Love and Loyalty

I just finished reading Marley and Me by John Grogan, and while I'm not going to write a review like I typically do (there are already thousands out there and by the way, it's a fantastic book) I'd like to share how it's affected me.

I've written a few times before about me own lab puppy, Boomer. She's a handful, as most puppies are. Destructive, playfully rambunctious, and fully of life. I love that dog, sometimes against my better judgment. I was working the office a few days ago and Boomer was in the hall chewing on something. Now, I should know better by now that more than half the time, she's chewing on something she shouldn't be. When I got up to go downstairs, there Boomer is, happily thumping her tail against the carpet while she is shredding my uniform hat to pieces. The bill was completely shredded, the sweat band gnawed on, and the plastic snap adjuster was gone all together.

Boomer looked up at me, those puppy eyes of hers saying "hi dad! Look what I found!" I was upset, but only a little because obviously I'd left the hat someplace it shouldn't have been and she found it. But now I have to take the shredded evidence into my boss and explain to him how my dog ate my ball cap and I need a new one.

The point though, by reading Marley and Me about John Grogan's struggle with his ill behaved lab, I've come to accept that this is how Boomer is. She's a lab with tons of pent up energy and usually no place to channel it. I love that dog no matter what she does. And I see that love and loyalty reflected in her eyes every time she looks at me.

I'm a dog person, and as a whole, we have a place in our hearts for dogs in need. Several years ago, shortly after I became an EMT, I responded with my fire department to a fast moving grass fire on the beach with at least one injury. The fire itself turned out to be small and fairly slow, so I was tasked with taking care of the gentleman who had tried to put it out--and was consequently responsible for setting it in the first place.

After lighting a cigarette, the man had carelessly dropped the match into the dry beach grass, setting it ablaze instantly. Alarmed, the man tried to stamp out the fire, but the fire jumped to his denim jeans and began burning at his lower legs. Running out from the immediate area of the fire, he tried patting out the flames on his jeans with his hands and was eventually successful.

As we arrived on the scene, the patient was on the promenade, smoking another nervous cigarette, with scorched and tattered jeans and burns to his hands and lower legs. What struck me the most though, was how he tended to his 3 month old black lab puppy. There was no doubt this little pup was this man's whole world, in a very literal sense. He was a transient, without insurance, and unwilling to go to the hospital to be treated. It wasn't the inability to pay that was keeping him from going though, it was his unwillingness to leave his pup behind. This man's love and loyalty for his pup was so great that he would put up with the pain of 1st and 2nd degree burns rather than leave his pup behind. We made a rare exception for the man, transporting him and his pup to the hospital, as he was in urgent need of medical care.

For me, a dog inspires such a rare type of love and loyalty between master and pet. In reading Marley and Me, in my interactions with my other volunteers, coworkers, and patients, I've come to learn that I'm not the only one that feels this way. I love my pup for who she is and I look forward to her growing up, and her ever present love and loyalty.