"Farewell to my Faithful, Incomparable Dog Riley"
There’s a new beauty in doggie heaven.
by Donald Jeffries
This has been a year of tremendous loss. Starting in January, with the deaths of my sister Janet and her special daughter Denise, four days apart. Then one of my dearest friends, John Barbour, passed away. My good friend and next door neighbor Dan died, too. And now perhaps the cruelest cut of all: my Golden Retriever Riley.
My parents wouldn’t allow me to have a dog when I was growing up. No one in my immediate family was a pet person. They consented to let me have a cat, who I named Lucky. They wouldn’t permit him in the house, but he used to meet me at the bus stop after school. One day he didn’t come. I saw him lying paws up on the side of our yard. He’d been run over by a car during the night. What a tragically ironic name. That was it for me, except for the tropical fish they let me have. But what I really wanted was a dog. I knew my first dog would have to be a collie, like Lassie. And would have to be named Dino, because I loved The Flintstones. Dino turned out to be a pure breed sheltie. He was a good dog. Always came when you called him. He used to go outside with me and the kids (they were very little), and I never had to put him on a leash. That was the ‘90s, the last gasp of America 1.0. I probably would be arrested if I tried that now. Perhaps shot by an aggressive cop, looking for a dangerous criminal like me.
Then came TJ, who was a mutt. But a really good-looking mutt. You could see the Lab and the cocker spaniel in him. He barked incessantly, perhaps even more than Dino, who really barked a lot. There must be something about me, because I always have loudmouth dogs. Well, I’m pretty loud myself. After we lost TJ, I was crushed. Sadder than I’d been with Dino. We waited a year or so, and then my daughter really wanted another dog. We searched and searched, hoping to find a rescue animal. But my shallow, superficial emphasis on physical appearance got in the way. Basically, every rescue dog we saw was full or part Pit Bull. I don’t find Pit Bulls attractive. In fact, there are only a few breeds of dogs that I find attractive. My desire at the time was to find a Golden Retriever, and my daughter liked that idea, too. So we wound up getting a pure breed puppy. The runt of the litter, as the breeder described her. My daughter named her Riley, because one of the Jonas Brothers had a dog with that name.
Riley was beautiful enough to turn my head a million times a day. I loved looking at her. She was a gorgeous puppy who grew into a gorgeous full sized (but small for a Golden Retriever) dog. I had more names for her than I ever came up with for the kids. Golden Girl. My Super Model. Pretty Girl. Little Girl. Rye. Riley-Piley Poo. Riles. Fluffy Butt. I loved to say that she put the gold in Golden Retriever. Unlike our previous dogs, she really had the run of the house. She ran the place. We gave up trying to keep her off of the furniture. She slept in my daughter’s bed. When my daughter moved out, it essentially became Riley’s bedroom. But you never knew where she was going to sleep. For the past year or so, she had been coming up and laying next to our bed. We really spoiled her, like so many pet owners spoil their pets. She loved human food, especially chicken. We had to watch even saying the word. She loved to lay on the sofa, and she didn’t particularly want you to sit next to her.
That was the thing about Riley; she was needy, and clingy, but in a very unconventional way. She liked to be petted, but would always kind of distance herself, so that you had to lean forward to do it. She wouldn’t cuddle up next to you, although sometimes she would jump up and lick your face. But not very often. She had, in fact, a lot of feline characteristics. She could be aloof, and territorial. I used to say that I hadn’t wanted a cat, I wanted a dog. One who would jump up on me, and rest her head on my lap. That wasn’t Riley. And she certainly didn’t live up to her breed’s name; you couldn’t get her to fetch anything. She might go retrieve a ball one time, but after that, she’d look at you as if to say, “What, do you think I’m that stupid?” When she was young, she spent everyday running around our good sized backyard. She would even sometimes slide down the slide on our playground. She probably got more use out of that playground than the kids ever did. It was a lot of fun to watch her.
