There was Fred, the one before Max.
Fred actually belonged to my wife. Having grown up with dogs as she did, I would've expected her to research the breed thoroughly, talk to breeders, get medical checks before she bought one. She did none of that. Instead, she let her heart do the window shopping and got Fred at a pet store years ago at Beverly Center.
When she held him, he spoke to her and said he needed to come home and live with her. Which coincidentally is the same way I wound up here.
I'd always been more of a big dog person. But the thing about Fred was he had no concept whatsoever that he wasn’t a big dog. He’d take on anything: Great Danes, Dobermans, Pit Bulls, FedEx drivers. Fear just wasn’t anything he knew about it. He was a great burglar alarm. Nothing got near the house without us knowing about it. And since Cairn terriers were bred to be ratters, we never had any trace of vermin anywhere near the house (not that we do now, but when Fred was around they didn’t even think about it).
The one downside to having a Cairn terrier was the way people reacted to him. As if it was the most original comment in the world and they were the very. first. person. EVER. to think of it, they’d inevitably say, “Oh look, Toto.”
Toto my ass.
Fred was a fighter, a lover, a guardian angel. He had a sense of humor. As he got older, he was also a cranky old man. He’d lay at the foot of the bed, and when you’d touch him, like a squeeze-toy he’d emit a “grrrrrrrr” letting you know exactly how happy he was about being touched while trying to sleep.
Fred's time to go came two weeks shy of his 17th birthday. Truthfully it probably came sooner, but none of us, especially my wife, were ready to let him go.
When we went to the vet for the final time, my daughter held him while he got the shot. We all cried - sad that he was gone, happy he'd live such an outstanding life for so long (17 is 119 in dog years).
The one thing I've learned is it doesn't matter whether I own a small dog or a big one.
They all seem to have the same giant heart.
