A dog of contradictions: stoic in the face of physical pain but keenly emotionally sensitive; tremendously athletic but incredibly lazy; extremely intelligent but a total goofball; a big, strong dog who remained a puppy at heart.
But he was indisputably very, very handsome.
We don't know what Bixby's early story was, since he was brought into the shelter as a stray, but we do know that his first family absolutely adored him. He'd been the captain of the couch, king of the bed, and master of all the laps. He'd been cuddled and rather coddled―while he knew "sit," "shake," and "here, boy," it was clear that there hadn't been much in the way of "no" and "off." He had learned that the best thing in the world was to be a baby doggy and in some ways that is what he remained.
He came into our lives via a rescue that pulls dogs out of overcrowded shelters in Southern California and transports them to Seattle for adoption. I'd contacted them initially about a different dog that I ultimately concluded wasn't a good fit, but they continued to keep an eye out candidates that fit my criteria for the kind of dog I believed Nala needed. This is the email that changed our lives. On the strength of this email and the two videos below, I said yes to a foster-to-adoption arrangement for Mr. B.
8/1Hey C.,
I think I found your dude. I pulled him from the shelter today because my friend (who scouts the shelter for our dogs) said he was not to be passed over, that he was special. He was in between two highly reactive dogs and just the most mellow boy. He's estimated to be 4 years old, though the shelter lady I talked to said he could be as old as 6. His name is Bixby. When being transported from the shelter to the vet today, he rode loose in between a small male terrier and a female pit/shepherd mix and paid zero attention to them. He was all kisses. He also gets the biggest award for turn that frown upside down from his shelter photo to his freedom photo.
If you would consider fostering him he arrives Sunday. This would give you first dibs to adopt if he turns out to be a good fit, otherwise we would find another foster/adopter for him. Let me know your thoughts! Very excited for this hunk of a dog! He's our transporter's favorite.
Bixby's kennel card with his worried intake photo... |
...and how he turned his frown upside down when he was pulled from the shelter. |
Airborne Bixby! |
Even as a naughty, bratty teenager, Bixby was able to give Nala the confidence to go from cautiously observing to actively participating in family life. Within days she was hanging out in the kitchen with everyone instead of spending the evenings withdrawn under my desk. With Bixby by her side, she was eager instead of spooked to try learning simple commands. And once he was suitably respectful, she was eager to learn how to play with him. The difference he made was absolutely astonishing. Progress that I expected to take months was accomplished in days or weeks. Nala bloomed and bloomed and bloomed with cheerful Mr. B. by her side to demonstrate that things weren't scary! And it wasn't just a one-way street. While Bixby might have given Nala courage, Nala modeled good manners for Bixby. He would have remained much more of a wild child without her calming influence! They quickly formed a close bond.
The two dogs became close companions. |
And so they played.
And sunbathed.
And snuggled.
And all that while, he was able to support Nala on the strength of simply being himself.
In other words, Bixby was everything we had hoped he'd be for Nala.
Bixby was such a delight for me, too. During those first months, before he learned to settle himself down, Nala and I were quite ready to hand him off to my parents when they came home from work so that we could have a break! He was so very lovable, though. He was especially keen on snuggling and it was clearly hard for him to lose the lap privileges he'd known in his previous home. I made sure he got lots of bed cuddles to help make up for it. We both loved it when he lay in the cradle of my legs with his magnificent head on my chest, though there sometimes had to be some negotiation about where his elbows went. He wasn't always easy to sleep with―sometimes it felt like sharing the bed with a heat-radiating concrete slab. I woke up many times with a sore neck and shoulder from sleeping awkwardly smashed against him. He also had a real knack for putting that heavy head of his right where it could best cut off circulation to my arm. He'd obviously grown up sleeping with his head on a pillow and sometimes he attempted to sleep with his whiskery chin pressed against my chin or his nose against my nose. But the occasional discomfort of sharing a bed with Bixby was far outweighed by the pleasure of being snuggled up against him. I miss it so much.
During our first days together, I kept Bixby on a tie-down as part of his acclimation to the household. He was clearly craving physical contact, so I spent time sitting with him. This is what he did. |
Sometimes it WAS a bit heavy to have Bixby draped across your lap. Especially since he inevitably had an elbow digging into somewhere sensitive. But he made for good deep-pressure therapy. |
I did feel bad that he didn't get couch lap time, since he obviously loved that more than just about anything, so I would sometimes sit on the floor with him. |
Have I mentioned that he was very handsome?
I mean, dang, I never ever thought I would look at a dog and say, "Wow, he's kinda sexy." But he...was. I mean, look at that butt! |
Not quite a year after we adopted Bixby, my nephew was born. Bixby was quite sure that he was also a little boy and it was easy to think of him and my nephew that way! There was something very much alike about a toddler and a dog who'd been babied and therefore saw himself as a puppy for life.
