The Decline of Ben

Dogs are gendered pets. Man’s best friend. There aren’t many great stories about a girl and her dog. Marley and Me, My Dog Skip (did anyone even see that?), Old Yeller; childhood classic Homeward Bound gives each young boy and canine companion, while their sister has “Sassy!” (I am channelling the final scene here – you with me? “Sassy!” No? Rewatch immediately.) Judith Butler’s doubtless abhorrence aside, my own experience runs entirely contrary to this.

Yes. I am a crazy cat lady in the making. I love She Ra inexplicably (my father deigned to share today  that, “on a scale of 1 to 10, she’s probably a 5”) and she is my first pet who is really and fully mine. But cat lady and dog’s best friend are not mutually exclusive categories.

 

Ben is my dog.

Ok, ok. Ben lives with my parents, and they rescued him by the time I was no longer living full time at home (the last summer, in fact, that I lived in our family home). I had been working for my dad, and he told me that we were leaving work early to run an errand; that errand was confirming that we wanted to adopt Ben, who was, of course, not yet “Ben.” My childhood dog, Bixby, had been dead 2 years, and my parents were interested in getting a new dog. Not a puppy, though – they didn’t have the energy to train one. So when my mum saw a pure bred Golden Retriever (which Bixby had been) at the SPCA, given away by his owners at 7-years-old, she called my dad right away. “Chance” – a name we early rejected in an attempt to stem the flow of puns from my dad about our new dog, “Second Chance” or “Last Chance” – had acquired an unfortunate breed trait of growing benign tumours, which is likely why his family had given him up. When my mum found him, the SPCA had removed 4 baseball sized tumours; his entire back was shaved, and he had four 7 inch incisions healing. He looked quite beat up, but had the most shameless, endearing grin I'd ever seen on a dog. It's his trademark look - like Julia Roberts, but less frightening and more dopey.

Ben came home with us that evening. Two days later, I maintained my streak of naming our worthwhile pets and he was dubbed Ben Black. (My brother insisted on Willow as the moniker for a cat who, so mean she would wait at the top of the stairs so she could jump out and attack people’s faces as they ascended, did not have a long tenure with our family).

I always felt a close tie with Ben. Almost days after deciding on “Ben” as our new hound’s name (and yes, I realize that it is confusing and perhaps a little ignorant of us to change a 7-year-old dog’s name – but you haven’t heard my dad pun), he acquired a new nickname: DumbDumb. I felt the need to not only defend my proffered name, but our newest family member. Since then, we were tied.

And this. We shared a fondness for rugby balls.

Ben is probably a bit stupid. He is easily confused and completely graceless, for sure. He will wag his tail so enthusiastically and inexpertly that, when travelling from our carpeted family room to the tiled entryway to great guests, he often would have built up enough rear-end momentum that he would fall over. He barks whenever the door is knocked upon or bell is rung, but will promptly approach the arriving stranger and adoringly and assertively thrust his nose up into his or her crotch. “Ben, we’re not that kind of friends” has been my constant refrain. He is completely indifferent to the presence of other animals, lest they are receiving attention that he so desperately craves and considers rightly his. While on this trip, should I ever try playing on the floor with She Ra, he will, with great effort, heave himself up and send her scattering, sitting right on top of me. His neediness has often exasperated my parents, who are far more prone than I to yell at him for being under foot, or to lock him away when people are over. He does not have the dignity of Bixby, but instead he has that enormous grin and foul breath. In hilarious contrast with this court jester demeanour, however, he always lies with his paws crossed. I find him entirely charming. For that inability to yell or begrudge him anything, he has shown a loyalty towards me that my sporadic presence in his life has not entirely earned me.

We adopted Ben five years ago. Twelve is very old for a Golden Retriever. When Bixby died, his descent into old-dogdome was the course of a week; he jumped out of my dad’s car and hurt himself and by the end of the week could no longer lift his head, and was put down. This all happened, however while I was at boarding school. Ben’s aging is much more drawn out, so purported my teary eyed mother, after we had made the mistake of trying to take Ben on a too-long walk, which caused him to trip and fall a couple of times. He is absolutely covered in tumours, and his hair hasn’t grown out evenly since his last hair cut. It is one of the hardest things in the world to watch his cheerful face and know that he is slowly dying. 

“You really bring out the puppy in him,” my dad told me this morning. Ever since I used Ben as an inspiration to channel an energy and a kindness from within myself. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all be a little more like our dogs? Better hygiene and more science, but a willingness to greet kindly every person we encounter, and to smile and play whenever we can?

This is far more sentimental than I'm sure you'd like to read from me, but I wanted a solid tribute to Ben. He could so easily slip away from our family history - the sick dog we had for a few years, less a part of the family than the dog before - but he is a crucial part of my growing up. And I love him. And it is so unspeakably sad to know, "soon..."

So, to Ben, with love.