Later today I have to let my dog, Rudy, go with the help of the mobile vet who is coming to our house.

Rudy’s been suffering from degenerative spinal issues since May and last week was diagnosed with congestive heart failure.

He’s told me it’s time but it still feels weird and hard. Unlike a person, Rudy can’t actually say the words to me, although we did have a heart to heart a few days ago and he conveyed his intention to me. But then he felt bad and looked away. I knew he doesn’t want to leave us.

As I think about the past 17 years we’ve had with him, of all the joy and fun he’s brought not only into my life but, to countless others, it feels bittersweet. It’s been such a blessing but a blessing that’s also tinged with sadness as we come to the end.

Rudy came to us mere months before my husband and I started a K-8 school. He was our first employee, coming to school every day to be with the kids, keeping them company while they read and did assignments, and running around outside barking exuberantly during recess and PE.

I’m not gonna tell you that he was the easiest dog, or the nicest. It was often awkward when he’d bark and bark and bark at prospective parents… He was a dachshund, and dachshunds are certainly their own unique beings.

That’s one of the many lessons this little guy taught me. To be yourself, even if it sometimes pisses other people off.

We tried and tried to train him, and it wasn’t that he wasn’t smart. He could do loads of things- come, sit, stay… but if he didn’t want to do something, he simply wouldn’t.

I’ve come to see this as a lesson in worthiness. To know who you are and be absolutely okay with it.

I also really appreciated how quickly Rudy would let things go.

There was never any vengeance even self-flagellation for Rudy. If I accidentally bonked into him, he instantly forgave me. If he snuck into the bathroom and ate tissues and other trash out of the wastebasket, he’d look at us, feigning forlorn while being scolded, but a moment later would be on to the next thing.

No self berating for him.

What would that be like?

If we did something “wrong” and then instantly forgave ourselves?

I think dogs, generally, often teach us patience. They seem to have that unending desire to be with us and hang out. They are absolutely okay just being in our presence without having to do anything.

And that presence, what is it?

It’s the return to the moment. It’s the moving back into the love.

Above all, this is my most cherished gift from him.

Being with Rudy was being in the presence of love. When I chose to truly settle into that space, I would feel loved unconditionally by another and love him unconditionally back.

Yes, sometimes he was annoying. He’d bark at the mail carrier or get into my lunch box and eat my sandwich, or dig up a plant in the garden, but I never stopped loving him for these things, and he never stopped loving me.

What a gift.  

I will miss his wagging tail and his excited circles when I come home. Even when I’d been gone a mere hour.

I will miss his attempts at talking to me.

I will miss the love I see in his eyes and feel in my heart when we share a moment.

I will miss watching him bark in the yard, letting everyone know he’s there.

And most of all, I will miss his soft (and smelly) kisses.