by Jon Katz
I called my daughter and told her Orson was dead.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “How are you?”
“Okay,” I answered.
“It must have been hard,” she said.
“No,” I told her quickly. “Not really. I made the right decision. I’m comfortable with it.”
And I wasn’t completely off. In a sense, I was comfortable with my decision. It was a good decision, well considered and thought through. Orson had bitten people, and I couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t do it again. I had spent many thousands of dollars on dog trainers, psychics, pills, shamans, holistic practitioners, veterinary druggists, and acupuncture. I even ordered him some calming medicine from China. Perhaps I ought to have taken it myself. There wasn’t anything else I could do for Orson.
Though I believed I had made the right decision, I had no notion of how to process my grief. I didn’t know how to say goodbye, how to mourn the things I lost. I didn’t know how to show that pain to other human beings—an essential element of healthy grieving.
I resisted telling the people I loved how much I hurt, how much I mourned for this troubled dog. There is a community of grief where countless millions have been, dwell, or will go. When it comes to animals, that community is vast; its shared sense of pain and loss is palpable and deep. But what is it that makes the community more than something intangible, more than an idea or a notion? How do we find it? Join it? Make it real?
I think we can become a part of this healing community by acknowledging grief and loss and pain. By asking for help. By opening up. By coming to consciousness, permitting the loss and welcoming grief, revealing it, respecting it. By understanding the loss without succumbing to it.
By not allowing myself to grieve Orson and discuss my loss, I skated over the experience and failed to see its significance. The death of Orson was a watershed moment in my life. It deserved attention and respect. My reaction to his death said much about me: how closed off I was, how vulnerable, how little I really grasped of my own life. I was afraid of my grief and wouldn’t allow myself to see why his death mattered so much.
I see it better now. Orson entered my life at a time of great need. And though he had his problems, he also led me out of a place I did not want to be and guided me to a new chapter in my life. He brought me to my farm. He brought me to a life that I loved, and a person with whom I loved sharing it. He taught me limits and boundaries. He gave me perspective. He forced me to learn how to respect myself and my own decisions—a great gift. All this I came to see in time.
Perhaps it is time for this particular form of grief to come out of the closet and into the open. The loss of a beloved pet can be painful, even devastating. Mourning isn’t comfortable, but it’s a natural part of the grieving process and helps one move on.
No one is foolish for grieving for a dog or cat. A pet is rarely “just a dog” or “just a cat”; he is often an integral part of one’s life, providing a loving emotional connection that has great meaning in a complex and cruel world.
I decided to write this book, sad reader—and if you’re reading this, you probably are sad—because I thought it might be helpful.
I want to help animal lovers grieve when their pain is great.
And find perspective when it is hard to come by.
And celebrate the lives of their dogs and cats as well as mourn them.
And then move on.
My wish in writing this book is, in part, to convey the idea that the loss of a beloved dog or cat or horse does not have to be the end of something. It can be the beginning, a process as well as a loss. It is a gateway to the next experience.
Aristotle wrote that to truly know how to love something, you have to lose something. In that way, every animal I have lost has been a gift.
I want to pass along what I have learned.
I hope it helps.
For Paula,
who loves dogs, but not this much
Acknowledgments
* * *
I thank my wife, Paula Span, who has shared this dog year and who spent so many hours reading and editing the first few versions of this work. As a friend pointed out, I am lucky in marriage and in dogs.
I am grateful to Deanne Veselka, owner and breeder of Wildblue Border Collies in Lubbock, Texas, for sending Devon and then Homer to me, and helping me to learn how to live with them. She opened a new world to me. I will take great care of her dogs.
I thank Dr. Brenda King for helping me face reality and deal with it compassionately; Ralph Fabbo for teaching me how to train dogs; and Carolyn Wilki for propelling me to the next level.
I am grateful to Kathy Hansen, Jon Stemmle, Karen Stohl, and the staff and students of the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communications, who welcomed Devon and me for a month and made us feel they were just dying for an odd border collie to hang around.
I deeply appreciate my neighbors and friends in Montclair, New Jersey, who make owning a dog a communal pleasure. I appreciate, too, my non-dog-owning neighbors’ forbearance at the not uncommon sight of manic border collies tearing across their lawns after a cheeky squirrel.
Ruth Coughlin has provided great support, friendship, and encouragement. So has Jeff Bates.
Brian McLendon has been a valued friend who provided encouragement and feedback. And thanks to Margaret Waterson, a friend and the co-owner of Battenkill Books in Cambridge, New York, who listened patiently to my stories about Devon and the Labs and suggested I ought to write them down. Bruce Tracy is much appreciated for his patience and deft editing.
I am very grateful to Richard Abate of ICM for taking me and this book on.
And I owe much to my daughter, Emma Span, for existing, for puncturing my balloons, for sharing my bizarre humor and my love of terrible movies and of the New York Yankees. She reminds me every day to keep laughing at myself and at life.
Jon Katz
Jackson Township, New York
June 2001
About the Author
* * *
Jon Katz has written eleven books, including six novels and five works of nonfiction. A two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, he has written for The New York Times, GQ, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, and Wired.
He currently writes about technology, media, and culture for the Web site Slashdot.org, and is a contributing editor to public radio’s Marketplace and to Bark magazine. A member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, he’s at work on his next book, The New Work of Dogs, to be published by Villard Books.
He lives in northern New Jersey with his wife, Paula Span, a reporter for The Washington Post, and their college-student daughter, Emma Span. Devon, it turns out, isn’t ready for herding, but delights in agility work. Homer and his owner have completed their herding qualifying tests and continue their training at Raspberry Ridge Farm.
Jon Katz can be e-mailed at [email protected] or [email protected].
ALSO BY JON KATZ
* * *
Dancing Dogs
Dog Days
A Dog Year
The Dogs of Bedlam Farm
Going Home
A Good Dog
Izzy & Lenore
The New Work of Dogs
Rose in a Storm
Saving Simon
The Second-Chance Dog: A Love Story
Soul of a Dog
The Story of Rose
Geeks
Running to the Mountain
Virtuous Reality
Media Rants
Sign Off
Death by Station Wagon
The Family Stalker
The Last Housewife
The Fathers’ Club
Death Row
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