Moving Forward

It's been four months now since Abbey passed away and three months since I wrote about my singular experience of peace, rather than grief, after her death. It is the nature of grief to come and go in waves, so I'm no longer occupying that same surreal space of serenity, but this is not a bad thing. Life has resumed. For a couple of months, I had the sense that Abbey was not gone, but, rather, simply not here. That's changed. Abbey is gone now. But it's okay. I don't talk to her every night anymore, either, and that's okay, too--I've found that I've said everything to her that I needed to say. I do still usually give her urn a brief caress when I go to bed and as a family, we still talk about her all the time. In December, I finally managed to donate her leftover dog food. I got notecards with her photo printed on them and sent a thank you note to our regular vet, the vets that handled her euthanasia, and one, along with a donation, to the shelter where we got her. Donating the food and sending the notes were both emotionally demanding, but those tasks were necessary to my mourning and my process of letting go. I bought a pretty storage box for the things of hers that we are saving--her Disintegrating Christmas Reindeer and some of her other favorite toys, her collection of rope bones, the various collars she had over the years--and will be packing them up this week. And I finally, finally washed the stinky bedding in her crate. Overall, it's been okay.

Abbey with presents from Santa.
(She generously shared that jar
of peanut butter with the rest of
the family.)

What was hard was Christmas. I think we were all rather taken aback by how hard it was to have Christmas without Abbey. Abbey loved Christmas and we got such a kick out of how much she enjoyed it. She knew just what was happening when the stockings were hung up on Christmas Eve! The family tradition has always been that my sister and I would wait at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning until given the signal that we could come down, a ritual we largely preserved as adults. Abbey would wait impatiently with us, eager as a small child to charge down the stairs to see what Santa brought her! She'd get some chews, some kind of treat, and her yearly stuffed toy. She'd also "help" me with my stocking, of course, and play her first game with the new stuffie before we moved as a family out to the living room to open presents around the Christmas tree. Abbey love this part, too. I think she liked how everyone was there, sitting on the ground, and how everyone was happy. She did some assisting with the unwrapping of presents, but mostly lounged in our midst, radiating satisfaction. But this Christmas, there was no Abbey to run down the stairs, no stuffies, no interested wet nose pushing through my hands as I pulled off a present's wrapping paper. That was not the only change. My sister, who married over the summer, spent Christmas with her husband's family. It was the first Christmas since I was born where there were just three of us, not four. No Abbey, no sister, no stockings--it just wasn't the same.

I also found myself thinking more about Abbey's final days of illness in ways I hadn't before. For several weeks I couldn't seem to stop myself from seeing her climbing the stairs, vomiting as she went, on the final evening. I hated thinking about her that way: she graced our lives for 4,389 days and that penultimate day was not who she was or how I wanted to remember her. It did eventually lead to some more curiosity about what disease had killed her. When it was all happening, there'd been no time and really no point in picking apart what caused her intestines to fail--it was enough that they failed. I'd never researched canine intestinal cancers because the subject didn't come up until that second-to-last day and then, within twenty-four hours, she was gone. When I finally checked, it was somehow reassuring that unless a mass is detected and removed early, mortality rates are high. In one type of cancer, once it metastasizes, it can prove fatal within as little as fifteen days. It's not as if there was something that we could have done: if Abbey had been feeling sick for a long time, she hid it well. In retrospect, we wonder if the fact that she'd started choosing to nap in her crate instead of on my bed during the day for a month of two before the end was indicative of something starting to go wrong inside her, but fourteen year-old dogs sleep a lot and Abbey had always loved her crate and preferred to sleep there at night instead of on my bed, so it was hardly a matter to bring before the vet. Cancers often proliferate silently in dogs; in some ways, I was lucky to have had as much time with her as I did after she got so horrendously ill. And even if I'd taken her to the vet on Thursday or Friday instead of planning to call on Monday, it would still have been too late. Test results wouldn't have even come back by the time all hell broke loose on Sunday evening. There was nothing else I could have done. Modern veterinary medicine kept her as comfortable as possible during the last days. Modern veterinary euthanasia philosophy meant that she could slip away in my arms on my bed surrounded by her family. Everyone did their best, just as she always had.

I missed her keenly.

A rabbit at silflay.

But then I reread Richard Adams' classic novel, "Watership Down," about the trials and adventures of a group of rabbits finding and establishing a new home. I'd last read it nearly twenty years ago and remembered only that the rabbits called a motorized vehicle a "hrududu." This time around, I was struck by the final passages of the novel, which I share below. (For clarity, in rabbit mythology, the great rabbit folk hero El-ahrairah has ears containing starlight, in rabbit society, an Owsla is a warren's ruling council, and in rabbit vocabulary, "silflay" means to feed outdoors.)

One chilly, blustery morning in March, I cannot tell exactly how many springs later, Hazel was dozing and waking in his burrow. He had spent a good deal of time there lately, for he felt the cold and could not seem to smell or run so well as in days gone by. He had been dreaming in a confused way--something about rain and elder bloom--when he woke to realize that there was a rabbit lying quietly beside him--no doubt some young buck who had come to ask his advice. The sentry in the run outside should not really have let him in without asking first. Never mind, thought Hazel. He raised his head and said, "Do you want to talk to me?" 

"Yes, that's what I've come for," replied the other. "You know me, don't you?"

 "Yes, of course," said Hazel, hoping he would be able to remember his name in a moment. Then he saw that in the darkness of the burrow the stranger's ears were shining with a faint silver light. "Yes, my lord," he said. "Yes, I know you."

"You've been feeling tired," said the stranger, "but I can do something about that. I've come to ask whether you'd care to join my Owsla. We shall be glad to have you and you'll enjoy it. If you're ready, we might go along now."

They went out past the young sentry, who paid the visitor no attention. The sun was shining and in spite of the cold there were a few bucks and does at silflay, keeping out of the wind as they nibbled the shoots of spring grass. It seemed to Hazel that he would not be needing his body any more, so he left it lying on the edge of the ditch, but stopped for a moment to watch his rabbits and to try to get used to the extraordinary feeling that strength and speed were flowing inexhaustibly out of him into their sleek young bodies and healthy senses.

