Today is almost four years since Bentley died. He was perhaps the dog I’ve loved most in my life since my dog Billy, who captured my heart when I was in high school. Bentley came into my life years later when one of my daughters couldn’t keep him, so she left him with us. And that was a gift, because Bentley enriched our lives in many, many ways. He was both the most magnificent and the most difficult dog we’ve ever had. But at all times, he was wonderful, handsome, kind, and supremely intelligent. My students adored him, teachers loved him, and everyone was entranced by his silky fur and gentle nature. This is at least part of his story. We’ll never know about the first years of his life, but his last decade was incredible. I wrote this in three parts. One part I just wrote, four years after his passing. The other two parts were written a year before his death and the day after his death. He was on death’s door at the shelter because of his “advanced” age, but he lived with us for ten years–longer than many dogs have.

April 15, 2020

Yesterday Bentley took his last car ride. He had his last run in the yard with his friends, Peanut, Lexi, and Chloe, dogs with whom he never actually played, but whom he loved to herd as they ran around the backyard barking at squirrels who had quickly scampered up trees when the back door opened.

Two days ago, he had been running with his buddies chasing after a couple walking their pug on the other side of the fence. When he got to the back corner of the yard, where the ground slopes a bit, he flopped over and lay still. I had been videotaping him, so I stopped and ran over, sure that he had died. I thought, “What a great way to die — running, barking, being with other dogs on a beautiful sunny day.” I reached him and he lay still, his eyes open. I began to think about what I’d do with the body and then saw him breathing. I helped him up and he walked — a bit unsteadily — to the house. The same thing happened the next day. 

He stopped eating dog kibble weeks ago. He stopped eating the dog food with gravy a bit later. And then he wouldn’t even eat the pure chicken cat food which is literally shredded chicken.  Yesterday, he slept for four hours straight on the living room floor, barely even seeming to breathe. For the umpteenth time, I leaned over to see if he was breathing, hoping that he had peacefully passed away in his sleep. But it was not to be. I had made the most difficult decision that any dog lover has to make — when to let our beloved companion go in peace.

With Bentley, the decision was a bit easier than with other dogs I’ve had, all of whom contracted cancer or had a debilitating disease. Most of them died at the relatively young age of eleven or twelve. Lucy, a dog I rescued from the streets of Chicago, lived to fourteen. But I’ve never had a dog with the longevity of Bentley. We think he was seventeen when he died. 

I started writing this ode to Bentley in September of 2019. Here is what I wrote:

Bentley is the love of my life (besides my husband), my heart dog, my companion, and at the same time one of the most difficult dogs I have ever had. Like a cat, he has lived at least nine lives, and he continues to be sprightly even at the advanced age of 15 or 16. We don’t know how old Bentley is because he was adopted from a shelter in Missouri by one of my children, who saw him at an adoption event, in his cage, lying quietly and looking up at her with huge brown eyes. He had been found abandoned in a field, covered in ticks and fleas. She was told that he was “too old” (they guessed six or seven) and unlikely to be adopted, so he would be killed soon. She adopted him.

In November of 2010, after he tore apart her apartment, we got him. At that time, we lived in a rental home with very understanding landlords (we had three dogs, four cats, a rabbit and a bird), but Bentley was determined to get out from our large fenced-in yard. When let out with the other dogs to play in the yard, he would burrow under or jump over, and we’d go searching the neighborhood for him. Once I found him by the townhouses at the end of the subdivision. I called his name, and he looked at me, then ran away. I couldn’t understand it. Bentley knew me and loved me. He slept by my side of the bed, yet he ran away. He did show up at the house soon after. We ended up never allowing him to go outside unaccompanied to make sure he didn’t escape. We loved him and kept him in spite of torn walls, scratched doors, chewed garbage, and destruction I’ve conveniently but thankfully forgotten about over the years (although my husband has not). Now we live on an acre, and the combination of his age, his anti-anxiety medication, and the fence ensure that he can’t get under or over even if he were to try.

In many ways, Bentley reminds me of my long-lost dog Billy. The obvious comparison is that they are both herding dogs, Billy was much smaller, but Bentley has Billy’s long fur, his softness, and certainly, his intelligence and willingness to please. Bentley passed the therapy test for TDI (Therapy Dogs International) and before that, Delta Society, without any problem. In fact, during one part of the test, we had to stop to let another dog and handler go through the door ahead of us. Without any commands, Bentley automatically stopped to let them pass. “What a gentleman!” the evaluator cried out. He was that kind of dog — a true gentleman, sweet, gentle, and calm. He went to school with me for years; I’d only have to point at a student, and Bentley would walk over to that child for petting. The kids loved stroking his long, silky fur, and he tolerated hugging and kissing. He was happy, so long as he could be with me.

