Why my dog was the best investment I ever made – The Globe and Mail

More than a decade ago, I wrote a column about Brenda, our family’s newly adopted Labrador retriever mix who was turning out to be a handful.

“How much is that doggie in the window? Better sit down,” the newspaper headline read.

Below the headline was a three-column photo of Brenda, snapped by my then 9-year-old son. Brenda had jumped onto his bed and was slurping from the water cup on his nightstand. This was around the same time she had nibbled the fabric on our sofa, chewed the cushions on all six dining room chairs and destroyed the grass in our backyard.

I got more responses to that column about the costs of pet ownership than to anything I had ever written about exchange-traded funds or tax-free savings accounts. Some readers shared their own pet war stories and assured me the expense and frustration would be worth it.

Others weren’t so charitable. When I calculated that Brenda would likely cost us more than $60,000 over her lifetime – including expenses for food, vet visits and the opportunity cost of not being able to invest that money – one reader accused me of “knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

Brenda was originally a street dog. She spent the first seven months of her life as a stray in Lac-Simon, a First Nations community about 170 kilometres northwest of Montreal. She was black from head to toe, with the face of a Lab, but with who knows what else thrown in. One thing we know for certain is that she was very lucky.

For years, packs of dogs had roamed loose on the reserve. They fought over scraps, ganged up on one another, and often met an untimely end from malnutrition, disease or the barrel of a gun. Because even friendly dogs can become aggressive in packs, some Indigenous communities cull their canine populations to prevent attacks on residents. After some close encounters at a local school, residents had been asking when the next “round up” would be.

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Fortunately for Brenda, in 2011 the Anishnabe Nation began looking for a more humane way to manage its dog problem. It reached out to Animal Rescue Corps, a U.S.-based non-profit that sent a team to Lac-Simon that November. Luring the animals with cans of wet dog food, ARC and local volunteers captured scores of strays, which were then sterilized and vaccinated at a temporary clinic. Some dogs were claimed by local residents; several dozen others, including Brenda – then known only as “Animal ID #86″ – were loaded onto trucks destined for adoption centres, primarily in Ontario. Because she had been surviving largely on trash, she weighed just nine kilograms and suffered from gastroenteritis.

Our search for a dog had begun, paradoxically, after my son was bitten by a German shepherd. He had become fearful of dogs, and my wife reasoned that the best way to prevent him from developing a lifelong phobia was to get a dog of our own. I wasn’t completely sold on the idea – too much work – but I went along.

We looked at dozens of dogs online and in person. We visited breeders. When I stopped by Toronto Animal Services on my way home from work one day, I knew our search was over. Brenda – who by this time had her new name and had gained some weight – was lying on her side, her tail thumping on the floor, as people crouched down to pet her. She was going up for adoption the next day. I called my wife: “We have to get here really early.”

When we brought Brenda home, the first thing she did was jump up on the sofa to enjoy her new-found luxury. We laughed and shooed her off – there were going to be rules around here! – but her preference for plush surfaces became a lifelong habit. If someone left a blanket or pillow on the floor, Brenda would swoop in, spin around a few times, and plop herself down to claim it.

Even more than cushions, Brenda loved people. When she met strangers on the street, she would collapse on her side, legs slightly raised, tummy exposed, as if to say, “I won’t hurt you. I promise.” She didn’t just like attention, she demanded it. When my wife was typing on her laptop, she often had to compete with a cold, wet nose randomly pressing the keys.

One day, in a moment of weakness, I let her up on our bed. After that, there was no turning back. She insisted – and so did we – that she have some cuddle time with us every night before she went downstairs to sleep in her crate.

But Brenda could also be a rascal. Long after she had left the reserve, she maintained a keen interest in her first gastronomic passion: garbage. It got her into trouble more than once. While walking in one of the local ravines, Brenda yanked the leash out of my wife’s hand and raced up a steep, wooded slope, drawn by the fragrant aroma of fresh trash wafting from the bins behind an apartment building. But her leash got snagged on a tree, and my wife had to climb up to rescue her.

There were plenty of other accidents and near-misses. Unable to resist chasing small, furry creatures, she got sprayed by skunks three times. On at least two occasions she escaped from our backyard and ran down the street to check out the scraps at the new Church’s Chicken. And there were lots of vet bills, especially recently.

The first sign that something wasn’t right came in April, when Brenda started leaking urine and drinking more water. My wife took her back and forth to the vet for tests. At first, we hoped it might be a simple urinary tract infection, but antibiotics didn’t help.

After more tests revealed increasing amounts of protein in Brenda’s urine, our vet informed us that the problem was likely glomerulonephritis, a type of kidney disease that affects the tiny structures that act as filters for the blood.

By this time, Brenda’s appetite was waning, so we began serving her “higher-value” foods such as freshly grilled chicken thighs and chunks of cheddar cheese (with her medication tucked inside), in addition to the apple cores and spoonfuls of peanut butter she had always loved.

We thought Brenda might carry on like this for a while. Up until a week ago, she was still tearing around in our backyard, kicking up the cedar mulch that now covered the lawn she had wrecked years ago. Last Saturday, my daughter took a video of Brenda performing her repertoire of tricks – “roll over,” “down,” “spin” – for a liver treat or piece of chicken jerky.

When Brenda started refusing even those treats the following day, however, we knew her time was near. She was unable to settle down in the house, so my wife let her into the backyard, where she found a quiet spot under a euonymus tree, next to the fence. She dug a small depression in the dirt, and lay down under a magnificent blue sky.

We wanted Brenda to be in familiar surroundings, and we were fortunate to find a veterinarian to come out on a Sunday – the cost be damned. The rest of the family chose to stay in the house. I sat with Brenda until the end, stroking her head and her ears, telling her I love her, kissing her, burying my face into her soft fur and thanking her through tears for the priceless joy she brought into our lives.

E-mail your questions to jheinzl@globeandmail.com. I’m not able to respond personally to e-mails but I choose certain questions to answer in my column.

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