This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The other night I dreamed I opened the front door and my old childhood dog Brutus streaked outside and down the street like a greased pig at the Iowa State Fair.
Brutus was a Boston terrier with a slick black-and-white coat and neat prick ears, which made him look like he was wearing a top hat and tails — sort of like Fred Astaire, yo. That's where the resemblance ended, because unlike Fred Astaire (yo), half of Brutus' body was head, which meant that he fell forward a lot and did somersaults whenever he started running. But then he'd spring back up on those spindly, Popsicle-stick legs and commence with the running thing all over again.
Speaking of which — one Sunday afternoon when we were out walking, my mom and I watched Brutus, who was racing ahead of us, get run over by a pickup.
Don't judge. Nobody put their dogs on leashes back in the Dark Ages when I grew up.
Anyway. Mom and I screamed and clutched each other, as screaming people often do. But then we realized that the truck had only passed over him. So after rolling around like a tumbleweed a few times, Brutus popped back up in the middle of the street and trotted toward us, totally unfazed.
Seriously. That dog was like Rasputin. You could have sicced the entire Imperial Russian court on him with knives and sabers and poison and balalaikas and he would have straight up refused to die. Yes! Now that I think about it, that's exactly what Brutus was like. A Russian monk. Yes! Brutus was a Russian monk dog.
But here's the deal. My brothers and I were nuts about Brutus, mainly because you could always count on him to bring the crazy.
Back to my dream. Like I said, I dreamed that Brutus ran out the door and down the street. So I went looking for him in all the little alleys and side streets of Salt Lake City until (finally!) I came to a church house. I went inside and found church ladies wearing aprons in the kitchen, making funeral potatoes. I asked if they'd seen my dog and they said yes. He was in the closet.
I was overjoyed. I went to the closet and found a Boston terrier there. I picked him up and realized right away it wasn't Brutus. This other dog's head was too small, and besides he had bat ears like one of Martha Stewart's fancy French bulldogs. I took him home anyway.
I know why I had this dream. Last week we had to put down our big brown Newfoundland, Zora. All the boys (except for the one who lives in Texas) came home to say goodbye. There were tears, of course, although I didn't cry much. I've done this enough to know that for me the tears and the missing part — those moments when you expect an animal you love to be lying on her back in the kitchen the way she always did — come later.
RIP, Zora. I'm grateful you were ours.