We took Jake with us to our first home after being married. Steve went to work, I took Jake for a walk, and, by the time Steve came home, that dog was officially mine. As Steve likes to say, Jake tried to kill him when he came home from work. From that day forward, Steve became known as "the bad man." Whenever Steve would tell Jake to do something, Jake would always come running to me like, "Mommy, Mommy, the bad man is talking to me." I loved it even more, knowing that Steve had trained him to be an extremely obedient hunting dog. Jake never went hunting with Steve again.
Three months after we got married, Steve was deployed to Iraq. I moved home with my parents, but Jake became an outside dog once more; Steve had labeled him as a cat killer, and my parents had two. My parents two dogs would come inside, and Jake would stand at the sliding glass doors looking heartbroken. More than once, the sliding glass door was left ajar and Jake would slink into the house, come straight to my side or my mom's, and duck his head like, "I'm a bad boy, I came inside." It wasn't long before we discovered that Jake had no intention of doing anything that might upset me, including killing the cats.
Steve came back from Iraq, and we moved to where we live now. Kellin was added to our family, whereupon Jake promptly cocked a leg and marked me as his territory. I was laughing too hard to be mad.
Jake loved to swim. When his arthritis set in, far too early in life, and he started to slow down, we waited for a nice, warm day to take him to the lake. On the way there, I told Steve that we should probably get him a life vest. Steve thought I was being overprotective, as is my usual stance. Jake chased ducks until he couldn't go any more, that day, and Steve was forced to jump into the lake and save Jake from drowning. A life vest was ordered the next day. Once we had the life vest, Jake would chase the ducks until he couldn't go anymore, then just bob in the water until he got his second wind.
Jake was always very protective of me, but he went through a faze where, when I would take him to the vet, I'd have to put him in a corner and block him in; he wasn't about to let anyone, or any other dog, get near me. I was his, and he made sure everyone knew it. Including the UPS guy, who never once asked for a signature the entire time I lived with my parents.
Losing Jake has been extremely difficult for me, even though I have been blessed with an overwhelming sense of peace, knowing that he is no longer inhibited by his slowly disintegrating body. He was my baby when I couldn't have one. He was my protection and my best, and only, friend for years. Even in his last days, when it caused him so much pain to stand up, he couldn't bear for me to get up in the morning and leave him. That dog would have done anything for me, including to live forever. He gave me far more that I could ever hope to return.
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