Sep 9, 2020 3 min read

A few days after my mom passed away in 2013, I brought her dog home to live with us.

I didn’t ask my husband, thinking that being the dog person he is, he would just be immediately OK with it. And he probably would have been, had he not been struggling through some significant mobility issues related to a broken knee. There was some rightful concern over hubby’s ability to navigate around a new dog.

The dog was used to being tied, so his first few days with us were challenging. In the first week, he took off down the road. I followed him in our truck, catching up to him a half mile or so away. He had gotten bumped by a car and was waiting on the side of the road for me to pick him up and carry him to the truck.

After that, he seemed to understand the yard was his domain, but the road was unsafe. He started to settle in, and my husband started to accept his presence. This dog would come sit beside my husband while he still couldn’t walk well.

As he began to walk again, the dog went with him.

And when my husband got into the side by side to start venturing out to work on the farm again, the dog was his immediate sidekick.

They quickly became inseparable.

Brick was his name because bricks were his favorite toy. He would push one 50 feet with his nose, only to drag it back to the starting line and bark at it. He’d do it for hours. Rocks of all sizes would appear in our yard with scratch marks in them from claw and tooth. He once rolled one up into a giant snowball, only to chew his way through the enormous chunk of resulting ice to rediscover the rock he had hidden.

He also could entertain himself with four-inch plumbing fittings, especially the Ys and elbows.

They seemed to bounce the best.

He could even take the lid off a Gatorade or water bottle to drink its contents without puncturing the bottle.

Last fall, we almost lost him after a toe amputation caused a cantaloupe-sized abscess in his chest and armpit. We were blessed to see him heal and return to being the big galoof we know and love.

Late this summer, he had a seizure and we again took him to the vet. She diagnosed him with Lyme disease and low thyroid, saying we could treat for both of those and see if handling them handled the seizures as well.

It worked for weeks, and we noticed no more seizures.

Then, this weekend, he suddenly had one that we couldn’t get to stop, and we lost him. We buried him up in the woods where he and my husband took rides. It’s on the hill with a view of the bulk of the farm.

Our grief is palpable.

All dogs have the ability to wiggle their way into the hearts of the humans they choose, and Brick was no different. Dozens of times over the past seven years, my husband has remarked how glad he is that I brought Brick home. That, despite the rocky beginning, in the end, Brick was truly man’s best friend.

He will be missed.