"You needn't worry about them," said his companion. "They'll be all right--and thousands like them. If you'll come along, I'll show you what I mean."

He reached the top of the bank in a single, powerful leap. Hazel followed; and together they slipped away, running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom. 

"It seemed to Hazel that he would not be needing his body any more..." When I saw that, I understood, and my grief once again melted away before my sense of awe. Abbey did not need her body anymore, so she left it lying on my bed in my arms.

She did not need her body anymore not just because her bowels no longer functioned, but because her work, her life, her time here were done.

She gave everything to me, her heart, her life, her love, and left her body behind. I hope that she is now running alongside Hazel, matching speed for speed.

Who could want more than that?

Well, perhaps I want this:

In My Good Death

I will find myself waist deep in high summer grass. The humming
     shock of  golden light. And I will hear them before I see
them and know right away who is bounding across the field to meet
   me. All my good dogs will come then, their wet noses
bumping against my palms, their hot panting, their rough faithful
     tongues. Their eyes young and shiny again. The wiry scruff of
their fur, the unspeakable softness of their bellies, their velvet ears
   against my cheeks. I will bend to them, my face covered with
their kisses, my hands full of them. In the grass I will let them knock
     me down.

                                                                     --Dalia Shevin 

There had better be nose nibbles in heaven.

But all this, Abbey's passing, it isn't how it ends. It is just one more thing, one more story, one more memento, one more gift, one more grief, one more love, one more dog. One of many.

My dog-sitting work has resumed. I've spent some time with Sable & Scruffy, Pipsqueak, Curly, Cutie, Teddy & Roo, and a new client, Jazzy. It's mostly been drop-in visits, but some overnights, too. It has made me happy to be with them, though one of the times when I miss Abbey most is when I'm returning from an overnight gig and know my own dog will not be there to welcome me home.

Sable found a really great stick washed up on the beach.

A wind-blown Scruffy sniffs the air for prey.

Little Miss Pipsqueak.

Curly just turned two!

Cutie just turned six!

I got Cutie and Curly together for a couple of playdates. They had so much fun!

Roo.

Teddy and Roo have just turned twelve.

This is Jazzy, a Mini Australian Shepherd!

This boy was the first I considered.

And then there's my new dog. Abbey, I feel, has settled into her final resting place and I decided it was time to start searching in earnest. After the first meet-and-greet I did, the emotional enormity of both the task and its implications gave me a massive migraine. However, I persevered. Thanks to my years of dog-sitting, I knew how critical it was that my next dog have certain attributes in order to protect my health, the single most important thing being the dog's energy level. I needed a low-energy pup that would be fine without being walked and perfectly content to snuggle on days when I had to spend most of my time in bed. There are scads of dogs in need of homes whose adoption profiles say things like "would make a great jogging or hiking partner!" or "perfect for an active family!" That's shorthand for "high-energy, needs lots of exercise." It's much, much harder to find dogs with lower energy levels, so I felt it would behoove me to keep my eye open for any such dogs that might become available. I also knew that I needed to adopt a dog that was living in a foster home because the way a dog behaves in the shelter is not a guarantee of how it will behave in a home. Much sooner than I expected, I found a profile for a dog that seemed to meet all of my criteria: low-energy, sweet, easy-going, and good with other dogs. My family went to meet her this weekend and it was clear that she's the one.

This is Nala.

She'll join our family in the middle of March and I'll wait until then to tell more about her! But she needs me, just as Abbey needed me, as much as I need her, and I know we will become dear companions.

She's a very gentle soul.

This is not the end of Abbey. This is just a new phase, the one where I use the heart that Abbey opened for me and everything she taught me to give this new girl the best possible home. I had a long chat with Abbey, in fact, after we got home from meeting Nala, and told her all about it. I asked Abbey to help me watch over this girl and make her feel safe and loved and cared for.

Keeping an eye on things.

I dreamed of Abbey the other night. She gave me a joyful yodel-bark, licked my face vigorously, and suckled on my cheek as if she was nursing. Abbey will always be one of the great loves of my life, but there is room in my heart for many more.

My beautiful brindle beast.

Abbey's Last Days

In a recent post celebrating the twelfth anniversary of Abbey's adoption, I wrote,

The vet, when he did Abbey's most recent exam, said, as he's had in the past, that she's in great shape for her age and he never would have guessed at a glance that she's fourteen. He made me extremely happy by saying that as long as we kept on top of her care, it is quite possible that she could live to be as old as seventeen or eighteen. Having cared for a number of geriatric dogs in recent years, I can attest that she is doing well. I know cancers can arise at any time and act swiftly, but despite UTIs and a couple of little rotten teeth and medication-induced seizures that have had to be dealt with this year, she's still my vibrant Abbey, always at my side, eyes alight.

 Little did I know that the ending had already begun.

Abbey passed away at 4:30 in the afternoon on October 21, 2016, little more than a week after her adoption anniversary on October 12th.

*     *     *

The following is a detailed account of Abbey's final illness. It is written as much for me as it is for anyone else, as I want to preserve these facts without necessarily having to keep them in my mind. For those who do not want to know all the details of the six days that passed between when she first got seriously sick and when she exhaled her final breath, I've written a second post about my remarkable emotional journey since Abbey's passing that can be found here.

*     *     *

Abbey may have thrown up before dawn, but she seemed perfectly fine later!

