Missin’ You Mowgli

Mowgli (Mr. Handsome, Kenosha’s sweetheart, boss dog, sunshine boy, crazy pants, Grinch) 11/16/15 – 2/11/22

On Friday, when I came home from work, I found Mowgli paralyzed basically from the ribs down. After a visit to the ER, it was found out that even after an unimaginably expensive, tiresome procedure, it would be very unlikely Mowgli would ever walk again. It’s hard to say what happened because at the time of injury, he was home alone. Maybe he was napping or playing just a little too hard. He did everything with a little drama to it.

Mowgli’s training was imperfect, but what I realized recently is that I accidentally, or maybe purposefully, trained us both to almost annoyingly always be by each other’s sides. Life with Mowgli was one big game of follow the leader. We even took turns being the leader!

Clearly, this’ll be the longest post I ever make because if there’s one thing about Mowgli it’s that he always had A LOT to say. Today, I want to share some of my favorite memories with the best dog ever, his last words and our favorite things to do together.

I took this photo last Tuesday. What the heck was he doing, my goofy dog ❤

Some of our best memories and rituals:

• The only thing that stopped Mowgli from barking when we first got him (Dec. ’17) was when we played him a voicemail saying if he continues after February 1 we were going to get evicted.
• Every time I gave him a bath I would spread peanut butter on the side of the tub to keep him calm. Mowgli has his own jar of peanut butter in the cupboard.
• Whenever mowgli heard kissing he would come running. Cock blocker.
• One time, when I was late to pick him up from the groomer, he was in a kennel barking his head off with a blanket over it. A couple other dogs were going by him sniffing around wondering what the heck was upsetting him so much. The groomer continued to tell me how good of a boy he was. I don’t believe it.
• His greatest fear as of recently was plastic water bottles. Shiver me timbers.
• The only time Mowgli abandoned me was one time when the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night. He ran out of the room with Alex without even looking back at me. We joke that he was saying something along the lines of, “Screw her, i guess it’s you and me now dude,”
• I have several instrumental playlists saved in Spotify for Mowgli, and now they’re for me.
• I recently taught Mowgli how to crawl under the bed, and sometimes I crawled under there with him. All I had to say was “Under,” and he would go hide.
• I always wondered what Mowgli did when maintenance came into the apartment. I’m guessing that as long as they didn’t have their dog with them he just brought them a toy to play with.
• His tail always wagged the hardest whenever I called him a bad dog, so tried to never give him that satisfaction.
• One time Tony, Mowgli and I almost got hit by a car. I yelled at the driver for almost hitting my dog.
• When I first got him he would throw up everytime he went in the car. He finally was used to it and even started sticking his little nose out the window.
• Whenever he had a little lick of goose poop it was like he got a power up and immediately ran as fast as he could.
• The zoomies. The zoomies. The zoomies. Mowgli had no sense of boundaries and wouldn’t hesitate to run full force right into you, even if he had a sharp stick in his mouth. This often ended with both of us grunting and falling to the ground.
• At one of his puppy school classes we were practicing long leash exercises. At home, the long leash was Mowgli’s cue that it was time to go crazy. As soon as I clipped the leash on to him in class I knew exactly what was going to the happen. All the other dogs were sitting perfectly calm 30 feet away from their owner. I told the teacher, “I think he’s about to go crazy.” She told me, “That’s okay, let him go crazy.” “GO CRAZY!” He ran in circles as fast he could way longer than I probably should have let him. When he finally slowed down, he was so proud of himself, smiling so big and probably thought he showed off so much to the other dogs.
• Another puppy school moment.. in one exercise we switched who’s dog we were handling to see how they respond to new people. Mowgli received great feedback, and the other owners said “We told him to sit, and he kept doing this really cute thing where he put his paws up in the air.” Once we taught mowgli how to sit pretty, he never stopped sitting pretty.

Some last words, from both of us:

• To the little white dog across the street who Mowgli almost tore to pieces three times over, we’re sorry, and also … loosen up a little.
• To the two dogs next door who Mowgli who has been playing with through the fence, to be honest, I was never too sure if you were playing or fighting, but Mowgli always ran the fastest when he was with you.
• To everyone who has ever dog sat for me or had a doggy sleepover, thank you for following Mowgli’s laundry list of to-dos.
• To my neighbors, and roommates, at Hidden Oak who had to listen to Mowgli bark literally all day and night for the first two months, thank you for your patience.
• To all my friends who have snuck Mowgli into their no-dogs-allowed living areas or who covered Mowgli’s eyes so we can sneak past another dog and avoid absolute chaos, I cherish these moments.
• To everyone who has come over to my house and leftand left covered in dog fur, that’s not ending anytime soon.
• To Loving Paws and Safe Harbor Humane Society, thanks for caring for my best friend.

And if I could give Mowgli one last day full of our favorite things, here’s what we would do:

• Watch 101 Dalmatians
• Go on a long walk far from home, settling in in a nice shady spot with a book and a bone
• Dance around the living room to Heart of Glass or Dancing Queen
• He’d eat that gross thing under the fence a couple more bites than usual before I start yelling at him
• Chase the geese in the field across the street and find more gross stuff to eat
• Share every meal
• Mix some Chipotle taco bell sauce in with his dog food, and then for dessert we eat some sour patches, a spoonful of peanut butter, and ice cream.

So treat your dog to that thing you can enjoy together as often and for as long as you can because even if I could wake up and take Mowgli out to poop at 7am in a freezing blizzard, I wouldn’t bat an eye, well … Just be thankful that you have the second best dog in the world.

ps. in the next couple days I’ll probably do one last photodump into his Facebook album, so that I have another nice place to go to cry about it. Until then, here’s an old collage.