Saying Goodbye to the OG Underdog

Oct 31

5 min read

Updated: Oct 31

Inja. Injie. Injago, Dingo, Stripey, Watermelina.

I don’t know a single dog trainer whose origin story wasn’t fueled by a dog annihilating their peace. It's kinda like the only way to become a dog trainer. We all had a dog that chewed through drywall into the neighbor’s living room, or sent an innocent bystander to urgent care.

Inja was such an abomination. And in doing so she singlehandedly changed the course of my life.

Thirteen years ago, she was a feral desert puppy living across the street. Nobody knew where she came from but everybody knew she was enthusiastically unhinged. Her then-owner was a man with a low boiling point and an enthusiastic habit of hitting his animals. When she slipped her collar and vanished on a camping trip in the middle of nowhere (her favorite party trick) he reached his limit.

He called and said, "I'm dropping your dog off in an hour."

The apartment I lived in — the very, very cheap, very shitty apartment I lived in — was not pet friendly. I was also still in college and working full time. I wasn't around to ever be inside the very, very cheap, very shitty apartment I lived in. How on earth would I care for a dog? Taking her in was objectively moronic.

So I took her in. [re: concept of "boundaries" which will be addressed many, many, many times here]

I was operating under the charming delusion that you acquire a dog, bring it where it needs to go, leave it where it needs to stay, and carry on with your life.

Inja said, "um, think again."

Inja saw things differently. She consented to my presence under ONE VERY STRICT condition: absolute emotional neutrality. One hint of anger and she was gone. And I mean gone. I must have spent 100 hours in those first two years searching for the fucking coyote.

As far as bringing her along, that's when she did best. In the car, near me, Inja did exceptionally well (except for the several times she bit people but... y'know).

For her whole 13 years I resented this photo. Now, with her gone, I can't help but smile about it.

And leaving when she needed to be left — how dare I?

Perhaps she should resolve this stress by eating an entire bottle of doggie pain pills.

Certainly that would show me.

Some ultimate destructo mode should do the trick, that'll stop her from leaving.

Or, fuck it. She leaves, I leave. Solved.

I don't have photos of the tears she caused me, the pee saturating my mattress, the shit in my shoes, the holes in the walls. I don't have photos of the bruises she left on (shamefully) several people.

She was so. unbelievably. bad.

What a blessing.

Certainly part of the problem was that I did almost every conceivable thing wrong. I didn't use a kennel and even rarely used a leash. I wrongly assumed "dogs just stick around and know what you want." It's laughable now that I ever thought this way.

Mostly, I had no boundaries. None for myself, none for the people in my life, and certainly none for her. When it came to the two of us we basically walked all over one another. But even still we did so much together.

Summited mountains.

Often camped in her first home, the desert.

Made friends.

For five years I committed the cardinal sin I now spend my career un-teaching clients. I shaped my entire existence around her dysfunction. I did not make normal, reasonable adjustments. I burned down my social life. If Inja couldn't attend, I didn't go. I took a dog-friendly job just so she’d never be left alone. We lived in suffocating codependency—not in a sweet, heartwarming way, but in an exhausting, hostage-negotiation way.

This complete boundary failure and social isolation is what landed me (and her) into yet another abusive relationship. "She's just a dog," my ex would often sneer. "You like her more than you like me." In hindsight, that was probably true.

Somehow even through the chaos, Inja’s obedience sharpened. She no longer ran off. She knew all the basic obedience things we care about and a few tricks to top it off. She was exceptionally agile. We traveled on dirt road all through the American west. We even once scraped together every last penny to make the trek to Vancouver with a friend.

We were both so incredibly poor we ate mostly raw hot dogs and fruit Gushers.

Just after crossing the border one of our tires exploded. A very nice Canadian man stopped to help us. Inja, in turn, tried to bite him several times.

Thanks, Inja.

I agreed to drive Dani to the Taylor Swift concert in exchange for two nights of camping in the middle of Canada. It was beautiful.

Inja woke me each morning by clawing my face chin to eyeballs.

I had worked my ass off for her obedience, and it showed. But it was at the expense of my autonomy.

At some point in some weird way it hit me like a brick that I needed to understand actual dog behavior. I have to admit I'm a little embarrassed this took me several years to realize. Like, not just how to haphazardly patch the behavior of one feral dingo, but how to set both dogs and owners free from the prison of constant accommodation.

Somewhere in the realm of a decade ago I initiated an apprenticeship with my mentor. And in just those first few days I was drowning in all the things I'd done wrong with Inja. This was not revolutionary stuff, either. It was just, like, kennels. Leashes. Rewards. Corrections. All the very, very obvious stuff that works for every dog.

I started setting boundaries. I began leaving her alone. I started doing things again. I clawed back my independence grain by grain. Once I saw it, like actually saw it, it was so easy to see this is what she needed the whole fucking time. And, yeah, also me. Also I needed that.

And when violence of my relationship finally boiled over against one of the other dogs, Inja and I packed our bags and walked out the door for good. We escaped (physically) unscathed. She was about 6 at the time. And I rebuilt my life again with her by my side.

We learned peace.

Accepted chaos.

And added a Bean.

She was not happy.

But eventually she did accept Linda.

I wish these things I could have learned sooner. I wish she had a stronger me from the beginning. I desperately want a do-over where she gets my real, full attention from day one — not my enmeshed, parasitic attention. I wish we could go back in time and do real agility the right way and preserve her joints. I wish I could come home to just one more

destroyed garbage to rage about to inevitably laugh about later.

Yes, of course she was "just a dog." But she was the crucible. She ruined my life so I could finally actually build one.

I'm sure it's natural to ponder alternative courses after a death. Right now it seems like all I can do.

I am devastated. My heart actually feels like it's barely beating, not unlike the soreness from a workout. Perhaps, in kind, it will also become stronger.

To all the peaks we summited

the dogs we taught

the photos we took

the desert we travelled

the panic we endured

the things we survived