Abbey had woken me at 5:00 a.m. on the 12th by vomiting up some of her partially digested dinner from the night before. This was not wholly unusual--Abbey's always had a sensitive tummy and sometimes she vomits in the night after excitement or stress the day before. We had gone to the vet on the 11th for a followup to her dental work and while the vet had been very impressed by how great everything looked, Abbey was rather less pleased to be back at the vet's and it was plausible that it had triggered her upset stomach. The only thing that was at all out of the ordinary was that she hadn't eaten all of her dinner at once the night before, though she'd licked her bowl clean by bedtime. I gave her rice for dinner Tuesday night just to be sure and everything was fine. Wednesday she didn't eat all of her dinner at once again, so I picked it up, not wanting to repeat the whole 5:00 a.m. upchuck thing if possible. Not much later, she had another partial seizure that temporarily disabled one of her back legs and then she vomited after it was over. I was bummed, since it meant that the seizures in August had probably not been caused by the flea meds and made a note of this to tell the vet. Thursday and Friday, she didn't eat all of her dinner at dinnertime, so I put her bowl up and fed her the leftovers for breakfast. She devoured it all hungrily and without any negative consequences. I was watching all this closely, wondering why her appetite was shifting, and planned on making an appointment to see the vet on Monday. Saturday, after putting her half-eaten bowl of dinner up on the counter, she made such a convincing display of being hungry again a short time later that I put it back down and she ate it right up. She dry-heaved that night, though didn't bring anything up. I didn't sleep very well, listening for any sounds of imminent vomiting. I gave her rice for breakfast, which she consumed hungrily. I then gave her rice again for dinner.

Her appetite was off, but in all other ways, Abbey seems like her regular self.

That was on October 16th, 6:00 p.m. She ate her dinner eagerly enough, but immediately afterward urgently requested to go outside, where she had some diarrhea. She didn't want to go back inside right away and tried a couple more times to have a bowel movement, though nothing happened. Then she started vomiting. She vomited up all of her dinner and continued to vomit after was nothing to bring up. Finally, she wanted to go back inside, and while her tail was up in an alarming way that suggested that diarrhea might still be on the immediate horizon, I let her back into the house, keeping her on the kitchen floor, though, and put down a towel and spread newspaper behind her just in case. She was hunched and miserable and not wanting to move. Then she started having waves of intestinal cramping so massive that I could actually see them squeezing her sides and belly as they rolled through. Eventually, she decided to lay down. The cramps continued, wracking her whole body. She was in terrible pain. By 7:00, we knew that she needed to be taken to the emergency vet.

As we waited for her to be admitted, Abbey tried pacing and hiding behind the furniture and laying down to get away from her pain, but there was no escaping the horrible spasms, each one causing her to extend her neck and hind legs in agony as they gripped her gut. As someone who has had plenty of experience with GI pain, I could understand all too well the misery she was in! I'm thankful that the torrential bloody diarrhea didn't start until after they'd taken Abbey back to X-ray her abdomen. It had been hard enough to watch her suffer the pain; witnessing blood being wrung out of her intestines would have been unbearable.

Abbey was admitted, of course. The X-ray ruled out bloat or blockages, but a brief glance at her insides with the ultrasound wand had revealed fluid in her abdomen, the cause unknown. More tests would be run overnight to figure out what was causing her severe GI distress and the fluid accumulation. She'd also be receiving pain meds and medication to stop the nausea and diarrhea. When we went to say goodnight to her, Abbey's hindquarters had already been bathed free of the bloody diarrhea. It was some comfort to know that she was in good hands. It was late when we returned home. I went to bed, trying not to let my fears get too far ahead of me.

We were relieved to learn that she had stabilized in the night and that medications were controlling her pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. A more rigorous ultrasound had revealed an intestinal tract so inflamed that it was impossible for the doctors to make out any details and the rest of her abdomen and the organs therein were also experiencing some inflammation. The fluid in her abdomen was clear, which was a good sign, but the most worrisome thing was the low blood protein level revealed in her blood work. In short, it meant that she had not been absorbing sufficient nutrition through her intestines and this resulted in imbalances that were was causing fluid to seep out of her blood vessel and into her body, which was where the fluid in her abdomen was coming from. At that point, the internal medicine veterinarian said it was too soon to rule out an acute issue, like eating something that violently disagreed with her (unlikely) or a reaction to the antibiotic she'd just finished to clear out dental infections (plausible), or something chronic, like inflammatory bowel disease. The only way to know for sure, the vet said, was to have her anesthetized to do an endoscopic bowel biopsy. The vet had difficultly justifying why we should do this, since the treatment approach would be the same as what we were already doing. We were highly reluctant to pay $1,800 to risk sedating our sick dog just so we could learn exactly what dose of steroids would be most effective. Start the steroids, we said, and give it a few days and see if Abbey would start to improve.

A very out-of-it but pain-free Abbey.

When I visited her on Monday evening, Abbey was so out of it from the fentanyl they were giving her for pain that I honestly don't think she knew who I was. When she looked at me, there was no change in her focus, no sign of recognition. She briefly rested her chin on my knee, but she spent far more time staring blankly at the sides of her pen. It was hard to see her so woozy, but it was preferable to the horrendous pain she'd been in the night before!

Once removed from the fentanyl, Abbey again recognized me and can be seen wrapping her paw around my shoe as I sit with her in her hospital pen, tempting snacks at the ready.

The next thing the doctors wanted was for Abbey to eat. I was glad to hear that they'd stopped the fentanyl, since there was no way Abbey was going to eat while that out of it. We'd delivered some of Abbey's kibble and a few of her favorite Rice Chex and oyster crackers in hopes of tempting her appetite, but on Tuesday during the day she wouldn't eat for the hospital staff. I was not surprised, but convinced I could do better. Abbey was much more alert and happy to see me because she wasn't drugged to the gills and while she didn't eat a lot, I got her to eat some Rice Chex, oyster crackers, and special bland baby-food-like dog food. What she REALLY wanted were the peanut butter pretzels I'd brought for myself. I let her have some of those, too, but not too many, since I didn't think peanut butter was likely ideal for a dog with a horribly inflamed GI tract.

Abbey at the veterinary hospital.

