The Gift for the Friend Who Adopted the Old Dog

My friend Tobias adopted a nine-year-old beagle named Ernest.

Not a puppy. Not even a middle-aged dog. A nine-year-old beagle from a rescue who had spent most of his life in less than ideal circumstances and who arrived at Tobias's apartment looking like a dog who had learned not to expect very much.

Tobias had specifically asked for a senior dog.

I had asked him why and he had said, with the matter-of-fact tone he used for things he felt most deeply: because everyone wants the puppies. Someone has to want the old ones.

Ernest settled in over the first month. Slowly at first, cautious in the way of animals who have learned that good things sometimes stop. Then less cautious. Then entirely at home, which in Ernest's case meant stretched across the full length of the couch at all times and regarding anyone who suggested otherwise with dignified indifference.

Tobias sent me photos continuously. Ernest on the couch. Ernest in a patch of sun. Ernest in the park moving at his preferred pace, which was slow, and on his preferred route, which never varied.

He had never had a dog before. He had not known about the specific texture of loving an old animal, which is different from loving a young one. More present, somehow. More aware that the time is finite and that the ordinary days are the whole point.

I wanted to give him something that understood what he had done.

I found an artist who painted pet portraits in the style of formal eighteenth-century portraits, the kind where dogs were painted with the same gravity as aristocrats. Regal. Composed. The subject in possession of great dignity.

I commissioned one of Ernest.

I sent the artist the photo Tobias had sent me in week two, Ernest on the couch, looking directly at the camera with an expression that contained absolute certainty that this was now his couch and had always been his couch.

The portrait arrived. Ernest in oils, formal and magnificent, the couch beneath him clearly his domain.

Tobias laughed for a long time when he opened it.

Then he said: this is exactly him.

I said: I know.

He said: he is going to be so smug about this.

I said: he was already smug. Now he just has documentation.

Ernest lived two more good years. The portrait is still on the wall. It will stay there.