While in his heart he never grew up, it was clear from the get-go that Bixby was very intelligent and he could easily learn new commands with just a few repetitions. He was especially skilled at "leave it," which he grasped immediately. You could put a treat down, tell him "leave it," and leave the room for ten minutes (as happened when my mom forgot she'd put him on a "leave it") and he'd still patiently be waiting, not eating the treat until he was given the okay!
This mindset is NOT okay for a dog of Bixby's size. |
So Bixby had so many wonderful qualities: he was a top-notch snuggler, a fantastic service dog for Nala, a canine ray of sunshine, possessor of a keen intellect, jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and an entertainingly epic napper. Other Bixby facts: he could tell time down to the minute, was terrible at catching treats because he always mistimed his jumps, rarely barked, was great in the car, adored the vet, and needed to wear clothes in the winter because his fur was so thin that he would lose weight from burning calories to keep warm. He never stole food―despite being tall enough to see what was on the table―or got in the trash or chewed anything he shouldn't. He made zero fuss about nail trims and stood patiently in the bath. He was sometimes naughty, gleefully turning misbehavior into a game, but all in all, he was a Very Good Boy.
He loved basking in the sun. |
Check out those shoulder muscles! |
"Hand over the treats!" |
N & B & me at the beach. He looks so small here, but he was 20" at the shoulder and seemed awfully big when he was in your lap! |
Such a goof! |
...but what he loved most of all was people. |
But, whoo boy, in one regard, Bixby was a hot mess
Namely, allergies. So many allergies. Bixby suffered from a genetic skin barrier defect that allows allergens easier access to the body―a condition called atopic dermatitis―and he was particularly prone as a result to secondary bacterial skin infections that looked like hives. He was also highly susceptible to bacterial and yeast infections of the paws that led to open sores between his toes. He was tested for environmental allergies and came back with a number of commonplace allergens that, unfortunately, were difficult to control for, including a wide variety of blooming trees in the spring, grasses and weeds in the summer, and naturally-occurring molds in the dirt that are particularly prominent during the wet fall and winter. No matter the season, Bixby was allergic to something during it, and even inside he wasn't safe, since he was allergic to dust...and mildly allergic to people! (Funnily enough, we shared many of the same allergies, dust included, so if mine kicked off, I knew his would, too.) He also had food sensitivities. So we tried all kinds of things, including antihistamines, medicated baths, special diets, and topical medications. He had an allergy doctor. I even took Bixby to an alternative medicine veterinarian to see if he had anything helpful to add. Minor infections were so common that my vet kept me stocked in prescription medications for bacteria and yeast, allowing me to treat issues as they arose rather than having to come in for every secondary infection flareup.
Those bumps and circles are all secondary bacterial and yeast infections brought on by allergies. |
Bixby ended up needing a lot of medicated baths. These baths involved standing around for ten minutes with the shampoo on his skin. Fortunately, he was very patient. |
For several years, other than a searingly painful stomachache every six months requiring injected nausea medication and pain medication, our treatment plan worked well enough. But then my life―and his life―was wholly upended. In March of 2020, I came down with COVID. While I wasn't horribly sick, it took a very long time for me to get better. I spent three months isolating in my bedroom and was often in bed for the month that followed. During this period, Nala decided that she was the one who got to be with me all day and made him feel unwelcome. No matter how much I invited and even begged him to join us on the bed, he'd glance at Nala and apparently she told him no. I finally recovered enough from COVID to get some diagnostic work done...and was diagnosed with breast cancer. So Bixby spent his days feeling sad and lonely, to the point he made himself sick. He was frequently queasy and sometimes vomited, his gut was extremely noisy, he had increased flatulence, and his poop was soft. Especially concerning was that he lost a ton of weight, even when I doubled the amount of food he was fed, indicating a serious malabsorption problem. With tests ruling out other conditions, the most likely explanation was Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
Skinny, unhappy Bixby. |
Bixby during one of his stomachaches, tucked in with newspaper spread around him in case of vomiting. |
For the Bixby's inflamed gut to recover, it was imperative that his diet be rid of all allergens. That meant putting him on a strict elimination diet. We knew, from having to feed him a bland diet on so many occasions after spells of vomiting, that he was able to tolerate rice, cottage cheese, and scrambled eggs without issue. From that base, we slowly tried adding one ingredient at a time, gradually ramping up the amount over two weeks, then seeing how he did. If he got sick, whether it was a flareup of skin allergies or an upset stomach (or both), we'd get rid of the offending food, give his body time to recover, and try it again.
I was going through chemo at the time, so I don't have clear memories of all the things we tried, but I do know that things he couldn't eat included wheat, corn, oats, soy, peanut butter, beef, duck, lamb, potatoes, carrots, green beans, and sweet potatoes. There was no food on the market that was free of all his allergens, so we (and by "we," I mean "my mom") had to make his food at home. The final recipe, with amounts determined by a nutrition calculator, was rice, cottage cheese, scrambled eggs, turkey, peas, salmon oil, and two supplements. He absolutely loved his new food and after several months, his digestive distress abated, he started putting on weight again and was much happier and healthier!
