July 2005-ish to Jan 10, 2022, Jack “Meat Man” Wheeler

Hoo boy… this is going to be a tough one. Where to begin…

Jennie and I purchased our first home together in May 2005. It wasn’t long before we had both decided it was time to get our first dog as well.

We poked around the internet for a bit looking at rescue pups, and when we came across Jack at the Rutland County Humane Society, that was it: The perfect looking pup. We set an appointment and drove the couple of hours for our meet and greet.

They sat us in a small room to meet him and it was love at first sight. He was insane and almost literally bouncing off the walls. He jumped up on the couch, jumped up in a bay window and ran around, and jumped back down. We started petting him and he rolled right over and let us rub his belly. He was clearly going to be a handful but was bursting with playful energy and charisma. That pretty much sums up his entire time with us. He would be 100-miles-an-hour or resting up for his next go. He could be challenging at times but was always a charmer; sweet, always wanting to be a part of the action, and the spotlight of our attention.

He came to live with us in July 2005. They estimated he was about nine months old at the time. As I said, he was quite a handful and bursting with energy. I remember filling our kitchen with tennis balls and we’d get them all bouncing around and he would go crazy trying to get at them all, sliding around on the hardwood floor. The memories of the very early days are still so clear in my memory. I’m just fully realizing now that the very first dog or dogs you ever own holds some special magic in your heart and your mind.

One of my earliest memories of adventure with Jack was a trip to Keyser Lake in NH. He’d wade in the water up to his chest but we couldn’t get him to swim. He’d stand out there at the end of the leash while Jennie and I snapped 4,000 photos of him in the scenic area.

It would take years before he would decide to swim on his own. Despite our many attempts, he just wouldn’t go out past where his feet could touch the ground. When he finally decided to take the plunge, we were with another couple that came to visit at the local reservoir. They were tossing a stick out into the water for their lab, and the lab would jump in the water and go fetch it and come swimming back. Jack saw this happening several times and finally frustratingly decided he needed to get in on the action. Sploosh! He jumped right in and started after the stick like he’d been swimming his whole life. On his way to get the stick, he noticed a man swimming the length of the reservoir and decided to abandon the stick and start swimming after the man. The dog had never swam in all the years that we’d had him and then, on his very first swim, he decides that he’s going to swim the length of the reservoir! Ohhh, that was Jack for you… 😉 Over on the shore we all started waving our hands and shouting “Jack! Jack! C’mon, Jack!”. Finally after a good lengthy swim (and thankfully not catching up with the swimmer), some amount of sense took hold and he turned and swam back to us.

Another fun early Jack-venture took place near Laconia, NH when we went to visit some friends having a pig roast. It was early in all our professional lives when a lot of our friends were getting married and buying houses and dogs and still having a good number of get-togethers. There were quite a few dogs there and we were a little wary still of letting Jack run around off-leash – but all the dogs there acted as a bit of a pack and all seemed to be sticking together and playing, and it seemed like enough action that it would keep his interest and he wouldn’t wander off. The day wore on and the pig was finally ready for eating; it was removed from the smoker and dropped on a large plastic portable table and pulled apart for serving and eating. We all filled our plates and were sitting out on the lawn with several other friends, enjoying the day and eating some really great food. One of us asked “Have you see Jack?”, and then I looked around and got a bit worried because I didn’t see him or any of the other dogs around. I hadn’t seen them in a little bit actually… But, barely sooner than the question had been asked and contemplated the question answered itself. Out from around a structure in the back yard Jack came racing, carrying something rather large in his mouth, followed by the complete party pack of dogs. “What the -“? we wondered… As we had time to absorb the full spectacle we realized that Jack had managed to get up on the table and grab the entire pork spine. He had it right in the middle, with a good foot or so of spine sticking out from both sides of his mouth, and was racing around the yard with a full pack of at least half a dozen dogs chasing after him. Haha, typical Jack.

I think he always enjoyed being the center of attention and trying to bring some fun and joy to everyone around him. Every time we had a visitor he would light up. He could be in a sound sleep but if someone dropped in to say hello or fix the furnace or whatever might be the case, he’d hop up, grab a toy, and come squeaking on over to show off his toy and get some attention and say hello.

He had a variety of toys but one in particular that he seemed to really enjoy these last months was his big monkey. He’d carry that thing everywhere, squeaking it, using it as a pillow, chewing on it’s arms. Occasionally he’d get a little too excited with monkey time and the monkey might end up losing a limb (which made for some interesting poo pick ups…) but he loved that thing and he’d give it licks and kisses and introduce it to everyone who stopped to say hello.

Over the years he matured from his rather adventurous and a bit trouble-making-at-times youth to just the most sweetest and loving and genuinely interested dog a person could know. He always wanted to know what you were working on and how he could help. We used to joke that he was more of a “regular”-visor than “super”-visor, but he was always willing to lend whatever support he could give to any project. If you were laying flooring, he could be counted on to stand on the piece that you needed to move. If you were going up and down the ladder, he could be counted on to stand at the bottom of it to trip you up where you couldn’t see him. He would just be there, always patiently ready and willing to jump in and help. He could be napping in his bed but see me grab some tools and he’d immediately jump up, ready to get to work.