But Riley eventually yearned for bigger pastures, and started jumping the backyard fence, and disappearing into the neighborhood. It wasn’t easy to find her, and when you did, she wouldn’t come to you. She never came when you called. She thought we were playing a game with her. Other neighbors would come out and help. It usually took a few hours, and then finally she’d come back with us. We hated to ban her from the backyard, but we didn’t want to lose her, or have her get run over by a car. So for about the last half of her life, she became an inside dog. That’s when we started walking her regularly. Very infrequently, she’d want to walk a good distance. Most often, however, we took what I called “Riley walks.” These would consist of lots of zig zagging, backtracking, sudden lunges towards a passing squirrel, and craziness when any of the other countless neighborhood dogs appeared on the scene. And, of course, lots of sniffing. Rolling in the grass. But I’d give anything to have one more Riley walk.
After I was fired unfairly in 2018, I was around Riley constantly. I stopped traveling, so I was always the one left with her. Riley and me. I’ve become probably too much of a homebody. More radical and controversial than your average homebody, but a homebody nonetheless. Riley became a homebody, too. I built my days around her. When I went outside, she was almost always with me. She’d get upset if I took my neighborhood walk without her. So I’d have to come back, and bring her. So we could have a Riley walk. Which meant very few steps for me. Riley was less destructive than many dogs, but if she was angry, I’d come home to find my slippers moved around. She didn’t really chew them up, just moved them to let me know that she could. When she was anxious, which was often, she’d keep trying to get under my desk, and tangle herself in my computer wires. She disconnected me more than once. I tried to get her on camera for my podcast, and one time I was able to get her to cooperate briefly.
Riley had two speeds. Maximum overdrive and park. If she was parked, usually on the couch, it was hard to get her going. If she was in overdrive, it was hard to stop her from pacing about, often panting as she did so. This was most often in response to the weather. Especially the wind. Riley was obsessed with the wind. I know I’ll probably tear up again on the next really windy day. She would want to go outside and stand in it. Just stay motionless and feel it. If she was inside, she’d be inconsolable. She’d hide in a closet, or one of the bathrooms, panting all the time. You couldn’t calm her down. She wouldn’t stay still to pet or hug her. The vet said she had doggie autism. In her final days, she was panting and pacing about more often, even in nice weather. I relive her last night, and feel tremendous guilt, because she was pacing about our bedroom, scratching at the carpet, and I lost my cool. I had to shut the door on her. I didn’t consider that this was something different from her regular neurosis.
I dreamed of her last night. She came up to my side of the bed, and I exclaimed, “Look, honey, Riley’s here!” I held her up, but my wife couldn’t see her. I’m sure I’ll have more dreams about her. I dreamed about her a lot when she was alive. One recent one involved her barking at the hippos who’d invaded our house. Have I mentioned how fascinated I am by hippos? I really tried to figure out Riley, but she was an incredibly complex character. I wanted so much to talk to her, for just a few minutes. To find out what made her so high strung. To ask her what I could do to be a better master. Her tail was always wagging, even when she was anxious. Even on that last day at the vet’s office. I had to leave. I couldn’t watch. I couldn’t say goodbye. My wife is a lot stronger emotionally than me. I just hugged and kissed her, told her I was sorry for being impatient with her, and how much I loved her. Then I paced back and forth outside, sobbing, maybe panting like her, until my wife texted me, “she’s gone.”
Riley would sometimes “sit” and “stay.” Even “lay down.” But it wasn’t automatic. I’ve read that Golden Retrievers are very smart, with an IQ that translates to about 90. In other words, higher than too many humans. Maybe most ‘Murricans at this point. So she probably knew what we wanted, but didn’t feel like performing like a trained seal. Riley was pretty well behaved, but she wasn’t trained. I’m not sure she could have been trained. Maybe the Dog Whisperer could have done it. I don’t know how to train dogs. I talk to them like they’re human, which I know is ridiculous. Riley and I had constant one-sided conversations about everything. She was my silent, golden sounding board. We got her before my first nonfiction book was published. I called her a super model, which she was. And like most super models, she was a diva. If she could have, she probably would have made some Smoking Gun-type backstage demands. No brown M&Ms or something. But we always aimed to please her.
