True confession: I am not a dog person.
You will never find me stopping to pet a stranger’s dog at the park. I don’t enjoy making small talk about dog breeds. And i find the majority of dogs i have met to be loud, dirty, and unapologetically needy. Even though I am not a self proclaimed dog-person, here’s the funny truth, for the past almost 17 years I have been a dog owner. and I fell absolutely head over heels in love with this dog. And this week we shared a final goodbye.
My sweet Legolas, my first baby, was put to rest on Wednesday morning. My heart breaks thinking about life moving forward without him so I wanted to share a little bit about him. Here is his story.
Legolas and i found each other in a nonconventional way. oh yeah, did i mention his name was Legolas? as in Legolas Greenleaf, the immortal elf from Lord of the Rings. he came to me with the name, so let’s begin our story there. go grab some popcorn and kleenex, this is a long and sappy one.
2003
it was july of 2003. my sister and future brother-in-law were sleeping one night in their rental home in Columbia SC as burglars entered and robbed the house. everyone was okay, but rather than moving to a safer neighborhood, they decided the best course of action was to get a dog for protection.
enter Legolas. he was a mutt. born on the streets of Columbia, his father was nowhere to be found and his mother being a mutt herself, resembling what the pet shelter could only describe as “part cocker spaniel or field spaniel.” however fast forward a few years and, spoiler alert, he looks nothing like a cocker spaniel! my vet always suspected he was part hound due to the fact that he rarely barked but instead would howl if the mood struck him. most people we encountered have asked if he was a hungarian viszla or a red labrador. so maybe there was some of that too. we will never know.
he had the cutest pink button nose, floppy ears with a dent on the tip of the left ear, and the biggest eyes that changed colors almost daily. no other dog ever has or ever will look like him.
my sister said they chose him because when they saw the litter of puppies, each yapping at the front of the kennel, there was one little runt, sitting in he back. he was the only one not begging to be picked up and instead was sitting quietly in the corner with a “do not mess with me” expression on his face. the same expression he wore until his very last day. “that’s the one,” they said. they named him Legolas after their favorite Lord of the Rings character and they took him home.
2004
fast forward a year later. it was 2004 and my brother-in-law was being deployed to Iraq. between a recent move to new jersey, new marriage, new job, and now her new husband being deployed, my sister decided Legolas needed more attention and stability than what she could offer. i was a super-senior at Clemson, meaning i had met my requirements to graduate and was only sticking around another semester to get prerequisites for grad school. so i said, “sure i’ll do it. i’ll take your dog… just for a few months while you get settled in.” Legolas was a year old. he stayed with me in Clemson for the semester and then after christmas he headed back to new jersey.
2005
i will never forget the day he became mine again. it was now 2005, i was living in charleston in an old historic house on spring street. my sister amanda drove down to visit me with Legolas in tow. i was so excited to see my little buddy once again. i never asked if this was her plan all along or if she could see the overwhelming excitement in my face but after a few minutes of her arrival she exclaimed, “you know what, why don’t you keep Legolas! he is yours… he has always been yours.” Legolas and i were once again living under the same roof and this time it would be forever.
2006-2016
i guess you could say Legolas watched me become an adult. he was with me as i caught my college boyfriend cheating on me which inevitably changed my life in all the best ways. he rode shotgun in my honda civic as i packed everything i owned and left clemson to start the next chapter of my life. he slept under my feet as i stayed up until 3am drinking red bulls and prepping for my grad school exams. he was at the foot of my bed on the nights i cried myself to sleep over broken hearts and obsessing over blind dates gone wrong. he was here when i bought my first home, brought home a cat we found on the side of the road, and then brought home a second dog charlie who would become the brother he never knew he needed. he was sitting at the front window with me when my now husband, Will, showed up to pick me up for our first date. and he was here waiting in the kitchen when we came home with our brand new baby boy, and then three years later a second baby boy.
he moved with me from clemson, to new jersey, to charleston. he has lived in downtown charleston, west ashley, and then would live his last years of life on james island. in all the times i moved around, Legolas has had 9 different doggie roommates. and he outlived every single one of them.
