A BOOK ABOUT SHUGGIE lovingly written and photographed by Steve Heilig

SHUGGIE

EASTER 2020 There’s an old actors’ trick that advises if you can’t bring on fake tears, just think of when your favorite dog died and you’ll get real ones. It can work for even the toughest macho men. I’ve even seen a famous hardboiled surgeon break down about the hard death of a beloved childhood pup from many decades before. And surgeons don’t cry, atleast not in front of others.

Shuggie died Easter evening nite. Kind of suddenly. I got home from a lonely - since he wasn’t up to coming along - walk and for the first time ever, he hadn’t moved all day and wouldn’t eat or drink. He soon started to pant more heavily and became non-responsive and I could tell he was going. It was as if he’d been waiting for me to get home. We had to restrain the frantic urge to a run to an emergency hospital, as somehow I knew that would just be alarming, chaotic and futile. I held his head, he gave me one last soulful look, rolled over a bit, had one small convulsion as his heart stopped, and was gone. Almost peaceful.

I had dreaded so much him becoming crippled, incontinent, but still himself and lucid when we had to give him a final shot. I actually had nightmares about that and feared I wouldn’t be able to go through with it (even though I am firmly “pro-choice regarding that practice and know that it can blessing for most any species). It would have been an utterly horrible necessity. But he spared us all that. Of course he did.

We laid him out on his bed. In some kind of shock. Didn’t know what else to do. In the dark and quiet I walked up the hill to the top, Mount Olympus, an old monument, overlooking the park and coast. And sobbed like a baby, but louder. Feared somebody might call the cops in that otherwise silent zone. Came back, lit a candle, opened a pint of whiskey, and slept, some, on the floor next to him. He was there all through the next day, candle burning still. We put flowers with him there too. It seemed silly but what else to do?

We took his body to the vets’ for cremation the next morning. He was heavy, 80 pounds, but we did it. Sometime later likely sprinkle his ashes in Buena Vista park, at Ocean Beach at low tide under the Cliff House, in Bolinas...

His favorite spots to run and socialize with his many friends and fans. And keep some of him too, for whatever reason. Those will go up on the mantle with Frankie the cat, who died last summer and who Shuggie loved.

It’s truly the end of an era for me. My constant companion, with me almost 24/7 for well over a decade. He showed up when there’d been too much sudden loss in 2008 and somehow he made things better just by being himself.

He’d been found running lost in the mountains, was maybe a year old, and that’s all we knew. But clearly he’d been somebody’s beautiful pup as he’d had some training and liked humans. At the pound they called him Harry but I renamed him after a renowned cult musician. He was a large mostly-black shepherd mix, maybe Aussie with something bigger, some said a rare flat-coated retriever or even a Bernese, with those big whitish paws.

I just called him a purebred mutt.

In any event soon he could read my mind and I his.

He stared me in the eyes a lot.

We walked and ran hours and miles every day. Â

He’d track me and look for the slightest nod or gesture on which path to take.

He splashed in the ocean and swam rivers.Â

He waited in the yard at work, below my office window, or by my car at my other office, raring to run in the forest. Every summer he grew dreadlocks on his tail, a lighter brown color, and we left one intact to mark the season. Indoors, at home or anywhere he followed me from room to room, just to stay close. We couldn’t get him to sleep on the softest dog bed in another room as he’d rather be on the cold hard floor if that were closer. He didn’t steal food like his late big brother Buddy had taught him but didn’t need to, as he’d just look at people soulfully until they gave him anything he wanted.

He had many shops and people for reliable treats. Staff at stores would yell “Hooray, our favorite!” when we stopped in. Even the cats liked him, mostly. Those big deep brown eyes could charm and hypnotize most anybody. He was very gentle and I could hand even the smallest child a treat to give him and he’d take it, very gently.

He was picky about other dogs to befriend, whether out of shyness or snobbery, I never knew; he was just more a people dog (Altho kind of discerning there too). In our endless travels he never had a single real fight with another dog; if threatened he quickly transformed himself into a snarling, teeth-bared beast and the other just turned away: “oops, never mind.” A few times a small dog persisted in attacking and Shug turned them firmly but almost gently on their back, big teeth at their throat, and let them ponder that for a moment, then let them walk off. He’d then look at me mischievously. No blood was ever shed but, some egos might have been corrected.

The local skunks did get the better of him a few times though.

He yelled loudly - often too loudly - with joy on encountering anybody he liked. That much could be annoying. He also was a bit too wild when it came to chasing his frisbee on the beach; I have scars on my hands and arms as evidence. But: I long lost count of how many times somebody said “I’m not really a dog person but, wow, THAT guy....”. And once I came out of a lunch to find him waiting outside on the sidewalk with a note attached to his collar reading only: “Can I marry this dog?”

He’d never had a sick day or injury until last summer when he had his first of two surgeries, for tumors, but he bounced back, albeit suddenly an old dog.

Twelve years is getting up there for a big guy. He didn’t complain, just moved slower, instead of being the fastest dog on the sand. He slowly strolled and sniffed the park the day before he died. He was still a joy. I’ve been kind of practicing for this for some months, since he became creaky, taking short patient strolls with him and then longer walks without him, but the latter feels like a waste or wrong, like I forgot something important or am missing an arm or leg or something, and I already know that for a long time I’ll be barely able to respond when anybody asks me where he is. “He’s home,” I just say. I reflexively yank my empty leash hand when a skateboarder appears as he loved to chase those, obnoxiously, loudly (they usually just laughed or ignored him). I forget to breathe and when I do it’s a sob. I reach for his leash when I’m heading out, which usually meant he’d bound past me down the stairs, joyfully blocking my way; then I’m caught up short, and can hardly move, shocked into reality yet again.

“All Things Must Pass,” sang George Harrison, and of course that’s reality. In fact a central teaching of reality. But, as a wise teacher has said, grief is love that now doesn’t know where to go. For the first time in almost 12 years, I don’t know where that dog of mine is. It feels wrong. I’ve never been prone to bad dreams but I did sometimes had ones of him being hurt in a remote area where I might not be able to save him, and I couldn’t leave him either. Or of helplessly losing him off a cliff or something. Thankfully they were just nightmares. Now it’s beyond that. He doesn’t need me. That’s fine for him, he’s free.

But that’s not true for me, yet. I’ll get used to it all eventually. But he’ll always still be there in some way. The canine companion of a lifetime.

Still: amidst all this grief I’m already very grateful for him. How could I not be.

I’ve said too much here. Probably could go on forever. But also could have just summed it all up like this: Farewell my sweet, smart, soulful, handsome, loyal, funny, loving loud boy. Thank you for everything and forever. “Man’s best friend“ doesn’t even begin to describe you.

c h a s i n g

e n d l e s s

RIP Shuggie s e a g u l l s

o n

B o l i n a s

b e a c h