A Dog's Intuition

It was relatively easy to choose which dogs to take on Tony’s last walk yesterday. I went with the “Smith Street Family,” deciding on his mother, Dawn, and his half-sister, Adriana.

The plan was that once we finished our four-mile hike, we would drop T-bone off at Donna’s so she could transport him half the way to Indiana, where she would meet with his new family. Leaving the house for the last time with Tonymeant gathering his food, blanket, leash, and paperwork.

Normally, once the dogs hear their leashes jingling, they group by the kitchen door, waiting to go to the car. But yesterday morning the second I grabbed their ropes, Adriana and Tony bolted in the opposite direction, through the doggie door and into the backyard. They ran to their favorite play spot, my old garden, and sat there, side by side, not moving a muscle when I called and called for them.

Over the past five months, as Tony matured from a nursing puppy to a thirty-pound hellion, his friendship with Adriana grew stronger and stronger. Those two became a pair of original gangstas, chasing down moles, chewing up sticks, digging holes, eating worms, tearing up flip-flops, rolling in mud, and staying in the yard until well after dark. Without a doubt, Ade will miss him the most.

I had held my tears in check all morning, but when I saw them sitting in the garden, as though protesting, I lost it. I don’t know if Adriana and T-bone were responding to me collecting Tony’s things, or if they smelled my anxiety and sadness, but they were acting like they knew when we left Tony would never come back. I felt both angry and awed. I was mad that they were making leaving so hard, but I was amazed at their intuition.

Finally, I walked outside, tears in my eyes, wanting to keep them all but knowing I can’t. Tony and Ade stayed still as statues while I leashed them up, not moving until I led them to the car. Once inside they curled up together on the too-small passenger seat and spooned for the entire ten-mile ride into town.