled her and cried my heart out.

“Do you remember all those trips to the beach, Goose?” I'd managed to croak out. “We'll meet there again someday, okay? When my sun sets, we can walk that beach together for the rest of eternity.”

She was at peace as she slipped away in my arms. I think she had been waiting for the next chapter of my life to come about, before giving in to her illness; knowing that with my husband and new son, I'd be able to fill my heart with love to help ease her loss.

It doesn't make it much easier, but in my dreams she greets me with a lolling tongue and frantically wagging tail. Someday we'll meet again, on a warm beach with a sky of gold and fire.