i think at times i took for granted his presence. he was always there. i mean RIGHT there. never barking, never jumping, never licking. just at your feet.
he was different from any dog i’d ever met. more like a human in some ways. if you took him to a dog park, he would find the one lady eating a granola bar and just sit by her feet. never cared to run and play. and if no one was eating anything that day, he would dig a hole and make what we fondly called “a nest” and would sit in it’s cool sandy clay.
he didn’t do any of the typical things you would expect a dog of his size to do. with the exception of his affinity for squirrels.
on one very warm summer day, he was doing his normal zig zag from yard to yard chasing the squirrels at top speed and forcing them up a tree, when one day he chased a squirrel up an old live oak. as we stood beneath its branches, the squirrel in what must have been panic induced confusion, leaped onto a very thin, weak branch and subsequently fell to the ground, straight in front of Legolas. i instantly thought the squirrel was done for. but Legolas looked down at the tiny creature that lay only inches from his nose and turned his head back towards me, tongue sticking out his mouth with the widest “grin” i had ever seen on a dog and with those expressive eyes of his saying “look! look mom! i finally got one!” and by the time he turned his head back down, the squirrel had already rolled over and scurried away. Legolas ran back to me still grinning from ear to ear. because for him, it was never about the catch, just the love of the chase.
we knew fetching would never be his thing. but he could do a mean “sit and give me high five.” it was his best and only trick. but most memorable of all was how if anyone in the room was being tickled or overtly laughing, he would run up to them, wrap his two front legs around their body and begin humping enthusiastically. it was embarrassing but also quite entertaining so we never really tried to stop him. and it wasn’t until sometime two or three years ago that we realized he no longer did this trick. but not because he didn’t want to, simply because he didn’t have the strength or endurance to pick his front legs up. some tricks i suppose were just meant for the young guys.
2016-2019
Legolas was the center of my world for so many years. but life changes when you bring home a baby. everyone tells you this but you always think you will be different. YOU will be the exception. but inevitably… your relationship to your pet changes. you get more annoyed with the stray dog hairs on the floor as your new baby starts learning how to crawl. when life starts to gets chaotic and you need to calm things down, putting the dog out in the backyard becomes an easy fix as you quietly rock your baby to sleep. he would wait at the kitchen gate for me as i scurried past to grab a burp cloth and a bottle, without paying notice to his aggressively wagging tail. as the babies got older, Legolas got less walk, less attention, and less one-on-one time. and i will regret that for as long as i live.
2020
although he lived to be 16 years and 10 months old, he had a relatively very short medical history as he never had any major issues. no allergies, no injuries, nothing. he was truly the easiest dog. but the past year or two he began showing signs of aging. first it was his hearing. and then his vision. he also developed a doggie version of COPD and would cough at night as he tried to fall asleep. you could just tell he was uncomfortable. most recently he had a slipped disc with swelling in his vertebrae and even after this improved with a course of steroids, he still had trouble walking from time to time.
the dementia started this past year. he stopped following even basic commands and answering his name. he would look at me and then look away, almost as if i was a stranger to him. he would walk into flower beds and just stop as if he couldn’t remember where he was trying to go. and when i would pet him, he would get startled and back away. for a dog who lived for belly rubs, this broke my heart in so many ways. he also started soiling himself all around the house, but not because he couldn’t get up and walk out the back door to poop but almost as if he simply did not care or understand any more if he was inside or out.
we talked, we called the vet, we prayed, we cried. but we knew Legolas… the sweet Leggie that we loved for so many years… was already gone. and he wouldn’t want to continue life this way.
so now as i write this, there is a Legolas sized hole in my heart. not the part of my heart that loves dogs, but a spot that always beat just for him. the part of him that always made me feel at home. no matter where i was or what else was happening in my life, the highs and lows, the celebrations, the relationships, the best and the worst of times, Leggie was there. right at my feet as if his sole existence was to be ready for a snuggle anytime i needed it. he was my comfort, my constant… he was my home. and i loved him so much. i hope he knew that. xx
