All Dogs...

On Thursday, I left Walter with the vet in Changuinola. He had parasites and hadn´t been eating well. The doctor wanted to ¨admit¨ him for a few days, which was OK with me because I didn´t want to leave the sick pup in the rather incapable hands of my community. On Monday, when I was returning from the beach, I called the vet to see if I could come to Changuinola to pick up my baby boy. He told me Walter died the day before. My Walter died.

The Ambassador and I only had a month together, but that was enough time to fall completely in love with him. In fact, I was in love before I even took him home. Right from that first time he slung his paws over my shoulder and rested his head there like a human, it was game over. When I called to tell my Mom what happened, I think that´s the only time I´ve ever called her crying.

Everyone thinks their dog is extra special, and the rest of the world thinks they´re nuts. You can call me nuts; the Ambassador was one-of-a-kind. And sure, maybe this whole gringa-in-the-jungle gig I´ve got going made me vulnerable to form intense emotional attachments too quickly. How could I not? Love is love, and sometimes it can happen fast between an American girl and a Panamanian mut. The intensity of my sadness over this was more than I expected, but it was not helped by most of my community blaming me for his death because of sardines that I fed him, and subsequently explaining all my failures in ten-minute tirades until I was nearly reduced to tears on several separate occasions (Ngobe past-time: clinging to theories that have no factual basis in medicine).

So this will be the last post about Ambassador Caballero-Lopez Santos Santos. Is it possible his sad eyes knew he only had two months to the day? We won´t entertain the thought. Because now he has moved on elsewhere, past the cruel conditions of Panama that are not welcoming to baby dogs. He lived a short life, but he was a great Ambassador.