Dog is my copilot
And he farts.
“C’mon, time for bed. Let’s go big chachootzy. Let’s go pee.”
Like most of us, Cyrus has a bedtime routine. Typically, he sleeps on the big dog-bed pillow thing in front of the sofa much of the evening, while Sacha and I have dinner and watch a show. Around the time we check our phones, send a few texts, start thinking about heading upstairs, whatever weird sixth-sense dogs have kicks in and he opens one eye and watches us. He’s aware of our movements, our bedtime routine. Sacha’s usually upstairs before I am and Cyrus often waits for me. I fold up my iPad, or turn off the phone, and I switch off the lamp. He watches me as I stand up and collect the glasses sitting around, whatever’s still left out from dinner.
“Come on Cyrus.”
I do that ‘tchk tchk’ thing people with dogs do, that dogs seem to inherently understand. He looks up. He knows it’s time. He lifts himself off his bed, which these days is a struggle, limps through the living room, the dining room, across the slippery wood kitchen floor, past his food and water bowls (takes a quick glance, just in case), and stands at the door while I load the last of the stuff into the dishwasher. I open the door, and he sort of controlled-falls down the three steps to the back yard patio where he then climbs up onto the dead part of the flower bed we set aside for him, it’s like a dog litter-box, and he pees.
“Come on big chachootzy. Let’s go to bed.”
Cyrus used to make it up the fourteen stairs to the second floor in what seemed like three big leaps. This strong, fast, athletic dog. Anxious as hell, but so graceful. He’d get to the second floor, Sacha brushing her teeth, or reading in bed already, and he’d want to play.
“Where’s your toy? Go get it!”
Or maybe, “are you kidding me? It’s 11:00pm.”
One of us would toss his toy around and play tug-of-war for ten, fifteen minutes. Just to “tire him out” though he never seemed tired out. His “toys” are the half-dozen shredded remains of squeaking ducks, and purple furry things; basically pieces of fabric that used to be a proper dog-toy, and even though they are now unrecognizable as such, Cyrus knows that they are his. He would chomp down on them, his jaws a vice grip, and shake the thing around, trying to kill it. Tug-of-war is his favorite. I’d grab one end of the smelly, damp piece of cloth that used to be a squirrel, he’d have the other clamped in his teeth, and we’d pull. He’d snarl, and I’d growl, and he’d look at me right in the eyes. I looked right back, daring him to pull harder. Anyone who didn’t know this routine would think he was about to murder me. We’d stare each other down for a minute or two, then I’d let go, giving Cyrus the victory. He’d turn and prance, shaking and killing the furry piece of cloth again before coming back, ready for more, tail still wagging.
He doesn’t really do that much anymore.
I wash up, brush my teeth, and climb into my pajamas. Sacha is reading, Cyrus is in bed. If he’s anxious, and he is often anxious, he’ll lick his leg, his pillow, his bed. But eventually he’ll go to sleep. We listen to him snooze as we read. I could listen to him snooze all night.
A few years ago, on colder nights, Cyrus started a new routine. He’d get out of bed, maybe 1:00am, maybe 3:30am, who knows, and he’d stand and stare at me in the dark. Whatever sixth sense I have would wake me up, understanding that something had disturbed the force in the night, and I’d climb out of bed. He would turn, walk back to bed, lie down, and wait for me to tuck him in. Yes, tuck him in: I would cover him up with one blanket, maybe two. Then I would climb back into bed and listen to him snooze.
If we’re lucky, we get to hear Cyrus dream. He’s sound asleep, eyes closed, covered by a blanket, maybe two. First his paws start twitch, then his legs start moving as if he’s running. Sometimes his whole body convulses, like with a seizure. This always worries Sacha, but if you watch the rhythm, the movements, you can see that, lying there in bed under the covers, he’s actually running. He’s chasing the dream-rabbit or the squirrel or maybe he’s just running across a field like he used to do before the arthritis and the tumors. He barks. Little yips at first. Then these awkward sleep-yawps. He doesn’t howl, thank god. Sacha and I usually both wake up and once we realize he’s only dreaming, we sleepily laugh. The noise at the foot of our bed slowly settles and grows somehow distant, as if he’s passing on by, making his way down the road, chasing whatever he’s chasing in his dream. And then he’s quiet, and we listen to him snooze.
We got Cyrus, Cyrus got us, in October 2009. The kids, who are now 24 and 23, were so young back then. Sacha and I were young back then. We’d just moved in together two months before. When I met her, in 2005, she had Jake, her big Golden Retriever, who crossed the rainbow bridge in 2008. She also had Harry, who came with her when she moved in with me. I had the kids, of course, and the kids had Miss Kitty, who was permanently temporarily living with us, borrowed from the kids’ mom “for a while.” And I had Tarzan, a kitten I’d adopted in 1992, back in Texas, before moving to San Francisco, before moving to Philadelphia, and Tarzan was 18 years old in 2009.
We found Cyrus through a Pitbull-rescue foster something something that Sacha found via Facebook. Or maybe it was a friend of hers who told us about him. I’m not sure. He came into the house that day, 75 pounds, two or three years old said the vet, full of energy and teeth and tongue and his tail and my god what were we thinking when we fell in love at first sight? But he was ours and we were his. Tarzan, god bless that cat, was to have none of it. We found Tarzan two weeks later hiding in the bathtub and drooling. He was 18, mostly blind, and prone to bouts of dementia. I suspect he’d have gone sometime soon, but I also suspect that the arrival of Cyrus made things much less tenable for the guy.