Since Abbey had eaten better for me and could control her bladder and bowels and wasn't having bloody diarrhea and was no longer in terrible pain, we requested that Abbey be discharged into our care, figuring she'd be better off at home in her own bed and own environment with her own girl taking care of her. The vet was willing to try it, since she was stable (though her blood protein level was still very low and had in fact dropped slightly lower during the time when she was in the hospital), making us promise to bring her back if she still wasn't eating after a few days. We were very ready to have her home, enthusiastic about taking over her care--after all, I'd spent weeks hand-feeding her and giving her water through a syringe last summer when her mouth and tongue were too weak for her to properly eat or drink because of her disastrous response to being given acepromazine after getting her ears cleaned. Also, seeing as it was costing $1,000 per day to have her treated at the hospital, we didn't want to keep her there any longer than was absolutely necessary. So we stocked up on chicken baby food and cream of rice cereal, one of the techs taught me how to give Abbey her steroid injections, and we brought her home on Wednesday evening.

Once she was at home and not confined to her hospital pen with her IV, Abbey looked much sicker. Her back legs were so weak she could hardly support herself and she swayed and wobbled terribly when she walked. She drank water and ate a bit of the proffered mix of chicken baby food with rice cereal, but she didn't want to eat a marshmallow. Abbey will ordinarily do ANYTHING for a marshmallow and it's how we give her pills--you stick 'em in, toss the marshmallow to her, and down it all goes. I quickly found that trying to get a dog who doesn't want to swallow any sort of food to take pills is really awful, especially if there are seven different medications and some of them are so big that they have to be broken down into multiple pieces. I finally managed by coating the pills in a bit of peanut butter, sticking them as far down Abbey's throat as possible, clamping her jaws shut, and then squirting water into her mouth with a puppy-feeding syringe, forcing her to swallow. By the time she'd taken all of her medications, both Abbey and I were exhausted!

Abbey at home.

I'd arranged for Abbey to see her regular vet the next morning. I trust him completely. The animal hospital provided excellent care, but they never met a test or procedure they didn't want to undertake--and then bill you for. The internal medicine vet had been so vague about the necessity of the various things she had suggested and everything she said was said with rising inflection, making it hard to get a read on what was actually necessary and what was her trying placate us for some reason and what was being suggested to in order to pad the bill, etc. Also, he has roughly twenty more years of practical experience. I knew the regular vet would give me straight talk. And he did. He looked at Abbey's test results and said, "You only see these values in a dog with a chronic condition and there are really only two possible diagnoses for this set of numbers: cancer or inflammatory bowel disease." The reason to get the endoscopic bowel biopsy (which he recommended as the next step), he explained, was so we knew which we were dealing with. Inflammatory bowel disease could be managed with the medications she was already on, but if she had cancer, there was nothing more for her that could be done except make her comfortable. (The hospital vet had said, "I don't think she has cancer?" and didn't mention it again, though it hadn't been ruled out by any of the tests or scans.) In ten minutes, he managed to explain everything more clearly than the internal medicine vet had over the course of three days. He also cut the medications for Abbey to be taking by half, eliminating redundancies, gave her an anti-nausea injection that would take up any of the rest of the slack from the eliminated medication, gave me some cans of special intestinal protection food for once she started eating again, and a bunch of different size syringes to help feed her. (He also mentioned he'd had a lot of communication issues with the internal medicine vet and said to feel free to consult with him if Abbey had to be hospitalized again and we were confused about our options.) Abbey, who'd spent the last few days being handled by a wide variety of strangers, was the most at ease with the vet she's ever been, sniffing him all over and asking for petting as he and I sat on the floor discussing her care. I left feeling much encouraged, despite the fact that he'd just told me my dog might have terminal cancer.

Abbey ate and drank a bit when she got home, and after I'd taken care of a few tasks, the two of us settled in on my bed, where she took a long, hard nap snuggled up against me. I was glad to have her home, seeing her sleeping there in her usual place, and felt good about what we were doing. A couple hours of hours later, I noticed she was shivering in her sleep. Then she got up and changed her position multiple times before finally coming over and pressed her head against me, making me wonder if she needed to go out. And she did. She held it until she got to her regular bathroom area, but once there, she had diarrhea. I'd been expecting dribbles. This was like the spray jet from a hose. It was pure liquid. Whether or not there was blood in it, I couldn't tell, but it was shocking enough as it was and definitely not the product of a well dog. She settled in okay once she was back inside, but she only ate just a little bit of peanut butter. Whatever you offered, she'd politely turn her head away. She stopped drinking her water, too. She'd approach her bowl, put her muzzle down to drink, then decide against it. I didn't realize how worried I was until my mother called in the late afternoon to see how Abbey was doing and I burst into tears. That's when I knew what my subconscious had been slowly piecing together: Abbey was dying.

So I cried on the phone and so did my mom and then she got home and we both cried some more and we decided if Abbey still wasn't eating by the end of the weekend, we would know that it was time. At this point, she was refusing all food and water and it didn't look good. I couldn't believe my dog, my dearly beloved Abbey, was dying, and yet I could believe it. And just weeks after the vet had said that she might make it another three or four years! It was a punch in the gut. It was a stab in the heart. I'd always thought I'd have more warning. I wanted more warning, more time to get used to the idea. I felt dazed, bereft, agonized. I tried to collect myself, though. My sister was coming over for her birthday dinner in a couple of hours. Abbey and I went upstairs to my study, where we spent so many of our days together, while I tried to distract and collect myself. Abbey, I noticed, didn't settle on her pillow like she normally did. Instead, she stood in a place where she could see out of the study door, her weak back end listed to the side. It eventually dawned on me what she wanted, so I moved her pillow to that spot and she immediately lay down where she could watch family members going up and down the stairs, though it wasn't long before she fell asleep.

It was right around the time that my sister and her husband arrived that Abbey woke up and started vomiting. When she wasn't vomiting, she was retching and coughing and sometimes dry-heaving. When dinner was ready, I brought Abbey's pillow down next to my chair, but the first thing she did was throw up without any warning. Before long, she decided that she wanted to be upstairs and she threw up on the stairs themselves. I spent the rest of the evening sitting on the floor next to her bed, reading and holding a bucket under her muzzle. In the past, when Abbey was going to throw up, it would be preceded by a certain amount of noisy heaving, but this time when she vomited it just burped out of her without warning. As I sat with her, I came to understand that she needed to go back to the hospital. There was no way I was going to be able to give her her evening medications and it looked like that without IV medical intervention, she might vomit and gag all night. She was sick beyond my capacity to care for her. This was likely to be her last night on earth.

