PULLMAN — Being a dumb bachelor who naively believed that a young woman’s love was a thing that could be procured with an extravagant gift, I set out to do just that.
My then-girlfriend, a spunky brunette living in Ravenswood, wanted a dog.
And that's how I found true love in January 2005.
An Internet search turned up a cute black Labrador puppy rescued by doggie do-gooders and put up for adoption.
We drove to Linda’s Magnificent Mutts Rescue in suburban Hillside. There I wrote a check for $175 — nearly half my rent — to give the brunette a cute 8-week-old puppy the size of my shoe as a birthday gift that doubled as a promise of love and devotion.
The dog rescuer named the puppy "Halley's Comet."
We both thought it was a stupid name.
Looking back, we were wrong.
Finding her was like spotting that famous glowing ball of ice and dust as it streaks across the sky; once-in-a-lifetime.
I could tell this dog was extraordinary even before we settled on her new name, “Stella” — a tribute to the ex’s favorite beer, “Stella Artois," and not my maternal grandmother.
Soon after we brought Stella home, it became obvious our dog had superior intelligence and good taste.
“After just two days it’s clear she's Lassie smart, having already become accustomed to peeing on the Tribune,” I wrote in a column about the struggles of picking the perfect name for a puppy that was published in the Sun-Times' free tabloid, Red Streak.
Over the years, Stella’s exploits have become fodder for columns and letters, YouTube videos, Facebook posts and the like.
That’s because Stella and I had a lot in common. She was fun loving, sweet, smarter than people thought, stubborn, bossy and, from time to time, a royal pain in the ass.
“Locked in the cage next to me is a dog in serious trouble,” I wrote in February 2005. Stella “gnaws on the coffee table, the kitchen table, the end table — pretty much any table. She also [chews] chairs, anything hanging on chairs, such as coats, shirts, pants or belts. Stella also has an affinity for [chewing] shoes whether they are being worn or not. And in a pinch she’ll chew feet, preferably toes.”
That’s when Stella bit the brunette on the face.
For a brief moment, there was talk of sending her back to the suburbs. Ultimately, Stella’s ability to quickly realize her sins and beg forgiveness with literal puppy-dog eyes saved her.
I do believe that incident inspired her to live by a motto I follow in my own life: “It’s better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.”
Stella always stood up for what she believed to be her inalienable rights: Life, liberty, long walks, timely meals and the pursuit of doggie cookies, among them.
So if Stella thought I had cut her evening walk too short she would defiantly throw herself on the ground — paws spread to lower her center of gravity — and refuse to go into the house until after at least one more trip around the park.
Punctuality was important to Stella. Get caught sleeping at breakfast time, Ol’ Stella would rest her chin on the bed and relentlessly deliver a forceful grunt — part “woof,” part growl, part sigh — to persuade even the deepest sleeper to get up and fill her bowl.
Stella’s sweet-yet-demanding grunt transformed me from night owl to morning person.
When things didn’t go her way way, Stella knew how to get even.
Once, in protest of my late arrival home from (the bar after) work, Stella didn’t just poop in the house. She pooped on my new shoes. I was (almost) never late again.
Stella was up for adventure in any season.
Stella loved water. On our trips to dog-friendly beaches, she would swim laps parallel to the shore in preparation for a triathlon.
But she would not, under any circumstances, jump off a dock, deck or boat into a lake. Instead, Stella would whine, bark and grunt until someone (usually me) gently lowered her into the water.
Even during Stella’s “chubby years” before being ordered to only eat “diet food,” she fancied herself a doggie athlete.
Soccer ball chasing was her passion. Kick a soccer ball and Stella would give chase at break-neck speed, crush the ball in her powerful choppers, stop on a dime and … refuse to bring it back to me.
She was no David Beckham. Twice, Stella’s frantic soccer ball chasing ended in injuries that required reconstructive knee surgeries.
The second time Stella blew out her knee, calculations were done to determine whether the high cost of doggie knee surgery was worth sparing her a life-long limp. With sad beautiful eyes, Stella begged forgiveness and got it.
When cabin fever set in during the “Chiberia” polar vortex, Stella’s snow obsession inspired our romp through the city looking for joy amid the deep freeze.
We didn’t find many happy people, but chasing Stella through Murray Park in Englewood and down the Humboldt Park sledding hill cured my winter blues, and lead to a column about a bumper-sticker slogan that became a mantra at my house: “Don’t Postpone Joy.”
Spending time with Stella changed me.
