The wife and I are getting serious about finding a new place. And I'm starting to get a little serious about getting a dog. As I've written before, I love dogs. And I'm starting to miss having one around.

Because, just like many of you, I once had the best dog on earth. For a lot of people, they all had the best dog on earth. Dogs are just that way: they're the best.

Mine was named Andy.

I think I was in second grade when we got him; we were in Idaho, and we went to some redneck domicile where the guy had like fifteen damn pups all running around madly in a pen, and I peered excitedly through the chainlink: We were getting a dog! It was impossible for me to choose; the mutts (and they were total mutts) were all so very adorable, these unremarkable greyish muttpups all lunging around theatrically, screaming with every cell, "Curse this metal barrier! I want to play with the tiny pink person!"

My parents, as parents should be, were much more clear-eyed. They spotted the weirdo of the group, who occasionally peered out worriedly from the much-chewed doghouse in the pen. That was Andy (though he had yet to be named): forever cautious, forever peering. I barely registered him. Fuck the weenie dog! I've got capering masses of gray doglets who are killing themselves to lick my beknighted fingers! I'm surprised I didn't lose a digit.

My good folks bought (and named, despite my urgent requests that he be named "Jet") Andy. And, as a single child, Andy was my fairly constant companion for years and years. Not that there weren't growing pains.

When he was a mere pup--with ominously gigantic feet--he started snuffling around a jigsaw puzzle I was failing to work on. I whacked him on the nose. "What the hell was that for?" my dad demanded. "He was sniffing my stuff!" I explained. He stared at me like I was a foreign microbe invading the family body. "Jesus, don't be an asshole. He's just a puppy."

Andy grew. Christ, did he grow. It turned out that he was an ubermutt: he had elements of collie (coloring), German shepherd (muzzle), St. Bernard (unbelievable size; I think he weighed in at one point around 140), and malamute (upcurved tail). In fact, I used to ride on his back. Despite his immense size, Andy remained, for lack of a better comparison, a total pussycat. He feared the vacuum unreasonably, as if it were a motorized dog guillotine, and would hide from it under your legs. This was pretty cute when he was a puppy, but when he was full-grown, it got kind of disconcerting to suddenly have an enormous mammal trying to seek refuge under your straining knees, which, whoops, were now three feet in the air.

Andy was energetic as hell for years. At one weird, unexplainable point in my family's history, my mom got on a jogging kick. My mom, you should understand, is 5'5", and weighs perhaps 118 pounds if she's got full pockets. But for a time, she wanted to jog. Andy would "helpfully" go with her on the trips, and would habitually race ahead of her for around a hundred yards. Then he'd stop and look back at my mother, gamely trotting along, with a look on his face that basically said, "Jesus, what's your problem?" Then, perplexed, he'd race back to her at around the speed of light, and greet her with a look that said, "Uh, say, why not run faster, like I do?" Then he'd blast off for another hundred yards to repeat the process. I'm sure this was really heartening for Mom.

Not quite as heartening: during this time of eerie jogging-love, my father enjoyed furthuring his Eternal Bastard reputation, and would occasionally shadow my mom with the car. There would be Mom, jogging with gritted teeth, while my father drove alongside her in the car, doing a breezy five miles an hour while calling out fake encouragement: "You're doing great, Sue! Oh, no! Looks like a big hill coming up!" Then he'd ostentatiously take a drink of beer, and speed up the hill, and then back down to my mother, still running. "I checked out the top of the hill for you," he'd say, my mother still panting away gamely on the road, "there's still nothing there."

Andy could confirm this. He'd already run the route up and down six time before my mom had gone fifty feet. He was crazy fast, and seemingly tireless. When dogs are young and healthy, it doesn't seem like there's anything they can't do.

We all got older, of course. I remember once, going out late at night to put the chickens to bed (we lived on a ranch, and the chickens were my responsibility), Andy stopped at the barn door that led to the chicken path down to the coop. He just stood there, growling and not moving. "What's up, buddy?" I said. Andy growled some more and looked spooked. I was too stupid to figure anything out, and remarked, "You're a weird old dog." I was tired. I went down to the coop, and everything seemed cool; I swung the coop door shut and latched it, my nightly duty. I turned away to go back home.

There was then a fantastic CRUNCH! and I spun around. The half-inch plywood door had been rent from its hinges, and there was a tremendous hole in the half-assed door. Running from the scene was this awful hairy shambling thing, fast as hell for its size: my dad identified it for me the next day. I had inadvertantly locked a fucking badger inside the coop, and he made a jailbreak. The goddamn fucking thing had gone nuts and busted out the door--badgers are just bad news.

When I wobbled around to go back to the house, there was Andy standing there, looking pretty queasy, but also pretty fearsome, the big fucker. But badgers aren't anything you diddle around with. He knew what was around--Andy was no dummy--but Andy also looked after my ass.

Some years later--many years--I was doing my morning routine. I always took care of myself in the AM, and took a shower, dressed, got ready for school, and left the house to go catch the bus. Andy was on the lawn, lying down.

He didn't get up. And there was some terrible green slime coming out of his muzzle. He whined, a little. He was having trouble breathing.

I stopped cold. This was my damned dog: he grew up with me! He watched me be Spider-Man and the Hulk. I used to ride this dog! He warned me of badgers. This dog--this protector, this fearful creature who ran from vacuum cleaners--oh hell.

I stopped to pet him, and he made snuffling noises. He wasn't well at all; he was terribly sick, I knew. I was a teenager, and I knew. I don't know why I did what I did, then. I scratched his wonderful ears, that I used to sometimes turn inside-out, because it made me laugh, even when I knew that it embarrassed him, because I could see the reproach on his long-muzzled face. I said goodbye, without a damned word to anyone.

I went to school. And then I went home. And my parents were there, looking very stricken. "We have some bad news," they said. "Andy died, " I said back. They exchanged glances. "How did you know that?" they said. "I knew this morning, when I left." My mom looked a little sick. "Why didn't you wake us up?" she asked. I didn't have an answer, and to their credit, they didn't press me. I still don't have an answer. Maybe it was just because he was my fucking dog. I was the kid; the dog got to die on my say so.

It seems pretty stupid right now, but it's still pretty sad. I miss my good dog. There's a picture of me above the stove with him.

I really miss my good dog.

But they're all good dogs. What we need are good owners. Maybe it's time I tried that again.