Miss Kitty and Harry, on the other hand, staked their claims, and Cyrus quickly learned that they were here before him and while he could have ended their reigns on the third floor and first floor respectively, he left them alone, and returned the favor. Miss Kitty and Harry are gone now too. We kind of miss cats, and we kind of have mice in the kitchen, but there’s not a world where Cyrus would allow a new cat in the house at this point. We can wait.
And we can wait.
It’s now autumn, almost winter, 2023. Seventy-five-pound pittie/hound mixes don’t often live to be seventeen years old, but here we are. We have what is for all practical purposes a 119-year-old man living here in our house with us. He’s stubborn. He is set in his ways. He complains about his arthritis. He makes weird noises when he eats. He farts and he has terrible breath. He gets up and walks around at 3:00 am. Sometimes he falls down. He costs us a fortune in doctor bills (ask me about the acupuncture someday). We thought we were going to lose him back in March when, one morning, he wouldn’t get out of bed. By that afternoon he still hadn’t moved, so Sacha called the vet. I lifted him into my arms, I carried him down the fourteen stairs, across the living room floor, and out to the car. The vet gave him a steroid shot which he hated so much that he stood up and walked out of the veterinary clinic on his own. I cried the next day when I was telling my students about it. Neither Sacha nor I expected him to make it through the week.
That was eight months ago. Things have definitely changed. He no longer takes a daily three-mile walk. His last one of those, in fact, was the day before he wouldn’t get out of bed. He has a really bad limp now. Maybe arthritis, but maybe there’s a tumor in his right shoulder. We don’t know. It wouldn’t be his first tumor. Nor his second. He has a benign growth the size of a tennis ball under his left rear leg, and a hard malignant one on his right rear knee. His paws hurt. He has teeth issues. His entire body is lumpy and bumpy and wrinkled. We know he’s mostly deaf and he has cataracts. He waits for us at the top of the stairs to assist him going down, and he likes some support under his bottom when he’s limping his way up. He rarely walks around the block any more. Just 100 yards or so one way, turn around, return. But it still takes just as long. His nose works just fine, and this time of year all the neighborhood dogs pee in all the leaves, and i guess that just makes him happy.
This last summer we made Thanksgiving plans to visit my sister in Seattle. We’ve decided that he’s too much work for a dog-sitter and we made the plans assuming that, you know, he wouldn’t be around. As summer turned to autumn we moved those plans up to Christmas. Now that’s on hold. Back in March, when we thought we were about to lose him and Sacha wanted to know how to know, the vet gave us four signs to watch for:
does he poop regularly? Check.
Does he pee? Yes.
Does he eat and drink? Very much so, yes.
And does he wag his tail when he sees you? Yeah, he does that.
Right now, as I write this, he’s asleep at the foot of the bed, tucked in, under two blankets, and he’s snoozing. And I could listen to it all night.
What is this, anyway?
Hello, I’m Brian Biggs. I’m an illustrator, writer, and designer in Philadelphia.
This is the first proper issue of my new newsletter, Random Orbit, and I appreciate that you’ve read this far. When I first started telling friends that I was putting together a newsletter, more than one asked me whether it was going to be about illustration or about bikes. I always answered “yes.” But also about teaching, and writing, and music, and the weather, and, as you’ve figured out by now, about my dog. I am an illustrator but I don’t put illustration in a corner and look at it, separate from my life. It’s my work, but it’s more than that, and it’s all part of some tasty, blended-together stew. I suppose this newsletter will often be about a new book, or a new drawing, or some art supplies that I love. But just as often it will be about that tree that I saw while riding a bike. I think they’re related. Hope that’s okay.
What’s new?
Speaking of new books and new drawings, here is a little piece of a book I wrapped up this week. It’s one of the hardest books i’ve illustrated, and that’s saying something. I’ll tell its story later in 2024 when it close to being published (by Putnam, who are very good at the publishing thing). But in the meantime enjoy these construction pigs and animals in cars.
Lastly, I want to try to recommend other newsletters, or other writers and artists, with each issue of Random Orbit. I start here with two good ones.
Cecil Touchon is an artist who works in typography and collage in Albuquerque. His newsletter, Touchonian, is usually about these things. But not always. I love his work.
Jacob Souva is an artist who makes children’s books in Upsate New York. His newsletter, Drawing a Blank, is about drawing and reading and making. This week it’s about a crock-pot.
If you’re in the USA, have a great Thanksgiving. If you’re somewhere else, have a great something else.
-Brian
Oh man, stories about old dogs always destroy me. 😭
Hey Brian, Thanks for the mention! Now that you are rolling I mention yours. Much appreciated. Talking about dog toys, an artist friend of mine KATIE C. GUTIERREZ sent me a book she had made called Loved to Death that was a photo book of all of the torn up dog toys that her dog hand turned into things only an artist can love. It was a great book. It was on blurb but now I can't find it.
She wrote about it: "The inspiration for this book came from one of Sukie’s favorite toys, a bee with rope legs and an obscene stinger that we named “The Beenis.” After snickering endlessly at the demise of his stinger, I began to notice that the manner in which most of the dog’s toys met their end was pretty humorous. Lammie’s ears. Glowie’s lips. Mr. Froggie’s ankles. The beloved suede mouse belonging to our cat….all loved to death."