I was hoping to come here and post about book four in my experiment, but instead I’m here writing about my small black friend, Len. We had to say goodbye to her yesterday, and our house feels far too empty and quiet for our liking. I thought it was quiet when we lost Ron, but we still had another small creature wagging her tail and asking for walks, and she provided a welcome distraction for us. Today there’s nothing but silence, something I feel especially keenly as I sit in my office. I’ve worked from home for five years, and this is the first day without an office mate. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it’s breaking my heart.

When I first met Mike (and Ron and Len), Len was only three. She still had that crazy-Dalmatian personality – they were both riotous bundles of energy who wrestled in the backyard and pulled for their entire walks. She was up in my face, literally – so much so that for a long time I thought she was the bigger dog. In reality she was a runt, a little stocky but also very delicate, but she was busting out all over with love, just waiting for someone new to discover how fabulous an hour of chin scratching  and Len-loving could be.

Over the years, as we got to know each other, she mellowed a little. She still loved a good run in the yard or a long walk on a sunny morning, but she also loved curling up with the pack to watch a movie or have a nap. In the last year or so, she’d taken to snuggling up on the couch beside me, her head resting on my leg, submitting to long love-ins while we all watched Dexter or 24 or whatever we’d recorded on the PVR. She’d actually coax us to sit on the couch together, milling about the room and staring at whichever of us had dared sit down in the chair across the room, until we relented and took our rightful place on either side of her. There’s a special dimension to movie night when you have a sweet Dalmatian head on your lap. I can’t explain how soothing it was to sit and rub those silky ears, to feel her burrow against me and hear her sigh.

She had a job to do, of course. She was the household Guard Dog. When Ron no longer hear, Len became her ears – they communicated effortlessly. She was the ears for all of us, really, alerting us to potential danger, whether it was her nemesis (the collie from down the street) or Jane’s Addiction (she wasn’t so sure about those dogs at the beginning of Been Caught Stealing). She sounded the alarm whenever the mailman arrived, the FedEx guy came by, or one of us came home.

For a long time she was also public liaison for the household. I met so many people in our neighborhood while we were out on walks the last two years. She won them all over, nudging them for affection and trotting off with a spring in her step after getting it. She even won over our crusty old mailman in the end – in the last few weeks he’d say hello and point out where all the ice was on the sidewalk; he’d seen her fall one day and struggle to get up, and I think he knew she was doing her best.

I know a lot of people say you can learn volumes from your dog, but it’s true. I’d often think on walks how she  and Ron were both filled with joy to be out in the fresh air. Len would come greet us at the door no matter what was going on with her that day. She’d lick your face if you cried, and sit beside you when you needed someone. She forgave instantly, ready to shake a paw the second you were – no hard feelings. She devoured every dinner with gusto and thought veggies were the best treat ever. She played hard, and she slept hard. It was all the simple things that made her happy.

I never thought I would own dogs, let alone fall in love with them so completely. I feel blessed to have known such a wonderful, small creature – and I feel doubly blessed to have known two. I hope that in spite of her rough beginning, Len knew in the end how much her pack loved her. And I hope that somewhere, she and Ron are snuggled on a couch together, butt to butt, in a universe with all the baby carrots and roast chickens they can handle. I can only hope to put as much love in the world as she did.

It’s much too quiet in our house today.

Yesterday, we said goodbye to one of the best buddies ever – our little friend Ron.

I posted at the very start of this blog about Ron and her failing liver, and how we had tried almost everything we could think of to make her well again, includng the all-natural food experiment. And while roast chicken and pasta worked for a while, it was no match for what she was up against. We had a fabulous extra year with her, snuggling on snowy winter afternoons, bounding through the snow, touring the neighborhood (nose down, tail up), but in the end, we had exhausted all the options. She wasn’t getting better, she was in pain and only going to get worse, so we decided to let her go.

I have to admit, the best description for how I feel right now is bereft. I never expected to own dogs, let alone love them so much. Because I work at home, I spent just about every waking hour with Ron and Len. And though they never mastered the art of the Very Important Conference Call, they were the best office companions a girl could want. Ron, especially, spent many an afternoon curled up on a cushion beside my chair, ready to get up if I got up, always curious about what was going on around her. Was it dinner? A walk? A few minutes outside? What are you doing, and how can I get in there, too?

In the last year, I spent a lot of time thinking about her health. I messed around with recipes and tried to find foods she liked. I felt absolutely victorious when she was a healthy weight, when her coat was glossy and her gums pink. I like to think that she had a good last year, or even a good last few years, and that even when her body was failing she knew she had a pack who only ever wanted the best for her.

So it’s too quiet. I miss the click-click of her walking around the house, the sound of her drinking (always in threes, lap-lap-lap, lap-lap-lap), or even just the little grunts and sighs she made as she settled in for a nap. There’s too much room on the bed. I miss having to move over so she could jump up, watching her contemplate, and then hearing one of us say, “Come on. Come on up. There’s room for a brown dog.”

We are lucky, though, in that we still have her partner in crime, Len. We have plenty of adventures to look forward to, in our new pack of three. There will be rides in the truck, hikes in the mountains, afternoons in the garden, and snowy days snuggled on the couch. And I’m sure throughout all of them, even though we’ll be having a good time, we’ll be thinking about Ron, one of the best friends any man, woman or canine could ever want.