Tag: dog

Saying Goodbye to My Best Friend

For the past 11 years, I have had the honor of sharing a household with the most amazing dog. He didn’t leap tall buildings in a single bound or learn to speak Portuguese in a weekend or anything like that, although he was hands down the most athletic dog I’ve had in my 45 years of dog ownership. However, what made Rusty special among the many dogs I’ve owned and met was his startling ability to read the human situation.

Rusty saw our family through divorce, new love, marriage, blending households, death of friends and family members, work layoffs, illnesses, graduations, and – up until this weekend – an unprecedented lockdown due to a global pandemic. It is not hyperbole to say that he knew what you needed. He could read a face better than most humans I’ve met. He knew when we needed love sometimes before we did.

On Thursday evening of this week, Rusty went to jump onto our bed and he seemed a bit stiff. No big deal I thought. He’s eleven. On Friday, he stiffened up a bit more; Hopping on his back legs rather than trotting. Again, I’ve seen this before. A few years ago, he had a tight back for a few days. He came out of it in less than a week and was back to his full athletic prowess. I called the vet and told them the situation. With his reduced mobility and the lockdown, they agreed to prescribe the same meds as the last time. This time, things would not fare so well.

By late Friday afternoon, Rusty was hobbling. It was as bad as things had gotten the last time. Something felt wrong, but he was still moving, eating and drinking. I sat with him until 10 PM. He was stable, so I went to bed. At about 1 AM, I woke up to thumps and dragging noises. I rushed downstairs to find that Rusty had gone to the bathroom on the floor and was nervously dragging his back half around the room. He was panicked, looking to me for help. It was heartbreaking. I stayed up with him the rest of the night and carried him outside every couple of hours, petting him to keep him still in between. He had lost control of his bladder and bowels. I knew it was dire. Before the vet opened, I put him in the truck and we took him for his last car ride.

It took the vet about an hour and a half to call me and tell me what I already knew. My old friend wasn’t going to make it. I’m crying as I write this. The vet’s best guess is that he had a spinal blood clot that caused the shockingly fast paralysis.

Like me, Rusty was a runner. Actually, Rusty was a real runner and I’m just a plodding middle-aged trotter. I have plenty of videos of him running happily in the dog park. Just this past weekend, we were on a trail run with an old friend and his dog. I’ve never seen Rusty happier. The trail was full of mud and standing water. He and I were filthy by the end. His post-run glow and doggie smile were perfect. He came home and got an unwanted shower. He was a boy’s dog all the way. As I replay these memories in my mind, it is difficult for me to resolve that he’s gone.

The thing with dogs is that they touch us so completely but are comparatively short-lived. Our co-existence sets us up for this agony. I always knew he wouldn’t live forever. But with Rusty, he sort of made you forget about that. He retained his youthful exuberance up until his final 24 hours. I guess from that perspective we were lucky to have such incredible healthy and loving companion for 11 straight years. It still hurts.

Rest easy old friend. We love you.

The Curiosity of Premonitions

Have you ever had a premonition come true? Have you ever changed your mind on something because of a premonition? I’m generally not one for “woo woo” stuff, but lately I’ve come to trust premonitions more and more.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I left our house while feeling completely in disarray. I don’t mean our house was messy, I mean our internal compasses were swirling. We were headed to the airport for our trip to Portugal and something felt wrong about it to both of us. Neither of us knew what the problem was, but we felt like we were headed for trouble. Did we leave the stove on and the house would burn down while we were gone? Well it turned out we were in for some dissatisfying travel experiences and we’d get a chance to check on that stove.

We got to our local John Glenn International Gateway Airport in our beloved home city and things started quickly going awry. I had neglected to take my camping knife out of my backpack and had it discovered in security. Oops. After going through the explanations and machinations of mailing it back to myself, we moved on toward the gate. But first, a meal. 50 minutes later, we had completed our over-priced mediocre-at-best supper and were ready to make our way to the gate. But not so fast. The texts were coming in: “Your flight has been delayed.” It took about another 90 minutes and three more delays for our flight to go past the point of connection in Washington D.C. and so, just like that, we were cancelled and rebooked on the exact same flight the next day. We had just lost 24 hours in Lisbon.

We called the airline. On hold. We called the travel company. “Talk to the airline,” they said. After an hour of getting no love, we were sent back to baggage claim to wait for another hour to pick up our bags and then to make the drive back home. As I’ve written before, we Don’t Expect Benevolence When Traveling, but this was the pits. While waiting for the bags, I looked at Melanie and said, “Well this explains that bad feeling I had about leaving the house.” She smiled knowingly and simply said, “Me too.”

For the past several nights, I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night to the disturbing thought of my dog getting hurt. Today I figured out why. Today he was scheduled to go to the groomers for a bit of a spa treatment. To say my dog is special kind of doesn’t do him justice. He is the most athletic, active, and intelligent (if not always for his own good) dog I’ve ever known. The last time he was at this place he climbed out of a 6 foot tall fence 3 times before they figured out how to contain him. He’s now 10 years old and hasn’t slowed down a bit. I had the sneaking suspicion that he was going to attempt that same climb and this time get really hurt. And at 10 years old, recovery is not an easy thing. So this time, I trusted my gut and I didn’t let him go. Who knows, maybe I’m going whacko in my middle age. But I just didn’t think it was worth the risk of not trusting my gut for some trimmed nails and a shampooing.

Do you get premonitions? Do you listen or ignore them?