I’ve mentioned our dog, Maxwell, in several of my columns this past year. He turned 10 in July. I thought we would have many more years to wander the trails and swim in the ponds that have been part of our everyday Wilton experience.

That was not to be. He fell ill and passed away on Dec. 23.

What I’ve learned from having canine family members is it’s not only us who grieve when one leaves this world. Maxi, like so many other dogs in our area, are not only part of our family, they are part of a much larger neighborhood family of both human- and dog-kind. Over the past year or so, we’ve lost several other beloved members of this community whose absences leave a hole in the fabric of our lives.

Maxi, like all our other dogs from the past, were part of the Andy’s Summer Playhouse experience. Several felt comfortable wandering into the playhouse any time the door was open. Maxwell was one of those. While he didn’t steal food from the young cast members, as other canine family members had done, he did have an ability to find his next new toy if a prop box or auction item piqued his fancy. Living next door to the playhouse for nearly 38 years meant that our dogs were part of the everyday Andy’s experience for each of those years.

Even more than his relationship with the Andy’s crew was the way he was part of the year-round experience of living in our neighborhood. He had friends who would bark every time we passed their homes and especially loudly if we didn’t stop to visit. Those visits were also part of our neighborhood social fabric, a time to stand or sit and chat with others while our pets played nearby, just as walking on the roads and trails brought us into contact and into conversations with others and their dogs who may not live in the immediate vicinity.

Almost everyone in our neighborhood has a dog, or until recently, had a dog. Even those without dogs become part of this large extended family. These folks are greeted, welcomed and encouraged into it by its four-legged members and feel their absences just as deeply as does any dog owner. Papi, named after baseball legend David Ortiz; Maddie; Bear; Sienna; Jenny; and Brooke were fixtures on Isaac Frye Highway, just as Gus and Tillie were on Wilton Center Road.

These byways feel emptier without their presence and vocalized greetings. Now Maxi leaves another void.

One December, several years ago, a group of us who walked our dogs together decided to put a canine Christmas crèche in a shed on the lawn of one of the neighborhood houses. That was pre-Maxwell. Boswell, or Bozy as he was best known, was the family member invited to participate. Although Bozy preferred the role of audience, other four-legged neighborhood residents took up the key roles, but most had not yet learned to not upstage each other. And keeping one of the smaller dogs in a cradle looking grace-filled and radiant, was an impossible task.

Even “Mary” didn’t possess the calmness one would expect at such a momentous occasion. But it was a laughter-filled success for the human audience. Dogs can enrich lives in the most unusual ways.

Pre-Bozy, we had Strider and Brandy. Strider, a golden retriever with a swagger, came with my husband as a package deal. Strider was a Lothario who lived by his own rules. That was until he met Brandy. She was a gift to our eldest son who was charged with training this new puppy. Brandy had a steadfast calmness and a schoolmarmish demeanor that Strider had no use for.

But that all changed one late fall day. Strider took off toward the playhouse and refused to return when we called out to him. Brandy by then had already had enough of Strider’s bad manners. She raced after him and, as we watched, grabbed his collar in her teeth and began leading him home. What we observed was an immediate hierarchical change. He agreed to her demands and meekly followed her home, with a “Yes, dear, I know I was wrong and never will do it again,” look on his face. And he never did.

After Strider passed, we decided it was time to get a new companion for Brandy. We knew she would be a strict, but loving, teacher for any new puppy. One summer day in Mont Vernon, we met six Boykin-spaniel-and-something-else potential adoptees. Two fuzzy, black-haired puppies caught our attention, and we asked to have them brought to the lawn where we could sit, interact with and then choose one of them.

Although they looked identical, one puppy immediately climbed into my lap for a moment, raced off to chase his brother and then returned to snuggle more firmly with me. He had chosen us, not the other way around. We named him Boswell, or Bozy for short. He was a brilliant dog, adept at linguistics and completely baffled by my inability to translate his woofs into anything comprehensible, while he had a cornucopia of human words he understood. I often felt he was shaking his head in frustration, saying to himself, “I just don’t know how to teach her to understand even the simplest requests. I think these humans are completely untrainable.”

At the age of 10, he developed a basketball-sized cancerous tumor on his side and was given up to three months to live. I decided to do what I would do for myself if I had such a death sentence – treat myself to any food that appealed to me. We became frequent visitors to Wendy’s for an unloaded kiddy burger and a local outdoor ice cream stand for a vanilla cone. He looked forward to these weekly or biweekly visits. The medical community should take note that on this diet, he lived for two more years. I think he thought that this was just too good to leave behind, so he willed himself into remission.

After Bozy left us, it took me a while to want another dog. Since Brandy, a golden retriever and yellow Lab mix, lived to be just over 19 years old, we decided to try that mix again. This time,  we traveled north to find our dog. Puppies filled the back of an old pickup truck. It was just high enough for us to get a good view of each of them.

One puppy stood out. He came to the edge of the truck bed, climbed up to try to lick me and peed all over himself. How could I not love this irrepressible pooch? He had a sister who had the kind of looks photographers search for when seeking out a beautiful example of puppyhood. We asked to also adopt her so he would have a companion.

What I learned from this experience taught me not to bring two litter-mates home at the same time. One of them would learn to use papers to pee on while the other, usually Maxi, was slower to catch on. When his sister saw that he didn’t want to be as neat as she, she reverted to past behaviors. That meant training was unduly lengthy.

They also were more bonded to each other than to us and we wondered if they ever would become people-oriented. The worst part of this venture was trying to walk two young, active puppies at the same time. Their leashes were forever getting entangled and nearly tripped me as they raced around, seeing new things in every direction and wanting to try them out by nose or tongue. We decided to keep Maxwell and let Maia go to a neighbor who had already fallen in love with her.

Just as friends and family want to be near loved ones when they are doing poorly, Maxi was able to have a last roadside meeting and a final play date with his two best friends, Hannah and Ruby. One thing I learned from Max is there can be beauty, even in sadness. He gave me a gift I didn't expect. Let me explain.

Maxi loved the snow. On his final trip outdoors, he wanted to only lie and roll in it with his ball tucked beneath him. He looked so content that I decided to go inside and watch him from the kitchen window. He finally stood, but instead of heading inside, he looked slowly around him, slow enough to look like someone who wanted to remember everything he was seeing. He turned toward the southeast and stood for a while longer with his entire upper body outlined in gold from the sun, then slowly walked towards the house. 

An hour later Maxi was gone, leaving me with that final picture of him haloed by the sun.