I blame BMW. In 2017, the company flew me out to North Carolina to test ride the K 1600 B, treating me to a multi-day adventure of good food, good wine, amazing scenery, and excellent company. After the event, BMW let me borrow a K 1600 B to spend several days riding the Blue Ridge Parkway and up to the company’s US headquarters in New Jersey.
That two-week adventure remains one of the all-time best experiences of my life. The only downside was that my wife wasn’t there. While I was having an amazing time, almost losing my mind with joy, Jenn was back in Wales, working at a wine shop and struggling with the challenges of having returned to university.
A day or so after I returned – still jet-lagged and carrying a sense of guilt for having had such a good time without her – I suggested we volunteer to walk the dogs at the local dog shelter. She had been floating the idea of getting a pet for a while. I was against it for all kinds of logistical and financial reasons, but I thought, you know, it wouldn’t hurt to just go to Cardiff Dogs Home and, you know, help out.
I called and made an appointment. A week or so later, Jenn and I arrived trying to look like responsible and trustworthy adults. I had imagined the process to be formal – full of paperwork and scrutiny.
“Why do you want to walk a dog? Let me see your passport. Stand here for a retina scan. Where were you on the evening of 3rd April 2007?”
It’s nothing like that. A woman guided us to a large, clean kennel area.
“Have a look ’round,” she said. “If there’s one you’d like to take out just let me know and I’ll get you a lead and some poo bags.”
If you want to feel strange things happen to your heart, go to a dogs home. Unless you are evil, you will fall in love with all of them. One in particular caught our attention. His name was Jerry. Or well, that’s what folks at the home called him.
His real name, I learned some time later, was Lets Go Jeronimo. He had been born in Ireland on 28 November 2012, part of a litter of eight. In early 2014, he started racing, showing promise in a number of races at the now-defunct Longford Greyhound Stadium in County Longford, Ireland. Out of 10 races there he finished in first place six times; he never placed lower than fourth.
This was enough to see him brought over to England, where he spent the next two years racing all over the south and east of the country: Romford, Henlow, Crayford, Harlow, Yarmouth, Peterborough. He was passed from trainer to trainer – four different ones over the years – and never really managed to replicate the promise he had shown in Ireland. Out of 47 races he won only six of them; he most consistently placed fourth. His last official race was on 15 April 2016. He finished… fourth.
When I first met Jerry, more than a year after that race, he was still big – probably having participated in amateur racing. He was tall and muscular – intimidatingly so. Especially in the context of the athletic, almost aggressive stance that greyhounds have. I knew nothing of the breed at the time, so all that power and all those teeth made me a little apprehensive. But there was a softness in his eyes, and a kindness in the inquisitive way he raised his ears.
Over the coming years I would learn that greyhounds are nothing like their size and stance might suggest. They are goofy, surprisingly lazy, and kind. And Jerry, at least, was good at reading a situation. On that first meeting he seemed to pick up that I needed convincing. So, on our walk he stayed right by my side. He never pulled on the leash. He stopped when I said “stop;” he waited for me to say “OK” before going. He was the most well-behaved and attentive dog I had ever encountered.
It was, of course, a trick – and the only time he ever properly obeyed me in what would end up being eight years together. By the time we got back to the dogs home our thoughts had gone from being volunteer dog walkers to: Well, how does one go about adopting a dog?
“I don’t reckon you could take him home today, as there’s no one about to do a home check,” said the woman at the shelter. “But we could sort something out tomorrow.”
What? Tomorrow? We just came here to volunteer. We were just enquiring about the process. And now we’re committing to taking this enormous dog home? How did this happen?
A day or so later, we were back at the dogs home – still a little surprised and confused by what we were doing – to pick up Jerry and bring him home with us. We didn’t have a car at the time, so we had to walk 3 miles, via Pets At Home, because we didn’t have a collar or a leash or any dog bowls. We just had a rope given to us by the home.
