An Inadvertent Ode to Sebastian

Harley is oddly gentle, one of those huge dogs that you can give stuffed animals to and they merely carry them around, tossing them from time to time. This is a revelation – Sebastian was a shredder.

The only “toy” I could get for Sebastian was rawhide, and once we moved to the country he was highly efficient about ridding the farm of groundhogs. I’ve got to admit, I’m not sure if I like this kinder, gentler form of big dog. I was used to opening the door to the back 40 and saying, “Go kill something, “ as Sebastian flew out. Invariably he did, usually groundhogs, raccoons, and opossums, and once a pair of twin does. The downside was that once in a while I’d wake up with a dead cat in the yard.

I was a bitch when Dave and I went dog shopping – I don’t even remember what spurred us on in the first place. Dave wanted something along the lines of a beagle, but when we walked into the pet shop I saw Sebastian and the world stopped. I hear that happens for true love, and it hasn’t happened for me with a man, but it happened with a beast.

He was alone in a big cage, the last of his litter, alone, presumably because he had no tail, not much of one. When we got him it was a stub that wagged the puppy; when he died it was only 4 inches long, and he still waggled his butt when he was really happy, as if to make up for the lack in tail.

I saw him and the search was over, he was “it”. David looked around some more, found an adorable Beagle pup, but no, if I was going to go home with a puppy, it was going to be the fuzzball without a tail.

Because I chose the pup, I felt I should at least let David name him. He looked at the puppy for a long time and said, “Sebastian.”

“Sebastian! Why Sebastian?” as we rode home to our apartment in a cab, fuzzy puppy ensconced in a cardboard carrier.

“He looks like a Sebastian.”

“Sebastian it is then.”

Given my antics in the pet store I didn’t feel that I could argue, but as Sebastian grew I taught him to come to a whistle (because I hate to yell), and I usually called him Beast, or a derivative thereof: “Happy Beast”, “Stinky Beast”, “Floppy Beast” (when he was tired he couldn’t keep his ears up – yeah, I know….), or just Beastie.

When we got him we lived in a one bedroom behind Water Tower Place, one block off of Michigan Avenue and the “Miracle Mile” in Chicago. Lots of money and a faboo dog park just a block away. My dog sniffed Oprah’s dog, and her chocolate cocker didn’t mind, but she did. Then Dave got fired…. and took a lower paying chef’s position…then I lost my job, and spent three months looking for work, and training Sebastian. He was my baby.

We found a great loft in Ukrainian Village on the West side (before it was fashionable), our place was the first floor of an old fire station, hardwood floors throughout, and a courtyard. One of the great joys in life is seeing how a dog handles (or doesn’t) a hardwood floor when chasing a ball.

I’m fairly certain that Sebastian saved my life once, or at least my sanity. We were still in Ukrainian Village, and he was about a year old, an 85-pound one-year-old, and I woke up early one morning on a weekend (6ish). I was up, he was up, and the hubby was dead to the world, so we went for a walk. About a block away from our place (this was a residential area, all houses) we came across a man, stumbling towards us, asking “Que es Chicago?”

Chicago Avenue was three blocks north of us, so I pointed and said “Tres…blocks, norte.” He kept on stumbling across the street towards us…and then Sebastian’s hackles went up and he began to growl. Suddenly the man who was stumbling a minute before was able to sprint in a straight line - away from us.

The next day on the news there was a segment saying that a rapist in our area had been using the “drunk routine” to get close enough to women to grab them. I don’t know if that was the guy…I just know that Sebastian never, ever, reacted that way to anyone else we ever met.

He was my boy. My husband and I could fight (oh baby, we could fight!), but there was always My Beastie. I had taught him hand signals, some of which my husband wasn’t aware. Don’t wanna have sex tonight? Do the wrist flip thing so the dog will leap up between you, interrupting Dave’s sad attempts at foreplay and reconciliation.

When I fought for Sebastian in the divorce my soon-to-be-ex gave in and said, “He was always yours anyway.” Part of why he was always mine is because; shortly after we got him I lost my job. I had plenty of time to bond with the puppy, serendipity.

I miss My Beastie…I always will. If I could’ve married a dog, he would’ve been it. I often found myself looking at him, and at the dearth of character in the men I met, and deciding that I would rather spend the rest of my life with Sebastian than with any of them.

Then he died. It wasn’t a quick and easy, wake up and you find him stiff. No, I went to bed on a Tuesday, and woke up on Wednesday and Sebastian, well, the things that made him Sebastian were gone. He was lying in a pool of his own vomit in the back end of the house, but still alive. My vet called it a “neurological event”.

My vet is a toughie, she will kick your ass if you don’t keep your dog up to date on every shot, but she’s got reason. She kept Sebastian alive through a nasty heartworm treatment following the year I couldn’t afford to buy him his pills. She cried with me when she put him to sleep.

We tried to keep him going for three days. It was early December, and he wouldn’t eat, not even broth, not even real meat. I knew we were in trouble when I took him into the vet’s office and he didn’t go after the office cat. He’d been chasing that pussy for years. Now he just didn’t care.

When I got him home he’d willingly walk outside into the cold weather and plant himself somewhere where I couldn’t get him back in…the corner between the stairs and the back porch, between the two big shrubs that grow in front of the front porch. He would dig his heels in and want to stay in the cold…and I couldn’t carry his 95-pound frame in by myself, so I used everything from plastic sheeting to spare plywood “sleds” to get him back inside. He would never bite, or actively fight me, he just dug in. I think he just wanted to die in the cold.

I took three days off of work. I slept on the first floor with him, crunched up on pillows I pulled from the love seat, beside him on the floor. He was gone.

Comrade K came, on the day I was taking him in to be put down. I had told her I didn’t need any help, didn’t want any. Nonetheless she showed up, and helped me carry him to the car, and into the vet’s office, balanced in an oriental rug that he’d loved to lie on.

She cried with me too.

She drove me, afterwards, with his carcass in the back, to the place that would cremate him. She left me alone for that last moment, after we popped the back hood, when the cremators were waiting, so I could run my fingers through his shoulder ruff one more time, and whisper “Big Beastie” one more time in his dead ear.

He sits in a can now, on my desk, just behind my screen. My family bought an extra spot for me, in the "family plot", just in case I ever marry again. I've told them that they should use it for Sebastian, and barring that, I want his ashes in my grave.