My Best Friend

This is Kudda, the gentle giant, with our daughter Tuula, Spring, 2006.

Pappa Kudda (October 23, 2001-August 24, 2009

It was 'bloat'.

Monday, he was normal: Smiling, eating, whining for his night walk. We went. He poo'd. He got his cookies at night as usual.

At about three a.m, he started whining. We thought it was diarrhea, because he got that sometimes. So we let him out. By five he was back in, panting. My wife got me up again at about 6:30. We didn't know what it was then. So we checked Dr. Google. It looked like bloat. But there was no good reason for it.

Our vet opened at 8. We called, left a message and said we were coming in. Kudda was in the basement, panting. I tried to rouse him, using his usual 'doo-da-doo' bugle call, which means walk. Nothing. I went down and he looked truly frightened. His tongue was weirdly blue. We got him upstairs and I hoisted him into the car, because he couldn't walk. I raced wrong-way down our construction-wrecked high street and brought him to the vet's. The nice girl in pale pink scrubs at the vet said there were no Dr.'s yet, but that, in any case, if it was bloat I should take him to emerg immediately. The nearest one was Yonge and Davenport, way across the city.

I raced across town, all the way saying, "Kudda? Kudda?" We got there. I shabbily and hastily parked the car and went inside. I shakily related the circumstances to the triage nurse. The vet had called ahead. Immediately, they brought a gurney. I opened the back hatch, where Kudda was. He was not moving. They put a stethascope to him.

Nothing. 8:59 a,m.

I did the business and made the arrangements. Then I went outside into the perfect late summer day and just sat on the curb for awhile.

I drove home without him.

At dinner there are usually a few tossed treats as I cook. Then, after we eat, more. When we put the kids to bed, he whines because he wants his walk. Last night it was quiet.

He pissed me off a lot sometimes. But he was such a great dog. He bracketed my day. His walk was the first thing I did. It was the last thing at night.

He was the first member of our family. My son and daughter have never known a house without him. He always slept in doorways, as Kuvaszok often do. We called him the Shnork. for his habit of sticking his considerable snout into peoples' crotches and sofa cushions, flipping the cushions merrily.

Once, in an off-leash area of the park, he decided he was going to elude me. When he did this little game, he danced around in a kind of 'na-na-na-na-na-na you can't catch me' way, Then he took off. I chased him and watched in horror as he ran across Parkside Avenue. As he did so, he almost took out a motorcycle cop. I continued to chase him for half an hour. Finally, he just ...stopped. He let me leash him up and we headed home. I was so mad, that I didn't notice the siren until the cop wheeled his motorcycle right into my path. I was threatened with arrest and the destruction of my dog. Cooler heads prevailed with the arrival of another cop. I got out of there with my dog, he with his life.

He wasn't so lucky this morning.