Behind the glass wall and the "DO NOT put fingers into treat holes!" sign, I didn't think Joey was very cute for some reason. He was just another Chihuahua, albeit a 24-pound oversized one that was definitely mixed with something bigger, and I didn't think much of him at all. But I'd been to this shelter looking for a dog so many times over the course of a few weeks, I figured I'd give him a shot.
"What about that one?" I disinterestedly mentioned to the shelter worker while pointing at him through the glass wall, which was so dirty and fogged up by licking and panting mutts, maybe that's why I couldn't see him clearly enough to realize that he was, in fact, the cutest dog to ever walk the face of the earth.
A few minutes later, Joey was brought outside to meet me, and as I knelt down to be on his level once he approached me, he stood up on his hind legs and placed his front legs on my shoulders, an unprompted and completely unexpected hug that I of course would have rejected had it been from a human, but from him, it was an instantaneous emotional and physical bonding that I'd never experienced before. The purity of such unprovoked affection and love bonded us immediately, and it would last a lifetime. Granted, Joey had done this 15 times earlier in the day to each and every lonely sucker he was trying to cajole into adopting him, but he knew I'd never know this! Clever.
Joey struggled to stand on his hind legs to hug me 13 years later, and towards the end, I needed to place one hand on his stomach and another hand on his back to provide enough support for him to reach my shoulders. Even then, it was only doable for a couple seconds before he'd need to plop back down, as opposed to summer 2012, when he'd stand there hanging onto me for as long as I'd let him, often licking my face or my neck or my head, all at the same time. A true multitasker.
Joey was a little over one year old when I adopted him from the San Francisco SPCA on August 18th, 2012, and he died on April 16th, 2025. 14 years is a very "respectable age" for a dog his size and breed, his cardiologist told me. He had developed mitral valve disease during the summer of 2020, and all the heart medications and check-ups kept him symptom free until the last month of his life and, specifically, until last Wednesday morning when he went into cardiac arrest. This happened while he was at the vet for a routine visit, and the stress of being there likely caused his heart to give out. The only thing Joey vehemently despised, other than squirrels, was going to the vet.
I'm told Joey's death was painless and over in a few seconds, and the hypoxia made him unconscious and unaware of everything. The doctor and a few vet techs performed CPR for 20 minutes, but less than 10% of dogs in cardiac arrest are brought back to life.
I don't want to blame myself, but given I brought him in for a vet visit that wasn't urgent, it is ultimately my fault. Just as it would've been my fault if we didn't go to the vet and his heart disease progressed further for the next few weeks until he ended up going into cardiac arrest in the living room. That would be my fault. Maybe he would've gone into cardiac arrest tomorrow while outside chasing one of those squirrels (incidentally, this would be the fucking squirrel's fault, not mine). Or, as he coughed and refused to eat and struggled to breathe and lost control of his bladder for the next six months as his condition worsened, it would be my fault as I made the decision to euthanize him and end his suffering. Suffering that he, thankfully, never really had to endure before he abruptly checked out last Wednesday morning. Did he make it easier for me this way? Clever.
If there were a fairy tale saccharine version of this ending, I'd like to think he gave me so much love, his heart expended all of its resources, and he was no longer able to be there for me as he's been every day and every hour since that summer day in San Francisco.
It went something like this: Four months in San Francisco, seven years in Long Beach, two and a half years in Palm Springs, a couple months in Huntington Beach, three years in Laguna Hills, a couple of cross country road trips and a few dozen hotels from eastern Oregon to central Nebraska and everywhere in between and up and down. I've measured our love and our life by time and space to give things more permanence. I keep telling myself: 13 years. We had 13 years together! (It was actually only 12 years and nine months.) I try to make it seem like it lasted longer, to remind myself and everyone else that he was actually 14, because he was already over a year old when I got him! My cousin, his veterinarian, once told me after an x-ray that Joey, who was only 6 or 7 years old at the time, had "old dog lung," which indicated that he could've been even older. Maybe he was already two or three years old when I adopted him, and the SPCA was off by a year or more. Maybe he was 15 or 16 years old when he died. That's even more respectable, the cardiologist might tell me. I want to tell myself that I wasn't robbed of any extra time. The reality, of course, is that three more years with him still wouldn't have been enough.
At times over the last 72 hours, I've been really fucking scared because I have no idea who I am without Joey, but then I remember that, actually, Joey is still here. David Lynch in a BBC Interview:
"I believe life is a continuum, and that no one really dies, they just drop their physical body and we'll all meet again, like the song says. It's sad but it's not devastating if you think like that. Otherwise I don't see how anybody could ever...just disappear forever. I'm sorry but it just doesn't make any sense, it's a continuum, and we're all going to be fine at the end of the story."
To Joey: Thank you for creating a better version of myself that I never would've found on my own. Thank you for lying on the couch next to me and riding in the car with me and sitting underneath my desk and walking with me everywhere and waiting beside my bed that you couldn't jump on anymore as the arthritis took over. Thank you for trying to get my attention by softly growling when you had to go to the bathroom but I was asleep so you went ahead and pooped on the new rug. Thank you for saving me time on doing the dishes by eating the scraps and the crumbs off of every plate I accidentally left on the table, except for that time when you ate a grape and I had to spend $600 getting your stomach pumped with charcoal. Thank you for rubbing your face against my face and under my chin and lying on top of me so I couldn't move because you knew that I really didn't want to move anyway and deal with whatever idiocy was outside our walls. Clever. Thank you for giving me 13 years (12 years and nine months) of a perfect life, for knowing when it was time to leave, and for being the greatest gift this world has ever given me.
