This day is always a sad one for me. The day prior to the above picture being taken, Floyd was diagnosed with cancer of the bone. A tumor was destroying the bones of his right rear leg. Great Pyrennes, being a large breed, are too massive to try to get around on only 3 legs. Floyd was so large that the neighborhood kids use to argue as to whether he was a polar bear or whether he was a dog. Though weighing in around 170 pounds, he was mostly fur, but actually quite skinny under all that fur. He was our gentle giant and a very loving companion. So, on March 7th, I drove him early in the morning to the local vets. Ruthie met me there and as we held him, the doctor administered the lethal injection. Floyd looked at me one last time with those beautiful brown almond shaped eyes, and then his eyes closed and he died.
When I was recovering from a MRSA infection resulting from a hip replacement in 2011, I began a book of poems dedicated to my wife, Ruth. I call it The Book of Ruth. The poems chronicle our courtship, our early years of marriage and so on all the way to 2011. In it is the poem I wrote about our wonderful dog, Floyd. While the poem is about Floyd, the poem is addressed to Ruth. She, growing up on a farm, had no time for pet animals. So instead of a dog or a cat, the kids had birds, rodents, fish, and a lizard as pets. I think the lizard broke her resolve, and she finally conceded on the kids having a dog. We did our research, presented it to her, and she ignored it all. She picked up the official AKC book of breeds, looked at some pictures, saw a picture of a Great Pyrennes and told us that this was the dog. I remarked that our house and yard were too small for a dog that size. In fact, you can almost saddle a Great Pyrennes and ride it. Ruth was unrelenting. So we got Floyd and he changed our lives for ever.
Here is the poem.
PASSION AND DEATH – FLOYDRMOOSE
Six years earlier, a ball
of white fur, a point
of a tail dabbed in red.
“Red” is what they named
him to differentiate him
from his siblings, “Green,”
“Blue,” “Yellow,”
“Purple” and “Orange.”
Farm girl objections
and convictions of
dogs as outside
not inside animals,
years preventing,
and oddly creating
a cavalcade competition
of seed spitting birds,
rodent masquerades
of hamsters and gerbils,
and slowly lumbering
iguanas as family pets,
bringing you to this
capitulation, or is it defeat?
Man’s best friend wins,
fevered searches,
thumb-worn resources,
American Kennel Club,
scoured and searched
for the perfect dog.
The equation laid out,
tall, big people equal
tall big dogs, a direct
logical defiance of a
poster stamp yard.
Befuddlement ended,
a magnificent photo
of a mountain top dog,
a giant white canine,
lion’s mane of hair
olive-shaped brown eyes
as tall as the mountain
upon which it stands.
“That is the dog!”
your word final,
the quest begun
to end here finding
this diminutive ball
of white fur with the
eagerly wagging
red-tipped tail.
Variances for fencing
sought and got
the little creature
home, little knowing
how hearts would
be captured, and
who really owned who?
You, the alpha dog,
the queen of his heart,
laying at your feet
in expectation, you
christened him,
a play on “Fliedermaus”,
a bat? Hardly, a
moose, FloydRMoose
he became, a 170 pound
behemoth, muzzle resting
on the kitchen counter,
eyes intently gazing,
carefully gauging,
meal preparation,
for bacon, or cheese,
a pound of butter,
the NutterButter thief.
Adoration, yes,
greeting you, his
great head bowed low
raising it under your
nightgown, his black
broad nose, coldly
nestling the warm
skin of your voluptuous
bottom, a “Get your
nose out of there!”
ringing through the house.
Adoration? Infatuation?
or merely opportunism?
taking my empty spot
in the bed, his head
on my pillow, spooning
you as you lay on
your side, you wondering
if it were I breathing
heavily into your ear.
Neighborhood debates,
loudly argued among
the younger residents
as to him being a
Polar Bear or dog.
The diminutive postal worker
glancing nervously sideways
at the huge white creature’s
great bark of welcome,
frozen in fright as he
nosed open the screen
door to sniff her, later
weeping at his death.
Photogenic, his broad
open smile dominating
every picture, our
Beth, dwarfed and
forgotten by his
side in her graduation
pictures. His resounding
voice originating from
the dew claws on his
back feet, catching
the attention of the
unaware, the long
strings of drool from
each corner of his
ear to ear smile,
the shake of the
great white head sending
the strings in flight
across the room to
land on people,
sofa and chair.
Hot summers draped
over air-conditioning ducts
on the floor, like a
pile of snow on
a hot July day.
In winter laying
across the bottom
of the outside door
catching and trapping
the cold, seeping air
in his thick white coat.
Water, especially lake
water his dreadful
foe, memories of near
drowning off boat
docks and dramatic
rescues his paws
clutching desperately
around the neck
of Meg as she pulled
him from a watery demise.
Bath water an equal
foe, much preferring the
dirt under the deck
or his lips colored pink
from the red artificial
apple ornaments he mistook for real fruit.
Ear mite infestations,
unwelcoming the drop
of medication in his
ear canals, the heart
worm pills disguised
in cheese and bacon,
the large Dairy Queen
vanilla cones, his
favorite anytime treat,
his blown, white undercoat
resting on the deck like
a foot of snow in the Spring,
prime nesting material,
providing a soft layer
of spun comfort for the bottoms of mother birds.
Six years later, here
we are, the sudden limp,
the cancer eating at
the bone of his right
rear leg, the visit
to the doctor, and
the grim diagnosis.
Too massive to move
on just three legs,
the stark alternative
inevitable. Julius Caesar’s
Ides of March not
nearly as bitter as
this Seventh of March.
The painful climb
into the back seat,
one final ride to
the Vet he loved,
instincts intact,
nose active urine
inspections at the
entrance, we walk,
together, through
the door. You pull up to
the building, this woeful,
awful task to not
be mine alone, we lift
his beautiful, massive
white body onto the table.
The shot is administered
and he falls gently into
eternal slumber, as
beautiful in death
as he was in life, and
heartbroken, we weep.
© 2015. Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
