A Dog Named Diego

Back when Lauren was just a toddler, maybe 2 or 3 years old, and my mom was still with us, Lars decided we needed a dog, and as a surprise he and Lauren went and adopted a rescue dog, a little cocker spaniel that Lauren named Diego, since she was fond of both Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go! back then. Diego spent his days outside in our backyard and inside when we were home and at night. My mom wasn’t used to having a dog around, and mostly we made sure it stayed outside when he was home alone with her.

Unfortunately Diego wasn’t with us very long, since one day during an El Nino winter storm, he dug a hole under the fence and ran away. He didn’t get very far, and it wasn’t long before a neighbor knocked on our door to tell us they had witnessed a hit and run. The driver of the car didn’t even stick around to see what they had done. Poor Diego had quite a few broken bones, and didn’t make it through the night. But Lars stayed with Diego the entire time, making sure he wasn’t alone in his last hour. We had kept Lauren away from the entire scenario, so she wouldn’t be traumatized by Diego’s violent death. I don’t even remember what we told her happened to Diego, but in her world, he just went on to a better place.

Since it’s been so many years, I hadn’t thought of Diego in a while until yesterday when Lauren and her friend Charlotte were in the back seat of my car and talking about their pets. Eventually Lauren got around to talking about Diego, just to mention she had a dog named Diego. So I piped up and asked her what she remembered about Diego.

Her first thought was that he was big, bigger than our dog Cookie is now. I guess that’s the perception of the little toddler that she once was. Cookie is a mid-sized dog, and Diego was less than half Cookie’s size. Diego was tiny compared to Cookie. Lauren didn’t remember much else about Diego, other than he was gone.

Since she’s 10 now and understands about life and death, I figured it was time to let Lauren know what really happened to Diego. So I explained to her what had happened and how he died and what a great dog he was.

Somehow the discussion ended up around where their deceased pets are now, since Charlotte had 3 deceased pets buried in her backyard. I told Lauren Diego was also buried in our backyard, a service Lars performed, but we didn’t mark the grave, so as not to upset the younger Lauren, and my mom. 

Lauren’s reaction to hearing this news for the first time, was that she wasn’t ever going to dig in the backyard again, since she didn’t know where Diego was buried.

In my head, I can still hear Diego whimpering in Lars’ arms from that night so many years ago. Rest in peace Diego.