A Dog’s LoveIt is an acknowledged fact of life that one of God’s great, unexplained mysteries (and cruel realities) is to let dogs live such short lives. One month, almost to the day, after my wife and I got married nearly 12 ½ years ago, we opened the Sunday classifieds of the Washington Post and began looking for our first “baby.” I suppose it’s rather cliché that we decided to get a dog, but things become clichés for a reason. I had only two dogs in my life up to that point: an old English sheepdog (Alfie) who barely survived the downstate Illinois summers and a “Heinz 57” as we called her (Sunny) who was found nearly dying in a snowbank one Good Friday so many years ago. Alfie died when I was four years old and lived outside in his doghouse in our backyard, so I didn’t know him very well. But Sunny… we had her the rest of my childhood. I got the call my freshman year in college that my mother had to put her down. It came from my younger brother who couldn’t keep it a secret from me anymore. He was a mess and was 14 at the time. Mom didn’t want to bother me during midterms. I had always thought Labrador retrievers were “cool” dogs. I’m not sure why, but I still think it. They’re one of the sweetest, most loyal breeds, yet they’re also one of the sportiest. They’re muscular, fast, big and playful… the kind of dog you can wrestle and play fetch with for hours. The kind of dog who’s not afraid to dive in water or introduce themselves, eagerly, to just about any human. Chocolate Labs struck me as the coolest, since they’re the rarest of the breed. Instead of having my dog picked out for me, as an adult, I picked out the type of dog I really wanted. My wife agreed with my selection, and we soon found ourselves at a breeder’s house in Beltsville, Maryland. The breeder’s ten-year-old daughter was at soccer practice, so she wasn’t there to hide her favorite pup of the litter (of course, that could have been the breeder’s sales tactic, but having seen how that puppy would turn out, I think she really was the pick of the litter). They only had two dogs left, and we couldn’t tell which was the little girl’s — it was obvious, though, which one we wanted. We ended up picking Hersey. Naturally, she was the breeder’s and her daughter’s favorite… even though she said it was fine for us to take her home. Never being too fond of convention, we changed her name to Hannah. Too many chocolate Labs have goofy chocolate-related names, in my opinion. We immediately ended up at the local pet store, buying things we weren’t sure we’d need and many things we’d need more of. We even bought books about puppies. I remember some books by German monks or were they monks with German Sheppards? I don’t recall exactly. They’re probably hidden somewhere near the ceiling in my home-office bookshelves. That was 12 ½ years ago. A lot has happened since then. Back then, we lived in our first house… a two-story condo on the outskirts of Bethesda, just over the D.C. Beltway. Being on the second and third floors meant one of us would have to take Hannah outside on-leash several times a day. It was a lot of work, but it gave us all plenty of exercise. We’d walk near White Flint Mall or around Georgetown Prep, or just let her play with the other dogs in Timberlawn Park. Like in some Hollywood film, we never got to know the “parents” of the other dogs… they just became “Mason’s dad” or “Muddy’s mom.” I worked just five minutes from our condo, so I’d come home daily to let her out around lunchtime. Those were the days when life was much simpler: BC… Before Children. I remember getting furiously mad at some aggressive dog that everyone knew shouldn’t have been allowed at the dog park. He had gotten too worked up and bit Hannah above her eye. She had quite a gash and looked pretty pathetic at just six months old, but she bravely wanted to go right back the next day. It didn’t scar her emotionally nearly as much as it did us — my wife and I were pretty leery of other dogs for quite some time after that. Hannah would retrieve for hours if I let her. There were times when her panting was so much, I finally stopped and made her rest… this was usually after 60 straight minutes of fetching 50-yard bombs. We’d both lose track of time: her diligently chasing, and me, lost in some daydream. She’d retrieve anything (rocks, even… I tested it a couple times), but any type of ball was her toy of choice. Her favorite “non-ball” toy was “Kermie,” a two-foot tall Kermit the Frog plush toy with bendable wires in it to make his joints flexible. About two weeks after we found Kermit in the parking lot of the Montgomery Mall, Hannah had pulled every ounce of stuffing out of him. In time, Kermie