We took her back to the hospital and she threw up twice more as we waited for her to be admitted and had an accident for good measure. We explained to the hospital that we just wanted her stabilized and made comfortable, that we didn't want more tests, that we weren't looking for her to be cured. She wagged her tail when we said goodbye to her. It was late when we got home. It was later yet before I felt settled enough to go to bed and before I did, I kneeled before her open crate door and said all the things I was terrified I might not get to say to her if she died in the night. The thought of her dying in the night, at the hospital, with me not by her side, was agonizing. I was awake a long time in the early hours, too, and I tried to read to keep being overwhelmed by my grief. I was still reading when the hospital called to give the first morning report: she had made it through the night and rested comfortably. I slept then, finally.

I woke up at 12:30 to face some hard decisions. While I'd slept that morning, my mother had done the hard work of calling our vet to see if they recommended an at-home euthanasia service. That service had an appointment available at 3:30, just three hours away. I did not feel ready to put down my dog in three hours. Would it be better to wait one more day? What if that was too late? I knew it should be done that day, but so soon? While I felt so exhausted? We spoke to the hospital again and while Abbey was still resting comfortably, they said that her protein level remained so low that fluid was going to start filling her lungs. There was absolutely no doubt that her body was failing and fast. That helped me make my decision. I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish to prepare for the final goodbye and two and a half hours (it was now 1:00) still seemed awfully tight. My mom called the home euthanasia service if they could do something just a little later and we got confirmation that they could come at 4:00. We called for my dad to come home and let my sister know the time and I got to work.

First and foremost, if we were going to having Abbey put down in our home that day, I needed to have all signs of our hopes for her recovery removed. That meant all of her medicine and the papers from the hospital and the jars of baby food and every bit of paraphernalia that went with our brief effort to help heal her at home. There was to be no healing. I needed those things out of sight. Even now, the thought of those vain hopes makes my throat tight.

Secondly, I'd decided that Abbey should pass in my bedroom, where she'd spent so many hours sleeping blissfully on my bed, and I wanted it took look nice. I cleaned it, moving haphazard piles of books to another room, and cleared miscellaneous items from the top of my dresser and stowed them in my closet. I dusted all the surfaces. I remade my bed so that it was tight and crisp and smooth. I was sweaty from my exertions, so I took a shower. During the shower, I cried one last time, a few sobs and a silent, gagging, agonizing scream that bent me double with its grief. Once showered, I selected my outfit with care. I wanted to look nicer than my average sweatpants and sweatshirt, but not TOO dressed up, because then Abbey would be wondering if I was going somewhere or if company was coming over. Like every dog, she was alert to all the nuances of everything I did and their potential meanings. I wanted her to feel like I was my normal self.

Abbey was so happy to see everyone and be surrounded by her family!

By then it was two. My dad and I went to the hospital to pick Abbey up. It took forever, both of us waiting tensely. It was almost three when finally the nurse brought Abbey out. My dad had been prepared to carry her to the car, but Abbey was alert and seemed comfortable on her feet. I rode in the backseat with her and Abbey couldn't stop licking my face and my hands. She seemed truly happy. We arrived home just as my sister pulled up. Abbey was utterly delighted to see her--the whole family was together! With light in her eyes and pep in her step, Abbey even cruised the kitchen to see if any crumbs had fallen. I wanted a few last photos of and with Abbey. Abbey was overjoyed to have me down on the floor and a great deal more enthusiastic licking ensued. She even nibbled my nose, which was my very favorite of her affectionate gestures. My sister got down on the floor to be in photos, too, and Abbey could barely contain her delight. That task taken care of, my dad carried Abbey upstairs and put her on my bed.

Me and my dog. She's gazing into my eyes as she gives me a kiss.

Abbey and I had some time alone for a few minutes, so I petted her and sang some of the songs I'd made up for her over the years. My mom joined me and petted her, too. Soon my sister was on my bed as well. Abbey was loving it. In the days prior, I hadn't been sure Abbey had really enjoyed being petted because she wasn't feeling well, but she was clearly enjoying this epic rubdown session.

After about half an hour, she got tired. Abbey had been laying between my legs, facing the door, but she got up, gave me another lick on the nose, and then settled herself against my right side, her head facing toward the pillow, one leg draped over my legs, as was so often her habit. She snuggled her belly up against me and fell asleep, using one of my arms as a pillow. As she napped, the four of us started telling stories about Abbey and all of the things we loved that she did. It was a joyful half an hour, one spent in smiles and laughter, not tears.

Abbey positioned herself for a nap beside me, a leg slung over mine. It was one of her ways of being connected to me.

At the appointed hour, the vet and her assistant arrived. They were wonderful, bringing calm, gentle energy with them, though they themselves remarked on the lovely atmosphere we'd built around Abbey during that final hour. We could tell just from how they moved and spoke that they were the right people for the job. Abbey, catching their scent, woke up briefly, but after being handled by so many people in scrubs in recent days, the presence of two more vets in my bedroom didn't seem to surprise her any. She settled back into a doze as they explained the process and asked a few necessary questions. And then it was time. Everyone else was crying, but I was not. I didn't need to. I was where I was supposed to be. They gave Abbey the sedative in a quick injection in the loose skin at the back of her neck. I wiggled down so that Abbey's nose was just inches from my own and sang her my favorite lullaby as her eyes closed and she sank into a deep sleep. I whispered a few more words of love. The vets carefully rolled Abbey over so they had access her legs. They had some difficulty getting a vein in her hind leg ("Is her blood protein low?" they asked), but Abbey had no awareness of any of this. I had my arms wrapped around her, one hand over her heart. It was her breath that stopped first--her exhalations ceased to puff against my cheek. I felt her heart slow, and then go quiet.

It was 4:30 p.m., October 21, 2016.

She was gone. My Abbey was gone.

