June 5, 2009 – 11:43 pm
I recently watched a surprisingly entertaining movie: “Marley and Me”. Based on a book by the same name, it chronicles the life of a married couple and their lab, Marley. The story follows Marley’s outrageous behavior from the time he is a puppy onwards. The end of the movie is difficult to watch for any dog owner (or former dog owner). As Marley was sadly put to sleep, I reflected on my own Marley.
His name was Dongo and I was one-hundred percent obsessed with him. He was a Bernese Mountain Dog and my parents had to put him to sleep at the early age of about seven years old. I was living abroad at the time so I never had the opportunity to say a true goodbye to Dongo. After he died I reflected in the form of a lengthy journal entry, in the form of a stream of memories, most of which I have decided to share below. It may be long (and poorly written), but I hope you make it to the end. This is as honest and pure of a blog entry that I could ever hope to write.
“I wanted to take some time to remember Dongo and to talk about some of my memories of him. I remember when I first saw him back in the summer after my freshman year of high school. My uncle had already picked him out as ours from a cousin of mine whose wife is a breeder of Bernese Mountain Dogs. My sister and I were in Switzerland and went to see Dongo for the first time. The entire litter was cute, but he was especially cute! He was the biggest and he had huge paws and was really clumsy when he walked. We played with him and picked him up, but soon he had had enough and went underneath a little bench to hide from us!
We left knowing we would see him again soon. A few weeks later my uncle arrived in the US with Dongo! We had looked through an English-Hungarian dictionary to figure out his name and finally came upon bumblebee, or Dongo. Random, but I guess he did look like a big, fat bumblebee in some ways!
He was the new star of the neighborhood and everyone came to see him. He was so cute when he ran after something in the grass, hopping like a rabbit rather than running like a dog! We had a great time with him those first few weeks and he was adorable in the way that he would lie down with his hind legs sticking straight out, rather than tucked in! The first few nights he yelped and cried when we put him in a cage for the night. Definitely not easy to hear!
My next memory is of Dongo peeing all over the kitchen and living-room when someone came home because he would get so excited . This was especially the case when he had been alone for a while!
My relationship with Dongo was one of friendship right off the bat. We wrestled and played like brothers. I rolled around on the ground with him and he playfully bit me, but NEVER hard! Even if he got my fingers in his mouth, he would only nibble on them.
He also loved to run after things like balls and toys, but of course wouldn’t bring them back. And getting something from him was almost impossible.
We had quite a bit of snow that first winter and by that time he was already fairly big, having grown into his paws. We had a blast together in the snow, with more wrestling and fighting than ever, only this time with snow balls included! It was great!
From the beginning Dongo was a big baby. He easily got jealous and if my mom or I would hug someone else, he would jump up on his back legs and join in on the hugging! He also would yelp like a baby if he was petted in the slightly wrong way. The he would always want to make up because he though he had done something wrong!
He also had a unique relationship with our cat at the time. When Dongo first arrived, our cat was scared to death of him and basically lived upstairs for like a year! Then one day, which I clearly remember, he marched downstairs as if to reclaim his territory and from then on things were fine between the two of them.
When the last of our three original cats died (the same one from above), my mom got a new cat, who is afraid of all of us except my mom, but she loved Dongo! She always would go right to him, meow, and even rub up against his legs! Dongo would mostly give her a quick smell and nothing more.
In his first few years, Dongo picked up a very bad habit of eating everything. The major problem was with socks! He had to have three surgeries because socks or some other object was stuck in his intestines and couldn’t get out. Each time was nerve-racking for us and one of the times he almost died because of internal bleeding after the surgery. Our vet was able to save him, though, and luckily he survived. Gradually, he grew out of this stage, but he continued to enjoy eating tissues for some reason! If just a corner of a tissue was sticking out of someone’s pocket, he would snatch it out! He also knew exactly when he was doing something wrong. If you caught him with something in his mouth that he knew he shouldn’t have, he would look at you with big eyes and mouth tightly closed, no longer chomping, to see if he could fake us out!! Then one of us would extract the object, usually paper or a tissue!
As high school moved along, Dongo and I had the same routine every morning. I would be the first one up and come downstairs and tell Dongo not to come into the hallway! Then I’d let him out to go pee and he would run outside as quickly as possible because he knew breakfast came next. I would get his food ready, give it to him after I told him to sit, and then race into the living room to turn on Sports Center, jump onto the couch and get under a blanket before he would come barging in! When he finally did, he would be so excited he would almost jump onto the couch with me! I’d make him sit and then lie down and he would roll onto his stomach to be petted. Then when I went to eat breakfast, he would have his head underneath my left arm, while I ate with the right. Every morning for two years we took part in our little ritual. When it came time for me to leave for college, we took part in a new ritual. That of coming and going!
Beginning in the fall before I left for school and continuing until I came home from graduation, we took part in our new ritual. Whenever I had to leave for school and I tried to say goodbye to Dongo, he truly ignored me. He wouldn’t look at me or even really acknowledge me! When I came back, though, it was a different story completely. We would meet out on the front lawn, and he would come charging out to great me, whimpering with happiness!! He would stay by my side for the rest of the day. It’s the best, most pure greeting I have ever or will ever receive in my life. I am sure of it. I loved, LOVED coming home.
Dongo really was a baby at heart, though. He hated, detested, and despised water! Whether one small drop, or especially puddles, which he would jump over while on a walk after a day of rain! He also hated the phone and would growl if you put the phone near him! When I was gone, though, and my mom put the phone to his ear he would actually listen to me and his ears would perk up! Even as late as the past few weeks he did this.
I loved going on walks with Dongo in Goddard Park, which I did often the past couple years. Also, I loved watching movies while petting Dongo for hours. He was funny at night, though! When he got tired, he had enough of being around people. He would always leave and if it was summer, go to the cool tile floor in the kitchen. If you tried to pet him some more, he quickly moved away to another place!
Every night at dinner, Dongo would lie down under the table on my dad’s feet! Every night. Even if we were in the dinning room, where he wasn’t allowed, he would lie down in the kitchen with one paw inside the room as if to be as close as was allowed to us! He loved being around people, especially new people. And if he noticed that the new person didn’t like him, he purposely went straight for that person until he was accepted, and only then would he leave that person alone, after a quick hello. He would do this for years, as with my friend Derek, until Derek finally started to like Dongo. Then Dongo left him alone! Time and again he would do this with people who were either afraid of dogs or who weren’t dog crazy like our family was!
Dongo also had his crazy and untamed side! There were certain times when he would absolutely flip out when he was out in the yard. He would race around back and forth, changing direction, and then tear up grass from the yard!! We never really figured out the cause of these bursts of energy, but they were hilarious to observe! He also loved to make himself comfortable when he napped in the house. His favorite position was on his back with his legs up in the air, dangling. He also liked to snuggle up against the couch in various ways, of which we have some great pictures.
A random story involves my friend Derek and I, and a mini-football. Dongo got hold of it, and in the ensuing chase to try to get it back, he of course swallowed it! This was bad news since he had already had a few surgeries and couldn’t really afford more. The vet had told us that if something like this were to happen again to give him some hydrogen peroxide, so we did. We were saved and got lucky because a few minutes later, he threw up the ball as we had hoped!
Another random memory- whenever we went on walks, we would let him free, but he always wanted to have us in sight and would always check!”
Well you’ve made it to the end, and now for the fun part. PICTURES!!!
Tags: dog, movie
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