Luna's Big Plan

Before we ever actually got Luna we knew exactly what we wanted in the dog. She would be a boxer, her name would be Luna after the Harry Potter character, and she would be a sister that Xena would love. This was planned out more than a year before we got a dog named Luna, as we knew that Xena needed a buddy eventually once her going to day care (aka my dad's place) couldn't happen every day.

Then in 2012 it became clear after graduating from UTPB that our lives would soon change with me job hunting out of town, and it was time to finally add the dog to our family. I will never forget the memory of Xena whining to me one day prior to us getting Luna about how bored she was, and me thinking "soon you will have someone to play with."

We got Luna from a Craigslist ad listing from Andrews. We drove one day to Andrews to pick her out, and after a minute with her we made the decision. We went back weeks later when they were ready to give her to us and she became part of our pack.

Luna's puppyhood in the Odessa duplex was a short time but an unfortunate time. One day when she drank some water that poisoned her and she almost died because Lindsey and I were too busy fighting that day to pay attention to the poor dog. My dad saved her life with a steroids shot, but that made her put on weight that she never dropped while Xena was alive. Even outside of that incident the duplex was just too small for her, and we kept taking all the dogs on walks on a trail that was all the way across town just so she could get some exercise without the hot sun she hated beating down on her.

Luna was named after a silly character in Harry Potter, and she lived up to it by being a silly dog. She always had her tongue out full of energy, and she loved to get in your face or playfully sit on you if she could. Where Xena kept herself occupied by defending whatever part of the earth she though was hers, and Roscoe had fun licking whatever part of himself needed licked that day, Luna always wanted to just interact with people. To be where the people were.

When we moved to Leander Luna's life got significantly better. She finally had a real yard to lay and play in, plus we had a great walking experience ready as soon as we left our porch just going around the new neighborhood. She immediately made the house hers, and was quick to lay on the stairs or just in the dirt in the yard as if she owned the place. By this point she was almost grown into her full size and it was just in time that we got her a bigger place to grow into.

But it wasn't all smooth sailing for her early on in Leander. In Odessa Lindsey and I worked different schedules, so the dog was never left alone. I went to Austin first and started working at my new job before anyone else moved down, and after moving down Lindsey began working for my dad in Horseshoe Bay and was commuting down there every day. We didn't worry about Xena and Roscoe, but as a puppy Luna would tear things up if you left her by herself for the day.

Our original plan was to lock her in a large cage in the master bathroom, but that didn't really work out. One day we came home and wet shit was everywhere and the dog was covered in it- turns out she got diarrhea that required vet intervention to stop if she got upset. Lindey's parent's friend Steve helped us put a dog flap in the backdoor of the house and that worked as a solution for the other dogs.

The solution for Luna became a change in plans. Soon the doctor my dad hired to work in HSB didn't work out and Lindsey didn't have to commute anymore. For a while the solution was we didn't leave the dog alone. She just stayed home every day.

Then in 2013 Lindsey got a new "real" job working for the TCEQ and it seemed that Luna (and the rest of the dogs) were going to be abandoned during the day forever more. I took some time off right after Lindsey got hired so that delayed the date of daily abandonment, but the writing was on the wall: soon Luna was once again going to be left alone all day.

For my part I saw the day of abandonment coming down the road, and for my own fun I would verbally tease Luna about it. "What will you do on that day?" or "What is your plan for when we abandon you?" For our part we really didn't have a plan, we hoped the dog door would be good enough and we could just leave her around the house.

Then the day finally came, the day of abandonment. My vacation break was up, and that was the morning I had to go back to work. Lindsey had already left for her new job that day, so all morning as I got ready I kept talking to Luna and asking her "so what is your plan for today?"

Finally the moment hit when I had to leave for work, so I sat on the couch one last time and asked playfully "So what are you going to do now? Its the time I warned you about!"

Luna jumped up on the couch next to me I assumed to lick my face oblivious to what the moment was all about. But before I knew it Luna showed she had a plan all along, and she went to execute this plan. Suddenly she sat on me but not the usual bouncy playful sit on me I was used to. Instead she turned into complete dead weight and sat on me as if to pin me down, as if she knew what that day was and how she was going to stop me from leaving her.

In that moment I felt a sense of perspective I never felt before hit me. I had a tear come to my eye as I realized that this poor dog, like all my dogs, had no real control over her life. She trusted in me and Lindsey for everything, and the daily leaving for work that I was getting used to as part of being a "real adult" that year for her was giving up time with us for no reason whatsoever from her point of view.

I realized in that exact moment that it wasn't just that Luna was being abandoned, it was the start of a decades long era when me and Lindsey would go to regular jobs for people other than my dad and that unlike our other dogs Luna wouldn't get to spend a good chunk of her life hanging around us while we got ready to grow up. Her life would be defined by what we could give her after we did what we needed to as working adults, and her accepting a situation she hated that she had no control over because she had no other options.

With that revelation in mind I stayed there, I let her sit on me. I was twenty minutes late to work because I wanted her plan to succeed for a bit, because I wanted to say thank you to her for loving us including me so much. When I finally made her get up, and forced her plan to fail, I did so with a sense of perspective that as I moved into this new era of my life with challenges I didn't know how to face I had to make sure that this dog I chose to bring into my life was given as much access to me and us as we could give.

To our relief, Luna didn't act out when her plan failed. From that time forward we would leave her out in the house all day at home expecting at worst that something would be chewed up when we got back. Also from that time forward the dog would do everything she could to get every second with us she could when we weren't away at work, and soon she became our "secret favorite" dog for how much love she would pour on us when we had the time to let her.

Now it is five years later and Luna has grown up to be a great dog who barely misbehaves anymore and that we really don't worry about. Every work day we "abandon her" but she is happy to greet us at the end of it, and she would only really get upset with us if we planned to leave her alone on Saturday to go do something because in her opinion that was her day. Saturday was the day she learned to live for, they day when the plan worked.

Now that Lindsey is pregnant we are on the precipice of a new era of our lives, the one where as fully formed adults we work to raise the next generation via our son. Going into this new era we both wonder what it will mean for Luna, how she will react to a baby and how she will deal with having to split our attention yet again, for the first time since that fateful day when she sat on me.

For my part I have made a promise to myself to make sure she remains a priority, that she gets dedicated walking time or just hanging around time so she doesn't feel demoted. I also promised to remember the lesson from that day about the lack of control she had over her own life, and apply that lesson to how I will raise a son that doesn't have any control over how he is raised, as that is our decision to make.

No matter when Luna leaves our lives I will never forget this lesson she taught me, and I will never forget her big plan on that morning in 2013. I will also never forget how much she loves us, and I will always appreciate her part in me turning into the person I am and will one day be.

Thank you for everything Luna.....