Our dog Raggy was a part of the family before I was.
I was my parents' firstborn. The origin story I got growing up was mom was lonely while dad was at work, that first year of marriage when I was on the way, so he bought her a puppy.
In our fundamentalist Indiana church, the women weren't allowed to work; they were helpmates (a term derived from how the King James Bible puts it in Genesis 2:18), which meant housewives in our church's 1980s interpretation. Women weren't even allowed to drive, so I imagine that mom, in her early 20s, at home all day with no kids even to look after, probably was at loose ends and lonely.
I'm not sure a dog really provided the sense of purpose and fulfillment that meaningful work would have, but the idea was to fill the void.
Raggy was a Heinz 57 mutt, as my dad put it. He was a mix of who knows what breeds, but poodle was definitely a part of it; he had the kinky white coat. He was a small dog, but an actual dog, not like one of the miniatures you see around today; he stood not quite as high as a toddler when they're first learning to walk. There were nine babies in the family after me, so I'm sure that the image I'm using for comparison comes from a few memories. We probably all used Raggy as a prop for pulling ourselves up when learning to walk; thankfully he was long-suffering, even when tiny fingers were laced through his fur, pulling.
He was always there, part of the family, and we kids kind of took him for granted. In many ways he was our parents' dog more than ours. We didn't play with him all that much. I can't remember ever throwing a ball for him or anything like that. He had a sock, knotted closed with two rolled up socks inside it; my dad played with him by pulling on one end while Raggy pulled on the other, growling and getting all worked up. As I got older I played that game with him once in awhile.
Mom was in charge of caring for him, of course. She delegated some of that; we had a chores list on the refrigerator with assignments that rotated weekly; “Feed and water dog” was a line item. The big job was hers, though: giving him a bath and a summer haircut. He hated the bath, so it was a struggle for her to catch him and get him into the water. There were a few times he escaped and trailed soap suds through the house. Then, after he was clean and dried, it was time to get him to lie still while she cut his quarter inch curls down close to the skin. That took some time, because she didn't use electric clippers; she used scissors, the same ones she used to give us kids our summer haircuts.
Raggy could be a fearsome protector. One time, when we lived in town and I was no more than seven, a neighbor kid came over to play baseball with us in the backyard. This didn't happen very often; in fact, it's the one time I can remember when a stranger had entered our backyard to play with us. Raggy certainly wasn't used to it. When mom, not thinking anything of it, let him out he backdoor, he was like a white streak going after that kid. I remember him stretched out in a flat line, both feet off the ground, doing a superman impression. The kid was playing outfield, close to the chain link fence, and he got over it … but then Raggy just leaped over the fence like it was nothing, something he had never done before. He chased the kid halfway down the sidewalk toward his house before mom managed to call him back and get him corralled.
Raggy stayed with us through three family moves around northern Indiana, leaving town for two different places in the country. I must have been 14 years old when he died, which would have made him around 15, or 105 in human years. He was old for sure; in the last winter he was with us, mom and dad we're carrying him out the backdoor to relieve himself, he couldn't walk down the back steps himself. I think, looking back, it would have been humane to put him down during the few weeks it took him to die, but my parents didn't do that. He died a natural death, laid out on the mudroom floor on a couple pillows right next to the heater.
I was with him. There had been no discussion of the fact that he was dying; we all acted like he was sick. And, at 14, I was still true to the Christian faith I was raised in: I was 'laying on hands to heal the sick' (Acts 28:8, among others), praying and petting him while he shook and struggled to breathe. Then he took one last breath and was still. I had no idea he had just died. I went and told mom that he was healed. I still remember her exclamation from the mudroom while I stood in the kitchen, and the almost accusatory look she gave me when she came back in the house crying and told me he had died.
I no longer consider myself a Christian; the fundamentalist, faith healing paradigm I grew up in is long behind me. However, I do believe that my prayer for Raggy's healing that day was answered, if we consider that death is an end to suffering. His struggle to breathe was over and his shaking stopped.
I remember his final breath as a peaceful sigh, a release of the pain he was going through, which is a healing.
Cover designed in Canva, using their stock photo as background.
Text written by 
Creative Coin banner designed by @ pacolimited.