Eyes That Freeze Your Soul!

Last year, we laid my son’s service dog, Blakelee, to rest in the front two acres of our property. Blakelee joined Leyna, our giant schnauzer, and Hero, my in-laws’s miniature schnauzer in what is quickly becoming our own private Pet Sematary.

Blakelee was 12 years old. He and my son practically grew up together and shared many exciting adventures. Blakelee always played sidekick in whatever dynamic duo Camden dreamed up. Camden would even dress Blakelee in costumes—complete with masks, of which Blakelee was never thrilled—as they roamed the house and woods in search of pirates and zombies and bosses to battle.

We were sad to lose Blakelee, but it was time. You could tell just watching the poor guy that he was miserable and ready to quit. We did what we could to make his last few months comfortable. We snuggled with him and let him know he was loved.

After his passing, our family (and when I say “our family”, what I really mean here is me) vowed there would be no more dogs. Blakelee was awesome, yes, but all that hair…ugh! Part retriever, part lab, that dude was a SHEDDER. There wasn’t a single article of clothing in the entire house that didn’t have hair on it. It was so bad that I would literally cringe whenever someone said they were coming over. “Oh please don’t,” I would tell them. “I’m happy to meet you somewhere else. Anywhere else. Antarctica you say? Cool. I’ll book the next flight.” So embarrassing.

My wife already had another dog, Mercy, a malinois/shepherd mix. Mercy is great, but she’s also kind of an idiot. She barks at chipmunks. And falling leaves. (Did I mention we live on ten acres of woods?) Blakelee had the shedding and Mercy has the barking. After a year, Blakelee’s furballs are finally (almost) all gone, but there’s still Mercy’s barking. I really didn’t want another animal to take care of. I had things I wanted to do like, you know, SLEEP. But also much more adventures of my own. Camden is the last one at home, and I’m looking forward to taking Wendy hiking and biking and vacations and, you know, doing fun things with no kids and no animals to worry about.

Also, Camden always complained about taking care of Blakelee. You’d think we were asking him to cross Mordor with The One Ring just feeding Blakelee and letting him out to pee. We can’t takes the precious outside today, my love, the rain burns us! Plus, you know, the Pet Sematary was starting to get full. We add one more animal up there and, who knows, the city might make us buy a permit and rezone the front lawn or something. Crazier things have been known to happen.

No more dogs.
That was it.
Morgan was putting his foot down.

So, naturally, eight weeks ago Wendy brought home a new puppy and we welcomed Aspen into the family. Aspen is an Australian Koolie, something about a mix between a shepherd and some dingoes, although if you ask me I think they made a mistake and bred her mom with a hyena. She’s gorgeous to look at but seriously cray-cray (think Ed from The Lion King). Sometimes she lies down at the foot of the bed, rolls her head back (at least it doesn’t twist around on her neck like an owl or, you know, Damien) and just … stares … at me. She has these icy blue eyes that just burn twin holes straight into my soul. “I’m waiting for you to fall asleep.” I know that’s what she’s saying inside her satanic puppy head.

So Blakelee had the shedding. Mercy has the barking. And Aspen has the exorcisms. I’m terrified now of one day laying her to rest in The Pet Sematary. We’re really asking for trouble here.