Boundless Love

Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. ~ Roger Caras

She’s trying gamely to walk around the house, 

albeit awkwardly with the pink bandage on her lower front leg.  She’s eating again.  She comes around and hits me with her nose, her way of saying, “Hey old man get me some head scratching.”  There’s no moping in a crate, raising a painful paw in supplication It’s starting to feel like I have my dog back.  She’s alert again - pissed off when someone has the effrontery to ring the bell on HER door. She goes back near the open kitchen window to stick her nose up and see what kind of smells are out there. I feel like I have my dog, my best friend, back again.   She’s not totally whole yet.  She struggles to get to her feet because that one paw is still weak and doesn’t give her the leverage to lift her up.  It’s certainly still sore but she isn’t afraid to put some pressure on it.  The stairs are supposed to be off limits but Rainey saw an opportunity when the gate was left down and she bolted up and went to one of her favorite sleeping haunts. The other night she asked to go out on the back patio. So the two of us sat quietly in the warmth of a summer evening.  She stuck her nose up and looked into the night. It twitches as she picks up a scent.  Something irritated her and she barked into the darkness. I’m getting my dog back.

Like the cynic said, “Every silver lining has a punch in the gut.”- or something like that. Yesterday morning I received a call from the veterinary oncologist.  “I’m afraid that we found cancer in the foot and it’s spread to the leg and the lymph node.” 

You know, it works the same way with dogs as it does with people when that dreadful word is uttered.  Every word that follows is just turbid noise. You hear it and it’s as if you lost consciousness for a few minutes.  I heard squamous something, something.  He might just as well have been speaking Navajo; or he could have been Charlie Brown’s teacher - "Wha, waaa, waaa. wawa waaaa."  When I snapped back into consciousness I asked for options. 

“The most aggressive treatment would be to amputate the leg and then give her chemotherapy.  It would extend her life by about 6 months.”  He went on to explain the dog years thing but in my mind I’d already rejected the option out of hand.  I have a blind dog that would have to go through another surgery and then recovery and then learn how to maneuver in her own personal darkness with 3 legs on a hardwood floor.

“The next option is chemo.  This will add about 3 months” I’d already talked to a vet about chemo and she wasn’t in favor of it.  “Dogs get sick just like people, but unlike people they don’t understand that it’s for their own good.  They just know that they feel sick”

The last option is to do nothing and let things take their course – 6 weeks. The math of option two suddenly didn’t look too good.  Chemo would actually only buy us an extra 6 weeks. And so we have to recognize just whose benefit we are serving and make a decision based on love. 

Tomorrow we have another appointment for Rainey’s bandage to get changed. Unless she tells us something compelling in favor of options one or two we’re going to be asking the hard questions of what we need to do in order to keep Rainey comfortable and if the time comes, to be able to realize that we have to ease our friend's pain.  The wife shakes her head and blurts “no."  It’s a bridge that we may have to cross; still in the distance, but one that's closing terribly.  

I’m devastated by this.  And still there have been times in the last 24 hours when I’ve asked myself if there is something wrong in being so melancholy over a dog.  I told a co-worker and she said that I have every reason and right to feel the way I do.  “She’s been a family member for over 10 years.”

This all brings to mind an essay that I’d read some years back, written by a woman who reflected on the passing of her dog.  She wondered why the dog’s passing affected her more than that of her mother.  She went on to reason that she and her dog never had sharp words; never exchanged angry looks; never held grudges.  It was a boundless love by each other, for each other. 

When they’re puppies and young adults we don’t look 10 years down the road.  They run with limitless energy.  They twist and shimmy and jump when we come home from work. They chase balls and sticks and Frisbees with a contagious joy and exuberance that channels into our gladdened hearts.  Inevitably they get old.  They get sick or they get lame.  In their last days we return their love in huge bunches; we feed them by hand or move our sleeping quarters downstairs when they can no longer manage getting upstairs. We help them to stand and ease them down at bedtime. And then we’re faced with that most painful of ultimate love when we’re forced to say the last goodbye.