Jerry rolled with it. He always did. It took him about a year to figure out that his name was, in fact, Jerry, but he was instantly content to be in our company. He was happy to sit in a pub for hours, or go for a 20-mile hike, or snooze through a cross-country road trip. He was a staple at the wine shop, putting in the hours with Jenn, and thereby became a kind of celebrity in our town. When I’d be out walking him, people would run up to say hello. Not to me. They didn’t even look at me. But they were delighted to see Jerry.
He was a good judge of character, mildly suspicious of women who wore too much makeup – as we all should be. But he’d make a jaunty beeline for some of the toughest-looking souls. Walking him by the boxing club one evening we encountered an enormous, hulking individual – about 6 foot 5. His hood was up and in the sparse light I could see that his taped knuckles were bleeding from punching things. Of course Jerry wanted to run up to this guy. The boxer dropped to his knees to cuddle Jerry, his voice swooning as he told Jerry what a good boy he was.
Despite all those fourth-place finishes, I personally never saw Jerry lose a race. He might refuse to be drawn into a chase. But if he wanted to win, he did. Every time. The beach at Barry Island is probably a kilometer in length. We lived nearby for a time and took Jerry there to run loose. Once, I was out with Jerry, playing our version of fetch (I throw the ball; he catches it; he sits down to chew the ball rather than bring it back; I walk over to wrestle the ball away from him; repeat), when I spotted a couple arriving on the beach with a pair of young greyhounds.
The young dogs were about 30 meters to my right, Jerry about 40 meters to my left. Simultaneously, all three greyhounds’ ears went up to signal that a chase was on. Boom, they were off – the young greyhounds running away from me and Jerry running toward me. The young dogs were fast and when Jerry drew parallel with me I saw his body position change. I initially interpreted it as him easing up, giving up the chase because the other dogs had too much of a lead. In fact, he was transitioning into “Oh, hell no,” mode. As in: “Oh, hell no. You’re not outrunning me.”
His body seemed to drop lower to the ground and become more aerodynamic. Suddenly, no movement was wasted. Everything was speed. They say greyhounds’ top speed is around 45 mph. From my perspective he seemed faster. He shot by the other dogs’ owners with such ferocity that they jumped and yelped. I laughed and started shouting encouragement.
“GO ON, JERRY! GOOD BOY! GOOD BOY!”
The whole thing became art, with the young dogs running in a long, beautiful arc across the sand – the ocean glistening beyond. And Jerry gaining on them relentlessly. For a millisecond he held behind them, reading them, measuring them up, then he flew past with such intensity that one of the dogs lost its footing and fell out of the race. Once he was a solid two lengths ahead of the remaining dog, Jerry did a quick shoulder check to ensure he had won, and finally eased his pace. He immediately turned and started trotting back to me – never once looking back at the other dogs.
I can tell you so many stories like that. I can probably tell you just as many about the times he saved my life.
I’ve struggled a lot with mental health over the years. Sometimes, in the darkest days, I get so overwhelmed that I just start screaming. Whenever I did this, Jerry would run into the room and pull to my side, as if to say: “I don’t know what’s happening. But I’m here.”
It wasn’t necessarily that he was there to help or defend, simply that he had arrived at full speed, without second thought, to be there. It was like he was saying: “I don’t know if I can fix this, but whatever it is that’s going on, we’ll go through it together.”
We were a team. Sometimes he’d come and lean into me for a moment or two – not really seeking scratches behind the ear (though he certainly wouldn’t refuse them if offered) but simply acknowledging. If I sat on the floor he would walk up and place his head on my shoulder so I could give him a hug. For most of our eight years together I worked from home; he and I would spend 24 hours a day in close proximity, never further than 40 feet from each other.
He understood me. And I understood him.
Racing is hard on a dog’s body. In the first few years of our knowing Jerry he had a recurring foot injury caused by a persistent corn in one of his left front toes – something that seems to afflict racing dogs. The vet we took him to – about whom I now have nothing but bad things to say – decided that the solution to Jerry’s persistent issue was simply to cut off the offending toe. It seemed a bit drastic and draconian to me, but what did I know? Surely the veterinary professional knew best, right?
