Saying Goodbye to my Best Friend Scooter
I don’t have to tell you that this post is a real tear-jerker but Scooter meant so much to me and so many that I really wanted to share some of his life so that others can celebrate his memory as well.
I’ve been dreading about this day coming for years and I’m not going to lie it’s been even more heartbreaking than I could have ever imagined. This weekend we had to say goodbye to Scooter and I’m just gutted. I know that everyone thinks their dogs are the best, but Scooter really was. And as tough as it is to write this post, I needed to.
I got Scooter unexpectedly in July of 2010. My boss at the time was moving to NYC and decided to give up 3 of her dogs for adoption. I wasn’t the one who was originally supposed to take him though. He had been adopted by another family but the night before my boss was going to be leaving for the east coast, that family decided to give him back. It turned out that Scooter didn’t like their other dog and it didn’t go well. Knowing Scooter, that shouldn’t surprise you at all… he really was meant to be an only child. After they gave him back, understandably my boss was freaking out about what to do with him. The adoption agency she had used couldn’t take him for a few days and they had the Uhaul packed and ready to go. I was always kind of her “fixer” so I offered to take him for the few days in between. Sure, my apartment building didn’t allow dogs but I’m sure I could swing it for a few days right?!
The funny thing about that too is, honestly, I didn’t really like Scooter at the time. My boss had 5 dogs when I worked for her — all dachshunds — and Scooter used to lay in his crate in the kitchen on his back and just growl at the other dogs when they got close to him. Occasionally he would mingle with them but he was kind of a grump. He needed me though, so I packed him and his things up and drove to my apartment. I remember freakinggg out in the parking garage when I got there because I realized I had no idea how I was actually going to get him inside without anyone seeing. I lived in a high-rise at the time and there were always people around every time I went to get out of the car. At the time, I was also still working at Safeway so I was on a serious time crunch to get him upstairs, change and go to my second job for the evening. Finally, I decided to wrap him up in a blanket and I skipped the elevators and ran up 7 flights of stairs as fast as I could. I didn’t really think about how I was going to take him in and out to go to the bathroom at that point, but I was just excited that I had gotten him inside and was in the clear! Or so I thought.
The next morning, we woke up to a note under our door from management saying they had been alerted we had a dog in the apartment and that we risked being kicked out if we didn’t get rid of it. It turns out, while I was at work and my roommate Lauren was at class the night before, Scoots had been barking up a storm and someone turned us in. Luckily, I actually had a few days off in a row (which never happened) so I decided to solve that problem by leaving the apartment and going to Washington for the weekend. By the time I would be headed back, the adoption place was supposed to have room for him too so all was going to be okay, right?!
That 3-hour drive home was kind of funny. I learned that Scooter REALLY loved the car. I only had the bottom of his crate on so he just decided to jump allllll over the place while I was driving. To the backseat… on the floor and back again. He was a little bit of a wild child but one thing was for sure, he was along for the ride. When I got to my mom’s I remember putting him on the bed and he just gave me this look with his puppy dog eyes that started my change of heart for him. Remember, I told you, I kind of thought Scooter was a jerk! This was the first time I had ever spent time with him alone though and the little guy’s personality started to shine through. It didn’t take long before we had started a bond and I started having thoughts of if I should try and keep him. At the time, I was going through a breakup, I still had 2-months left on my lease and was working two jobs, so it wasn’t really ideal timing. After all he had been through already though, I decided I needed to try and make it work. So for the rest of the weekend, I tried to convince my parents to watch him for a few months until I could move to a pet-friendly building and figure things out. Unfortunately, they weren’t as into my plan as I was and said that neither one of them could help. To their defense, Scooter had pinned Bentley down in the backyard the day before (which is a pretty funny visual if you think of it now) and they definitelyyy didn’t get along. Plus my dad works nights and is asleep most of the time he’s home so that wouldn’t have worked out great either.
