Little Jerry Seinfeld

My heart breaks, my fingers tremble and tears flow down my cheeks as I write this. Little Jerry Seinfeld has died. I am at a loss for words and can barely function at this point but I owe him this much.

Jerry came into our lives seven years ago. He was a present for my 21st birthday from Clint. We had been together for a little over a year and were living in our own apartment together when we decided to add to our family. We looked for weeks for the dog that was just right and after a two hour drive one Sunday, we found him. He was just two months old when we first saw him and barely half a pound but what he lacked in size, he made up for in spirit. I will never forget watching him play with a dog ten times his size, barking at him, jumping on him, biting him. I told Clint "that's the one." It took forever to pick out a name but I finally came up with one that Clint could agree upon and so at three months old, we drove that four hour round trip drive to bring Jerry home. He was still so tiny and he even had a little cough. I remember that we stopped somewhere on the drive back and bought Jerry some chicken wings and water. He slept in my lap the whole ride home.




Many things come to my mind about our first week with Jerry. How he peed on the potty pad as soon as we got into the apartment (what a good dog). How he cried about sleeping in his dog bed until we put him in bed with us (Clint was afraid of rolling over on top of sweet little half-a-pound Jerry). I came home on my lunch break every day to see Jerry and even ended "injuring his growth plate" in his front paw which caused him to wear a pink cast for several weeks.

There is so much to say about Jerry. Though he never weighed more than seven pounds and suffered from epilepsy, Jerry always thought he was a one hundred pound Doberman, tougher than any dog out there and he wanted to let the world know. Jerry loved to snuggle in bed and on the couch, anywhere there was a warm body. He loved being under the covers and climbing into the dryer when I was folding fresh warm clothes. He loved laying out in the grass on a warm sunny day and standing at the fence barking at every single sound he could hear. Jerry had tons and tons of energy and was constantly eating to make up for all the energy released. He loved his brother Batman and they would play and snuggle all the time.






When the boys came home from the hospital, we had to consider giving Jerry away because of the way he acted out toward the boys. But Clint and I knew in our hearts that we could never give him away because our family would never be the same. Eventually he grew to tolerate the boys and even loved them. He would let the boys pull on him and he'd playfully snap at them, which caused them to laugh and laugh. Killian would come home from school every day and walk over to Jerry with his lips shaped into an O and Jerry would give him sweet little kisses. A few weeks ago the boys and I were sitting on the couch and Jerry came and sat right down on Graham's lap. It was one of the sweetest moments I had ever been a part of. As fierce as Jerry was, he was also so sweet and loving. He was, and always will be, my very first baby.





On Sunday October 3rd, my 28th birthday, Clint and I had come home after being gone an hour and found that Jerry had dug a hole under the fence and gotten out of the yard. We drove around the neighborhood for hours that night, as well as the next day. We called the shelter, reported him missing on his microchip and put flyers all around the neighborhood. Unfortunately this morning, Tuesday October 5th, I received a call from the humane society that Jerry had passed away. A woman who worked at the shelter, saw Jerry on the side of the road. He had been hit by a car and left there. It breaks my heart that someone just left him. I just pray that his death was quick and painless. We will be picking up his body today and deciding whether to bury him or cremate him.

A lot of people might think that it's stupid to get so upset over a dog but Jerry was family, he was our very first baby and he was only seven years old. My heart still thinks that I'm going to come home and Jerry will be waiting for me in the backyard, or hiding under the bed or sitting perched on the couch in his lookout spot. I know that pain will subside eventually but it doesn't make today any easier.