This one goes out to Uluru

There’s something wrong with Uluru. I’ve noticed it for a few years now. Whenever I take him on a walk, he gets really tired about halfway around the reservoir. His back legs start to shake and I can hear the toenails of his back paws scraping the cement with every step, like he doesn’t have the strength to pick his feet up. I feel the increasing drag on the leash, as he walks slower and slower until he stops. I look back and see him frozen, panting.

Sometimes I encourage him, I call his name, pull the leash and try to get him to keep pace. Other times I stop, bend down over his haunches and massage his quivering legs until they stop. Typically he gets better over time. During my many extended visits to my brother’s house in California, Uluru would seem to build up stamina. He got stronger with each walk.

Ayer's Rock / Uluru

Uluru is my brother and sister-in-law’s dog. He’s named after the word the Aborigines use for Ayer’s Rock – the big sandstone formation in the middle of Australia. It’s just like my brother, Eric, and his wife, Sonnet, to name him something so obscure. People in L.A. tend to do that. Eric and Sonnet are also architects sensitive to shape. The contours of Ayer’s Rock reminded them of the folds and wrinkles in his face and skin.

When they got Uluru from the pound 10 years ago, he was so funny looking that he was cute. He had rust-colored fur, a long skinny body and a big blockhead. My Aunt Cathy, who has a fondness for nicknames, called him, “The Head.” He was one of those dogs that people always stopped to ask, “What breed is he?” They’d pet his head and stroke his ears as they asked. He was a magnet that way. We always said we didn’t know, that we guessed part Shar Pei but weren’t sure of the rest.

Uluru was a clumsy dog, never good at catch. As a puppy, he made a half-hearted effort to chase a ball, but would give up halfway and you’d end up fetching the ball yourself.  He wasn’t very coordinated and seemed just fine with that.

That’s the thing about Uluru. He has a royal air about him. Like he used to guard castles in China during the Ming Dynasty. He’s an alpha male, but not in an aggressive, menacing way. It’s more of a quiet composure. Whenever I take him to the dog park, he loves seeing the other dogs. He rushes in, sniffs a few behinds but pretty soon wanders off by himself. Other dogs often join him, lapping the dog park in step with his leisurely, long-legged pace.

He doesn’t have much patience for the hyperactive little dogs that scurry to and fro, kicking up dust and riling up the other dogs into a frenzy of chase, nipping, barking and scuffle. Uluru steers clear of all that. Whenever a dog invades his space, he fires off a warning sign: a big ferocious bark.

I never worry when I hear Uluru’s booming bark across the dog park. He is the embodiment of the cliché – his bark is bigger than his bite. Then again, I’ve never seen a dog challenge him once he has resorted to his warning bark. They all back away and Uluru resumes trotting around the dog park by himself, then spots me watching him from across the yard. He runs to me with slobber dripping from his heavy jowls as I grab his big head and embrace him, scrubbing my hands down the shank of his body toward his haunches while he looks up at me like I’m the embodiment of heaven.

Uluru and Koi

Much to Uluru’s dismay, he isn’t an only child. Six years ago, Eric and Sonnet decided to get a companion for Uluru since they worked such long hours and worried he was lonely at home all day by himself. So they went back to the pound and came home with another mutt. This time the puppy was part pit bull and something else, possibly Dalmatian because she was all white with black spots on her underbelly and some black spots on her flank and one over her eye like the dog from Our Gang. They named her Koi, after the exotic fish.

In the beginning, Koi was a high-energy menace. She chewed everything, including the expensive plants Eric spent hours using to landscape their backyard. She jumped on Uluru and tried to play. Uluru wanted none of it. He nipped and barked to keep her in her place. Soon they settled into resigned coexistence. Uluru tolerated Koi and Koi idolized Uluru, following him everywhere and mimicking his every move – even peeing on the same bushes and trees after Uluru had made his mark.

One thing I have always liked about Uluru is that he likes baths. He and Koi spend a lot of time in the backyard rolling around in God knows what. So whenever I arrive for my semi-annual visits from Chicago, it’s one of the first orders of business before our daily walks. Eric and Sonnet now have two kids – Helix and Arya – and not much time to take care of the dogs while juggling demanding full-time jobs, preschool, play dates and household chores.

