The Little Dog Who Still Leads the Way

Kiwi is twenty years old.

Yes… twenty.

He is a dachshund, and if you know dachshunds, you know they come into the world with the spirit of a much larger animal. Kiwi was no exception. For most of his life he was a tiny force of nature — stubborn, opinionated, and completely convinced he was in charge of everything.

And in many ways, he was.

I didn’t get Kiwi as a puppy. I got him when he was about five or six years old from a friend of my ex-husband. The moment I sent a picture of him to my son Josh, who was in college in Charleston at the time, Josh responded with exactly one word:

“MINE!!!”

Josh immediately came to get him, and Kiwi spent a year as a college dog. That adventure included one unfortunate incident where Kiwi snuck out and bit a woman, which resulted in him being briefly “arrested” by animal rescue. After a few phone calls and a little sorting out of ownership, Kiwi was officially declared Josh’s dog.

But life has a funny way of deciding where we truly belong.

Josh eventually packed up his car and moved to Colorado, and Kiwi stayed with me.

Kiwi has been through many chapters of my life. He has lived with other dogs, survived a very opinionated twenty-year-old cat who once beat him up for being annoying, and he carried on a daily protest against my ex-husband by peeing on the corner of his recliner.

He was, as I like to say, an ornery little bugger.

But he was also loyal in his own very dachshund way.

One night during the final days of my marriage, I brought Kiwi into bed with me. When my ex-husband came into the room and got into the bed, Kiwi crawled under the covers, traveled down one side of me, across underneath, and came up between us. He popped his little head out of the blankets as if to say,

“I won.”

My ex-husband was not amused and announced he would not sleep with dogs. He moved to the spare room.

The next day I moved the rest of his things there too.

These days Kiwi is a very different dog.

He is almost blind and his hearing isn’t what it used to be. The fiery attitude has softened into something gentle. He spends a lot of time burrowed under blankets like a tiny submarine, emerging occasionally to give me a very specific look.

That look means he wants something.

If I don’t respond quickly enough, he adds a small sound that is somewhere between a sigh and a purr.

At this point I am very well trained.

He still insists on walks, though they are much shorter now. I let him lead, even though his eyesight is fading. He sniffs the world carefully and moves at his own pace.

Sometimes someone will walk by us and Kiwi won’t notice until they are already far down the street. Only then does he stop, turn his head, and sniff the air behind him like a tiny detective trying to solve a mystery that has already passed.

It makes me laugh every time.

Kiwi is the last dog I have from many years of sharing my life with animals. And while I know this chapter won’t last forever, right now we are still here together.

He still leads the walks.

He still burrows under the blankets.

And with one look and a soft little purr, he can still make me do exactly what he wants.

Some things never change.

And honestly… I wouldn’t have it any other way.