became a small piece of green felt with a couple wires in it that she slept with every night in her crate. One time, she got up on the kitchen counter and ate an entire bag of bagels – we’re talking a baker’s dozen! I was planning to take them in the next morning for my co-workers. Her sides got so bloated, we almost took her to the vet, but when we called, they just said, “Wait it out and she how she does.” She made it through that night, but it took her eating three-quarters of a large Stouffer’s lasagna pan for her and us to realize we couldn’t leave anything out on our little kitchen’s counters anymore. Our habits had to change to accommodate our new “baby.” She loved food, like most Labs, and didn’t quite comprehend what it meant to be full. As a puppy, I once threw her into the Potomac, not paying enough attention to the current. She nearly washed down-stream. Luckily, she was strong enough to make it back to the riverbank, and I was quick enough to wade in and pull her out. I thought Labs automatically loved water, but one of the books said we had to “introduce her” to it, so I literally threw her in. She eventually learned to love playing in water… but once we moved to Florida, we kept her out of fresh water and limited her to the ocean and our swimming pool – I had heard Labs regularly were favorite alligator “treats,” so no sense pushing our luck. Hannah rode like a champ in the backseat of our old Pathfinder the entire 14-hour drive from North Bethesda, Maryland to Orlando with my wife back in 1998. She kept my wife company… even being sneaked into hotel rooms on two consecutive nights. To hear my wife tell it, Hannah nearly blew their cover two or three times, but she thoroughly enjoyed the other double bed. I had flown ahead to start training at my new job and check us into our corporate apartment. A couple jobs and years later, I went to work for myself. I used to bring Hannah to my office in those early days. She particularly liked my business partner’s (Geof Longstaff) son, Blake, and used to hang out in the intern office almost as much as in mine. He’s now at Goldman Sachs in Manhattan, where I’m pretty sure no one’s ever even thought of bringing a dog to work. We finally had to stop the practice after another intern, Anna, was deathly fearful of “big” dogs. Even though Hannah would never hurt a soul, Anna trembled at the sight of her, and I decided productivity was better than maintaining one of Hannah’s favorite daily activities. In retrospect, I may have made the wrong decision. I’ve had 30-some interns over the years, and I can’t promise you I could name them all immediately… but I’ve always remembered Anna… and I suspect Hannah did to. She knew when she was very rarely not wanted. We gave Hannah her own Christmas stocking that hung on the mantel every year, and she got a present or two on Christmas and on her birthday. She was nearly as much a part of our family as our children are today… only with children, you get opinions, which they verbally express. My Hannah kept her opinions to herself and rarely got into trouble past her puppy years. In short order, we had three dogs: Hannah, Jack (named after Jack Welch who I worked for at that time), and Maggie (named after Margaret Thatcher). I do all the naming in my family – from our dogs to our children. Jack and Maggie were both rescue dogs… they were also “pets for our pet” as I called them – it was a minor “battle” I wasn’t prepared to wage against my wife. We walked Jack and Hannah near Church Street Station years ago when we saw a sign about an audition, that day, for a television show on misbehaving dogs. We thought Jack was a shoe-in! He had more “issues” then any dog we’d ever known. Lo and behold, they picked Hannah who’s only “issue” was that she was “aggressively affectionate” as I called it. She’d try to jump up on people to lick their face and “kiss them.” Through the magic of television editing, Hannah finally didn’t jump up on the show’s host after 12 doorbell ringings and entering-our-house takes. Someone emailed me not too long ago while they were in a hospital watching way too much television; she had seen us on Animal Planet. That was more than nine years ago… you’d think they’d scrap that footage by now! In recent years, we’d take Hannah to the dog park in Debary once or twice a month, and on lazy Saturday mornings, she’d enjoy sitting next to me in my convertible while we went through the Chik-fil-a drive-thru for the rest of the family. She’d sniff hard, but she knew it wasn’t for her. We’d trained her well. She was a great dog. We got Winston (named after Winton Churchill, of course) about six months after Maggie died. It was obvious