Laid Back Jack Boedigheimer

Laid Back Jack was an American Bully. He was born when I lived in Green Mountain, Iowa. He is preceded in death by his mother, Freeda. She was the foundation female in my pack of American Bullies. She is the greatest mama dog I have ever owned, and Jack came from her first litter. He was my baby man… my pride and joy.

Freeda and I had been up all night the night before he was born. We knew that the puppies inside her thick bellly would arrive any minute. Her firstborn arrived about the time the sun came up. She and I worked as one, she would push the babies out into my waiting hands in a flow of blood and the fluids of life, and I cut their umbilical cords and rubbed them with soft baby towels, then handed them over to her to take over. After eight puppies, we thought she was done. I sprawled wet and gross and exhausted on the bloody quilt beside her, watching in absolute wonder, the amazing beauty of life and birth and eight tiny miracles squirming around my four legged best friend. Suddenly, she moved away from them, and pushed again… I scrambled for another clean cloth, and caught the smallest one yet.. and realized he was cold and lifeless in my hands. My heart dropped as Freeda went back to tending her eight healthy children.. I wasn’t ready to give up on him yet. I frantically cleared away the placenta and mucus and rubbed frantically at his damp little body. I swung him in the air like the birthing books say to do.. and he still wasnt breathing. Finally, I just placed my mouth over his fuzzy, damp one, and blew my own breath into his limp body. Again and again, until I felt his tiny paw curl around my finger, and his little heart begin to beat in the palm of my hand. I quickly tried to place him on a teat to suck, and Freeda pushed him away. I held him close, my mind filled with bottles and milk and syringes, wondering if I would be able to keep the little guy alive if she refused to feed him. There were tears in my eyes as I looked down at him, I felt all the rejection and unfairness on earth in his itty, bitty body. But then, Freeda reached up and nuzzled him. I carefully placed him in the pile of his squirming siblings, and he latched on right beside them!

It wasn’t long before he became our favorite, the crowned prince of our pack, the golden boy of my world. As they grew, and his brothers and sisters left one by one to live their big bully lives in this big bully world, I knew, that while I normally raise females, I couldn’t let Jack go. His first breath was my own. And so he stayed, flourishing in the love and attention in my house full of females. Every time I let him out, or went to bed, we played a game. He would hide in the grass or under the covers and I would say ‘Where’s Jack? i can’t find him anywhere!’ And he would hop out happy and wiggling and jump into my arms. I worshipped the ground he walked on, and he returned that. His name fit him… he always had his mind on his mommy and his mommy on his mind. He loved everything.. everybody. He experienced life full throttle… he was a happy, smiling, tongue flapping chunk of absolute joy. He was always in my lap. I spent hours and hours every night running my hands over his massive shoulders and thick heavy head. I would poke my fingers between his thick toes and around his soft pink muzzle, marveling at this beautiful creature who loved me above all things on earth. I often looked into his big bully face, and remembered that lifeless little puppy that took my breath, and my heart, and made them his own. I even wrote him into my work… he became famous as the dog that was written riding in the saddlebag of the legendary Miraculous Mutha.

But, he got older.. and then he got sick.. and now he is gone…. and I am lost without him. I thank God for allowing me to know this wonderful creature from his first breath to his last one.. but I don’t know if I will ever go to sleep again without being tortured by my own voice echoing in my mind, saying ‘Where’s Jack? I can’t find him anywhere.’