Still, despite everything we tried, his allergies remained an issue. In the spring of 2023, he struggled with some very persistent staph-infected sores on his belly. It took three rounds of antibiotics and careful cleaning of the affected area and the application of ointments and diaper rash cream several times per day for months for the lesions to heal. We were planning to start immunotherapy for his allergies in the fall, which hopefully would've reduced or eliminated his environmental allergies. His physical health was going to get fully back on track.
Bixby visiting me while I was going through chemo. |
Nala is extremely jealous in this photo that Bixby is in my lap and she isn't. |
Cancer had made me reassess my priorities and I decided that one thing I wanted to do was get strong enough to do agility with Bixby. I knew, with his athleticism and his intelligence, he had the makings of a good agility dog. By the time I was done with chemo and was sufficiently recovered to start on the next phase of my life, I'd been in bed for the better part of a year and half. My legs were like toothpicks and walking around the block was stretch. So I started working out in a local therapy pool with the specific goal of getting strong enough to do agility with Bixby. First, we did another round of Advanced Obedience to give Bixby a refresher on obeying commands from a distance. When I was fit and he was primed, I signed him up for an assessment at an agility facility to determine what his starting level should be. He proved utterly fearless on the equipment and was attentive to commands, so the trainer said, "Sign him up! I've got space in my Advanced Intro/Intermediate Class."
Agility Bixby! |
An agility course map. |
Bixby's favorite obstacle was the A-frame. |
The weave poles are the toughest obstacle! |
Bixby had so much fun. I had so much fun. And everyone loved Bixby! He made people laugh! Everyone assumed from his gleeful behavior that he was a very young dog, not a guy well into middle age. He was so full of joy. Which, as the trainer said, was the most important thing, much more important than doing agility well. But Bixby did do agility well. He learned very quickly. He loved the obstacles and he loved wanting to know what I was asking him to do next and he definitely loved the turkey he got for treats. Oh, he certainly had his moments when he didn't focus or wanted to run around like a goofball, but all the dogs did, even the trainer's dog. But he was improving steadily and I was starting to think that by the time we got his weave poles worked out, say, in six month's time, he might be ready to start competing at the beginner's level.
We did not have time to work out his weave poles.
This is the last photo I took of Bixby. |
It turns out that he had hemangiosarcoma, a rapidly growing vascular cancer that develops most often on the spleen, liver, or heart and causes the dog no problems whatsoever until the tumor ruptures and the dog dies from catastrophic internal bleeding. Even if the bleed is detected in time to prevent a full rupture, the cancer is highly malignant and usually already spread widely through the body, so surgery may only prolong the dog's life by a matter of weeks. The other option, the vet said, was euthanasia.
I didn't want Bixby's last days to be spent recovering from a surgery that couldn't save him. In the end, it wouldn't have mattered―Bixby would not have lived long enough for the on-call surgeon to arrive.
By the time we were moved into the clinic's "comfort room" and Bixby had been brought in after given some pain medicine, he was really already gone. He'd turned completely inward. I don't know if he was even aware I was there. I hope so and I hope it gave him some comfort. I cradled his magnificent head and cried and told him all the things I wanted him to know and then I sang to him as the drugs took hold. His breathing had already become so shallow that even though I was nose-to-nose with him in those final moments, I couldn't tell for sure when his breath stopped. And then Bixby's collar was in my hands and we were walking out of the clinic. It was still light out. He'd been fine at 6:00 p.m. and was dead at 9:00. My beautiful golden boy, the dog that had brought us so much joy for five years and eleven months, was gone. He was just eight years old.
I told Bixby in those final moments on the vet's floor that if it is indeed true that heaven is the place where every dog you've ever loved comes running to greet you, I expected him to be at the front of the pack.
I also told Bixby that he would never die as long as anyone was still alive to remember him, that even after I was gone, he would live on in my nephew's heart, that he could still be alive eighty years from now, because he was so beloved.
That I do believe.
It's been hard. Of course it's hard. He'd had so much presence. He required so much care. He was so much fun. And we'd been right in the middle of everything! Agility was going so well! His emotional resilience had rebounded to the point that he was no longer letting Nala push him around! I'd finally found the perfect toy for Bixby and we'd developed the perfect game to play with it! I'd quite reasonably thought I had at least four more years. I'd been preparing myself for elderly Nala's passing and instead it was my golden boy who was gone. Also, it turned out Nala had still been relying on him for her sense of safety much more than we realized and it was heartbreaking to see her regress. We all miss him and mourn him.
Some of him lives on now in Nala, and, after Nala, in all the dogs that I love because of how he changed Nala and what that taught me.
And he lives on in me, of course.
I will love other dogs in my life. But there will never be another one quite like Bixby. Bix. Bixer. Bixbean. Bixerdoodle. Bixby Bond. B. Mr. B. Mister. Bud. Buddy Boy.
Bixby Alexander
d. July 6, 2023
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Colleen hi from the Pack site. I am at the mail box and don’t have the time to see what you are going to do with this and any future editions.
ReplyDeleteBut, I suggest a book. I think it would help many people.
And yes, He is a Golden Child and is missed by many.