Ajax

Last Friday night after I returned from a horrendous four-hour drive from Long Island that should have taken less than two hours, Jan informed me that Ajax, my dog, had died.

The day before, during a visit to the pediatric dentist, Jan learned from our hygienist Tara that Ajax had died last May—on Mother's Day. The dental hygienist is the daughter of Ajax's adopted owner—the man who took Ajax off our hands four years ago—a month before Ben was born. For the past four years, our routine dental visits have included an Ajax report. It's been my only glimpse into Ajax's post-me life. Not ideal, but good enough.

At every visit, Tara informed me that Ajax was doing well and that her father was thrilled with his new friend. No such luck at this visit. As the story goes, Ajax seemed unwell after a normal fetch session so his owner took him to the vet (with tennis ball in mouth), and by the next day Ajax had died of bloat. He was 10 years old.


My life with Ajax began a decade ago in Seattle when I bought an over-sized eight-week old yellow lab. I had just left Amazon and was in between relationships. I needed to nurture something that wasn't a website, and I didn't have kids yet. I became a full time doggy mommy and loved every minute of it.

 When Ajax was a year old and I was 29, we headed to Los Angeles. I started grad school at CalArts and moved into a shared house in Silver Lake with two roommates and two dogs. It was an unconventional living situation, but somehow it worked. I think this might have been the happiest time in Ajax's life. He was part of a dog pack and there was always a human around to walk and feed him. Since I wasn't working at the time, and CalArts hours were unusual, I was able to take the three dogs on hikes in Griffith Park almost daily. Anyone who knows me from that time of life has probably had the experience of hiking with me in Griffith Park with Ajax, Kumazi and Aspen.

Jan and I met around that time. Unlike some other men I had dated, Jan didn't find Ajax annoying. He appreciated Ajax's passion for the beach and his athleticism, and they instantly fell in love. I knew from Jan's calm acceptance of Ajax that he was a good man and would be a good father. The three of us soon became a family.

For Jan’s career, we moved to Laguna Beach. Ajax played big wave fetch every morning and hiked with me in the hills every afternoon. Tourists stopped to take pictures of him in the waves. Aside from occasionally rubbing himself on a dead seal, coating himself with vile rotten seal oil, Ajax was pretty easy to care for. As long as he got his 2 hours of exercise a day, Ajax was a great dog.

In July 2006, we moved to New Haven. Jan started a job at Yale and we headed east. While some aspects of our lives improved with this move, Ajax never adjusted to urban east-coast living. New Haven has few spots to take your dog off leash and we had much less time. Jan traveled a lot and the New England winters can be brutal. We had young twins, Jan had a challenging new job and New Haven could care less about dog-bliss. Compared to Laguna Beach, it's a shitty place to own a dog.

 I won't go into the details of the series of events that led up to our re-homing of Ajax. For many reasons it became evident that he was better off with someone else. Whenever I regret giving him up, I imagine myself in the Hamden dog park with twin two- year olds and a newborn, throwing the tennis ball in the middle of winter while Jan is at a conference in China. We decided to find another home for Ajax because we knew that he needed an owner that could provide an athletic life for him.

For Ajax, fetch was more important than love. Ajax needed to move-- a lot. After interviewing a dozen people who wanted to adopt Ajax, we chose a retired fireman who lived in the country with nothing to do but throw a tennis ball. He adopted another dog at the same time so I knew that Ajax would have a buddy. It was an incredibly hard choice, but it was the right decision.

The truth is that Ajax could be a pain-in-the-ass. He stole food, he howled at firetrucks, and he eventually howled when Sammy cried, but he was always sweet and loving, and never turned down the chance to hike-- a quality I really appreciate in a friend. All of the grandparents loved him and cared for him at various times.

 I'm sad that Ben never met Ajax, and Sammy and Julia can't remember him, but he's part of our family lore. Ajax has driven the entire length of the I-5-- from Canada to Mexico. He swam in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and romped on the dog-police-free beaches of Baja. He was a dog of adventure and intrigue. He was never cut out for well-behaved New Haven elitism and rule-following. He should have never left the west coast, but he had no choice, and ultimately I think he was happy in rural Connecticut. At least he didn't die of Lyme Disease. Jan and I always hoped that he would have a heart attack while playing fetch—so he would die doing what he loved. Dying of bloat with a ball in his mouth at the age of 10 isn't tragic. I just wished I had seen him one more time.