She looked so serene, so sweet, so utterly at rest. My dear dog, my brindle baby. I held her for a while longer as the vets put their things away and carried their equipment out. At length, I sat up and gave my family members a chance to say goodbye. The vets pressed one of Abbey's front paws into a bit of modeling clay for a paw print to remember her by. Then, the head vet came in with a carrier. Calmly, gently, she moved Abbey on to it. She admired Abbey's soft brindle fur and speculated that Abbey might have had a bit of border collie in her. (According to the DNA test we did, Abbey was 25% border collie!) Every move she made was done with quietness, competence, and reverence. It made it easier to let Abbey go, seeing her handled in such a way. We all walked down the stairs together. In the open doorway, I had to stop the vet so I could give Abbey one last kiss on her velvety forehead. And then she was borne away, half-wrapped in the green carrier, her dear little face resting on the crook of the vet's arm, my last view of my beloved dog in her corporeal form.

Abbey's paw print.

My father closed the door and I drew one deep, shuddering breath, exhaling sharply. My whole family wrapped their arms around me and one another.

We all sat together for some time afterward, talking about the beauty of the thing that we'd just seen, how much we loved Abbey, how glad we were that she had passed in such a peaceful way. I was feeling slightly stunned, but okay. My primary feelings were of gratitude, amazement, but most of all, peace. And thus, one journey with Abbey ended and a new one began.

Bed is too small for my tiredness

Give me a hill topped with trees

Tuck a cloud up under my chin

Lord, blow that moon out, please

Rock me to sleep in a cradle of dreams

Sing me a lullaby of leaves

Tuck a cloud up under my chin

Lord, blow that moon out, please

For Abbey, dog of my heart

2002-2016

Celebrating Twelve Years of Abbey!

Where on earth did the time go?

Little Miss Abbey just after we adopted her on October 12, 2004.

It's been TWELVE years since we adopted Abbey. If she'd been going into first grade when we got her, she'd be starting her freshman year of college right now. She's been by my side for a third of my entire life. She's help see me through severe depression, years of awful medication withdrawal, the onset of chronic migraines... It's seemed both like she's been in my life forever and that it's been only a few years since she joined our family.

Our first photo together.

We still like to tell ourselves the story of how we went to the shelter and all the dogs were barking except for one, a stray identified as Keta on her kennel card. Keta sat quietly and patiently, just waiting. "What about the brown dog?" my mom wondered. I went over to the kennel and knelt down at the door and Keta came up to it and I was able to stroke her little muzzle with my finger through the wire. We took her outside to a play yard to get to know her and we liked her, but we decided we needed to think it over before taking the step of adopting her. On the ride home, we renamed her Abbey and in our minds she became ours. My mom and I went to the shelter before it opened so we could be first in line, worried that someone else might try to get our dog before we did. But she was still there and we signed the paperwork that made her ours. "She's a real sweetheart," one of the kennel workers said. She was, and still is.

She's also fourteen years old now.

Abbey's hoop-jumping days are behind her.

When we got her, the vets estimated that she was a year and a half to two years old. After taking care of Curly the Puppy, I'm quite convinced now that she was definitely on the older end of the spectrum. While she was most certainly a young dog, there was nothing puppyish about her. Add a dozen years and I think it's safe to say that she's fourteen.

An old dog needs a place to rest her head.

No front room for you!

Fourteen is old for a dog. In some ways, that age has been reflected in Abbey's life this past year. There was the UTI, for example. Bladder infections are really common in older lady dogs because the sphincter muscles around the urinary tract weaken and bacteria gets in. Abbey's UTI was caused by E. coli and it took two rounds of antibiotics to defeat it. While it was still in the process of being treated, Abbey had a couple of accidents in the house out by her sunning spot in the front room and then she got kind of confused and started going to the bathroom out there. Once we figured out what was going on, Abbey was exiled from the living room and dining room until we could be sure that we had cleaned up every last drop and no scent was left to trigger her mind into thinking she should pee on the rug. For a dog who has always been exceptionally well house-trained, this was rather a shock for all of us!

Abbey's UTI antibiotics affected her behavior: for the first time EVER, she chewed on something she shouldn't have! As it so happened, it was an antique book that had been given to me as a gift...

This was Abbey's first basking day by the front windows after being forbidden from going into the front room for more than a month. She looks wonderfully content.

I was expecting that sooner or later Abbey's teeth would start giving her trouble, so when she didn't want to eat her kibble a couple meals in a row until it had softened in the water I always add to her food, I knew what was up and took her right to the vet. She got her teeth cleaned two weeks ago and was able to keep almost all of them: only three tiny teeth in the back needed to be extracted. Her breath, which had gotten ghastly, is now completely odor-free! I would have had her teeth tended to earlier, since I know halitosis is caused by diseased and infected teeth and gums, but I've been reluctant to have Abbey sedated unless it was absolutely necessary after last summer's sedation-related debacle. She did great when she was anesthetized to remove a mast cell tumor on her belly last December, but I was nervous about having any work done around her head. Fortunately, she only needed twilight sedation and was ready to come home about an hour later. I can start ordinary dental care again with a clean slate and she should never need more dental work done in her lifetime. She's back to happily eating her hard kibble!

Having had a mast cell tumor removed from her belly earlier that day didn't interfere with Abbey's winter sunning program.

Abbey, feeling slightly woozy, minus three tiny back teeth and a whole lotta plaque.

Cuddled up.

This was also the year when Abbey ceased to tolerate me being gone for extended periods. She'd always been a champ at waiting patiently, but not anymore. I think that the loss of her hearing was a factor, but for whatever reason, daily visits when I was dog-sitting weren't enough: Abbey needed me at home. It was when my mother came home one day and found Abbey standing on my bed, howling mournfully, that I made the decision to scale back on dog-sitting so I could be with her. The last thing I want is to cause my loyal companion undue stress and loneliness during her final years.

Sometimes a dog just needs her girl.

One of Abbey's fleas.

