RIP Mr Pooch McGooch: 2010-2024

This has been one of those things I’ve been dreading for months. So I suppose you could say that deep down I knew it was coming. Yesterday morning we had to give our goodest boy Otto some final peace. Standing around a small table with a warm, fuzzy blanket covering it my wife, my son, my son’s girlfriend, and I gave pets to our four-legged family member Otto until he had moved on. We pet him for close to an hour after he’d gone. For the last year or so he didn’t like to be pet, unless it was gentle scratches on his neck and ears. We decided to get in all the pets we couldn’t while he was still alive and grumpy.

Everyone feels the same way about their dogs, that they’re the best damn dog in the world. And they’re right. Every one of them. That’s because a dog gives you 100% of themselves everyday. Every. Damn. Day. They love you when you’re in a great mood, they love you when you’re an asshole, and they love you when you’re sad. Sometimes a look straight into your eyes from your dog is the only thing that can get you out of a slump.

Otto was no different.

Otto was our family dog. We had Dieter and Helmut before Otto. We had Dieter and Helmut before children, so they were my wife and I’s dogs. They liked our kids, but they weren’t really the kids dogs. So when we’d gotten Otto back on Black Friday, 2010, he’d arrived as the Hubner family pooch. He arrived in a shoebox under the guise that my wife and mom were on a shopping trip to buy a mattress for our middle kid. She was initially disappointed there was no mattress, until they opened the shoebox.

He brought something to the family dynamic that was sorely missing. He was the glue that brought us all together and made us a tight family unit. A unity that still exists today because of him. He was the king of the side eye, as squirrel hunter, a cat antagonizer, grandma and grandpa lover, a cuddler, a snacker, and the best door greeter this side of the Midwest. He loved tug of war and going for walks. We would have full conversations about nothing, which I am going to miss dreadfully. He was smart as a whip and could shake, high five, stand, sit, lay down, roll over, and army crawl. I don’t think I taught him any of those things. The kids enjoyed trying to teach him new tricks. He humored them knowing there were treats waiting after he amazed them with his skills.

We took Otto with us on vacations, mostly just to Brown County, IN and up north to Michigan in 2021 and 2022. He loved being out in the woods and smelling whatever woodland creatures were lying in wait. He was an explorer. He loved his car rides and sticking his head out the window. You could see his reflection in the sideview mirror and it was absolute joy, smelling the smells with his beard and eyebrows blowing in the breeze.

Otto just liked being by us. He’d cuddle between my wife and I on the couch, and in bed. He didn’t want to be left out, and we never left him out. And as soon as either of us got up to go to the kitchen he was following right along, knowing by the sink was where his treats lived.

Otto made our family what it is. And he pulled us out of a weird time when we got him. He went from this rambunctious, bite-y, jumping little pup into a gentleman pooch. He gave us all so much with just a look of his side eye, or a bark of appreciation when we’d walk into the door after a long day of work. Our Otto was our North Star for 14 years.

I won’t talk about his last few months; the panting from the heat of a brutal summer, the issues walking and keeping from slipping on the hardwood floors, or the loss of sight and hearing. Or the bloat that he got due to fluid building up. It’s too sad. My son took a photo of Otto sitting in the front seat of my wife’s car on the way to the vet yesterday and it completely broke my heart. It pulled my heart out and crushed it. He looked so disheveled and tired. Compared to photos taken in the spring it was jaw-dropping.

Yet I never saw him like that. I still saw the dog that would jump up on the couch with me when I’d write and sleep next to me on the chaise. Even though he couldn’t look up at me anymore, couldn’t turn his head up that high, I’d get on my hands and knees and get to his level and look him straight in his milky eyes and rub his beard and say “I love you Otto. I love you.” I wanted him to know that. Till the very end. And I think he did.

I’m hurting. We’re all hurting in the Hubner clan today. But we’re also relieved he’s at peace. Not suffering. I thought I might dream about him last night, but no. It’ll happen when I least expect it and I’m sure I’ll wake up crying. But I’ll welcome those tears just to see him again. I thought I caught a glimpse of him this morning in the living room. Thought he was standing behind my recliner like he used to, waiting for me to make him his morning scrambled egg. I did a double take. It was just a shadow of a plant.

Goodbye Otto. I’ll love you forever. We’ll all love you forever.