Even with valid reasons though, I was frustrated and also had to head back to Oregon because I had an afternoon shift to work. That 3-hour drive back was stressful, let me tell you! I had no idea what I was going to do. On the way back, the adoption agency called me to check in on Scooter and I told her that I had decided I was going to keep him. That he had already been through a lot with the failed adoption and his owners moving away and at least he knew me. She wasn’t too keen on the idea either and went into a whole schpeal about how dachshunds are bad with babies and surely I was going to want a family soon. I laughed and told her I was 21 and had no desire to have kids anytime soon and that I’d make it work. How that was actually going to go down, I wasn’t sure but I was going to figure it out in the next hour or so before I made it to Portland.
Luckily, one of my best friends Jacob called me shortly after and ended up being the superhero to Scooter’s story. He lived in a house and said Scooter could stay with him for the summer. He had another dog, a big ol’ dog Bear (who I loved), but he was sure they could make it work for a few months. I should also mention, this call literally went down right as I was arriving in Portland about an hour before my shift. So it was literally a last-minute rescue! I thanked him about a million times and stopped by his house on my way to work to drop him off.
That summer, we spent a lot of evenings taking Scoots on walks to the park nearby his house and laughing while Scooter would hide under the bed and then come shooting out like lightning when Bear (who was a HUGE dog) came into the room to scare him. Bear and him never really got along (unsurprisingly) but they made it work.
The next month, life got even more interesting. My boss had a trip planned for me to come out and visit NYC and ended up offering me a full-time position if I moved there. NYC had never been somewhere I dreamed of living, but after my visit I quickly said yes. I’m a big believer in signs and earlier that summer I had also been offered another job in NYC from a company I did a virtual internship for. That one didn’t pan out but after I got another opportunity within the same month it seemed like a sign that I was supposed to go to New York. Looking back, that whole time just seems CRAZY, I usually refer to it as my quarter-life crisis, but those spur of the moment decisions would have a lasting impact on my life for the next decade. A month later, instead of looking for a new apartment in Portland, I was boarding a plane with a one-way ticket to New York with 5 suitcases and little Scoots in tow.
There are SO many things that could have gone wrong during that time. I meannnn I moved across the country to a city I didn’t know much about, to an apartment I’d never seen, and in with a roommate I’d never met. Somehow it all worked out though and I started to actually settle into my new role as a dog mom. I didn’t do it alone though! Mama Darcy (as she became known to Scoots as) also quickly fell in love with the little guy and he helped us both ease into our new lives.
It didn’t take long before Scoots was introduced to another person who would be one of his absolute favorite people ever, Uncle Chris. I met Chris about a month after I moved, and Scoots truly was at the heart of our whole relationship. I used to joke that Scoots was half of the reason he decided to actually date me and honestly, I wouldn’t have been mad if it was. They quickly formed a bond and that bond brought us closer together too. We spent a lot of time taking Scooter for walks at Carl Schurz Park while we were getting to know each other and a lot of time sitting on the kitchen floor hanging out and playing fetch in our tiny apartment. I think what really made their connection official though was when Chris got him a Batman costume that Halloween. I can’t tell you how hard we laughed when we dressed him up.
There were many things that Scooter loved but Central Park was definitely at the top of the list. I can’t even tell you how many days we spent at the park but it became a routine to go to Alice’s and pick up some scones or Milano’s for sandwiches before heading to the park. He would strut into the park like he owned the place and he made sure other dogs never got too close. He never really got over his grumpiness towards other pups but we loved him all the same anyways. His favorite things to do at the park were people-watching, trying to sneak some of our food and eating grass like a little cow. Little did he know one day I’d dress him up like one for Halloween!
During our almost 7 years in the city, we would go on to live in 4 different apartments. Of which, Scooter hated moving each and every time. There were a lot of ups and downs throughout those years, a lot of new friends, and a lot of memories but the one thing that stayed the same was that he was by my side through it all!
Of course, Scoots also had a bit of a naughty side when he was left to his own devices. He could get into a lot of trouble when he was left home alone especially when there was food involved. You think we would have learned over the years that he could be sneaky but I lost an apple pie, half a cheesesteak sandwich, a pack of fruit stripe gum, a box of junior mints, muffins, Shorty’s fries, a bag of Reeses, hot chocolate mix and Christmas cannolis, just to name a few. It was easy to underestimate what that little weenie dog was capable of, but if you had any kind of food anywhere near him he was going to find it and fast! He didn’t care if it was stuff he wasn’t supposed to have either. That pup gave me a lot of heart attacks over things he ate, I can’t tell you how many times I thought he was going to get sick from something. I quickly learned that was not going to be the way he went out though. That pup had a stomach of steel.
