NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- I was never much for a dog.
But Teresa and I had been married for about three years and dog talk just happened. She loved dogs and had always wanted one. She didn’t press. And I wasn’t closed to it. It could be a fun project to raise a pup together, responsible fun plus the whole pre-parenting deal.
I’d had a dog as a kid. My pet-loving sister-in-law convinced my parents to let me pick a puppy during a visit to Atlanta and ship him home to New Jersey. We liked him and all, but he was kind of a neighborhood mutt. Gandolf did not become the storybook kid-dog love affair. I’m being honest. He roamed a lot. He barked a lot. He played a good tug of war. Especially with a pant leg.
Teresa and I went looking several times. She had a Great Dane in her head. I thought the biggest dog was too big, would mess with her bad back on the other side of the leash, would wreak havoc on our small house by simply turning around. We drove nearly two hours through windy mountain roads to the point of car sickness to meet a breeder and saw some incredibly cute Great Dane puppies. I had fun playing with them.
I also had no problem leaving without one.
We visited the pound a couple of times.
She would have taken any of the Danes or any dog we could have saved. But I saw no home runs.
I was not dying for a dog. She continued not to press.
Occasionally, it came up.
Then, one weekend, we went to the Nashville Humane Association in West Nashville.
We both started wandering, and I went off on my own.
I found a little guy, just my size, just my speed, a beagle mix with taller legs, maybe a little collie in him. Black and brown face, mostly black body, white chest. We talked for a bit and I somehow settled in sitting beside him, 
my hand rubbing that white chest. It hypnotized him, and hypnotizing him hypnotized me.
Teresa eventually found me, and as I remember it, I said something like, behold this wonderful dog they call Jack, this is the kind of dog people should have.
And then we left without a dog again.
But this dog stuck with me. I had a full-blown crush. Couldn’t get him out of my head. Monday, when the place reopened, I called her and asked her to meet me back there after work to get that dog. She didn’t believe I’d actually follow through.
I was on my way when she called and said she had a meeting that was going to go late and wouldn’t make it before closing time. I said I was going to do it. I believe she scoffed.
And when she got home to our little bungalow near Vanderbilt, I was in the front yard with Jack. We renamed him Finley.
Outside of having our son Simon, getting Finley’s the best thing we did in 20-plus years of marriage.
They told us they found him abandoned in Nunnelly, and estimated he was five months old. Whoever let him go or lost him had him pretty well potty trained, and he learned to ring a bell in no time.
And this dog was a lightning bolt. Of my favorite things to watch in the world, Finley Kuharsky dashing and darting, four feet often off the ground, ranked right up there. His sprints and ability to stop and start ranked with Walter Payton and Barry Sanders.
He didn’t heel when he was on a leash and his playtime with chipmunks prompted me to hold way too many rodent funerals, but boy did he love tossing them around. He loved to tear up a toy, overrun a ball thrown down a hallway, wolf down a treat, nap in crazy positions after finding the perfect sunbeam.
When we brought Simon home, Finley Finlerson - as we came to call him - was immediately a fierce protector and friend. He knew people food was off limits, and one of the classic Finley photos is of his chin on a trunk, in range of a plate of chicken, showing amazing restraint. Another was puppy Finley in the snow, carrying what he thought was just another stick, but what really qualified as more of a tree limb.
Everybody’s dog is the greatest, and this was our greatest dog.
He got older and that brown face started to turn white and he blew out an ACL and had a costly operation. The vet said even if we kept him slim, the odds were that the other one would likely suffer the same fate. He stuck it out for a good while, but the injury inevitably came. Another big check, another sad and limpy recovery.
He was a retired runner who took a lot more naps in the front yard, monitoring the neighborhood, this one with far fewer trees and no tempting chipmunks. We got him a brother, Ripley, a Cavapoo, in 2021. Finley was unbothered when, five minutes into their meeting, the new guy peed on him. Rip had his own struggles, with cancer that cost him a front leg pretty early in his life. But they were generally an upbeat duo.
At Thanksgiving, a good-natured family argument broke out: Who did Finley love the most?
Simon? Who spent his entire life with the gentle friend, looking out the window together at the snow, tugging on his ear, cuddling up on Christmas mornings?
Teresa? Who was unquestionably his primary caretaker. She trimmed his nails, gave him his baths, fed him almost all the time, made sure he got his medicine and comforted him during thunderstorms.
Or me? I mean, you just read the story. He’s not a Kuharsky if I don’t discover that soft spot on his chest and pick him.
Shockingly, we did not resolve things.
Time was flying for Fin, and I was reading pieces by many friends like this one, tributes to beloved family pets far better edited for length. I dreaded when the time would come for me to write mine.
He turned an impressive 17 last June, his heart murmur in control. It was those achy joints and arthritis that were his real issues. Fin was still eating well and had control of his faculties, but he needed help getting around.
We had a major family discussion about if it was time and there was a point when we seemed ready. Then he had a couple of good days and we pulled back.
Wednesday night, we got home from Simon’s baseball game and I carried him down our small set of back steps so he could do his thing. I set him down on his wobbly legs and he had a little extra trouble finding his balance. But I got him set and watched him for a minute. Then he started to find his way a little further out and I moved inside while keeping an eye on him.
Next thing I saw was him fall over sideways.
When I got to him, he was having a seizure.
The folks at the animal hospital made things pretty clear.
We all took it hard, but watching your kid really struggle to get a handle on that goodbye made it doubly painful. We were patient as we sat with Finley, a final tummy rub, pets of those floppy soft ears, long looks into those deep eyes.
I told him the story of how we found him, of Nunnelly’s big loss, of the tree limb in the snow, of the time he ate part of a Duraflame log and got sick and how he never nosed in on such a thing again. We gave him a Hershey’s Kiss and it sure felt like he smiled.
We thanked him for what he did for us. I told him to go run again, to find my dad and nuzzle his chin on his thigh.
Our eyes were swollen and our noses were running as we three-way hugged, then drove silently home, my wife and son in the back seat. Ripley was happy to see us and I told him he’s the dog of the house now. A different house.
