Where the Heart Stays

Mazzy, Marley, and the Enduring Echoes of Loyalty

The yet-to-be-named dog was born on June 24, 2011, on a farm in Harvard, Massachusetts, on a property that featured a picturesque farmhouse lying at the end of a long dirt driveway. An American chocolate Labrador retriever, she was the runt of the litter. Save her and her brother, all the other siblings had already been claimed. The brother was much larger, with paws, as described by my wife, Kathy, that were the size of her clenched fist. The brother was rambunctious and, when first seen by Kathy and my son, Patrick, was playfully and energetically cavorting along the fenced-in borders of a large field. As she watched the brother, Kathy said to Patrick, “Not that one. [The breeder] said the father was 120 pounds, so he’s going to be too big and way too strong for me to handle when I get older.” She matter-of-factly added: “Besides, we already have too many penises in our house. We don’t need another one.” She turned and spied the smaller one, a female sitting timidly in a corner of the fenced-in area, visibly trembling. But very, very cute. The dog looked at her with pleading eyes that held a bit of a forlorn look. The price of being checkmated was eight hundred dollars.

The above-mentioned trap had its origins with the passing of our previous dog, a Bichon-frisée that we adopted in 1998, which the kids named Marley, because his matted and gnarled hair resembled Bob Marley’s Rastafarian dreadlocks. How Marley found his way to 120 High Street was solely of my doing. For I, too, had been lured into a trap.

My childhood featured two German Shepherds, the first of which my adoptive father called Nina. A noble, intelligent, protective, and loyal canine (possessing some wolf-like features), who lived nearly 13 years before succumbing to old age. Throughout those years, she was undeniably bonded to my dad. When she passed peacefully on the linoleum kitchen floor in our home, my dad, normally a stoic individual, wept in true anguish. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t long thereafter that another German Shepherd puppy joined our family, one who would be named Tina. Like her predecessor, Tina possessed similar traits and also lived a long life. So, I grew up being a so-called “dog person”.

Save for a brief stint involving some tadpoles and goldfish in a bowl, my wife, Kathy, and her two younger sisters grew up in a household that had no pets. So, not a dog person.

Fast forward to 1998. A Saturday morning that found me at home with our three children while Kathy was on a weekend shift as a physical therapist at the Miriam Hospital in Providence, R.I.

The (landline) phone rang. It was Kathy’s best friend, Mary, a spiritual, selfless, devout, accomplished, and inspirational individual. In short, she described the situation of a Bichon-frisée that, having been found tied to a mailbox post and abandoned weeks earlier, had been kept at a horse barn and was going to be “put down” soon unless claimed by someone. Mary—who had a Bichon herself—told the dog officer, “I know the perfect family for that dog. Let me call them.” Mary said I should feel free to say no, but truth be told, one couldn’t say no to anything Mary asked for. (It felt like Hell awaited anyone who would.) Being a dog person, I quickly caved. Mary was elated and said she’d get the dog groomed before dropping him off. The icing on the cake was that there was no cost associated with this adoption. (Having been adopted myself, I convinced myself that I was paying it forward.)

Later that afternoon, as Kathy pulled into the large semi-circular driveway of our property, she noticed that the children were happily playing with a small white dog. “That’s nice”, she thought. “They must be watching someone else’s dog.” That brief thought was quickly vanquished when our daughter Kaylin ran up to the car as Kathy was getting out, and effusively declared, “Mommy, look at what Daddy got us!” Kathy’s smile quickly became a frown accompanied by an icy glare—both directed at me.

Marley and I survived the terse discussion that followed. As the saying goes, “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

Marley, estimated to be about five dog years old when we got him, was a memorable part of our family for nearly 10 years. As Bichons are prone to skin and food allergies, we were fortunate that Marley didn’t have atopy, and he frequently enjoyed eating table scraps without having any problems. During my battle against early-onset bladder cancer in 2005, and although he sensed something about me wasn’t quite right, Marley remained steadfast by my side. To say Kathy tolerated him would be an understatement, as he favored me. It seemed that the feeling was mutual. But as his last days approached, beset by cerebrovascular and epileptic mishaps, Kathy greatly cared for him, carrying him when necessary, comforting him, and giving him ice chips when he stopped drinking. She was by his side when he was euthanized while I stood around a corner, crying, incapable of watching. My sons and I dug a large hole off to one side of our backyard and buried him there. To this day, a small stone dog statue serves as his monument.

So, the Beauregard family was without a dog. It didn’t take long for our second son, Patrick, and his siblings to start searching the internet—and scheming. He said to Kathy, “Mom, I was looking online and saw this farm that just had a litter of [Labrador Retriever] puppies. We should go. Just to look.” Kathy took the bait, and she later found herself standing outside a fenced-in area that had an adorable, pleading puppy in it. Her inside voice said, “Well, this was a stupid thing to do.” She likened the experience to going to an orphanage and thinking that you could leave without having a baby in your arms. On the ride home, Patrick’s younger brother, Brendan, sat in the back seat cradling the slightly anxious dog, who peed in his lap.

So, it was my turn to come home and find out that we had a new member of the family, so-called Mazzy. Although this was joyful, the proverbial turnabout is fair play was realized. Though truly surprised, I was delighted. Until I heard that the kids wanted to call her Mazzy—permanently. What kind of a name is that for a dog? I was outvoted by a wide margin.

