On a family road trip over spring break in 2017, our son Charlie suddenly declared that he needed a dog. He hadn’t staked that position before, and his justifications seemed hazy. But he was unusually persistent, and several days later we relented, after he promised to walk her every morning before school. As any dog parent knows, that promise lasted a very long time … at least a week or two.
We visited a handful of dogs for adoption. That process included a tryout walk with Duke, a Rottweiler-boxer mix who was so strong that Charlie looked like he was water-skiing.
A few days later we met a lab mix we named Stella, who came tearing out of her foster family’s house, raced around the yard for a minute or two, sidled up to our son, sat at his side, and wouldn’t leave.
Sometimes, they say, your dog chooses you. Stella had chosen Charlie, and though our daughter Eliza was briefly overseas at the time, she and Stella quickly warmed to each other too.
The vet reckoned Stella was about five years old. She had probably suffered a bad fight, or a car accident, or abuse, because she had scars on her eyebrows and her leg and her back. She was feisty and energetic and distrustful of everybody but Charlie initially, but she relaxed when she realized others also fed her.
Like every lab, she believed that she could catch a squirrel, and she refused to become discouraged by a success rate whose numerator never budged from zero. She nearly choked to death dozens of times by eating discarded chicken bones, various plants, or random shoelaces along her walks.
Stella greeted people outside with a detached sniff and stood happily for pettings offered, but at home she protected us by shrieking angrily at visitors — until we gave them treats to offer her. She was the most food-motivated dog I’ve ever seen. Salmon? Duh. Broccoli and cauliflower? You bet! Discarded veins from bell peppers? Rye bread crumbs off a lunch plate? Bring ’em on. Almost fooled her into biting a lemon once or twice.
In April 2020, Stella developed an ugly cyst inside her muzzle, which the vets immediately diagnosed as cancer. They gave her six to nine months. Six years later, she was still happy to go outside, but she’d stopped chasing rodents and trying (and failing) to socialize with other dogs. The walks grew shorter, and the past few months showed her age and deepening infirmity, until basic activity often overwhelmed her in the past few weeks.
Her last meal was a whole bunch of sedatives slathered in peanut butter, one of her favorites. She couldn’t even stand up any longer, and she was already pretty whacked out on Trazodone, but the aromas perked her up and she licked the spoon clean.
Today was a bad day, but we gave Stella a good life, and she was a good girl.