Heck, she probably saved me from myself during the difficult time when the relationship that brought Stella and me together completely fell apart.
The brunette allowed me to keep Stella.
This was an undeserved act of kindness.
“I thought you needed Stella more,” she later told me.
I’m still thankful for that.
Stella was my rock.
She depended on me to take care of her at a time when I felt a desperate need to be needed, and repaid my efforts by being my cute, furry, goofball sidekick.
When I played sad songs on guitar, Stella rested her head on my foot. For that, I never felt like I was alone.
Every time I came home I’d yell the same thing: “Stella! Daddy’s home.”
It sounded like thunder as Stella ran to the door on her two bum knees, in a hop like a fat, black bunny. Sometimes, Stella steamrolled her adopted brother, Clark Kent the Cat, just to give me “huggies,” her unique sign of affection accomplished by leaning all her weight against my shins, wagging her tail furiously.
The best of Stella's huggies came in the wee hours of April 19, 2011, when we woke my former roommate.
At nearly 3 a.m., Stella rushed down the stairs to greet me when I got home. I shouted out the good news, “Stella, Daddy won the Pulitzer.”
My sleepy dog, energized by my joy, hopped in circles, barked with all her might and leaned against me with an unconditional love, pure and true. To this day, that’s the Pulitzer celebration I cherish the most.
Stella was more than just my best and most loyal friend.
My dog provided inspiration for the series of stories that remain a theme in how I write about Chicago, a metropolis divided into two cities — one for the rich and powerful and another for the poor and forgotten.
Stella grew up on the North Side, the land of dog parks, dog beaches and doggie spas.
When we moved to Pullman it was clear that South Side dogs — like South Side people — get short shrift when it comes city services and public amenities.
Walking around Chicago with Stella taught me a lot about the people who live here. For one thing, we treat our dogs better than our people.
So I decided to embed myself in a high-rise apartment near Navy Pier in August 2014 to take notes on what it’s like to live on the rich side of Chicago compared to our Far South Side existence in Pullman.
Stella and I were set to live like tourists in our own town. Our vacation at 500 N. Lake Shore Drive was billed as the most dog friendly building in the city.
But the first weekend we spent there was tragic.
Stella suffered a stroke that stole her hearing and sight.
I didn’t think Stella would bounce back.
But she did, thanks to my mom and dad, and rambunctious nephews, Logan and Lex, who nursed her back to life at my parents’ doggie convalescent home in the suburbs. Stella regained her ability to hear and see — even things that weren’t there, my Dad likes to remind me.
Stella would sit by the fence facing north and bark — slowly with annoying purpose.
“Woof … Woof … Woof.”
I told people that my dog pointed her nose toward Pullman and barked because she missed her daddy, knowing it was a lie. Or perhaps, I just wished it was so.
Stella barked as a way of telling the lady next door — a kind soul known to slip her a tasty biscuit or two — to wake up and bring her a doggie cookie.
My dog, like me, firmly believes a life without cookies, isn’t worth living.
Last week, I offered Stella a cookie and she spit it out.
Her eyes were bright red and puffy. Stella’s surgically repaired knees and arthritic hip made it too painful for her to stand up on her own.
Stella’s good morning grunt had become a weeping whimper, a plea to help her up so she could go outside and lay in the cool mud. She was too weak to bark for the neighbor; and lacked a desire for cookies.
When I laid on the rug next to her, Stella beat her tail on the floor but was to exhausted to lift her head to lick my face.
I sent word of Stella’s condition to the brunette, who is now married with a new dog. She came to say goodbye to Stella.
We met on the corner I grew up on. She hadn’t seen Stella in years, a true sacrifice.
Stella walked up to her “mommy” and leaned in for huggies. I could tell Stella felt energized. She pulled on the leash hoping to take a long walk down by the Little Calumet River that I knew she might not be strong enough to finish.
The three of us sat on the cool grass. We were the same, only older and wiser.
There were all kinds of things we could have said to each other; scars to expose, grievances to air and grudges to hold.
Instead, we recounted our favorite Stella stories while rubbing our dog’s fuzzy belly and soft ears knowing Stella’s last day had been scheduled.
We cried, for Stella and ourselves, tears of forgiveness.
Last Monday, hours before I lied on a cold floor as the vet ended Stella’s pain, I dipped her left front paw in paint.
Stella wouldn’t look at me as I pressed her paw to paper, leaving a permanent mark just as she did on the people who loved her most.
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