In Memory of Thunder

I knew I wanted to get Seth a dog for his birthday. Before we got married the previous month, we’d decided we wanted to get a dog as soon as possible. Specifically, I wanted a pitbull. My family dog was a pitbull, and I had grown so close to him. Originally, we wanted a puppy. But we had a small apartment. Our bedroom barely fit our bed; it was practically a studio apartment. A puppy needed room to run around and explore. Maybe it was selfish, to want to bring a dog into such a small home. 

Sitting at work on a slow day, I scrolled through the Utah Humane Society’s website, looking at the dogs that were available. They were all cute, and I was getting more and more excited for the upcoming birthday surprise. And then I scrolled past a mellow looking pitbull with dark fur. He was wearing a blue bandana in his photo. “Thunder, age 8 – loves to cuddle, is a couch potato”. I turned to my coworker and told him that I’d found the dog.

Later that day, I went to visit him at the shelter. Seth’s birthday wasn’t for another month, but I didn’t want to risk losing this dog. I walked through the first room of dogs, looking into every kennel, but I didn’t see him. I got discouraged, as I made another lap, peering into every single door. It took me a few more incredibly sad minutes to realize that there was another room adjacent to the one that I was in, filled with more eager dogs, ready for adoption. I found Thunder almost immediately, and fell in love before I even let him out of the kennel. He was noticeably depressed, he didn’t even get up when I opened the door.

We came and adopted him later that week. We had to fight for him. Our apartment complex didn’t allow “Bully breeds”. We went back and forth between our apartment manager and the shelter, until we convinced our apartment complex that because his parents were unknown, he was classified as a mix, and therefore wasn’t full breed, and we could take him home. We cried so much that weekend, fighting to bring Thunder home.

He smiled so big as we drove him home. He was in the shelter for 3 months before we adopted him, and he’d been adopted 4 other times and brought back in every single time. I don’t know how those other 4 families could’ve let him go, and it makes me cry just thinking about it. He was the sweetest dog I’ve ever met, and he loved so fiercely.

Shortly after bringing Thunder home with us, we had him registered as an Emotional Support Animal for me, to help me manage my anxiety. At the time, my anxiety was bad enough that I rarely left the house, was failing all of my classes because I could never get myself to attend, and was crippled with anxiety attacks on a daily basis. Thunder helped me heal. Whenever I’d have an attack, he would gently climb onto the bed, and lay down next to me, nudging his head under my hands to let me know that he was there. He would whine when I didn’t get better fast enough. His presence was comforting, and getting him was the beginning of a long healing journey.

Thunder was with us through three moves, and an entire pregnancy. He was there during so many transitional stages of our lives. Thunder comforted me through my miscarriages last year, when I thought I would never be able to have a baby, and I was terrified of everything my body was doing. He protected us and loved us, and we couldn’t have asked for a better dog.

And man, did he love Bastian. We were worried that he would be nervous around the baby, but he loved him. Whenever I put Bastian down for a nap, he’d go lay in his room and wait until he was sure he was asleep, before he’d leave the room. Sometimes I couldn’t even get him to leave, and he’d lay on the floor until Bastian woke up. When Bastian still slept in our room, Thunder would get up out of his bed and sit at the foot of the bassinet every single time Bastian got up at night, and wouldn’t go back to bed until I did.

Sunday night, Bastian’s owlet gave us a false red notification. It shook us up a little bit, but it also affected Thunder. He was anxious and very protective of Bastian all day on Monday. He cuddled him and followed him around all day, always in the same room as him. I tried so hard to get him to leave the baby’s room during his naps, but he refused. He just wanted so badly to make sure that he was okay.

I hope that Thunder’s angel is still watching over our baby. The love between that baby and him was so strong, I swear.

Monday night, Thunder’s spleen ruptured. It was really sudden, and we weren’t ready to let him go. He had a lot of health problems(strokes and seizures over the last two years), but we really weren’t expecting his health to decline so quickly. He walked into the kitchen to get a drink, and I heard him fall. When I walked in, he was sprawled out on the floor in a way that I knew wasn’t comfortable. I tried getting him up but he wouldn’t move. His breathing was shallow. I called our vet, and they cleared the schedule so we could bring him in.

My friend and I had to drag him out to the car on a blanket, because he was so damn big that we couldn’t lift him. I felt so bad. The whole drive to the vet, Bastian reached his hand out of his car seat and stroked Thunder’s ear, babbling to him. Despite the pain he was in, Thunder kept lifting his head to look at the baby and let him play with his nose.

When we got to the vet, he had to be put on oxygen immediately, and the vet said there was a chance he would go into cardiac arrest. Seth came over from work, and we had a chance to say goodbye to him as a family. I held him, as he took his last breath, and we sent him into the next life.

It’s still hard to realize that he’s really gone. I keep thinking I’ll trip over him in the baby’s room at night. I expect to hear the clacking of his nails running to the door when I get home. When I woke up this morning, I almost asked Seth if he had had a chance to let the dog out yet. I keep forgetting.

Thunder was an amazing dog, we love him so so much, and he’ll be missed for the rest of our lives.