to everyone that it lifted Hannah’s spirits. It probably prolonged her life as well. And I often have wondered what “dog secrets” she must have taught this young pup. “Don’t howl in the middle of the night—they really don’t like that.” “Try not to jump up and land on his crotch… the kids did that enough when they were young… it makes him yell colorful words that aren’t really commands of any sort.” “Never eat the diapers… not that it’ll be a concern now with the kids grown-up, but you should have seen how they reacted when the last canine [Maggie] did it.” If you’ve ever had the pleasure of taking care of a big dog, then you know they have no concept of how large they really are… and I’m not just talking about a 90-pound dog thinking they’re a lap dog. When in trouble, they’ll inevitably hide under a chair or a desk, rear-end sticking out in the open, thinking that they’ve “made themselves invisible.” Like a young child covering their face and thinking no one can see them just because they can’t look out to see anyone else. Hannah did this a few times, and I’ve already seen Winston do it too. After a few weeks of the movie, Marley and Me, being in theatres, I finally got the nerve up to go see it. It wasn’t quite as sad as the book or so my wife said… she had listened to the audio-book after I had left it unopened, collecting dust for months. I normally don’t have a problem with conflict – lots of people try to avoid it – but I think I understand their hesitation and denial. I had displayed it by not wanting to come to terms with Hannah’s worsening conditions as she aged. The part in the movie where I tried my damnest to “make myself invisible” to my wife and kids came when Owen Wilson’s character was about to put Marley to sleep at the vet’s office and tenderly pets him one last time from head to toe. That’s why I had spent the taxi-money to get to the Cabo airport a couple days early. It’s why I packed everything that morning on our second-to-last day of vacation and told Shannon, “It’s the right thing to do. She’s worth at least that much… whether I make it in time or not, I owe it to her to try.” On the way to the airport, I had searched a hidden compartment in my briefcase where I keep photos of my wife and kids to look at when I travel. I found our 1997 Christmas photo – just the three of us: Shannon, me, and Hannah. I held it close during the 30-minute ride. Despite not being able to find someone in reservations on six previous tries that morning, somehow my wife managed to make the phone ring at the check-in counter right in front of me at the Cabo airport. They had already hand-searched my luggage, and I was next in line to get my tickets. The airline lady who answered the phone and called-out for me, simply said the following in her broken-English when I arrived at the counter, “Your wife… she say come back to hotel. You don’t take flight today. Your dog is sleep.” She saw in my face what “sleep” really meant, even if she didn’t quite understand the message she had just given me. “I sorry,” she said. I knew she was. I was too. Back at the Esperanza hotel, my wife broke the news to the kids in my absence. Apparently, after a couple minutes of hysterics by our 7 ½-year-old daughter — “Not before Christmas!” – they took it pretty well. My 5 ½-year-old son said, “Now she can be with Maggie again.” And my daughter calmed her nerves a few minutes later by stating, “Well, we still have Winston.” Yes, we do. And that’s one of the reasons why we got him. When I got there to the hotel, my wife also told me that Reilly had later said Hannah and Maggie would wait for us at the dog bridge. Neither of us had ever heard of such a thing, but our son comes up with some pretty imaginative ideas, quite regularly. I asked him about it and he explained that dogs wait for their masters on the dog bridge, and then they enter Heaven with us. I thought that was a beautiful idea and again was awed by the utter brilliance young children sometimes state so matter-of-factly. I hadn’t grown up thinking that, but as I’ve gotten older and my beliefs evolve and solidify, surely God would do such a thing. It made perfect sense. I think dogs, in particular, teach us a lot about unconditional love. They need us, and we’re better people when we have them in our lives. The same can’t really be said about cats or fish or birds (sure, some cats might not be the disinterested, nasty creatures I think they are, but those are clearly the exceptions). Cat people sometimes think dogs are just unthinking servants to their masters. That might be a fair criticism, but I’ve never read commentaries like the following one about cats: “This soldier, I realized, must