My Bulldog

Growing up, we had the best dog ever. He was a half-English Bull- dog and was just the funniest dog with amazing comedic timing. However, he didn’t look like an English bulldog at all. He looked like a Pitbull, at the height of Pitbull fear in the 90s. Like many Bulldogs, he was fascinated by wheels. He loved to attack the skateboard wheels, big wheels, etc.

One of his favourite things was the mini truck that would stop in our street. It got to the point that he would hear it coming and wait at the window. He once went out and chased one, but we caught him before he caught the truck. For ten long years, the mini truck was his love and also his arch-nemesis. We were on a family vacation but had to cut it short because he got very sick while in the kennel. We took him to his vet and learned that he had an aggressive form of lung cancer (he had no symptoms until he was in the kennel and had just been to the vet a few months prior). We had to euthanize him that day because he was in immense pain and had been suffering for a long time.

It was truly one of the most unexpected and depressing events of my life. I took him outside for his final walk. Right across from the vet’s office was Wendy’s, a food restaurant. As I was walking him, and crying over how frail and sick he seemed, a mini truck pulled right up to us. The driver jumped out to grab his lunch. Well…you know how the drivers of those trucks leave the door open? My dog perked up and looked at the truck. He then looked at me and I said, “Okay, go for it!”, and as weak as he was, he pulled me over to the truck, hopped in the passenger seat, and checked the entire truck, wagging his tail. He got out and inspected all four tires. For his last ‘hurrah’, my sweet, goofy boy finally caught his ‘UPS truck’.