Emily Articulated: The very best boy

By Emily Erickson
Reader Columnist

Reid pushed the doors to the kennel open with tentative anticipation. Having moved back to his hometown after over a decade away, adopting a dog felt necessary to mark this experience — and himself — as changed. 

The noise of the room hit him first, a cacophony of thumping tails and clicking toenails mixed with the whines and yips of hopeful pups. He walked down the aisles, heart open just enough to consider welcoming a new companion, but not so open that it might break for all the ones he wouldn’t be able to bring home.

He strode down another row of pens, passing a wiry chihuahua curled on her bed, before a big brown dog lunged at his cage’s door. The dog barked with pinned-back ears and his tail between his legs. Reid jumped forward, startled. But as he kept walking, the barking stopped, prompting him to look back over his shoulder. 

Emily Erickson. Courtesy photo.

He saw the same dog, but not the same dog at all, transformed with big brown eyes and a slowly wagging tail. His soulful expression silently said, “I’m sorry. I’m bad at hellos, but I think I just might be yours.” 

His name was Bodi, and Reid adopted him the next day.

A month later, Reid coaxed Bodi onto the bed, holding him as he tried to wriggle free from the forced cuddles. Bodi had never been on a bed before and certainly never trusted anyone enough to expose his soft belly. Reid rubbed his hands over Bodi’s warmth and told him he was safe. Bodi relaxed.

Two years later, Bodi and I snuggled under the covers as he did the one trick I’d been responsible for teaching him. I called it the “belly rub command,” (although, admittedly, the “command” part was always directed at me). He lifted his paws to his face and held them over his nose while I rubbed his belly. If I stopped, he’d lift his paws again and cry, an obvious plea for more. 

A year after that, we were on a road trip, passing through Wyoming. 

“Do you think it’s time for a walk break?” I wondered aloud from the part of my brain that had been trained to think of Bodi’s experience and comfort, on his behalf. 

We pulled onto a dirt road, the expanse of Wyoming spilling out like paint on a canvas — a dusting of shrubs, a dash of clouds and a thin horizon line, far off in the distance. Bodi hopped out of the van and nearly immediately tripped on a cattle guard, his paw catching as he yelped in pain.

I ran to him, and he limped to me (it was always to me he ran when he was hurt or sick) and I enveloped him in a hug. While I rubbed his back, he lifted his face to the wind and wildness entered his eyes. He spotted an antelope in the distance and bolted — limp gone — clearing the cattle guard in one leap. He and the antelope disappeared into specs on the horizon.

Filled with worry, Reid and I walked along the deserted road, shouting his name. An hour later, we returned to the car to find him curled up in its shade. He greeted us with full body tail wags and a “What took you so long?” expression on his brow.

Four years later, Bodi sat in the small strip of golden light, warming our front porch step. He snapped at bees and surveyed the yard, waiting for a daring squirrel to leave its treetop perch for a lower limb. As the squirrel lept, so did Bodi, sprinting down the path he’d worn from years of yard patrol. We called it the “Bodi Trail” — the stretch of dirt where grass never got the chance to grow, a perfect line from our front step to his favorite corner of fence line. With the squirrel chased away, Bodi walked gingerly back to the porch, his stiff limbs the first signs of age creeping into his body. We didn’t need to worry yet. We still had time.

Two weeks ago, I lay on the couch, dozing in and out of an afternoon nap, when I was jolted awake by a screech of tires. My world became a series of fragments, flashes of an impossible scene that was impossibly real. An empty front porch. A broken gate latch. A big white truck. A “Please Drive Slow” sign disregarded. My knees scraping as they hit the gravel. A guttural scream (did that come from me?). My shaking hands and the vet confirming what I already knew. My boy was gone.

Yesterday, I walked Bodi’s path to where we laid him in eternal rest — buried with a pillow so he’d always have the comfort he came to know — and found the trodden earth a perfect reflection of the impact of his life on ours. Like his trail in our yard, Bodi is woven into the very fabric of who we are — his lessons of love and loyalty and the transformative power of trust and companionship forever reframing our outlook on the world. 

I feel his absence in all the spaces he used to fill, in all the ways I reshaped myself to form around him: the spot on our bed that’s no longer warm, the leash that hangs uselessly by the door, the treat jar that won’t ever empty and the entryway that won’t ever be filled again by his jubilant hellos.

But more than his absence, I feel the love that only a pet can unlock – whole and unconditional, wild and beautiful, immortal. Bodi was the very best boy. And it was the honor of a lifetime to be his human.

Emily Erickson is a writer and business owner with an affinity for black coffee and playing in the mountains. Connect with her online at bigbluehat.studio.