My Two Writing Teachers colleagues and I are hosting the 16th Annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge, in which teachers from around the world participate by posting a story per day.

This year, the SOLSC gives me a chance to record memories of our little dog, Indie, who died in January. I want to write these down while they are still fresh, so that my family and I can read them later and remember not only Indie, but little slices of life across the years. 

Like lots of dogs, Indie was always right underfoot when we were in the kitchen. He was stepped on so many times that it’s unbelievable he never was seriously hurt.

Come to think of it, at some point he developed a crook in his tail (which we called his sausage tail because it was a funny fat pointy shape). We’ll never know if it was because he got stepped on. I suspect our kitchen sliding door had something to do with it. In any case, like all his injuries, it never seemed to bother him.

When the kids were little, food fell constantly from their seats, from their hands, mouths, clothing. Indie was right there to vacuum it up. He never missed a crumb. Even in the end, not a crumb was missed. My husband and I knew how lucky we were. Sometimes we‘d visit friends who didn’t have a dog. When their kids dropped food on the floor my first thought was how much work it must be to have kids but no dog.

Early on Indie developed this weird habit of licking the carpet. The first time was when he was just a puppy, and we still lived in our apartment in Brooklyn. He never really chewed (except one time with a Birkenstock, and the corners of a few books that I didn’t even notice until he was much older). But he licked and nibbled a bare spot into one of the rugs. We used bitter apple spray and that seemed to keep him from doing it again — for a while.

When we moved into our house that we live in now he started doing it again. Only this time there was wall-wall carpeting in the upstairs. We could hear him from another room - slurp slurp. But then when we tried to catch him in the act - nothing.

Eventually he chose a favorite spot on the stairs landing, where he would sit and sunbathe everyday. From there he could see and hear almost the whole house. He could see out the windows he was too small for, without the height of the stairs landing. He licked the heck out of that square of carpet.

When Indie died, everywhere I looked everything reminded me of him and I couldn’t believe how hard it was—still is. This silly little dog. And I still can’t do anything in a day without thinking about where he would have been be sitting or sunbathing or licking up crumbs.