April

What an inscrutable, schizophrenic people we are.
In one moment, we show great care for a species (canis lupis familiaris) we have subjugated and domesticated. We build doggie health spas and salons. We hold comedically elaborate shows to display them. An eccentric widow leaves her entire estate to little Scrappy...
Then we go out and gently murder 10,000 of them. Every day. The ones we don't want. The schizophrenic part? The business of "breeding" new canines is just BOOMING! Hunh? Have we lost our MINDS??
Well...yes. If you meet a dog breeder or "pure bred" purchaser who claims to lovvve dogs, you should investigate their psyche to find what they really love, to which end that dog is merely an expensive means.
Today, i come to tell a tale of the sweetest, grumpiest canine in the world. I don't want to tell you her breed, as that would feel like this conversation:
OSCAR: Bill, have you met my new girlfriend?
BILL: Zowie! Ooh la la! What the hell is she, negro/native american mix? Ohh, they've got a sweeeeet temperament!
But April's stock is interesting, she's a collie/lab/basenji (no curly tail). Often when i tell her story, people think she should be "put down" immediately. You decide.
I take care of April for a friend who works long hours and takes frequent business trips. He's had her for seventeen years, and dotes on her. For most of her life, it's been just the two of them, so she's quite devoted. She's also the queen of the universe, so this devotion has limits. She's generally not interested in idiot humans who want to pet her, including him (she may be mellowing a bit in her dotage, as occasionally she'll suffer one of us to give her a stroke or two).
But she can also be quite the obliging goofball, like when she allows us to balance one of her rope toys on her head. You might come back five minutes later, to find it still there. And when there are suddenly several people she likes in the house...don't tell me dogs can't smile. She beams as she bounces around. She's an irrepressible foodie, often whining in miserable impatience as you make her meal.
She's also the greatest object lesson i've even known in aging gracefully. Would that any of us will face death with even a fraction of her carefree spirit. For the marks of mortality are well upon her. She's stone deaf...but it hasn't made her paranoid, she just trots along. Her sight may be a bit diminished, but she hasn't missed a biscuit yet. Her back legs are pretty arthritic...sometimes she slips backwards on her butt when ascending stairs. Bladder-wise, she has almost no control, but she abides the diapers and showers with reasonable indulgence.
The time i'm most proud of her is on walks. She loves being out and about. Life is one grand sniffiesta! Bushes, food remains...poop is a gold mine, she could waste an afternoon on a nice turd. She gives lots of strangers a sniff too, and even lets a couple touch her. Some people espy her old age, but occasionally she's mistaken for a puppy. At the end of many walks these days, she's so happy about something (Food? Carpe diem? The return of FIREFLY to the airwaves?) that she starts straining on her leash a hundred yards from home. I'll run with her a bit, then let her off leash when we get to our street. She zips ahead, white tail bobbing.
So should she be killed? Me, i'm happy she's around. One more spot of cranky joyfulness in a weary world.