Of all the things he stole, the Christmas cannolis were one of the funniest things. Not at the time, but it’s funny now! Chris had picked up some mini cannolis at the holiday market because they were my favorite and after we each had one we decided to save the others for later. So you can understand my surprise when I went to have one later in the evening, opened the box and the remaining 4 were all gone! I immediately started giving Chris crap blaming him for eating all of them and when he denied it I thought he was just messing with me. That was until we realized who had really gotten into them… Scooter. You see, a few hours earlier we had taken 5 minutes to run downstairs to pick up my laundry from the basement and apparently that was enough time for him to make his move. As if the timing wasn’t impressive enough to eat 4 cannolis, he was able to open the box, eat them and somehow not get a trace of powdered sugar on him, near the box or on the floor. Our suspicions were confirmed when his tummy started growling later and he got the runs too. Oh Scooter… Even better, I was leaving for Washington the next day for Christmas and Chris was taking him to Long Island and Scooter had terrible gas the whole way there in his little bag. So here Chris was carrying him in his pink bag on a PACKED train while Scoots was farting up a storm the whole way there. That story still makes me laugh.
Now that I’ve mentioned the pink bag I have to tell you a little more about it too. I bought him a travel bag shortly after I had moved so I could take him places and decided I’d get a pink one because while he was a boy, I’d be the one carrying it and you know me! Which is funny, because Chris definitely ended up being the one carrying it most of the time. He hatedddd that bag the first few times we put him in it. Like HATED it. The first time we took him out to Long Island he squirmed and whined the whole way there on the train. I thought I was going to lose it. After using it a few times though he realized he got to go on adventures when he was in it and he flipped a switch and became obsessed with it. To the point, if you were getting something out of the closet and he saw it he’d go nuts because he thought he was going somewhere! That bag marked the beginning of when we started calling him Scooter the Adventure Dog, which we even ended up making him his own Instagram account for!
The place he got to go the most in his bag was back to Long Island where Chris’s family lived and let me tell you he LOVED it there. Between having a huge backyard to walk the perimeter of, all of the table scraps Chris’s dad gave him and all of the attention he got, he was such a happy boy. Just as they had welcomed me into the family, Scoots got just as much love.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Memorial Day. 4th of July, birthdays, baby showers, baptisms, engagement parties, weddings, sweet 16’s, summer BBQs, long weekends, and more.. you guessed it, he was there! For nearly 7 years, Scoots was along for the ride and he always got the star treatment too. The Felicettas had remodeled some of their home including the TV room and while it was supposed to be a dog-free space (his brothers had lots of adorable pups too) somehow Scoots became the exception to that rule. He was truly apart of the family.
When Chris and I decided to break up, knowing that also meant the end of their relationship broke me. I knew starting new chapters was going to be tough for us, but their last goodbye was almost as tough as this has been. Chris loved Scooter so much and that just broke my heart. He loved him so much that he still sent Scooter Christmas and Birthday gifts for the last almost 3 years — something I could never say no to. Scooter just had that effect and it gave me a little comfort that he was still a part of his life in some way even though it was tough on me sometimes.
When I moved back to Washington, Scooter helped me get through. Maybe it sounds silly to say he stayed strong for the both of us but somehow he just seemed to understand what was going on and he gave me a lot of extra love during that transition. I was so worried about how he was going to adjust, especially as I stayed with my mom for a while before I got myself settled again. Luckily he put on a happy face and seemed to soak in all of the time at Grandma’s — especially with all of the Cheerios she gave him! Scoots definitely got to do a lot of things with us when I lived in NYC, but I have to say when I moved back to Washington we started doing even more together. He learned to love the outdoors and going on walks around the lake, spending time in the backyard, going on drives with me, kayaking, running errands, going to parades and markets, and going on vacations. If there was a chance Scoots could go somewhere with me, I always tried to bring him. And when I couldn’t, he got to spend extra time with my Mom which was really special for her too.
