A sign once read, "A good friend will bail you out of jail. A true friend will be in jail with you saying, "Damn that was fun."
I have had many "good" friends in my life. Many could even qualify as true friends. I can recall deeply loyal friendships in my childhood, buddies in Vietnam, brothers, sisters, my parents, business partners and relationships, friends in the band. In almost all of my life phases I have been fortunate to have developed high quality friendships. I love people....good people.
None have been closer than my ultimate best friend, Christine, wife and closest ally for over 40 years. Rather that tout about the obvious, there have been a few other true friends that hold a very special place in my heart...........the dogs in my life. I don't even like calling them dogs because that word has such a demeaning connotation. They were all deeply loyal and would sacrifice their lives at the drop of a hat. The following photos represent some of the best memories I will ever have:
This is Mike, the family dog in my early childhood. We were inseperable but he loved everyone. This is my little brother Dan playing all over him. He was so tolerant and loved all us kids.
Mike died of natural causes after a long and wonderful life with all of us kids. He was a true friend
Here's Mike again below. You can see how he loved me more than any other and visa versa.
There is an amazing story I need to tell about a little puppy I had in Vietnam. We named him Urbust for reasons I will share when I tell the story some time. In any case, I swore I would name my next dog Urbust when I got home. It happened just after Christine and I got married.
In the photo below is Urbust, our extremely loyal Irish Setter. He went everywhere with us including a 20 mile hike above the clouds where once arriving at our desolate camping detination atop a mountain he got into a porcupine. The quills hit him in the face, eyes, toungue and on his side near his heart. We couldn't leave until daylight and so spent the entire night pulling quills out with our teeth as many were embedded 90% of the way and our teeth were the only way to get a grip.
Urbust was hit by car outside the little farm home we rented and because were so poor we couldn't afford the blood transfusion to save his life. It was the worst day in our lives. We went into the vet hospital and when Urbust saw me the only movement was his tail swatting the steel cage bottom. It was so awful and I knew while he was so happy to see me that it would be the last time. I then gave the word and held him in my arms while he went away. I swore I would never get another dog. I just couldn't go through it again. Here's Urbust:
We were never to have another dog. Then we rescued Lillian, the only female dog we ever had. She was so adorable and became the family dog all through the kids' growing childhood. She was incredibly loyal and I loved her as much as anyone. When we managed Nestlenook Farm Inn she entertained the guests by running for miles along side them when they went cross country skiing into the mountains.
Back at the Inn she climbed trees. Everyone LOVED Lillian. She got her name when we asked the kids to give her a human name. As soon as they said, "Lillian" I knew it was perfect, my mother's name. Mom was not a fan of dogs in those days. (she is now...sort of as long as it's her dog). Being that our family is always looking for reasons to razz each other, I loved that of all things our DOG was the one child we named after my mother, not our daughter, our dog. (We never had a daughter anyway).
When Mom visited, the kids would sometimes call out, "Lillian". My mother would respond, "Hi Kids. What do you want?". I would then murmur under my breath just enough for her to hear me, "Not you Mom, the dog!". It killed her every time. We loved it and had a great time with it. Needless to say, it probably didn't bother Mom too much when Lillian left this world. She could get all the attention whenever "Lillian" was spoken again.
Here is Lillian climbing the tree in front of Nestlenook Inn: (the dog)
After 14 wonderful years Lillian had to be put down. It was such a reminder of the pain of putting down Urbust. How could we do this again? This time she was curled up on her favorite little bed in the living room. The vet would have to come to our house. She was not to die on a cold steel table but in her own home on her own pillow with her family all around her.
We laid on the floor kissing her in the face all at the same time. Christine, Justin, Tyler and me, pooring love as hard as we could all over this wonderful friend who never complained and always obeyed with extreme loyalty. How, after all that giving could the very people she gave this to put her away? It was so painful.
The nurse put the needle in and as she slipped away we sent a continuous flow of "I Love Yous" and other familiar unverbal sounds we use to make when near her. It was so special and we decided once again NEVER to have another dog........until
One day about 5 years later while up at Sky Ranch a stray dog, completely loaded with ticks, mange, skin and bones and bleeding feet came by and fell over just as he arrived. he was near death and the only thing we could do was take him to the vet, get him cleaned up, nurture him back to health and put him up for adoption. After all, there was NO WAY we could have another dog. They called when he seemed able to leave. We took him back to the house in case one of the local hunters lost his dog. The last thing anyone would do is take another man's hunting dog.
We put out all the flyers but nobody came. We kept him outside the back door in a plastic igloo. All of our pets were inside pets. I couldn't imagine leaving my kids outside in an igloo. Well, maybe at times the thought had crossed my mind. But until we found a home the dog would have to live in the igloo.
Then one day I opened up the back sliding door and coaxed him to come in. With incredible trepidation he put one little toe inside before the next one until his entire body was inside the house. At that moment Chrisitine came into the house from the garage after returning from the store. She said, "no you dont". I said, "Really?" She squatted to his face height and looked back up at me and without hesitation said, "OK". Here we go again. He was and still is a perfect gentleman.
We fed him and when he filled out he was a pretty big dog. So we named him, "Bob", Big Ol' Boy. He was about 10 months old. Justin had a little Jack Russell named, "Banjo" about a year older. They would become best friends for life and we consider both to be our children today. They both live together with us and nothing fills our hearts more than they do. Not until we had these true friends in our lives did we realize the canyon that existed from the loss of our other true friends.
Here's a few photos of these great buddies:
Banjo is totally focused on his ball. We don't even exist.
Bob always let's banjo get the ball but sometimes Banjo returns the favor.
Bob had both his eyeballs removed in 2009 due to some freakish disease. It broke our hearts. He gets around like nothing ever happened but here he is with his full sight and beautiful eyes. Not a mean bone in his entire body. The most docile gentleman of a hound dog. Just grateful to have found someone who cared and would never do anything to jeopardize it.
It doesn't get any cuter!!
This is my idea of true friendship!! We can learn a lot from a couple of dogs. They truly are man's best friend and a woman's best friend too and also each others' best friend. Now 11 and 12 years old, we are acutely aware of the immense pain ahead for us. This will be the LAST......Right. We'll see.