I’ve been privileged to know a lot of dogs in my life. Most were good, a few were bad but I think I may have learned something about life from all of them. From a very aggressive catahula named Thibideaux, I learned... sometimes you need to pick your fights. From a little Chihuahua named Baby I learned that sometimes biting can mean you’re getting better. From my own Sammy, who has three good legs and one not so good, I learned that disability does not have to stop you from thoroughly enjoying your life.
I love dogs. They are perhaps the only source of true unconditional love in the world. They give us the best they have. They just want to be with us, and all they ask of us is a little food, and a little love. One trait I’ve noticed about them is they are very much “in the now.” This can be both a good and a bad thing. They don’t worry so much about yesterday or tomorrow. This means that, for the most part, real gratitude, a real appreciation that their situation could be worse, is beyond most dogs.
One of the most remarkable dogs I’ve ever met was a stray mutt named Rocco. Rocco and I came together when I started a working at a local veterinary clinic while completing my undergraduate work at OU. He was an ugly thing, and had already had quite a difficult life by the time I met him.
He was some sort of sharpei mix, with a stocky body, skinny legs, and short, course dull brown fur. One ear stuck straight up into the air, the other was crumpled and drooped off the side of his head. His tail was long and scraggly, and had a crook at the end. No one knows where Rocco came from originally, I’ve always assumed he was dumped by the side of the road. Some people delude themselves into thinking that dogs dumped like that will find new homes, or will be able to survive on their own. In reality... they don’t know how to survive on their own. They don’t know how to find food or water, and they don’t understand the dangers.
Rocco was brought into that clinic in horrible shape. He was emaciated and weak. He’d been hit by a car, and his pelvis had been shattered. He couldn’t use his hind legs at all, and simply touching him made him scream out in pain. He’d obviously been like that for some time, as he had pressure sores on his hips from sitting and dragging himself around. He was suffering from infection and smelled horrible.
You’d expect a dog in that condition to be frightened and shy, maybe even aggressive. No.. Rocco was happy and friendly. For the next several days while we cared for him, he sat in a cage, carefully padded for him, and always had a delighted doggy smile when he saw us. This despite the fact that every time we took him outside it hurt him horribly. He ate his meals with gusto and seemed genuinely happy.
The clinic took up a collection and eventually sent Rocco to a surgeon to repair his pelvis. It had been broken long enough that it had already started to heal badly, and so the repair couldn’t get him even close to 100%. However, over the course of a very long and painful rehabilitation, Rocco was able to stand again. His right leg recovered nicely, his left remained weak and atrophied, but he could walk on it. Over time, the worst of Rocco’s pain vanished. We continued to treat him for the arthritis that certainly remained, but over the next months, Rocco was able to run and play in the fenced yard.
Through all of that... and if any of you have ever had to recover from orthopaedic surgery, you know the pain is awful... Rocco remained his happy, friendly self. He always had a smile for us when we came to feed him and take him out.
Rocco lived at that clinic for over four years. He never got adopted. His whole life he lived in a run with a concrete floor and a chainlink gate. Three times a day he was allowed outside to run and play. Twice a day, he got fed. He didn’t have a family, he just had the kennel workers and technicians, who were often too busy and frazzled to give him much attention. This is not what anyone would call an ideal life for a dog. And yet.. Rocco remained happy. He had the cutest doggie smile. He’d tip his head back and dance around on his skinny little legs and pull those lips back and you KNEW he was just delighted to see you.
It was during the spring of his fourth year there that Rocco began to eat less and less, and stopped running around playing when we let him out. We were worried about him, and asked the veterinarian to take a look. And that’s when Rocco got his last piece of bad luck - he had lymphoma. Over the next several months, all that weight that he’d carefully regained began to fall off. We tried everything to get him to eat, I even started buying him hamburgers on my way into work, but he just didn’t want to eat. As he got weaker, that bad pelvis caught up with him and he could barely stand.
Through it all, even when he was too weak to get up, Rocco remained a happy dog. His ugly little scraggly tail would thump the ground and he would still smile. He’d lick at the hamburger I brought as if he really wanted to eat it, to make me happy, but just couldn’t bring himself to.
Rocco was at that clinic the whole time I worked there - over four years. My last day there, before I left to go to OSU, Rocco wouldn’t even lift his head. He rolled his eyes up to meet mine, he thumped his tail at me, but he just refused to get up. I told the doctor that I thought it was time. She placed an IV catheter and I sat with Rocco and petted him. As the doctor injected the euthanasia solution, Rocco lifted his head one last time, and licked my hand.. As if HE wanted to make ME feel better.
Rocco did not have what anyone could call a good life. He suffered hardship after hardship. No one would have blamed him for being mean and surly. But he wasn’t. He was just a dog. Just a mutt. And he learned a lesson that many people never learn. He was grateful for the life he had, as if he truly understood that he could have starved to death by the side of the road, and that every day was a gift. He lived every minute happy, sweet, and friendly. He never let his injuries slow him down, and even in the grips of the disease that killed him, he still appreciated what he had.
It’s a lesson many people have yet to learn. Appreciate what you have.
This speech won "best speaker."
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