So, on a warm spring day, I loaded him into the back of our ancient Citroen and drove him to the vet. From the get-go he was uneasy. And when we got to the vet, he refused to jump out of the car. I had to reach in and lift him out. In the reception area he was shaking. Once we were in the consulting room, his tail was between his legs and he was leaning into me with all his weight – almost knocking me over. He was putting his faith in me.
The vet handed me some papers to sign. By now I was so unsettled that I couldn’t actually read the document. But my brain was able to translate what she was saying to me.
“With greyhounds there can be some rather negative reactions to the anesthetic…”
Translation: “Your dog may die in surgery. For legal reasons, I need you to sign this piece of paper to acknowledge that.”
I looked at Jerry, and as clearly as anything, I heard the words in my mind: “This is bad.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I said to the vet. “We need to go.”
On those words, Jerry pulled for the door. He pulled me through the parking lot and leapt into the back of the car. We sat for a moment, air conditioner running, just looking at each other through the rear-view mirror. He was panting and I felt shaky.
Again, very clearly, he somehow communicated to me: “Man, that was fucked.”
“You are not wrong, bud,” I said. “We won’t go there again.”
We didn’t. Jerry got better about a week later. Jenn and I developed a regimen of thoroughly cleaning the foot and staying alert to any minor flare-ups. We found a vet who understood greyhounds. And the issue never really bothered him again.
In recent years, he’d been getting slower, as all dogs do. But in the past few months, it became clear that he was genuinely suffering. This dog who used to be able to fly, who had clocked up hundreds of miles with Jenn and me in the hills of Wales and England, who was designed by God to run, was now regularly falling over. The 100-meter walk from our house to the nearest green space took several minutes and completely exhausted him. The vet prescribed all kinds of insane pain medication but also suggested that we may need to prepare to say goodbye.
The medication eased his stress a little but didn’t do anything for the pain. He still struggled to walk and stay upright. Then, one day, he couldn’t get himself out of bed. I had to lift him up and even then he could only stand for a short while. I had to carry him to the back yard and hold him up so he could go to the bathroom.
Over the next day or so, he recovered just enough that he could, just barely – panting, staggering, and dragging his feet – again make it to the green space. But it was clear that the end had arrived. Jenn and I realized that keeping him alive much longer would be a cruel manipulation of his loyalty – forcing him to be with us because we couldn’t stand the thought of being without him. Full of sadness, we booked for a vet to come to the house to put him to sleep.
On our last evening walk together I hugged Jerry beneath broad, starry sky, and told him what was going to happen.
“If this is wrong, buddy, you let me know,” I said. “I will stop it. If it’s wrong, I won’t let it happen. I promise. I won’t let it happen if you don’t want it to. Just let me know. At any time, I will stop it.”
He was completely serene the next day. Greyhounds are naturally a little high-strung – it’s just their way of interacting with the world – but on his final day he was the calmest I have ever seen him. Even when the vet arrived. Jerry hated vets, he was suspicious of strangers in the house, and he didn’t love having people hover over his bed or manhandle him. But all these things he now suffered with tranquility. While the vet was inspecting him – making sure that, yes, this was the right thing to do – Jerry looked at me with soft eyes and very clearly communicated: “It’s OK. I’m OK.”
I sensed that his only sadness was the knowledge that he wouldn’t be around to comfort us.
I used to think that people who got emotional about their dogs were ridiculous. Now, I feel a physical grief that grips my stomach and makes it hard to breathe. Jerry opened my heart in ways I could not have imagined. He saw no need to obey commands, his farts could melt paint, he would grumble if I typed too loudly, he was a scourge to cats and foxes, but to my wife, my daughter, and me, he was loyal, patient, and kind.
He was the goodest boy.
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