Farewell to the faithful friend named Barkley

There is a tendency to write of loss in terms dripping with tears, and I will grant you that there is sadness in our house over the death of the good dog Barkley.

I could write of the rain that fell on the gloomy first morning we were without him and the empty places where he once sat on his special chair, watching the world go by, or where he lay on a carpet as we ate, yearning for pot roast or a pork chop.

But there was more than sorrow to this playful friend whom we finally had to part with a few days ago. There was life so ebullient that it embraced all who came in contact with him. There was a gentleness of spirit that bore small annoyances with equanimity. But he could bark a big dog’s bark to warn us of danger, even if it was only the wind at the door.

We said goodbye to Barkley so choked up we could hardly talk when his battle with leukemia ended. He looked at us with great sadness and maybe even understanding and the faintest of wiggles of his tail. He said goodbye in his own way, and I will remember it the way I would remember the last touch of a best friend.

Only a week before, he was the Barkley we had always known, coming to me with a tennis ball in his mouth, an evening ritual that found him leaping to catch the ball in midair, then circling the room like an Olympic athlete on a victory lap.

Only a week before, he was sitting on his chair waiting for the treat that he received each morning, eyes fixed on the bag filled with small bone-shaped goodies, which he gobbled down with joyful zest and looked around for more.

Only a week before, he was bounding up the stairs to his couch near our bed to curl up, head on a pillow for the night, then coming to me in the morning to nuzzle and lick my hand when it was time to get up and go out.

The week passed so quickly and his fading strength came on so suddenly that we couldn’t believe that the dog who, only hours before, was running to the door to meet us when we’d been gone for the day was abruptly lethargic, almost inert.

The oncologist who had been treating him said it would happen this way, that the cancer would hit him suddenly and with devastating impact and he would be gone before we knew it. The disease was diagnosed nine months ago. We treated him with chemo and a variety of other medications to keep him going as long as we could.

When his appetite began to flag, we bought him pork roasts. When we took him on that 2,700-mile trip through the small towns and mountains of Northern California and couldn’t find a pork roast in the market, we ordered it to-go at restaurants. If they didn’t have pork, we shared a steak with him.

I know that it sounds excessive. Taking a four-week trip tailored for a dog and then feeding him in a manner that many humans throughout the world would envy is not what we would normally do. But this was a way of paying him back for what he had given us during all of the eight years that he honored our house with his presence.

A springer spaniel, he was born in the English countryside and was brought to the U.S. by a couple who, due to their busy schedules, could not keep him. When I wrote about the death of Hoover, a kind of non-dog, they offered us Barkley, conditioned upon the kind of home and yard we had. It was love at first sight.

He bounced into our lives like a happy, mischievous imp, running to my room as the fax bell rang and chewing at the paper as it emerged; grabbing Cinelli’s bookkeeping off a table when she wasn’t paying enough attention to him and prancing around the room with a check in his mouth; stealing three-dozen Christmas cookies off the sink and eating every one; looking sad and hangdog when he knew he’d done wrong.

He expressed his emotions with face and body language that left little doubt of his feelings. Happiness was obvious and so was sadness, but he could also communicate confusion, stubbornness and an intense desire to understand. He knew all kinds of commands that no one had ever taught him. He was smarter than most politicians.

The last time he left our house, he could barely walk, and yet he was eager to go because he wanted to be with us wherever we went. We had to help him into the car, and when we arrived at the pet hospital, he couldn’t walk at all. By the time we made the decision to send him off into his dreams, he could barely move.

I realize as I age that friends die and that time is collapsing before me too. But our lives have been full, while Barkley’s was just getting started. He was too young to leave us. I sat watching the next day’s rain with a heavy heart and glowing memories because he gloried in a storm and would have bounded through it like a child at play.

As Cinelli said driving home from the hospital, “He was more than a dog.” That he was and shall always be.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at al.martinez@latimes.com.