On his last morning, Chip savored the spring smells around our backyard. After lunch, he and his best friend Thor napped on adjoining beds. That afternoon, they drove squirrels off our deck. 

Before sunset, however, he had a seizure—and was gone. With Thor, my husband Kyle and I beside him, he departed our lives the same way he’d entered it: swiftly and unexpectedly. He was 17 years, 2 months and 12 days old.

Chip was the last of 12 dogs that overlapped throughout our 24-year marriage. His mother, Yvette, was rescued from a snowbank and brought to the animal clinic where I worked. She needed a foster during the holidays, so I brought her home. 

Little did we know this waif with the soft eyes and visible ribs had a big secret. Three big secrets, in fact—all born on a Sunday morning in January 2007. Yvette and her sons, Robby, Chip and Ernie, found a home with us, with Robby eventually moving to Beulah with family.

Chip relished routine. He woke with the sun, enjoyed three meals a day, watched movies with us, went outside before bedtime and slept soundly through the night. Two weeks before his passing, a neighbor saw Chip and Kyle walking and asked me if we’d gotten a new pup. I laughed. 

“No puppies for us. We’re too old for that.”

A week after he died, I sobbed as I tipped the nearly empty vacuum canister into the dumpster. I didn’t miss dog hair. I just missed the four-legged senior citizen with the motion-activated tail and pointy ears who generated all that fur. 

Seventeen years of “undoings” was hard. Counting all the dogs that preceded Chip, it was more like 24 years of doggie undoings.

We’d never sought out a dog before. They always found us. But Oakley is the exception. 

 Online searches for a pooch were overwhelming, with so many dogs in need. I applied to the first rescue organization on my list and prepared to wait. My heart raced when I read the text from them the next morning.

“We have a boy who may be good for you, since you know dogs.” 

Oakley had gotten himself into a bit of trouble, as puppies sometimes do. He needed a home immediately. He is the first dog in our family to go to obedience school. As he acquires new social skills, my husband and I, as dog parents, are learning, too. 

Raising a puppy is a lot of work. But we’re slowly discovering that you can teach old humans new tricks. 

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