have had friends at home and in his regiment; yet he lay there deserted by all except his dog. I looked on, unmoved, at battles which decided the future of nations. Tearless, I had given orders which brought death to thousands. Yet here I was stirred, profoundly stirred, stirred to tears. And by what? By the grief of one dog.” –Napoleon Bonaparte… on finding a dog beside the body of his dead master, licking his face and howling, on a moonlit field after a battle. Bonaparte was said to be haunted by this scene until his own death. Hannah seemed fine for us to go on our annual December family vacation. We never expected her to get so sick while we were away. Of course, my wife has now told me that maybe Hannah knew to do it away from us… that she knew it would have been too much for us to handle. We’d both get so scared over the years when the barometric pressure would drop (like with an approaching storm or hurricane) and Hannah would have another of her seizures — she’d been on medication for it since she was four. All of this certainly makes my final photos with her the day before we left for vacation, seem a bit foreboding. Hannah has now been cremated and her ashes placed next to Maggie’s in a nicely painted wooden urn that sits neatly atop our built-in entertainment center in our family room. She’s with us every day and night in one of the busiest areas of our house. My wife and kids took my favorite photo of her and had a local artist make it into a framed painting for me as a belated Christmas present. I think it’s quite telling that we received a condolences card from our vet’s office with the entire 20-some staff members not just signing it, but writing paragraphs of messages to us about Hannah. She was our vet-tech’s favorite – she would let her, off-leash, warmly greet people at the Lake Mary Vet when she’d be dog-sitting for us while we were out of town. It’s not every dog that can become an Ambassador at the local vet’s office, but I’m pretty sure she warmed everyone’s heart there. She had that kind of way about her as she got older and calmed down a bit. My dog smiled at everyone… not panted; it was a smile… of that, I’m certain. I lost someone who was a part of nearly my entire adult life, thus far. She’s been with me through five jobs, three grandparent’s deaths, two children’s births, and much, much more. I had her longer than I’ve had my children. She loved my children like they were her own; despite the tail-pulls and body-slams she endured. Her and I would lock-up the house every night, and she’d be the last I’d say “Goodnight” to. Her and I would “talk” business and politics and fatherhood and anything else I needed an ear to listen to, when I didn’t want to bother my wife or she was sleeping. When my wife was laboring in the hospital, it was Hannah’s calming presence that took some of my anxiety away. Good dogs always do that for people. She was always there for my wife and me. ALWAYS ready with a smile and a lick or a wag. And yes, I believe she’s waiting for me on the dog bridge, ready to play fetch with whatever they have up in Heaven. I miss you, girl. About The Author:
A few other business achievements Chris has received:
Throughout his career, Chris has been in various leadership positions, including his background as business consultant and financier with GE Capital and as CFO for the NAI RealVest group of companies. Chris’ educational achievements are equally impressive. He graduated from Loyola University with two magna cum laude Bachelor Degrees; earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Center (formerly at the Wharton School of Business); and only spent one year at Georgetown University Law Center before wising-up about becoming an attorney. Chris is a frequent speaker and writer and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, LA Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Orlando Sentinel, Scotsman Guide and many other regional and nationally-recognized trade publications. He maintains a busy civic calendar as a Board member with the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Board and the Florida Hospital Foundation Board, as well his involvement with many other esteemed community organizations. Chris is married to his wife of 12 years, Shannon, and has two children, Reilly and Julianna. |
As Seen In:
Join Our Mailing List
|
 800-31-SHAVE(317-4283) |
 E-mail Us |
 Tell a Friend |
| Coming Soon, Franchises In: Fairfield County, CT; Nashville, TN; Manhattan; Nassau County, NY; Westchester County, NY; and many more! |
 |
 |
 |
152 New Clubs Have Been Sold Now With Many More To Come! |
 |
Chris Hurn is currently President, CEO, Cofounder and Board member of 
