What I Learned from Linus
June 10, 2008 · Print This Article
Our High Calling Blogs project this month is to write about something we learned from animals. You can read more about this over at Robert Hruzek’s blog.
When Jeanene and I were 25 and had been married about a couple of years, we got a dog. It’s sort of a cliche, but yes, a dog was our first child. Perhaps we needed to practice. And so Linus came into our life. He was a salt and pepper miniature schnauzer, the runt of the litter.
I tried to think of fancy words to describe the depth of Linus’ love, but fancy words seem to diminish him. Linus loved us as dogs love their people - with complete and utter abandon. He adored us. He was always overjoyed to see us arrive at home. He never wanted anything more than to be where we were. His greatest thrill in life (apart from eating which I’ll admit did seem to be his first love) was being allowed to sleep on the foot of our bed, wrapped in odd positions around the lumps in the covers made by our feet. And when three sisters were born, one after the other, Linus patiently accepted them with grace and good humor, though he was always fiercely loyal with his love and gave it completely only to the two who raised him from a pup.
He loved us like a dog, which is to say with complete commitment, unwavering faith, and with a constancy that the fickle human mind is incapable of. We can’t love like dogs love, nor should we. A dog’s love for its human is like no other kind of love. All a dog asks for is that you be there for him, loving him back. A dog’s love is a very…fierce and uncompromising thing. There are elements of it that humble me - none more than the certainty it brings to life. If your dog loves you now, you can be certain your dog will love you next week and next month and next year, all the way until he or she dies.
And Linus did die, of course. As all dogs and creatures do. If his coming prepared us for the commitment that small children would require, then his passing prepared us for the hard decisions made in love that our adolescent children would need from us. He died in 2003, at the ripe old dog-age of 16. His final lesson to me was a painful one. For Linus trusted and loved me all the way up until the moment they put the needle in his skin and he laid his aged head into my palm for the last time. I wrote about his passing a few days later, back in the early days of my blog.
From Real Live Preacher - 2003
We said goodbye to Linus yesterday. He was a great dog, faithful and true for sixteen of the eighteen years we’ve been married. He helped us raise three girls and only ever wanted love returned in kind.
The last three years were hard for the “little boy”, as we called him. He had a number of ailments, and the quality of his life diminished greatly. I knew this day was coming; I knew we would have to make that last trip to the vet.
A good friend told me I would know when it was time. He was right. Yesterday morning Linus was sleeping at the back door and had something between a seizure and a dream. I tried to wake him, but he didn’t respond at first. I moved his head, and it was limp and heavy in my hands, a sad premonition of what was to come.
I sat and talked to him for a few minutes. “Little boy, how you doin?” I looked into his eyes, and I knew. I knew it was time.
The three sisters came home from school and said their goodbyes. There were many tears and a flurry of little girl hugs. These are the children who grew up on his watch. He was patient with them when they were babies, tolerating the pulled hair and awkward pats. Yesterday they were gentle, just as he trained them to be.
Then came the last car trip. He was trusting as always, laying his life in our hands. There was a somber conversation with the vet, and then she brought out a box of tissues and a needle.
For sixteen years I’ve held my left hand under his muzzle and looked into his eyes. I did this one last time while his head grew heavy, heavier, heaviest.
I liked feeling the weight of that heavy, shaggy head. It felt like trust in my hand. I didn’t want to lay his head on the tabletop and slip my hand out from under it. I didn’t want to.
Goodbye Linus. God rest you wherever it is that doggies go. God rest your faithful little bones. There always was a wonderful goodness in you.
Linus as a puppy in 1987.
rlp
Thanks, Gordon, for such a wonderfully touching story. Sounds like Linus was to you like my favorite dog Fritz was to me. I love that God gives us such great experiences with our pets - and great lessons for living life, too.
Thanks for contributing to the writing project, Bud!
Thanks, RLP. I have to admit that I got a little misty eyed. I am a divinity school student and my fiance and I got our first dog, rescued from a shelter, about 10 months ago. She is our baby, too.
That says it, Gordon. For a great many of us, I’m sure. We just had to make the same call in April with our 8-year-old girl.
Thank you for sharing it (again… I read it with new eyes now that our girl is gone).
I have two dogs that are both lab mixes–they too have nicknames Gabby is booger and Solomon is boy. Dogs are very special creatures they become one of the family with their own personalities and quirks and their love.
I am sorry about losing your dog and what an adorable picture.
becky
Good ol’ Linus. I have good memories of the hours he and Minnie would spend wrestling at our house, Jeanene telling him to “sheath that!”, and of course, the Glove. I still think of him whenever I am working in the yard and stop to play glove with our Schnauzers.
Tom
A very touching, bittersweet post. You were very fortunate to have Linus in your lives. Thank you for sharing.
[...] What I Learned From Linus, by Gordon Atkinson at High Calling Blogs [...]
[...] What I Learned From Linus, by Gordon Atkinson at High Calling Blogs [...]
Your story about Linus is deeply moving. My husband and I were not able to have children, so our Smokey (who is a schnauzer / poodle cross) is our one and only baby boy. You are so right about their fierce and single-minded love. (FYI, Smokey is the dog pictured on the “What We’ve Learned from Animal’s” home page. He favors his schnauzer side.)
I love Linus’s puppy picture. He was a real cutie.
As I said to Marcus, I’ve never cried so hard as the day we euthanized our pet cocker spaniel. I would have been about 37 at that time. I went to be “strength” for my wife because he was really “her dog.” The moment he was gone, I burst into tears and cried so hard that the vet didn’t charge us. Maybe he had never seen a man cry like that.
Thanks for your remembrance here. We do learn a lot from our animals, don’t we? Peace, Kim
This article was recommended reading (by my wife) as we are anticipating the final loss of our 16 yr old Shih Tzu, Scamper. My first wife and I fell in love with Scamper when she was 14 wks old, still in a pet store and they were wondering if they would have to put her down if someone didn’t buy her. It was love at first sight…and she consistently gave her love wholeheartedly to both of us, to my wife through 18 months of chemo and radiation, and especially to me as I sat crying in our family room after the angels had taken the love of my life to Heaven. She would sniff around the spot that her mom always sat on the sofa, then come to me whimpering…then see that I was crying and would patiently lick the tears from my cheeks. Now she’s still loved by two people who regard her as their child..and just as loving, although forgetful, partially deaf, with impaired vision. Still, she snuggles in my arms after supper, and yields to sleeping in my arms…loving and secure in our love. Someday she will either pass peacefully or have to be helped along…to join her mom and her predecessor Wiggles (a Tzu who lived to be 12) and her brother, Toffee (a Lhasa who died in his sleep at age 5 from a liver condition he was being treated for). The lesson is that no matter how we love our animals or our people, death is a certainty that will come to all of us. Our job is to be ready to meet our Maker, and to enjoy each moment of life, showing love to our people and our animals… Thanks for your story of courage!