#grief sucks. sparky lived a good life and I mostly wrote this to remind myself of that.

[pugswithlasers]

So, Sparky (the dog in my header) recently passed away. I feel terrible, but I don’t think that he would want that. So instead, I’m making a list of all the cool things in his life, because he was a fucking legend. Imagine a trickster god trapped in the body of a hyperactive Jack Russell- Papillon mix. So, in chronological order:

We adopted him back when I was in elementary school, in Minnesota. He was one year old at the time. He was part of the foster program of the Midwest Animal Rescue Society, which meant that we also got this cool bumper sticker (which I now have pinned to my wall with a bunch of other personal mementos):

Our first introduction to him was Loud Barking and an explanation of how energetic and fast he was (by way of his foster owner tying his leash to her bike and riding down the road, which Sparky had no trouble keeping up with). She suggested we get a treadmill and put a treat at the end, because he would be jittery all day if he didn’t get enough Running Around Time

He barked the entire way home, which was an hour’s drive

For explanation on why the barking is relevant, he was a very loud boy. A loud and somewhat high-pitched boy.

He was also very intelligent. Not necessarily obedient, but intelligent. He did know how to sit pretty/beg though, which he did every time he wanted something

His time in Minnesota was also his Peak Bastard Years.

On my first attempt to walk him (I was age 5 and thus small) (it was winter) he pulled me right down an icy hill adjacent to the backyard, straight into my aunt’s dog’s frozen piss (at the time, my family lived in my aunt’s basement)

He barked so loudly and frequently that he had the cops called on him once. Sparky was not home at the time so he got away with his crimes

During this time, my dad taught him to go down the slide at the local playground, which was delightful

One time, when I was in kindergarten, he happened to be in the car when dad was dropping me off. Sparky had learned which button opened the car window, so he pressed it, launched himself out the window of the parked car, ran right into the school, and had a wonderful time zooming around the hallways while my dad tried to catch him

Once at a birthday party, he horrified my friend’s dad by Having An Erection. Keep in mind this is a dog he was worried about. Said father asked MY dad if “you could maybe train him to stop”. (Sparky did not stop.)

Then my family moved to a rural area of [province redacted], Canada. He now had a large backyard to run around in, so the bastardry lessened somewhat (but not entirely).

We kept upgrading the fence, but he kept finding new ways to escape and hang out with/get into barking matches with the neighbours’ dogs.

We also got another dog, Stella. She’s a pug, she’s a delight, and she and Sparky became partners for life. They cuddled, they fought, they had a healthy sex life, committed food theft together, etc

He really enjoyed hiding under blankets. This is cute until you realize that he was small, and so sometimes he was very well disguised. Several times, I set down on the couch only for an angry pile of blankets to erupt from beneath me

Sparky caught several rats in the backyard, which was kind of upsetting for me, and he also once caught a bee, which was upsetting for him

We once brought him to a casual dog race for the fun of it, but realized pretty quickly he was not well-trained enough to succeed. He was by far the fastest dog there, though— we found this out when he decided to run at full speed in the opposite direction to the rest of the dogs, because he wanted to chase down a dragonfly.

A few years ago, one of our other dogs, Taylor, wandered off and got lost. She has the dog version of dementia and her solution to “I don’t know where I am” is just to keep walking forward. She managed to get stuck in a bush in the woods. Just when my parents were about to give up on finding her, Sparky bolted off into the underbrush and led them to her location.

Even in old age, he continued being excellent. He barked at birds, enjoyed Stella’s company, and loved to curl up with his favourite toy in front of the woodstove

The last thing he did, at age 16, was to use his remaining strength to bite a vet

Sparky’s message to the world: look death in the face. break rules. get bitches. enjoy the wonders of life. bite your enemies.

#my posts #cw animal death #grief sucks. sparky lived a good life and I mostly wrote this to remind myself of that. #making this list was comforting.