Helix, Uluru, Koi

The dogs are relegated to their pad in the backyard, which makes me sad. I understand why it happens and have seen it many times before. A couple gets together, gets a dog. The dog becomes their baby. They take it for walks, feed it organic dog food, and let it sleep in their bed. Then they have their first child and all hell breaks loose. The dog knows, deep in its haunches, that it’s not the baby anymore.

So whenever I visit, I try to pick up the slack. I fill the tub with warm water, take off Uluru’s collar and he jumps right into the tub. Thank goodness because he’s so big, I would have a hard time hoisting him in. He closes his eyes as I use Helix’s bath bucket to pour the water over his legs, back, neck and face. I put on rubber gloves, squeeze squiggly lines of flea shampoo up and down his back and start scrubbing as suds and dirt and fleas float on the top of the bath water.

When I’m done, I rinse him twice to get all the shampoo out. Then I gingerly guide him onto the bathmat, where I rub him down with a towel from head to toe.  I put his collar back on and lead him 15 feet to the front door, praying he won’t shake. But he always does, splashing water all over the hallway walls and wood floor. Out in the backyard, he continues shaking out the water. I bring a clean towel and rub him down again before repeating the same routine with Koi.

After the bath, you can tell that Uluru feels so much better. He prances around and becomes super affectionate, rubbing his clean fur against the side of your legs. Then we head out on our 3-mile walk. Koi, who’s six years younger, has a ton of energy and can always keep up. Uluru gets winded the first few times out, but eventually gains strength.

***

Uluru today

A few weeks ago my brother called to say that Uluru’s hind legs have given out and he can’t stand up. He’s been wetting and pooping on his pad. Eric took him to the vet, who said it appeared to be nerve damage in his spine, likely the result of old age and being a larger breed. With nerve damage, there’s apparently not much you can do.

My eyes welled with tears as Eric told me that he now has to carry Uluru up and down the stairs to get him from the backyard into the house.

“How was he when you took him to the vet?” I asked.

“Oh you know Uluru,” Eric said. “He was stoic.”

That broke my heart. I cried as my mind flashed to him lopping around the dog park, his head held high and his chest pumped out so that everyone knew just how important he was. But not in an arrogant way. More like an inborn confidence that comes from somewhere so deep inside you don’t have to flaunt it, you just know it.

“So what’s next?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

“It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?” Eric said.

We both sat in silence.

“He’s such a good boy,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Eric, sounding detached.

“Well let me know what happens,” I said.

Then we hung up.

Four more weeks have passed and Eric is still carrying Uluru down the stairs each day to put him in the yard before he goes to work, and bringing him up the stairs into the house once he gets home. He and Sonnet are deciding whether to put him down at home – there’s a special service that will do it but it’s twice the price – or take him to the vet. Last weekend Sonnet was ready to make the appointment and asked Eric, “Saturday or Sunday?”

Eric couldn’t do it. He couldn’t decide which day he should kill his dog. It’s a terrible choice to make when Uluru is alert, eating and soaking in the extra attention he’s getting in his final days. If he were human, we’d just put him in a wheelchair or something. But he’s a dog and nobody wants to see him lose his dignity or struggle through the day with too much pain.

It’s a tough call. One I know many of my dog owner friends have had to make, especially those with big dogs, which tend to die much younger than the little ones. I remember when my friend, Aixa, who had a series of Great Danes, had to put one down. It was really hard. She loved that dog. The final straw came when Portia could no longer lift her head. Aixa put her in the car and drove her to the vet for the last time.

Uluru, Arya, Koi

“I think you’ll just know when it’s time,” I told Eric over the phone a few days ago. “For both of you.”

I asked him to let me know when it happens. So far I haven’t gotten the call. Regardless of when the end comes, I’m forever grateful for the brief period that I got to wash, walk, rub and sit quietly with a member of royalty who was never too full of himself to lick our hands and love us with all of his heart.