In Memoriam: Gus Conley

First of all, Gus didn't choose us. Let's make that clear. We've had dogs that contributed to the selection/adoption process...that came up to us as if to say, "Please...pick me!" Not Gus. In late 1999, when we first took him out of his pen in the shelter for a little "test walk," he couldn't have cared less who was on the other end of that leash. He just wanted OUTSIDE!

Secondly, Gus was not what you would consider an intelligent dog. Even though he lived with my parents recently, he would "come to visit" with them fairly regularly. When he came, he picked up right away on how to go out the doggie door (and often headed straight for it), but he could never seem to remember how to come back in. Again, he just wanted OUTSIDE! (and so a pattern emerges...) Also, he was convinced that he could get to the cats who lived in the rafters of a shed on Kendra's parents' farm by incessantly digging at the foundation of the shed. He was no canine Einstein.

Third, Gus was not exactly a "people" dog. Oh, sure, he'd greet newcomers to the house. He'd diligently stick by your side if you were eating something. He would follow my dad around the house from the moment he (dad) got home until he (Gus) got his walk (OUTSIDE!). But if there was no explicit means to benefit (food, walk, a scratch on the rump), Gus generally was content to be away from the people.

Fourth, Gus lacked subtlety. When he first came to live with us, he took the liberty of "marking" our bed when I was still in it. One night, when we were having a group of friends over, he stood up on his hind legs to steal from the cheese tray on the kitchen counter while we were standing in the kitchen. And then there was the time, OUTSIDE, when in a fit of doggy jubilation, he launched himself over an enormous hole (dug for a basement; again, on the farm). The last visual I had was his lanky body, squirming, mid-air, when it dawned on him that he wasn't going to make it to the other side of the hole. (By the time I got to the hole, he was unfazed...up and out the other side.) But his begging at the table probably constituted his least-subtle times: he would come up and gingerly place his drool-filled jowls squarely on the lap of whomever he sensed was most likely to give him food--at times, brand-new guests to the house--leaving a huge smear of saliva on the unsuspecting person's trousers (or, in the worst-case scenario, if he/she was wearing shorts, on their bare leg).

Fifth, Gus left a bit to be desired in the appearance department. Oh, he had a very cute face, replete with saggy ears and droopy lips, and he maintained his puppy-dog eyes (which he mastered the use of when it came to begging) all the way to the end. But on his other--shall we say, less attractive--end, he had chewed almost all of the hair off his tail, such that it appeared as though someone had replaced his real tail with one from a 50-lb. rat. He had also obsessively licked what started as a small lesion on his "wrist" to the point that it was a golf-ball sized, open, festering wound.

Sixth, Gus lacked an essential element that makes for a good watchdog: bravery. Once, a party of male college students we had at our house was "raided" by a group of girls who burst in the door shrieking and emptying cans of spray-string about our living room. We found Gus, some time later, cowering under a futon in the only windowless room in the house. While his bark was enough to ward off any would-be miscreants, if that failed, you'd be on your own--he'd be the first one out the door. And don't even mention a thunderstorm around him.

All in all, Gus was often times an aloof, apathetic, dim, unaware, obsessive, neurotic dog, motivated mostly by thoughts of food and going OUTSIDE.

But he was also exuberant, hopeful, and in one particular time with my mom, extraordinarily compassionate. He had a wonderful howl-song he woooooo-ed at you when he was excited. As a young dog, he would gleefully tear around the house, leaping down half-flights of stairs and "dinging" his tail against a metal pole in our living room. When he especially wanted something from you, he would left-handedly paw at you in a very convincing (and very endearing) way. And he had about the cutest head-tilt I've ever seen.


In sum, he was ours.

And we couldn't have loved him more.

Gus Conley

January 31, 1998 - April 19, 2012