I’ve always had trouble with endings. Anything ending, or anyone leaving, makes me very sad. I get sad when a restaurant closes. I hate goodbyes. I fear change. My life is full of routines, and for more than a decade, most of those routines revolved around my beautiful Golden Retriever. When I went outside today, I realized how much everything reminds me of her. Every blade of grass or flower that she took excessively long to smell. The gate that doesn’t close all the way, leading us into what my wife called “the backyard tour.” Riley loved backyard tours. It probably reminded her of when she was young, footloose and fancy free. When we trusted her not to jump the fence and keep running away when we called her. Sometimes we’d see a fox, and Riley would want to chase it. Other than my increasingly rare time using the grill, I only visited the backyard with Riley. We used to have a lot more cookouts and family gatherings at our house. But now so many have died or moved away.
Dogs have kind of a raw deal. One of their years equals seven human years. A human life is far too short; what must a dog’s life seem? Riley lived a pretty long life; she was over 91 years old in human years. It strikes me that the lifespan of a dog is basically what the lifespan of childhood is. Our children are kids for 10-12 years, and then the eye rolling starts. Then you suddenly go from being their hero to the stupidest person in the world. It’s hard to take. Just like losing one of these precious creatures is. They become one of the family. Loud, demanding, but irresistible. Riley was a fixture in the house. She was always there, in some part of it. She used to come down to the basement when I did my podcast, and lie there calmly. I like to think she was listening. She stopped doing that a while ago, however. Maybe she got tired of all the non-Irish talk. She used to sit there while we were listening to Alex Jones, many years ago, when he was doing good work. So she was steeped in the conspiracy world.
Writing this is cathartic for me. As I’ve said before, it helps me cope with loss. Losing my favorite dog in the world is not something I’ll recover from quickly or easily. I keep expecting to hear her walking around, or her distinctive bark. I keep expecting her to appear around every corner. I don’t think we’ll get another dog. We’re old now, too, and it’s just too painful to let them go. I knew she was 14, and I could do the math. But the house seems empty now. And much quieter. I’ll probably still be finding her clumps of fur everywhere when I vacuum, for a long time. I had them shave off a bit of her golden coat, which I plan to put in a keychain or something. That way, I’ll carry a piece of her with me everywhere, just as I carry a bit of my niece Denise, as they made her thumbprint into a silver medallion I have on my keychain. I will think about her every time I pass a spot outside that she used to particularly like. I’m having withdrawal pains, knowing that we’ll never again have those little outdoor rituals.
Please forgive me for writing another eulogy. I don’t enjoy writing them. I feel like Jackson Browne; no one ever wrote about losing someone better than he did. Warren Zevon specifically demanded that Browne not write a song about him when he died. Browne didn’t, to his credit. Riley’s presence is everywhere, in the house, in the yard. I can’t look at the sofa without picturing her there, raising her head to stare back. The spot where her food and water used to be. The leftover food and treats we’ll give to the neighbors. And now, when I see another dog outside- and seemingly everyone in my neighborhood has a dog- I’ll miss her even more. Because now I’m walking alone. Without her leash. Without her. I’ll move on. We have to, don’t we? I brood about lost loved ones all the time. And I’m brooding up a storm about Riley. Will I see Riley in heaven? Do all dogs go to heaven, like the movie suggests? I’d like to think so. I want her to tell me that she understands that I did my best. I tell myself that we must have made her happy, because that fluffy golden tail was always wagging.
Jimmy Stewart was not only my favorite actor, he was a talented poet, who wrote the best tribute to a dog every written in my view. Fittingly, his dog Beau was also a Golden Retriever. He read it on the Tonight Show in 1981, and it brought me to tears then. Even though I had yet to own my first dog. I somehow sensed that it might become personally meaningful one day. And now it has. Stewart wrote that, “He never came to see me when I would call…but mostly he never came at all.” He closed with: “And there are nights when I think I feel that stare And I reach out my hand to stroke his hair And he’s not there. Oh how I wish that wasn’t so I’ll always love a dog named Beau.” Oh how I wish it wasn’t so. That Riley was still here. Still not listening to me. Still not letting me cuddle with her. At the center of my life. I’ll always love a dog name Riley."
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