My mother once told me that dogs are better than humans – they’ll listen to you bitch and whine about that guy who got away, they keep your dirty little secrets (like how you secretly listen to Britney Spears songs in the shower), they have conniptions and act like they’re going to pee from excitement when you walk through the door… well, you get the picture. It wasn’t a horrible ex-boyfriend (although there have been many of those), a bitch-from-hell boss (many of those too) or a back-stabbing friend who ruined one of my favorite songs for me. For me, it was my dog Djuno who completely – and inadvertently – made me unable to hear “Waiting on a Friend” ever again.

I got Djuno my senior year of college. I had just recovered from a horrendous two-and-a-half-year relationship gone wrong, and I felt like I had found myself again. Alone for the first time in my college career and living in a brand-new apartment complex where I knew no one, I decided to make my empty little nest a home. I’m the poster child for pet adoption, so it was no surprise that I stumbled across a dog rescue site for American Eskimos (the dog breed I was convinced suited my lifestyle best). I was completely ready to bring this new living entity into my home.

With the eagerness of a first-time dog owner, I loaded up on goodies and comfortable living amenities for my pooch, so he would know he was all right and that I wasn’t going to abandon him like his past owners had. The rescue site sent me a picture and description of the dog that was soon to be my Djuno. The description said he was very good in the car, paper trained, well-behaved, and only a year old – everything I could have hoped for in a dog. Soon enough, the big day came, and I drove to his foster home to pick him up. Seconds after I arrived he greeted me by snarling and growling like he wanted to rip my face off. Maybe he was frightened.

I finally got Djuno into my car and started the drive back to my college town. After about a half hour on the road, I heard retching sounds coming from the back. I pulled over and saw that my newly-adopted pup had puked up something that looked like hot dogs in the back seat of my brand new car. Okay. Maybe he wasn’t as great in the car as the foster parents had thought.

Things didn’t get much better after that. Once Djuno got settled into his new home, every new stranger in my home was met with a barrage of barks, snarls, growls, and the threat of having their limbs bitten off. He also seemed to be highly territorial, marking (you know, peeing) on everything in sight. Every day I came home to the musky smell of dog pee on every single piece of furniture I owned. Despite all of this, I loved that dog like nothing else. I guess it was because I felt bad for him: I sympathized with the feeling of being abandoned and scared. Nobody had ever stuck around long enough to love him and be loved in return.

When college ended I moved back to my parents’ house to start a new job. During that year Djuno took surprisingly well to my parents’ home and to them as well. Still unable to play with other dogs or humans, he was became pretty sweet with us. He had established a circle of trust with certain individuals, and I have to say, I felt honored to be in that circle. Then I started noticing that for a young pup, not even two years old, he was lethargic and uninterested in any play whatsoever. He began sleeping a lot, an unusual amount. He didn’t seem well.

So the day came when I had to say goodbye to Djuno. I remember waking up in the morning, taking him out to play, and going to work. I came home around noontime to feed him and eat lunch myself, but instead of finding Djuno waiting patiently at the door for me, I found him lying in the kitchen on his side. He was dead.

I was absolutely destroyed. How could it be? Djuno had only lived a short life! I took his body to the vet and decided that it would be appropriate to have him cremated. My new boyfriend, who had also become attached to Djuno, offered to help me spread the ashes in the ocean, as my religious beliefs dictated. As we were spreading the ashes in the water, I heard “Waiting on a Friend” blaring from a car that was parked right by the beach. It seemed startlingly appropriate, haunting and bittersweet. I thought it might have been fate that made that particular song play at the exact moment we said goodbye to Djuno and sent him floating away on the ocean waves.

It’s been several months since my dear, sweet, but slightly deranged canine friend left me. But every single time I hear that song, a little part of me dies again.