It was shaped like a Turkey leg and was a most unappetizing gradient of orange and yellow. I remember it smelled sweet of soft vinyl, the way a Madam Alexander doll does. Like any chew toy, it made the most horrendous of squelches when ever it was squeezed and released. Christy however, wouldn't settle for that. As he did with almost every toy he ever got, he chewed at the weakest part until the squeeze was rendered useless by a larger hole...

I remember the first time I saw him, it was mothers day I was around 12 years old, my sister had to have him... the chocolate clump huddled in the far corner away from his brothers and sisters who, true to form, where jumping over one another and yapping in only the way a small dog can; vying for attention. He wasn't having any of that, choosing instead to nap while letting them do all the work. This quiet nature was the reason my sister chose him out of the others, well this and his unusual chocolate brown coloring. needless to say, that was the last moment the little dog was ever lazy or quiet.

It was odd at first, I had always seen those dogs on TV that loved to play fetch. I'd never run into a living dog who had much, if any, enthusiasim for the game. Christy changed all that. He loved it, would do it endlessly. It didn't matter if it was raining or 112 degrees. Whether it was dawn or approaching 2 in the morning. He would bark relentlessly until you picked up his toy and chucked it into the distance for him to retrieve and come running back to drop it at your feet... only to begin barking again.

It was this, infatuation with fetching and toys that would cause most of the grief in the little dogs life. One day about 2 years after that mothers day my sister picked him out, he spied a little toy in the backyard across the street. He went to retrieve it. While he was trying to get a toy that he thought was his, the two Rottweilers that occupied the yard found him to be an interesting toy. The end result wasn't pretty, there was surgery and stitches, bother internal and external in an effort to return his guts to their proper place...

The squeeze toys went away after that. He was allowed the turkey leg, but that stayed inside, away from the larger dogs that were in the neighborhood. His obsession re-centered, on tennis balls this time; and only in the safety of our back yard. We would move some four years later, amidst a swirl of foreclosure notices. We landed at my aunts house. Here too, was a dog that enjoyed fetching stuff, though not as much as the rambunctious little chocolate colored ankle-biter.

They got on pretty well for a while. No incidents. No accidents. That was until they both lunged for the same tennis ball one night. Christy got the ball. Moose, the part Husky mostly mutt, got Christy's head.

Chrsity lost an eye that night...

It didn't diminish his lust for chasing and retrieving his ball though. It would just take a moment longer if it escaped his field of vision. Loosing an eye couldn't take that from him. The only thing that could was the further passage of time, as he slowly became deaf and mostly blind in the eye he had left. Still though he'd give it a go as often as he could.

That ended yesterday. He barked all morning. Kept it up until about an hour before he laid down and went to sleep for good. Sounds like he was looking for one last go. One last round of doing what he had loved so dearly, no matter what it cost him in life. For being so little, and a dog, he lived life right doing what he loved for as long as he could no matter the cost.

We should all be so lucky.

I'm oddly content. He was old, and getting worse as the weeks passed, it had been most noticeable this last year. His back seemed hunched, and you could tell he relied on smell for everything. You could call him and he wouldn't respond until you tapped your foot on the ground. It was just his time. Two decades is a long time for a little dog who had been through as much.

Still though, there is a void. it grows ever more palpable as the hours progress and the noises of the yard are filled with silence. Absent is his bark, the one that for so long called someone, anyone outside to throw his ball for as long as he could stand. I wonder if he is now content in this endeavor...

Steve