Being Boomer

This post is not about aging or dementia.

It is about love, connection, loss, grief, and joy. Living.

So maybe it is about aging and dementia?

On the one-year anniversary of the death of our dog, Boomer, I share his obituary.

Boomer Barsness

February 2, 2011 – March 6, 2024

Boomer, aka Booms, Boomie, Boomsie, Boomarang, Boom Boom, Boo, and Boo-Boo, left this Earth Wednesday March 6, 2024 surrounded by his favorite human, Sonya, and spare human, Brendan. Just kidding, he loved them equally and for different reasons.

Before he came to Sonya and Brendan, Boomer spent the first 10 years of his life with his best dog friend, Wilbur, and his human family, in Washington DC. When Wilbur died, Boomer became extremely depressed, and due to challenging family circumstances, his humans made the very difficult choice to find a new home for Boomer where he could have the attention and healing he needed. 

Ten-year old Boomer came to Sonya and Brendan as a foster through New Spirit for Aussies, a rescue for Australian Shepherds. Sonya and Brendan were quickly won over by his endearing and weird qualities, and he was adopted by them a month later.

Sonya and Brendan were a perfect fit for Boomer. With both working from home, Boomer had a lot of human time and attention. As a Velcro dog, Boomer was thrilled to have humans around him most of the time.

When Boomer moved in with them, Sonya and Brendan quickly realized that Boomer did not know how to give or receive affection. After many sessions of forced love, sometimes overlove, Boomer developed a tolerance for affection, and even began showing it. His shows of affection were authentic but awkward, with him rather aggressively throwing his head or whole body onto your body. When receiving affection in the form of deep belly or head rubs, Boomer seemed to lose himself in it, making weird groaning noises. He loved affection in the form of baby talk and little soft kisses on his head, until he didn’t, and then would turn his entire head or body away from you, subtly letting you know he was done.

Boomer had several interests.

Boomer loved light reflections. In Sonya’s home office, he would watch the changing light on the walls or ceiling for hours, doing little tap dances of joy while he followed them, his little nubbin twitching excitedly. In the car, Boomer also loved watching the light reflections, which was less cute, as he felt he needed to attack them throughout a car ride. This resulted in Boomer spontaneously jumping at the car roof, the dashboard, or Sonya and Brendan, to catch the reflections.

Boomer also loved following lasers, but he was only allowed to do this sparingly, as it made him quite neurotic.

Boomer was obsessed with squirrels, and would take any opportunity to chase after them. This is the fastest one would ever see Boomer move. Boomer particularly found it important to follow a squirrel to its tree to be sure it did go up the tree. Boomer was very detail-oriented.

Boomer likened himself to a detective, always searching for new knowledge. If Boomer came upon a bush or tree that was peed on by another dog, he would take in the scent with utmost seriousness. Then he would sniff his own wee-wee to see whether the pee matched. If not, he would move forward in peeing on the bush to ensure it did indeed now have his scent. Mystery solved!

Boomer was a unicorn – a low-energy Aussie. He was quite happy spending his days lounging in Sonya or Brendan’s home offices. It is likely he picked up a good bit of gerontology or data science and could probably easily have filled in for his humans in a work crisis.

Boomer was clumsy for an Aussie. He would misjudge his jumps onto the couch, and couldn’t really catch a ball for the life of him. This did not seem to affect his ego; he was not high achieving but just happy with being himself.

Boomer had very little mischief. About 6 months after being adopted by Sonya and Brendan, Boomer started retrieving a single tissue from the the trash and leaving it in the middle of the floor for all to see. It was a valiant, but subtle, attempt to exercise mischief, as if he really didn’t know how to do mischief. His humans would cheer him on for trying. Eventually he took it up a notch and started stealing gum and hiding it under the bed, although he would never eat the gum.

One of Boomer’s most endearing qualities was his “swimmies”. Boomer would lie on his side and move his front two legs as if he were paddling in water. For symmetry purposes, he usually needed to do both sides. Swimmies varied in tempo, from slow and thoughtful, to fast and manic. Boomer did them nearly every day, especially after his morning walk and breakfast, before taking his morning nap. Swimmies seemed to be a sign that Boomer was happy, and that made his humans happy.

Boomer had no tolerance for humans exercising and did what he could to discourage it. There was no better place for Boomer than in the middle of a yoga mat when one was doing a downward dog.

Boomer was a love bug but did have his nemeses. This included the mail carrier Latiesha, Prime delivery people, UPS delivery people, FedEx delivery people, and all food delivery people. Latiesha, thank you for your graciousness in always smiling and laughing at Boomer even when he terrorized you from the front window. Boomer also had as his nemesis “brown dog around the corner”, who would bark incessantly at Boomer whenever we walked by his house, causing Boomer to become very emotional.

Boomer leaves behind his heartbroken humans, Sonya and Brendan, who received constant joy from him.

He is predeceased by his hamster-sister, Skittles Lazypants, with whom he had a complex and ambiguous relationship.

Boomer is also predeceased by his dog brother, Blue, whom he never met. However, his humans feel pretty confident they would have been great together, with Blue being a strong leader and Boomer a loyal follower.

Boomer is survived by his dog cousin, Oliver. Boomer and Oliver contentedly coexisted at family get togethers, although they occasionally would have a spontaneous yet halfhearted 30-seconds of play together before both deciding that was enough. Boomer is also survived by his other dog cousin, Toby. Toby did not care much for Boomer, but Boomer was too frightened of Toby’s 5-lb lofty presence to get in his way. Boomer leaves behind his great-dog-nephew, Stanley, who he thought was “a bit much at times”, but could connect with him when they joined forces to bark at delivery people.

Boomer treasured his favorite toy, Lamb. Lamb was quite overloved, and this caused Lamb to have several surgeries, including 4 amputations and 3 squeakie-ectomies. Unfortunately, his other favorites – unicorn, octopus, and lemur – suffered a similar fate.

Boomer is survived by several other humans important to him. Boomer spent a lot of time with his grand-dog-parents, Maria and Henry, and considered their home his second home. His grand-dog-mom, Pam, gave Boomer great rubs, and was quite skillful at preventing Boomer from leaping all over everyone to get to light reflections during road trips. Boomer also lovingly leaves uncles Paul and Eric, and aunts Stephanie and Denise, as well as human cousins Lexi, Landon, and Talia.

Boomer was loved. Every day. And he gave us joy. Every day. He was such a good boy.