In his early years he seemed all energy and maybe not so much in the “smarts” department. We jokingly gave him the nickname “Meatman”, or “meat” for short, saying that he just had a little meatball in his head for a brain. As we got more in sync with his various idiosyncrasies, however, we could see that he was actually very smart in his own way. I think he was pretty well tuned in with humans and he picked things up surprisingly well. As he aged he just became an amazing communicator. He always seemed to have a sense of what we were doing or needing. And if he needed something, he was so good at letting us know.

There was one day that I had misplaced a blue crowbar and couldn’t find that thing anywhere. I recruited Jennie to help me look for it and we scoured the place. Sometimes tools just have a habit of mysteriously disappearing. A short time into the search, we spotted Jack dragging a large several-pound heavy yellow crowbar across the floor. I absolutely couldn’t believe it. Nothing that he had ever done before. Somehow he had known to join in the search. Unfortunately it was not the particular crowbar that we were searching for. However, despite finding the wrong one, we greatly appreciated his efforts to assist.

Another time, very recently, I was putting in several light fixtures in our living room project. Towards the end of the day, Jack went over to the paper bag with the light bulbs in it, reached inside and grabbed one of the boxes with a bulb in it, and came trotting over to the living room with it. It was one of the most bizarre things I’d ever witnessed him doing. Again, he was there to help.

We had so many of these crazy and memorable moments, memories, and adventures together. Vacations at the ocean, running through tall fields of grass in distant locations, bounding through dog-deep snow, winter camping, going on daily patrols at our camp in Benson. I could go on endlessly…

Many, many wonderful years we all spent together. Almost 17 years he lived with us, over one third of our lives. I can hardly remember a time in my adult life that he was not there with us, in every memory, by our side, on the couch, on the bed, in the car, and lounging around the lawn at camp. So many things have happened in all these years.

About three years ago – around the age of 14 – he had his first seizure. Completely out of the blue, one day, he had several of them. I really thought that was the end. We went to the vet and they put him on some medication, and that all seemed to be the end of it. However, they said that with the suddenness of it and no prior history that it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that he had some type of brain tumor. Thankfully, years went by with no more seizures.

Approximately a year after that – after we sold the Essex Junction house and were renting a place while getting things ready at the warehome – he had what they called “ataxia”, which seemed like a stroke really. He went for his long morning walk and was doing fine, then took a good nap, and when he got up his eye was jittering around, his head was down and at a weird angle, and he had no balance and kept falling over. Once again, I thought that was it for him. We had no new local vet at the time and had to pick one in a hurry. It was a very stressful time. When we went to visit this new vet, they explained this can happen to older dogs, but they could recover from it.

As we stood there discussing this with the vet in the parking lot (it was during COVID and you couldn’t go into buildings, further adding to the stress of it all) a really big dog started barking at Jack repeatedly. Even in his sad state, Jack had to be Jack. He looked over at the big dog and let out one big, loud “ROOF!” bark. It almost made him fall over. The vet laughed, and said something along the lines of “Well, I guess someone just told that big dog they’re not feeling well and to leave them alone!”.

I couldn’t believe that he could possibly recover from this. But, he did. After several weeks he started getting his balance back. He’d be trotting confidently across the lawn but then spot a running squirrel out of the corner of his eye, and he’d look over and stumble a bit. But he was getting noticeably better, and a few months later he was almost fully recovered. He was never quite the same – he never had the same stamina, his balance was never quite 100% again – but he was a good healthy and happy pup and he enjoyed his walks and exploring again, although generally much shorter than they had been in times before.

In some sense, it seemed like his last few years were a real gift to us all, and perhaps he was running on some borrowed time. After we lost his brother Mason the March before, he was the absolute center of all of our attention. We really enjoyed being as close to him as possible whenever we could. He couldn’t get up on the bed any more, so we’d put aside some times to cuddle up with him at night when and where we could. At camp, we’d occasionally sleep with him in the bunkhouse where he could still get up on the mattress that was low to the ground. After Thanksgiving this year, we tried sleeping on an air mattress together – which was an altogether miserable experience, as if an air mattress by itself isn’t uncomfortable enough with two adults on it, but two adults and a dog was, to put it mildly, not a good sleeping experience. But, it was worth it. Most recently, just after the last Thanksgiving, we had added a futon to the office area to have a private area for guests to sleep when visiting. This was the best spot for a good overnight. During the Christmas holiday, Jennie and I spent almost a full week sleeping out there nights on the futon with Jack. She had a few days off and I had the full week off. On the days she had to work she’d get up and get to work and Jack and I would lounge around in that dark office some mornings until 10 or 10:30, being so lazy and enjoying the quiet of the office and the warm bed and procrastinating on all of the projects we were going to work on that day – me, needing to get back to work on the warehome renovation, and him at my side, regular-vising.

On our final day together all his borrowed time expired and the seizures finally caught up with him. He was happy and healthy and good-hearted right up until the moments at the very, very end. We’re so fortunate that he never suffered any major slow decline in health. He went out the same way he lived his whole life- all or nothing.

Love you, little sweet meatboy. So unbelievably much.