It’s hard to describe the impact a dog has on a family. Mazzy has been everything Labradors are customarily known to be. Energetic, affectionate, food-loving, loyal, water and tennis ball retrieval-loving, and gentle (especially with our grandchildren). She stayed with us without difficulty in the small condos we rented during times when I worked in Boise, Idaho, and Huntington, New York. (She particularly liked walking the foothills in Boise and the snack amenities that were bestowed upon her during the ferry rides from New London, CT, to Orient Point on Long Island.) At home in MA, at a large field behind an elementary school that was used as a dog park, she befriended a German Shepherd named Belle. They frequently had tug-of-war contests involving a very slobbered tennis ball.

It was clear to all of us that Mazzy favored Patrick. It was a bond forged by effort, time, and attention, as Patrick lay on the floor outside her crate, comforting and calming her throughout the first nights of her living with us. He later house-trained her and taught her other things as well. During the time that Patrick did his Marine Corps Recruit training at Parris Island, we received eight short letters from him, the contents of which were mostly questions about how Mazzy was doing. Throughout her first six years, all Mazzy knew was comfort, security, and happiness. In return, she was joyful. That changed in September 2017, when Patrick was diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer at age 29. Mazzy sensed that something wasn’t right with him; it was almost as if she could smell the malicious growth that was occupying his body. Her reactions changed a bit more when he underwent chemotherapy, suggesting that, perhaps, she could smell the toxic chemicals coursing through his body. To me, she now looked at him with perplexity. She saw our whole family dynamics and routines change as well. During the last month of his life, Patrick came back to die in his childhood home. Instead of a hospital bed, he chose to stay on the one sofa in our family room that accommodated his six-foot, two-inch frame, the same sofa that, over many years, Mazzy herself frequently lay on and slept on.

Surrounded by family, Patrick’s three-year battle ended on a Sunday morning in September 2020. Throughout the morning, Mazzy was just outside the large glass doors that opened to a rear deck and afforded a full view of the family room. She lay there in a lion pose, not barking (as she was wont to do when left outside and alone too long) and looking very sad. She never voluntarily got up on that sofa again. (Later, it was discarded.) Without her beloved owner, for a while, Mazzy looked hollow-eyed and withdrawn, a shadow of her former self. Eventually, that waned. But I’m sure she hasn’t forgotten about Patrick, even if only by the virtue of his lingering scent on other furniture pieces and household items. Only God knows what dogs think about and remember.

My elderly father-in-law recently passed away while in hospice care at a skilled nursing facility. He loved Mazzy and would frequently find her sitting beside him during meals on special occasions at our home, knowing that he’d be fixing a plate for her when he was finished eating. While his mind remained sharp to the end, during the preceding eight months, progressive medical infirmities caused his body to fail slowly. Kathy described his irreversible decline as one in which “every week, a small piece of him gets taken away.” Back in 2015, my adoptive father had the opposite experience to that scenario: preserved physical health but a mind completely overcome by Alzheimer’s disease, and succumbed in a nursing home at 86. (Patrick was the sole family member who was by his side when he took his last breath.) Occasionally, we brought Mazzy there, which delighted my dad and many of the fellow residents. It was obvious to us that Mazzy sensed, rather knew, that the place, and the people in it, were very different from anything she’d ever seen, smelled, or been to before.

Mazzy is now 14 years old (supposedly equivalent to 84 human years). With advanced age, she’s not as energetic, nimble, food-motivated, and athletic as she used to be. It also appears that she’s lost some of her hearing and sight. Abundant gray hair covers her face and muzzle now, in part making her look distinguished. Her hind legs are weakening, so she often needs help to stand up and shakily walk forward, rear legs splaying out—until she’s got her legs back under her. Although most times she’s capable of navigating the three wooden steps that lead from the back deck to the yard, she often needs encouragement to do it. “You can do it, Mazzy, you’ve got this!” So, in some ways, her decline mirrors that of my father-in-law. Recently, injections of a steroid and bedinvetmab have lessened her difficulties, temporarily postponing the eventualities of what lies ahead.

Despite her struggles, she still takes delight in our six grandchildren, all of whom are five years old or younger. They’ve never experienced life without Mazzy, so I’ve started to think about how her eventual passing will affect them.

While how much time Mazzy has left is unknown, her recent infirmities have given me pause to think about the future of my life. I’ll be a septuagenarian (burdened by my own set of chronic conditions) next year. But overall, I’m doing okay. Mostly, I’m buoyed by my six grandchildren and can only hope that, in a few years, they’ll be able to enjoy the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas with me and Kathy, replicating the many memorable summer vacations we had with their parents. Given the tenuous current state of national and global affairs, and the unrest associated with that, the increasing unaffordability of housing and higher education, and the unrelenting, negative effects stemming from the siren song of mobile phones and social media, I do worry about what the future holds for my children and grandchildren. (I also wonder what end-of-life fate awaits me: intact mind in a relentlessly eroding body, or vice versa.

As I contemplate retirement, my intellectual curiosity, fueled by the potential of AI in healthcare, super agers, the continuing transition away from a break-fix, fee-for-service medical care model, new discoveries, novel diagnostic tools, and more effective treatments, remains high. Not to mention the large pile of books sitting on my shelves waiting to be read. And my writing of my second book.

But, as my wife, Kathy, reminds me, all I have is today. I think Mazzy would echo that sage sentiment.