🐾 The Ride or Die Dog

Ride or Die: Stories from a Man, His Dogs, and the Long Road Back - Letters to My Son… If I Had One By Fred Ferguson

Dear Son,

Before I found peace, before I found love, and long before I found words,
I found Cody.

He was a rescue—half Pekingese, half pug—but 100% ride-or-die.
And he came into my life when I needed him most.

Not at rock bottom—I'd already climbed out of that.
But in that quiet, fragile space after you’ve sobered up,
when you’re alive again… but still learning how to live.

---

I had been dogless for a couple of years.
That wasn’t by choice.
It was grief.

See, I’d lost Scamp — the last of my little pug trio from the hardest years.
Gidget, Scamp, and Ikie had been my crew.
When they were gone, I wasn’t sure if I could go through that kind of heartbreak again.
So I stayed dogless for a while.

But a man like me doesn’t stay dogless forever.

And then came Cody.

---

He was like me in more ways than one.
A little messed up.
Rough around the edges.
Didn’t like being left alone.

He had separation anxiety.
I had life anxiety.

So we understood each other.
We made each other better.
And eventually… we hit the road together.

---

By then, I was doing a bit better financially.
I had gotten myself a brand-new white Harley Davidson Road King Classic that I called my White Rhino.

It was a beautiful machine. Big, bold, loud. A symbol of who I was trying to become—strong again, mobile again, free.

But Cody wasn’t the kind of dog you left behind.

So I didn’t.

I built him a crate. Not just any crate—a custom one with a Plexiglas windscreen, so Cody could see me.

He’d lay on his mat with his favorite toys beside him, eyes on my back, calm as ever.

He wouldn’t let me dress him up—no goggles, no silly outfits. Just a coat if it got cold.
And that was enough.

Everything he wanted was already there: the road, the air, and me.

We never rode far. Never did cross-country or rallies.

But for those four years before I sold the bike after I remarried,
those short rides with Cody were the time of my life.

---

We didn’t just ride together—we healed together.

Cody was with me for 18 years.
That’s not just a long life for a dog.
That’s a long life for anything that pure.

And for every one of those hours,
he was worth more to me than money, than possessions, than the approval of anyone I used to try so hard to impress.

He was constant.
He was calm.
He was my reminder that even a man like me—flawed, recovering, learning—could be loved unconditionally.

---

Cody was my ride-or-die.
And now his hand-drawn portrait hangs on the wall behind my workstation.

Right next to Lola’s, the little blonde Chihuahua who came later and filled a different kind of space in my heart.

I still talk to them sometimes.

Not in a weird way. Just in a real way.
Because love doesn’t stop when breath does.
And presence doesn’t end when the ride does.

---

If I had a son, I’d want him to hear this:
There’s a kind of loyalty in this life that can’t be bought or bargained for.

If you’re lucky, it finds you on four legs,
with soft ears, a funny bark, and a gaze that says, “I’m not going anywhere.”

I didn’t rescue Cody.
Cody rescued me.

And every road I’ve taken since has had a little of him in it.

🐾

—Fred Ferguson (GeezerWise)