My roommate Tom and I have been living together for 11 years—a third of my life. For 10 of those 11 years, we’ve been co-parenting a dog—or, more accurately, parenting and uncle-ing. Tom is responsible for dog food and medical bills. I’m in charge of entertainment and, occasionally, dog sitting.
When Tom and I first became roommates, his dog Mingus, named after the famed jazz bassist Charles Mingus, was living out her last days. Adopting another dog right after she passed was unlikely: our living situation was already cramped, with four roommates total, three of them musicians.
But by the time Tom and I moved into our own house together, in 2014, he was ready to be a dog dad again. Tom contacted a couple on Craigslist with puppies in need of a new home, then made the 50-minute drive to a Walmart parking lot in Zebulon. That’s where he met the American Akita pup, the newest member of our emerging found family.
Ghenghis was insufferably adorable. When he arrived back in Durham, he resembled a stuffed animal toy—fluffy with big ears and a squeaker-box bark. I could almost hold him in the palms of my hands. Teenage Ghenghis quickly outgrew everything: our house in East Durham, the narrow U-shaped backyard, our tolerance for his destruction of the kitchen trash can.
Tom and I became fast friends, but we were still learning how to be roommates when Ghenghis joined the fray. Having him in our lives helped defuse some of the more difficult challenges of domestic partnership.
“Yo, you left dishes in the sink again. What the hell?”
“Yeah, well at least I didn’t take a crap in the middle of the living room like Ghenghis! Why aren’t you yelling at him?”
As with any child, Ghenghis’s personality traits are an amalgamation of his guardians’. He is inquisitive—he gets that from both Tom and me. He’s a total goofball; that’s mostly me. He has an unexpectedly high tolerance for the summer heat—that one’s definitely me, not Tom. He has many acquaintances but keeps few friends; that is a Ghenghis original. He loves his auntie Eliza, my girlfriend, who brings him mangoes and nearly empty jars of peanut butter as special treats for keeping the house in order; that’s all of us, of course.
Ghenghis, now 10 years old—70 in dog years—is no longer a palm-sized pup. He weighs in at roughly 105 pounds and, when on his hind legs, stands at five feet tall. Like a high schooler who hit their growth spurt too fast, he moves with little self-awareness about how big he is.
In the wild, Ghenghis would be indistinguishable from a small wolf. But around the house, he’s just one of the fellas. He enjoys sitting in on Tom’s piano jam sessions or watching basketball games, hoping someone will share their evening snack with him as he nudges his way into a position where someone can pet or scratch him, no matter how inconvenient.
When it’s time for bed, Ghenghis nests in the hallway between our rooms and the front door to keep a watchful eye out for any nefarious activity on the block. The faintest unfamiliar noise outside, even if he can’t see the culprit, sets him off into a booming barrage of barks. At times, it’s paid off: a few years back, a chorus of panicked howls woke us up to the sights and sounds of S.W.A.T. officers preparing to raid the nearby home of a major drug operation.
In the mornings, Ghenghis acts as our hotel concierge, sitting at our bedroom doors and scratching until everyone in the house is up and moving. It sounds dutiful until you realize he’s just hedging his bets on who will feed him first.
Living with Tom and Ghenghis for most of my adult life has been an adventure I never would have imagined. The three of us have stayed connected through two moves and three presidents. We’ve supported each other through tough medical procedures: Ghenghis tore his ACL and suffered a snake bite to the face, Tom fractured his foot. We survived lockdown in 2020. Last fall, Tom and Ghenghis took a monthlong trip out west. The absence, both of Ghenghis and Tom, felt strange.
Growing up a “cat person” who is mildly allergic to dog hair, I was skeptical of having a dog around at the beginning. Now? I can’t imagine my life without Ghenghis. There’ve been ample opportunities to break up the band—a move to a new house, new jobs, changes in our romantic relationships. But our relationship—as brothers, as roommates, as a family—has taught me lessons that I will carry forever.
Follow Reporter Justin Laidlaw on X or send an email to jlaidlaw@indyweek.com. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.
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