Grady, the best dog ever

Grady.
The best dog in the world. 

No, seriously, I know you're dog is awesome and all that, I have no doubt...but really, this was an amazing dog.

Was - as in, he is no longer with us. 

Grady lived a full life. He was 14 years old, working on 15. He passed away yesterday morning.

How Grady came to us is an interesting story: Husband used to work at a dealership with a guy we'll call Max.  Max and his family have a small farm, with chickens. At that time Max had a German Shepherd puppy that was given to him by someone who, for some reason, thought having a large dog in a small apartment would be a good idea, but it turned out that wasn't the case....so Max got the puppy.  For awhile, this off-white Shepherd was fine. Not a problem. But then: he found a chicken. And this now-overgrown 9-month-old puppy discovered chickens are, well, food. So he ate one.

This would not do, to have a chicken-eating dog on a farm with chickens.  Max and his wife rounded up the chickens, tried to keep them from getting out of their pen; but eventually, another chicken got out, and the German Shepherd pup got another one. Max's wife said she tried "everything" to keep the dog from eating more chickens. She even tied a chicken carcass to his neck, but he didn't stop.

That's when Max called us. Asked if we would like a dog. We said we would think about it.

In the meantime, our soon-to-be dog ate another chicken, and Max had had enough. He went to put the dog down. Now, Max is a farmer, and a farmer from Texas: in other words, this guy has been around firearms his whole life. He knows how to shoot a gun. Max takes the dog out back, ties him up, aims (at pretty much point-blank range)....and misses. The dog freaks out. Heart pounding, Max takes aim again. Misses again. By this time the dog is frantically bucking around on the rope.  "I don't know how I could miss him at point-blank range. I especially don't know how I could miss a second time," Max confides to my husband. "I figured it was God's way of saying not to put the dog down."

So I went to pick up this miraculous dog. Named him Grady. Since Grady had first been raised in an apartment, he was not only housebroken, but he never - I mean NEVER - reared up on his hind legs. Not once, ever.  Which I always wondered at. I've never been around a dog that didn't rear up on its hind legs at least when playing. But Grady never, ever did that.  Also, despite the German Shepherd reputation for fence-jumping, Grady never jumped the fence at our house, although a 4-foot fence is basically nothing for an athletic 100-lb dog. 

Which is not to say Grady never got out of the fence!  Because that, he did do. Grady would flip open the latch of the fence with his nose.  To keep him in, we had to make sure the latch stayed closed. A small stick or a leash clip would do.

We always joked that it was a good thing Grady didn't have opposable thumbs, or he'd take over.

Grady was a good dog for our family. He loved kids...all kids, everywhere. He watched over my kids when they played in our yard. He followed them when they went to play with their neighbor friends, and he watched them there, too. If my kids weren't home, Grady would go watch the neighbor kids anyway. It was his job.  Grady also waited for my kids to get off the school bus: every day, just before the bus came, Grady would go to the end of the driveway and wait. Greeting my kids with a happy lolling smile and a friendly tail wag.

He didn't just look after kids, he looked after kittens, too. Once my next-door-neighbor saw Grady walking around with a tiny kitten in his mouth. She screamed. "NO! No, Grady, put it down!"

"I thought he was going to eat it!" she told me.

Grady just looked at her, then he lay down, depositing the now very scared kitten in front of him. He looked over at my neighbor, then looked back at the kitten. Then he licked the kitten. Panting happily, tail waving, he kept watch over that kitten, occasionally licking and nuzzling the poor little thing. The kitten's perimeter was apparently circled by Grady's chest and front legs. Whenever the kitten tried to escape from this doggie yard, Grady would lean over, gently take up the kitten in his mouth, and deposit it right back in front of him.

Grady was a very doggie dog. He was very much into pack order. Other dogs - some ours, some not - came and went through our household over the years, and Grady made sure they knew their place.  One dog barked at our cat and tried to chase it: Grady put an end to that in a hurry, barking urgently (and more ferociously than the other dog).  That dog never chased our cat again. Or if he thought about it, one jaundiced look from Grady would convince him otherwise.

He was a protector. I didn't really know this at first. I thought he was kind of a marshmallow for a German Shepherd; thought the guarding instinct wasn't all that strong. For one thing, I didn't think he barked at anyone. I was pretty sure he'd let anyone in the house.  But I was wrong. One time when the propane company came to fill up the tank in our yard, Grady let the guy into the yard...but not out. Apparently, Grady trapped this guy on top of the propane tank. Grady stood there barking and growling, while the guy stood on the tank hollering for help. Eventually my next-door-neighbor's husband heard the commotion and went to investigate. "I saw the guy there on top of the tank, and I just called Grady over so he could leave," he told me. He didn't know why Grady hated that guy. I didn't either. But I was secretly pleased my dog had done some guardin', whether or not it was justified.

Grady also looked after our babysitter. He would walk her down to her house whenever she left. She would tell him to go home but he would stay right with her. Right up to her driveway, where he would stop and watch her as she went to her door. Grady would not leave until she actually went into the house. 

There are other stories, too - many, many more - but these are my favorites.

He will be missed.