One afternoon, the assistant principal came to get me. DCFS was interviewing a child, and the young boy was nervous. Could I come with Bentley and help? The child lay with Bentley, petting him, answering difficult questions while I stood back against the wall. Similarly, when students might have had a tough day, hugging and petting Bentley always made them feel better and more able to cope with both learning issues and dealing with classmates.

My office was on the second floor. One time I left him briefly in a 2nd grade classroom on the first floor while I ran an errand. The minute the door opened, Bentley was out like a shot. He ran to where my office would have been if we were on the second floor and sat by the door. The teacher went and got him, and we laughed about it. The teachers loved him, and just seeing him in the hallways made students smile. Bentley listened completely — except when it came to food.

Bentley could not be trusted around food. The minute I’d leave the classroom, if there was food in the garbage can, it would be all over the floor when we got back to class. My students would reprimand me, “Mrs. Kramer, we forgot to put up the garbage cans.” To them, it was never Bentley’s fault but ours. At home, Bentley would take unopened cans of wet cat food from the counter and chew them open. We’d come home and find the metal discs, empty, completely flattened out, riddled with teeth marks. He would open nightstand drawers and find boxes of Frango Mints and devour the whole box — and it didn’t seem to bother him one bit!

Bentley is by far the smartest dog we’ve ever lived with. The knobs on our doors are not round; they’re simply handles. Bentley can open them all. Just the other night, I was awakened by a sound. Opening my eyes, I saw Bentley jump on the bathroom door, use his left paw to push the door handle down, and with his right paw and his weight, open the door. He then proceeded into the bathroom, opened the lid of the toilet, and drank deeply. And no, he did not close the lid afterwards. In fact, one of our cats tries to emulate Bentley, using his paws to turn the door handle. It’s frustrating for him that he doesn’t have the weight to push open the door, and it’s kind of creepy at night when we are in the bedroom with the dogs and we see the door handle move up and down as Natty tries to come into the room.  Yes, we have to lock the bedroom door because while Bentley knows how to open every door in our home, he hasn’t yet figured out the locks.

One of the best Bentley stories is when we struggled to deal with his separation anxiety. The doggie psychiatrist (yes, those exist!) told us to try to get video of what he did when we were gone. I carefully set up an iPad to record him in the kitchen after we left. I positioned it at the back of a counter, behind a pitcher and something else, so it would be able to stand up but not be knocked over. When we got back, we couldn’t believe what was on the tape. There was over an hour of video, and you could see him check out all the counters and the table, finding the occasional unintended treat. But it was the end that blew us away. Watch the Bentley, Genius Dog (condensed into a few minutes) and wait for the ending! Unbelievable and pure Bentley. Turn up the sound to hear my husband’s music.

When Bentley first arrived in our home, we had a bunny; Sammy, a rottie mix; four cats; and a bird. Although he has lived with many other dogs and cats, Bentley does not have a buddy. He loves humans, me especially, and will follow me everywhere. In his younger days, I could walk him off leash (although I never did outside). In the school, he walked right behind me, close, as if afraid to lose sight of me. Now he’s content to lie down somewhere in the room with me, close enough to me to feel safe. But because of his age, in our house, he often falls into a deep sleep and doesn’t realize that I’ve gone to the bedroom while he’s sleeping. When the other dogs run around outside, he enjoys chasing them, herding them, and running with them. When they start to play and wrestle, Bentley moves away. He is very vocal, and when anyone comes into the house, including me, he barks loudly for several minutes, wagging his tail the whole time. In the years that we’ve had Bentley, he’s never, ever shown any even little sign of aggression. He barks, but he has never growled. He’s gentle with children and cats alike.

When Bentley was around nine, I discovered a golf-ball sized tumor on his back leg which had been covered by the thick fur there. Our wonderful veterinarian took it off, and there has been no recurrence of the cancer even though it was a malignant tumor. He sailed through his ACL surgery a few years later, and now, he leaps into the car when we go anywhere.

His hearing seems to be less acute than it was. When we move into the bedroom at night, often Bentley is still by the back door, sound asleep. His eyes are cloudy although he runs around outside easily. He sleeps a lot more than he used to and is quicker to lie down wherever we are, grunting a bit as he does. His beautiful body is covered in fatty tumors that can’t be seen because of his thick fur, but only felt when petting him.

He’s been with us longer than many dogs live, and he still runs with the other dogs in the back yard and leaps into the car for rides. He also still jumps onto the window ledge with the two smaller dogs to bark at passersby when we aren’t looking. If we see him, even though we don’t say anything (it’s kind of cute to see a big dog in the window ledge) he jumps down as if he’s embarrassed to be caught there. And while he can easily jump on the couch, even if I beg him to jump on it next to me, he won’t. He’s not a lap dog — he’s a protector and guardian. He lies at my feet, grateful when I reach down to stroke his silky fur. And I’m grateful that he’s there, always looking into my eyes, grunting with pleasure at my touch, coming at my command.

My Bentley.