The most dramatic thing that happened this year had absolutely nothing to do with Abbey's age: she got fleas! In twenty-five years of dog ownership, we've never had fleas before, so it was a shock! I took Abbey with me one day when I was watering a client's yard while they were out of town and she picked up a few fleas while romping through the undergrowth. Fleas are bad enough, but the timing was terrible. I'd come down with a brutal throat infection just weeks before my sister's wedding, so instead of resting up ahead of the wedding and getting the programs done (I'd overseen the designing and ordering of all the paper goods), I was laid up in bed and trying not to cry out involuntarily every time I swallowed. It was while I was in bed with Abbey snuggled up against me that I figured out she had fleas--one walked off her and on to me! We did have the advantage that I knew exactly when and where she'd gotten the fleas, which had been precisely one week before. It meant that we were ahead of the next generation of fleas emerging, so I did a bunch of research and got to work. My dad picked up some Advantage from the vet and I'd applied it within a couple of hours of seeing that flea, but we decided that for my health and Abbey's, it was best to go nontoxic for everything else. We were thinking of having Fleabusters treat the whole house, but the first day they were available was first thing in the morning on the day before the wedding--in other words, bad timing. So we settled on salting the floors and since I was worried about getting the carpet treated before any new adults formed, I got down on hands and knees and did most of the first application myself despite still being sick. I was also washing Abbey's bedding every day (or at least running it through the hot dryer for half an hour), wiping her crate down with vinegar, flea combing Abbey every day or every other day, and washing Abbey once a week. Never before have I cursed Abbey's wonderfully thick, soft undercoat! I caught one flea with the flea comb and had another one abandon ship when I was flea-combing her after a bath, but that's been it. I think I can safely say now that the fleas are all gone.

"Hi! I'm happy because I just ran through a bunch of underbrush and got fleas!"

Turns out that dense undercoat is a real disadvantage when trying to rid your dog of fleas.

Abbey's just had yet another bath in this photo and is not very happy with me!

I want these feet to have feeling for as long as possible.

In the middle of all this--fleas, a bacterial infection of the adenoids, my sister's wedding--Abbey had a seizure. She hadn't had any tiny ones since she got her ears cleaned last summer, so I'd been hoping we'd solved the issue. This one was much larger than the previous seizures. I woke up at 3:00 in the morning because she coughed, which can be sign that she's going to throw up. I was out of the bed with a bucket in hand in a flash (I'm well trained), but she didn't throw up. She looked awful, though, like she was about to hurl any moment, but instead she suddenly threw back her head and arched it waaaaaay over her back in an extremely unnatural way, held it there, and when her head came back down, the whole front half of her body jittered in a way that I was unfortunately familiar with. The tiny seizures Abbey'd had before had been just a few seconds long and she didn't even know they happened, but she knew this time that something had gone wrong. She was restless and anxious for the next hour before she could finally calm down and go back to sleep. I informed the vet in the morning and then we were on "watch and wait" alert. Two weeks later, Abbey had another. This one scared me because right after we came back from a walk, one of Abbey's legs stopped working. Abbey's been experiencing some very gradual decline in function in her hind end over some years now and it's one of my big fears that the decline will go from minor to major. When I saw her leg collapsing under her as she kept trying to walk, I thought that time had come. Shortly afterward, though, she regained full use of both her back legs, ran up the stairs as usual, and jumped up on my bed for a post-walk nap. I decided that a trip to the ER vet wasn't necessary, at least not at the moment, and was replaying the incident in my head when I thought, "It was like the back right leg suddenly had a mind of its own," and then it clicked. In addition to her little "jitters" seizures, Abbey had had seizures that consisted of her tail doing something of its own accord, just as if it had a mind of its own. I took her back to the vet and explained that she was having these much bigger seizures and he thought it was almost certainly the flea meds, which had been my hunch, too. I was ordered not to give her any more (the timing was actually great because she was due for a second application in just a few days), to continue to use only nontoxic treatments, and to watch her carefully. If she didn't have another seizure in the next two weeks, the flea medication, which she'd never had before, was almost certainly the culprit. It's been more than a month now and she's experienced no further seizures, so I think we're in the clear.

Seizure free? We hope so!

There is some good news, though. The vet, when he did Abbey's most recent exam, said, as he's had in the past, that she's in great shape for her age and he never would have guessed at a glance that she's fourteen. He made me extremely happy by saying that as long as we kept on top of her care, it is quite possible that she could live to be as old as seventeen or eighteen. Having cared for a number of geriatric dogs in recent years, I can attest that she is doing well. Yeah, she's deaf, and she's got lots of little growths hiding under her wonderful coat and half a dozen lipomas lurking under her skin, and she doesn't like to play rowdy games much any more because if she gets going too fast and is bouncing too much, sometimes her legs go out from under her, and she sleeps a lot, and the other day I watched her make the conscious decision NOT to chase a squirrel that ran along the fence in front of her, but she doesn't have arthritis (thank goodness for that!), she's still mentally sharp, and she's still got a bright quality that old dogs lose in their final years. I know cancers can arise at any time and act swiftly, but despite UTIs and a couple of little rotten teeth and medication-induced seizures that have had to be dealt with this year, she's still my vibrant Abbey, always at my side, eyes alight.

Sometimes it's fun to run...

...but as she gets older, Abbey is more and more content to just watch the world (and squirrels) go by.

Being an old dog requires lots and lots and lots of sleep.

She still moves her ears around, but she can't hear anything.

Funnily enough, and I kinda hate to say this, Abbey's deafness has had certain benefits. It's made her much less anxious, since she can no longer hear thunder, fireworks, delivery trucks, the doorbell, or the vacuum. (Who knew it was the SOUND of the vacuum that triggered her antagonism all these years?) She's much more social, too, and is put out if she is not allowed to visit with company, which is just amazing considering how averse she was to strangers even just a few years ago. I think not hearing people's voices is a big factor in this new level of sociability. When we took her to the ER vet to get started on antibiotics the evening that I figured out that she had a UTI, despite being worried and not feeling well, she voluntarily approached the vet tech and asked to be petted, which is so different from how she would have behaved under the same circumstances in the past. The downside of her deafness is that if she's facing away from you or in a different room, you can't call her to get her attention and if she's asleep, you have to (gently) shake her to wake her up, but she's so adept at reading our faces that her responses to us are exactly the same as they ever were. Also, I've taught her hand signals for all of her old commands and after dinner, instead of playing a bouncy-pouncy game like she used to, she's always suggesting that we play what I call "tricks for treats."

