“It had to be you, wonderful you
It had to be you.” — From It Had to Be You” by Isham Jones and Gus Kahn
*****
He was built like Roger Daltrey in the 1970s, all broad shoulders and tiny waist.
His listed sideways when he walked, like Steven Tyler shimmying with his mike stand.
His breast bone jutted like the prow of a ship and his front paws slanted outwards like seal flippers.
He gave high-fives.
He was 20 pounds, a terrier mix with serious brown eyes and cream-coloured fur, and we adored him.
On Oct. 30, we held him in our arms as the veterinarian administered the drug that stopped his heart, my tears dropping onto his fur.
Lucci came into our world as “Lucky,” though we were surely the lucky ones — a rescue from Humane Services. His provenance was a mystery — age and lineage uncertain, no medical history.
When I first laid eyes on him, he was in a sorry state. His fur was so matted you couldn’t even tell the colour. Staff were partway through grooming him and he was shaved from the waist down. But we made eye contact and he wagged his tail with his whole back end, while my heart did the emotional equivalent.
After we had him for about 12 months, he developed a life-threatening anemic condition. It took more than a year of good veterinary care and trials and errors of medication, but by 2018 he was healthy again.
His provenance was a mystery — age and lineage uncertain, no medical history.
We gave him human food after that, worried that commercial dog food might upset his equilibrium. Salmon and chicken hearts, beef and rice, sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts. Once, when he had a cold, I made him chicken soup.
He was stubborn as all get out and chose where he wanted to walk. If you tried to go a different route, he’d stop and wouldn’t budge until you acquiesced.
He took up far more than he should’ve of our bed. I would wake with leg cramps from contorting myself around him. On fine and wondrous mornings, he’d prop himself up on the headboard to look out the window and greet the day, tail wagging.
He loved soft things of any description — including the lamb’s ear shrubs in the garden — and had a peculiar habit of walking back and forth under a sweater hanging on a chair or the dangling corners of a table cloth, to feel the sensation of the fabric against his back. He’d join my husband and I on the couch while we read, curled up on a blanket beside us. And he’d nestle in my lap while I studied Italian. I would whisper into his fur “Mio figlio è solo un bambino.”
He loved to hear my husband sing, and a few lines of “It Had to Be You” would have him rolling onto his back and wagging his tail ferociously in anticipation of a belly rub.
Soon after adoption, “Lucky” became “Lucky Luciano,” because we thought naming a small dog after a tough Italian gangster was funny. But before too long, he was just “Lucci.”
The spelling’s different but the pronunciation’s the same: in Italian “luci” means lights, an apt name for a little dog who brought such light and joy into our lives.
When the anemia returned two weeks ago, there was no fighting it back. At best guess, Lucci was eight years old.
I’ve come to realize the worst and best things about sharing your life with a dog are one and the same. They love you so unconditionally that when they go, you are left asking yourself, who will ever love us like that again?
As I write this, his bed is still next to my desk, and I imagine the curve of his little back, curled up and softly snoring.
Pam Frampton is The Telegram’s managing editor. Email [email protected]. Twitter: pam_frampton
