A Dog Taught Me to Live

Fidel had been looking for a labrador retriever puppy for months. He'd checked in quite a few pet shops but had not yet seen the one he wanted to take home. Last time he had a dog was thirteen years before, as a teenager still living at his mom's home in Mexico City. Back then he was a fan of pitbulls, but now he was craving a dog reputed to be exactly the opposite.

One day he was going to Lord Shiva's Feast at the Ganesh Temple in Flushing, Queens. He was no longer officially a Hare Krishna devotee, but he still loved to go to temples, occasionally. On the way, right in the midst of the bustling chaos of the commercial district, he saw a pet shop and could not resist. He went in, asked for labrador puppies, and the store clerk said they had just gotten eight. She showed him eight bouncy yellow fur balls. As seven of them jumped and yelped and ran around, one plopped down in front of Fidel and stared right at him.

Fidel named him Trigo. Wheat. He says it was Lord Shiva's present to him. But then he laughs and says that, sure, he had to pay hundreds for his "present." But still. He is grateful.

Trigo became the centerpiece of a circle of friends largely made up of struggling Andean street musicians and their ever-changing girlfriends. No one else had a dog, so Trigo got intense attention. Folks would show up at Fidel's door just to play with Trigo and bring him bones, squeeze toys, dog treats, the purple Barney cloth doll that became his favorite.

Every Thursday for six months, Fidel took Trigo to "good citizen school." It turned out Trigo was super smart, obedient and sweet tempered. Thank Xolotl and the rest of the Doggie Gods, because otherwise Fidel would have had a big mess in his hands traveling cross-country in a van full of cranky musicians and an uncooperative Trigo. But it was just the opposite.

Andean music took them and Trigo to California a few times. To Niagara Falls. Twice to Miami for periods of six months each. To Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado. They performed on boardwalks, on the street, at festivals, at pow-wows, in shopping malls and open-air plazas. Trigo was so good, that Fidel could even bring him on stage and not worry about him making a mess. He would sniff and look around, curious and observant, and patiently wait for the end of the set.

Trigo decided his spot on the van was on the last row, left hand side, so that Fidel could count on a pair of semi-closed eyes and wheat-colored ears flopping in the wind nearly every time he checked the rearview mirror. If anyone sat in that spot before Trigo did, he would come right up to them and just stare, panting, eager for them to get the message. If it was a new musician joining them, Fidel would intervene and explain: Perdona hermano, pero Trigo dice que ese es su asiento. Sorry brother, but Trigo says you're sitting in his spot.

And now that I mention the word "brother," I should say that actually became Trigo's nickname: Brother. Yup. Like that, in English, but with a playful lilt and emphasis on the "o," and turning "ther" into a near mumble, more like: brÓthrr!

Fidel's time as a Hare Krishna had introduced him to the beauty of simplicity and how little humans truly need in order to be happy. But it was Trigo that really reinforced the lesson. All he needed was water, dry dog food, to run and to be petted. That's it. Yet it was so easy to forget to put simplicity into practice. Life with Brother was for Fidel a beautiful daily reminder.

Some time went by and Fidel started thinking that their New York home base apartment was just not appropriate for Trigo. True, the dog needed very little to be happy. But he deserved more space, a yard. So Trigo was the main reason why Fidel started to look for alternatives and decided to move to Arizona. Eventually, Trigo was also key in Fidel's decision to move into the New Mexico house with the big backyard, which—fast-forward almost ten years—I also live in now. And Trigo was also crucial in the transformation of a flighty, happy-go-lucky, bohemian heavy drinker into the man I love today.

It was thinking of Trigo that Fidel brought home nine years ago a female black lab puppy he found on the street. She became the hyper-playful Onix who eventually had puppies with Trigo. Only one of those puppies was chocolate colored and that's the one that Fidel kept—a huge male named Mole who pretends to be fierce but is really an overgrown baby.

By the time I met him a year and a half ago, Trigo was eleven years old and having trouble walking. Though he had developed a grumpy streak that he expressed through constant barking, he still loved to be petted and was extremely sweet—except when it came to Mole. Trigo refused to give up the alpha male title. So even nearly toothless and hardly able to walk, he would bark up a hoarse storm and snap his jaws whenever Mole dared come near him. (Mole pretended not to hear him.) I loved what that said about Trigo.

I also got to love what Fidel's nicknames for his "cachorros" (he calls them all puppies) said about the cachorros and about Fidel himself.

Onix was Baby Onix or Gordita (Little Tubby One). Mole had an ever-changing list of names: ChocoLove, the Chocolate Guru, Osito de Chocolate (Little Chocolate Bear), Ternura Que Ladra (Barking Tenderness), and on and on. Trigo was simply Brother. Telling. Solid. Trigo got less frills, but his was the highest honorary title.

By last winter, Trigo couldn't get up much anymore. By the summer, he couldn't get up at all. So we had to be extra mindful and keep his water bowl always filled and within reach. He was too heavy for me to carry, so it was up to Fidel to get him out of the sun if it was too hot or out of the rain if it was chilly. Keeping him clean became a bigger ordeal. He seemed to be most comfortable outside on an earthy patch that could soak up his urine. Fidel carried him from patch to patch, as we cleaned up in his wake.

A few friends gently suggested Trigo was suffering too much and maybe should be put down. But Fidel was firm in his stance of caring for Trigo until he died on his own.

Still, Fidel asked me a few times what I thought. I was evasive. I had conflicting feelings. In theory, euthanizing Trigo seemed like the most humane thing to do. One day, I even went online and googled "euthanasia" and "older dogs." But my heart started pounding, I started crying and had to stop reading. If the thought disturbed me so much, I could only imagine how many, many more times more intense the process was for Fidel.

As fall settled in, Fidel asked that we brainstorm what to do. Last winter was hard on Trigo and that was when he could still move around a bit. So what to do as a new winter approached? We stalled and contemplated different ideas. Insulated dog house? Diapers? Keeping him indoors? Meanwhile, the fall routine was: At night, Trigo slept in the laundry room. In the morning, Fidel grabbed him under the front paws and carried him to a sunny dry spot. Come nightfall again, it was the same thing in reverse.

One morning Fidel surprised me by wondering straight out if the right thing was, in fact, to put Trigo down. We went back and forth on it but reached no conclusion.

Then a few days later, Fidel said—no expression on his face—maybe we should put him to sleep next week. And we did. That was the morning of October 17.

It was a heartbreaking process. Maybe I'll write about that at some other point.

I'll skip ahead to the moment we left Trigo's body at the pet clinic and were driving back home, both of us teary and quiet. Fidel broke the silence only once and said with a sad smile: "If you decide to write something about this maybe the title can be 'Un perro me enseñó a vivir'." A dog taught me to live.




Buen viaje and happy trails, Trigo!