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My biggest struggle when sitting down to pen these posts is the beginning. It’s hard to hit the right tone while the tone is still being worked out. I don’t really plan any of this out aside from an overall idea I hope to get across. I hope I am moderately successful at that but I don’t know. The thing I want to make sure you to know today is that MJ was a good dog.

I was barely an adult it felt like when I first got MJ. Yeah, I was twenty-six, living in a house that I had recently purchased, planning a wedding, and working full-time. But I didn’t have any clue what I was doing. I was somehow more clueless than I am today. But a former partner wanted a dog inside the house and I did not. So we compromised and got an inside dog.

Mary Jane was MJ’s full name and she was a mix of Blue Heeler and Walker. A herding and a hound dog mixed. She had a lot of spunk. I remember reading only after I got her that Heelers were very smart, smart enough to be one of the only breeds to outwardly backtalk their owner. I found out that was definitely fact a few months later when I told her it was time for bed and she stared me dead in the eyes and peed on the couch. Power move.

I had many moments early on I wasn’t sure that I could handle her. She slept in a crate in her first year and would howl for hours non-stop. She took to shaking and throwing her body around so fiercely in her kennel while I was at work that she would literally undo the bolts holding it tight. She was animated and overly enthusiastic about greeting people when meeting them. She almost swiped a corn dog out of a guy’s hand the time I took her to a local festival. I couldn’t leave her mortal enemy, the dreaded paper product out anywhere near her or it would suffer the same fate as its fallen bretheren.

But man, she was something. She was great with kids, even though I don’t have any. She loved everyone she met, doling out high fives like they were going out of style. Even without a great teacher, she learned to “sing” along by growl howling along and even to dance, doing pirouettes when she’d stand on her back legs and I’d hold her paw or just sway back and forth when I’d ask her to dance. She was a great companion, literally lapping up tears as I recovered from my divorce, begging for walks I think sometimes just to keep me moving. She would bark at the door if someone came but never kept it up, just let us know someone was there. MJ would gives hugs on command and there were many days I needed them. She was very protective and full of love towards my wife, Aubreé.

I got her when she was only three weeks old. I was young and dumb and she was a fuzzy potato. I didn’t take her on enough walks. I didn’t use my best tone when she got in trouble for tearing up paper or nabbing a piece of food. I didn’t give her enough time with free space to run. I never gave her a kid to love on her own while she was here. I was with her for more than sixteen years. She was a good dog every single one of her days here.

She had a stroke in February this year and did not act or move the same for about a week. We had the appointment set up with the vet. But the day before the appointment, on my birthday, I came home to her happy and wagging and full of life. She pushed on to live mostly normally until the beginning of this month when she had another stroke. She basically couldn’t move. It was time. I didn’t think I’d get sixteen years with her. But I am thankful. Rest in peace, Emsy.