My dad sent me a photo of our old dog, Bonzo, he found while going through boxes of old pictures. It was a later picture of him, I could tell by how fat he was. Nobody has been able to accurately figure out what breed he was. My dad came closest with a German Shepard mutt, but my brother’s, “a big one,” and my mom’s, “a stupid one,” seem just as accurate. The photo shows him lying in his usual spot at my grandma’s house on the faded orange shag carpet right next to the front door, waiting for someone to open it and accidentally hit him. During the later years of his life, it seemed like he had become one with the carpet. Laying down whenever we would get to her house, only getting up whenever we would fill up his bowl at meal times. This was far from the dog that had run around the house just years prior.

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Living in a small house with two kids, two parents and an excessively fat cat, having a large dog was not the smartest idea. After running into walls more times than we could count, knocking over chairs, and causing the occasional Christmas tree to fall over, Bonzo, my dad decided, was going to be an outside dog. Instead of building a fence to border the entire yard, my attached his leash to the clothesline, giving him around 10 feet to run freely in the backyard.

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One day over summer we were all outside, my brother and I playing with my mom, my dad working on the car, Bonzo running his usual laps. Then, he spotted a squirrel at the end of the driveway. He chased them in the past but would stop once they got out of reach of his leash. For some reason, this one was different. Nobody was watching when he was running up and down the driveway, barking at the rodent sitting just out of reach, but we all looked in terror when the board of wood the clothesline was attached to ripped off the shed. Bonzo started to run down the street after the squirrel, clothesline and wood board following close behind. Mom in the car. Dad sprinting as fast as he could. In the end, it was a stranger blocking the street off who saved him. After that, the clothesline was mounted with bigger screws and he was back to being an indoor dog.

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Most of the time, Bonzo acted like a generic dog. Digging holes in the backyard, chasing his tail until he got too dizzy to stand up, slobbering all over anything he went near. The only real difference was how much he could eat. Being a big dog meant he could easily build up a big appetite. Every time we fed him, he always seemed like he wanted more. He ate anything we would give him except for one thing: Peas. It never mattered how mixed in they were, how big he was, or how fast he ate. Every time they were in his food, it was almost guaranteed he would leave the peas behind.  

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Bonzo was a gentle giant. As big as he was, it would have been easy for him to kill any small creature that crossed his path or tackle me or my brother, but he never did. He chased animals, protecting the house from every squirrel that dared cross his path. He made the best pillow a kid could wish for. The only time he would sit still for longer than two minutes would be when one of us would be laying our heads on him. The moment we got up, the truce would be broken, and we would have to find a new pillow.

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With age, he began to slow. Instead of running laps around the yard when we let him out, he laid down and enjoyed the sun. Squirrels and other small creatures became allies more than enemies, and he started to resemble the cat more and more each day.

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Once he hit 12 years old, his walks changed from miles to the circumference of the backyard. At that point, my dad no longer tied him to the clothesline. He would still jump whenever a car would come up the driveway, but he never left the yard and never turned down a bowl of food. He started sleeping most of the day. Standing up became a chore. There was more left in his bowl than just peas.

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Soon enough after that, there weren’t even peas.