When I started dating Evan, I have to admit I was nervous about introducing them. Truly, parents with kids who have had to think about that while dating… I don’t know how you handle it because it was tough just with Scoots! First, I was worried if Scooter would like him and what I’d do if he didn't… but even more, I didn’t want to feel like I was replacing Chris’s relationship with him. I don’t know if people even think about things like that with dogs, but I did and I was really protective of that. Luckily it was never an issue. Just as Evan had been thoughtful and understanding of so much when we started dating, he understood about Scooter too. That’s when I really realized it didn’t have to be an either-or situation when it came to Scoots and that they could have their own connection too. Which they really did. They grew to have such a special relationship and Scooter was so lucky to have gotten to spend his last few years with Evan. They both grew to love each other so much and we both needed Evan in the end.
When we moved to Tacoma, Scooter got to explore our new neighborhood right alongside us. We spent a lot of time exploring the local parks and beaches and it didn’t matter if his walks had gotten a little slower, he was just excited to come. Life was a little different out west but he adapted so well. Always a people-watcher, he loved our apartment because we had so many windows and lived on a corner so he could watch the kids go to school and all of the people and cars go by. We used to call it his Saturday morning cartoons because on the weekends we’d plop him up on the bed so he could look out the window. He could sit there for hours and still be entertained, fully focused on what was going on outside and growling at any dogs that went by. Even when I thought his eyesight was starting to go, he would always surprise me of how well he could spot other dogs even a block away! He loved that time and it became some of our favorite time with him too.
When he wasn’t looking out the window, you could find him curled up in the closet. When I moved back to Washington, Scoots decided he LOVED closets. I don’t know if he felt like they were actual rooms because they were so much bigger than NYC, or what but he loved them. I was actually putting in shelving for my shoes when he first decided this. I was going to put my boots along the bottom all lined up but Scooter decided he liked that spot so instead of having him lay all over my shoes (which he would have done) I decided to throw in the towel and put pillows down there for him instead. He definitely approved of that decision.
When we decided we wanted to put down roots and buy in Tacoma, Scooter’s needs were definitely important too and the townhouse was his perfect final home. When we first looked at it and saw the walk-in closets we immediately were trying to figure out which closet would be his favorite. Plus we have two sliding glass doors he could look out, a balcony and a backyard. It was so perfect, I even wrote a letter to the sellers with my offer to let them know how much Scooter would love the closets if we got the house. And he did. Each day, he spent most of his time in the office with me alternating between looking out the slider and taking naps. He loved watching the kids go to their bus stop across the street and watching the cars go by. No surprise either, he LOVED the closets. He spent more time in mine and it became his little dog cave. I can tell you he was not happy if the door was closed and he couldn’t get in either. He would have spent every hour he had in there if he could but I put up the dog gate during the day so he’d actually spend some time downstairs with me.
Photo by: Community Photo 253
It gives me joy knowing he was still able to go on adventures almost until the very end too. While we’ve certainly been staying in during quarantine, we were able to sneak in a few adventures to get some fresh air. Several car rides, a stop at Hood Canal and a few trips to the park our garden is at. This pic was from the last trip to the water and I can tell you he was so happy. We spent the whole afternoon there just enjoying being able to be outside, watching the eagles nearby and throwing rocks in the water. Scooter was so funny too. He was never much of a swimmer… but when we were there he ran right into the water! I thought it was kind of an accident at first because he was walking down the boat launch, but nope he ran right in and went in a few more times while we were there. Just exploring!
If you had told me then, he’d be gone a month after this pic I wouldn’t have believed you. He had definitely slowed down over the years and had a few issues, but for the most part he lived a pretty healthy life. All almost 17 years of it! He only missed his birthday by a few weeks but he held on as long as he could. The last few weeks were definitely tough when he started having issues but he kept fighting and his good days gave me hope that he was going to pull through like he had with everything else. He was the strongest little guy and he hung on as long as he could before we knew we had to say goodbye. I knew he was a little old man and his time would come eventually, but no time was ever going to be long enough. I’ll forever be grateful for the nearly 10 years he was apart of all of our lives though. He was truly the best and I’m really going to miss him. RIP little buddy.