Abbey uses her nose more now that she's deaf. Here, she's trying to determine who just came home by smell.

Puzzles are so much fun!

I am trying to keep her mind active in other ways, too. She gets her breakfast in one of two feeding puzzles (a Kong Wobbler and a Nina Ottosson Tornado) and I got her a new game, Chess by Trixie Pet Products, that's a little bit more challenging that she LOVES, even if she hasn't figured it out exactly. I make it more complicated by sitting with her as she does it and refilling the treat compartments so she has to keep hunting. I also put it up on a stool so she is forced to use her nose to open and close the compartments, which is trickier than doing it with her paws! I figure that keeping her mentally engaged and having fun will help prolong her life and ward off dementia. (Yes, dogs can get dementia!) Of course, her mind is pretty much always engaged because her primary occupation in life is to look after me. It's a little harder for her to keep track of me when she sleeps so much and is deaf, so I try to make it easy on her and not relocate to a different part of the house without getting her attention. I catch her eye, cock my head in the direction I'm going, and she's ready to follow.

The Wobbler.

The Tornado.

Chess.

Chess is more challenging than the Wobbler and the Tornado, but she probably enjoys it the most of all.

"I'm so happy to see you!" sings Abbey.

Now we have come to the topic of what I love about Abbey. I love her loyalty and her sense of fun and her sweetness and the softness of her fur, but one of my favorite things about Abbey is her expressiveness. I've taken care of eleven other dogs over the past seven years, so I'm not simply biased (though of course I AM biased) when I say that Abbey is by far the most expressive dog I've met. Her face and her body and sometimes her voice all have a great deal to say. I love when she expresses an opinion with just her eyes, like the particular look she gives me when she wants me to get out of bed and come downstairs in the evening. I love the dance she does when she tries to entice us into playing a game with her after dinner. I love when she gently and briefly touches my leg with her nose, just checking in. I love when she drums on hard surfaces with her tail when she's happy. I even love the new saucy look that she sometimes gives me these days when she decides not to obey me! I love how she lines herself up beside me when she knows I'm going to be moving to a different part of the house. I love the way she yodels when she's happy to see someone. I love her vocabulary of head tilts, ducks, bobs, and tosses and the myriad positions of her ears. I love the way she stomps when she's happy. I love how she packs so much opinion into how hard to she bangs her nose against the pantry door, which is her signal (that she invented) for wanting to go out. I love how her face lights up when she sees me, especially if she has mislaid me, and her soft, gentle, tender expression of love.

A friendly face and wagging tail greet me at the top of the stairs.

This is what a content and drowsy Abbey looks like.

Abbey doesn't "smile" much--grins such as this one are rare.

"Why are you doing that?" wonders Abbey when she sees me kneeling on the path to photograph her from a lower angle.

A moment of goofiness.

"Hey," says Abbey, pausing in her basking to acknowledge my approach.

Demonstrating her patience and restraint, Abbey allows me to photograph her wearing a ribbon. She's not going to smile for the camera, though!

"Wherever you are going," says Abbey, "I'm going, too!"

Abbey has just banged on the pantry door with her nose and now stands, tail wagging, to see if her request to go outside has been acknowledged.

I know this look so well. "It's you, my beloved girl!" her eyes say.

I just can't get enough of her dear little face!

And here are the things that Abbey loves:

Curling up like a brindle bean in her bed.

Squishing into a really comfortable position on "her" couch.

Rearranging my bedding for maximum comfort.

Going on car rides.

Keeping up with her friends on social media.

Squeezing between the kitchen cabinets and the legs of whoever is standing next to them.

Collecting chew toys and using them as pillows instead of chewing on them.

Rolling around on her back and clapping her jaws when she's happy.

Basking in the sun.

Anchoring herself to a wall or a piece of furniture or the edge of the rug whenever possible.

Receiving belly rubs.

Helping out in the kitchen.

Sneaking bites of the forbidden ornamental grasses.

Eating peanut butter.

But most of all, she loves being with her girl.

And I love being with her.

The thing is, for these past seven years, I've been largely housebound. If I'm not dog-sitting, I'm at home. I live with my parents, but during the day, it's the two of us, me and my dog. She follows me up and down the stairs, watches over me when I'm in the kitchen from the comfort of her favorite bed, and settles herself outside the bathroom door when I shower. When I look up from the computer in my study where I spend most of my time when I'm feeling well enough to be out of bed, I can usually see her because she's on the pillow by my bookcases, in the hall between the doors of my study and my bedroom, or hanging out at the top of the stairs. If I can't see her, it means she's asleep in my bedroom, where I can often hear her peaceful deep breathing. When I'm not feeling well enough to be out of bed, she's either snuggled up against me or keeping watch by my bedroom door. At night, she's usually sound asleep in her crate at the foot of my bed or else on the bed itself. Unless there's some really good sunning to be had out by the front windows, Abbey is pretty much always within fifteen feet of me. And we interact all day long. I talk to her in my language and she responds in hers. A lot of petting goes on, much to the satisfaction of us both. In her company, I am never lonely. She gave me courage during the years when I was grappling with severe depression and she gives me company now that I must spent nearly all my days at home. Abbey, with her warm brown eyes and soft brindle fur, her patience, love, and loyalty, is a bright star in my life, shedding light (and a great deal of dog hair) over my world.

Dearest Abbey, dog of my heart.

May we seldom be separated (unless I'm trying to photograph the tulips without you sneaking around the corner to eat the ornamental grasses).

May you always be at ease.

May the final years of your life be full of sunshine.

I will carry you forever in my heart

You were meant to be my Dog and I was meant to be your Girl.