Mackey and Me

You may not know this, but I grew up with the world's greatest dog. His name was Rexanne McKenzie. The "anne" part of Rexanne was supposed to be dropped once he started lifting his leg to pee. But, you know how names go. It was just too catchy so it never really did completely go away. Rex lived to be almost 16. He was more human than K-9. He would get a disgusted looked on his face when you shooed him off of the couch. He monopolized the space in front of the fireplace on cold winter nights. If you were going to sit on the floor, then he was going to sit on your lap. Rex was free, which means he cost a LOT of money in the long run. He even had a metal plate on his hip that made us pamper him even more in the winter when he would get the shivers from being outside for only a few minutes. He was tough and very territorial. A pit-pull mix, he had every reason to not turn out to be a great dog for kids. On the contrary, he was my best friend from day one. I can't tell you how much I loved/love this dog. I still dream about him, and he died many years ago. When I went off to college, he stayed with my parents. Throughout college, I became dead-set on getting a dog. But, since apartments require lots of extra money when you have pets, and I had very little money, it was obvious that a dog would have to wait. Brian would give me stuffed animal dogs for each holiday. When I graduated from college, his gift to me was Puppy Chow. It wouldn't be long before I brought home my own puppy...

A friend of mine from college had great news! His family had an extra lab pup. He was a chocolate-yellow lab mix. We loaded up in my friend's truck with nothing other than a cardboard box and headed to Statesboro to pick up my new guy. I knew his name would be Max, but couldn't foresee that he would more frequently be called MacMac or Mackey. For some reason, I was quite convinced he would be brown. I think I had read that chocolate was dominant over yellow, or maybe I just made that up. Either way, I had pictured a fat little chocolate fur ball riding home in my lap that night. Guess what? He wasn't chocolate. He was almost WHITE! Even better, he was white with gorgeous, chocolate-lab, greenish eyes. He was the prettiest dog I have ever seen. And he was mine!

Max grew up fast and got into EVERYTHING. He was your typical puppy, but with some serious belly issues. Thank goodness he was so irresistibly cute, or he wouldn't have lived very long. He was all dog. He enjoyed being outside, he ate dog food, he rolled in cow manure, he could sniff-out a lake from miles away, you name it. He was more K-9 than human. He hated being in trouble. He loved belly-rubs and peanut butter.

Age was hard on Max. When he was about 7, he developed severe skin and food allergies. Unfortunately, we didn't know that was what it was until he was almost 11. It was heart-breaking to see him go from wanting to be pet, to being able to only pet his face without him going crazy. Brian and I watched Marley and Me and barely kept it together. The movie paralleled our lives in an incredible way, especially the fact that the couple in the movie was dealing with an aging yellow lab who was dearly loved by the family. On May 7th, I came home and had a message on my machine. Apparently, someone let our dogs out. Max was suffering from laryngeal paralysis, which made it hard for him to breathe, especially in the heat. While he was out running around, he laid down in our neighbor's yard and died. Our neighbor called and left a message with the news. Obviously, it was a terrible way for me and the kids to hear about it. Thankfully, we had some caring neighbors that brought Max back to us, wrapped up in a blanket. We got to love on him and say our goodbyes. At that moment, I was so thankful that my kids will one day say, "You may not know this, but I grew up with the world's greatest dog."