Now Cracks a Noble Heart: Thoughts on Loss and Bixby

Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.  

― William Shakespeare, "Hamlet"

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When you adopt a dog, you are not only adopting a life, but a death. As George Carlin put it, “It’s inevitable when you buy the pet. You’re supposed to know it in the pet shop. It’s going to end badly. You are purchasing a small tragedy.” One might argue with the scale of the tragedy, but his larger point is true. You are going to outlive your dog—and furthermore, you want to outlive your dog. To refuse to face that this momentous love will result in a momentous loss, to deny that death is one of the truths of life, to consign all of your well-being to a companion who will unlikely to be with you for more than a decade: these are all ways, in my mind, to increase your agony when the inexorable truth is that life ends and for dogs, it always ends too soon.

There is never enough time.

Or is it just enough?

I am someone who believes in the power of dichotomy, that we cannot truly understand something unless we also comprehend its opposite. How can we understand light if we’ve never been in the dark? How do we comprehend satiation if we have never been hungry? It goes beyond just obvious opposites: to use a topical example, never experiencing injustice can make you blind to your privilege. And it wasn’t until I left Seattle for college in vastly different Florida that I truly understood where I came from and how it shaped me.

What is life? “The condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.” Without death, we would be as rocks: slowly, slowly, slowly transmuting over billions of years, a sea floor one eon, a mountain peak another, our shape and fate dictated by the vicissitudes of weather and the slow creep of plate tectonics. Such an eternity would strip all emotional meaning from matter. When all is undying, why cherish anything?

To quote the Talking Heads,“Heaven is a place / A place where nothing / Nothing ever happens."

It is loss, therefore, that renders so much of what we care for precious. 

As dogs are precious.

To love a dog is also to lose a dog and to lose a dog is to grieve a dog: these things are all inevitable. The last thing I want to suggest is that the unavoidability of death somehow negates any need to mourn. A loss is a loss.

I have taught myself this lesson: that my dogs will die, and that is as it should be, and that I will mourn them, and that is as it should be, and then I will move out of my grief, and that is as it should be, too. Because dogs, for me, provide a bulwark against dying by suicide. I have been in the position where I have needed to find external reasons for living and I know that in order to be there for my dogs, I would seek the care I needed should my currently successful mental health management fail. I am adamantly clear to myself that no one dog stands between my life and death, that it is a continuity of dogs that are loved and lost and mourned that give me strength. I can’t risk being blindsided or devastated by a loss that is written into the contract, so to speak, of loving a canine companion. I have been doing extra mental and emotional preparatory work regarding Nala’s certain approaching death. At an estimated age of fourteen, she’s an old dog by any calculation. Senescence is upon her. It is unlikely that she’ll live more than another couple of years. 

But it is Bixby who was first to die. 

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American Staffordshire Terriers are hardy dogs with a typical lifespan of 12-16 years. We estimate that Bixby was eight years old. I had every reason to expect to have him by my side for at least four more years. While he had a lot of health issues, they were all related to allergies—none were of the sort that shorten a dog’s life. Yet there was death on a Thursday evening, a death, in fact, some time foretold, but silently, until the fatal rupture. 

It is a comfort to me that there is nothing I could have done. The spleen is an organ rich in blood but not vital to an adult dog’s functioning. My veterinarian told me he usually only finds hemangiosarcoma masses before they rupture is if he's palpating a dog's abdomen for some other reason. Even then, by the time a splenic hemangiosarcoma is detectable, 90% of the time the cancer has already spread to other organs. It’s possible to take the view that it’s just as well that Bixby went so fast. This aggressive cancer impacted only two and a half hours of his life. 

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Pumpkin, I called him at the last, lying nose-to-nose with him on the floor of the emergency vet hospital. “Oh, Pumpkin, you are so loved. Oh, Pumpkin, I’m so sorry.” 

I could not give him more time. I could not give him more life. I could not give him more of my heart, since he already had the entirety of it. I could not even, as I was able to with Abbey, give him a beautiful death. He stared to cry under his breath, there at the end. It’s the memory of those barely audible whimpers that broke me then and breaks me still. So I gave him the only thing in my power: I took away the traitorous heartbeat that was, with each pump, painfully draining away the substance of his life. 

I did not linger long with the body of the beautiful caramel-colored dog, blood red beneath the skin of his distended belly. It wasn’t Bixby. Bixby was the spirit, the animating force, the character, the personality. I walked out into the twilight with my shock and my grief; I walked out of one story and into another.

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Cancer, for all that it may be frightening and fatal, is unremarkable. Forty percent of people, like me, will develop cancer in their lifetime and roughly 17% of us will die of it. Nearly 50% of dogs die of cancer. Bixby’s type of cancer, hemangiosarcoma, accounts for approximately 5% of annual canine cancer deaths. The dogs most likely to develop hemangiosarcoma are large male dogs in their late middle age or early senior years, with pit bulls being among the breeds that are genetically susceptible to it. As emotionally shocking as it may have been to lose my Bixby to hemangiosarcoma, statistically, it was a very normal death. An individual but unremarkable tragedy, the price I knew I would inevitably pay for loving my dog.

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Some people say that losing a dog is akin to losing a child. While not having a child myself, I find this comparison unlikely. But I don’t think it detracts from the grief to say so. When a dog dies, you lose someone child-like.

Someone innocent.

In the months since Bixby died, I’ve returned again and again to the idea of innocence being one of the attributes so many of us most value in our dogs.

Dog ownership has changed dramatically in the past century and even more rapidly in the past twenty years. Just calling it “ownership” seems wrong, as it implies that a dog is a thing. Currently, 97% of dog owners consider their pets part of the family. You’re now a “dog mom” or “dog dad.” People refer to their dogs as “furbabies.” It’s a change even from when I was growing up in the 1980’s-90’s. Dogs went from companion animals to kids. This is in some ways surprisingly literal: instead of being bred for performing specific tasks or even for conforming to specific “breed” requirements, most pet dogs are bred to be as puppy-like as possible. Playful? Goofy? Trusting? Joyful wiggles? Wagging tails? Giving kisses? These are all the attributes of canid puppies. A dog bred for companionship is a dog that has been arrested in a state of permanent childhood. In uncertain times, when we marry later, have children later, and live more isolated from extended family, dogs can fill the gaps in our hearts. Dogs are creatures of a fascinating level of plasticity at multiple levels and one result of our coevolution is that they will take on any role we ask of them.

Including being our babies. 

Eighty-five percent of pet owners give their animals winter holiday gifts.
I am among the 60% of pet parents who hang up a stocking for my dogs. In 2019, Bixby got a bowtie, along with treats, in his stocking. I am also among the 45% who give my pets gifts "from Santa." That's who left him the bed he's snoozing in on Christmas Day.

In a tough world, we want to spoil our babies rotten. Globally, the pet industry currently amounts to $320 billion and is projected to reach $500 billion by 2030. There are dog bakeries (often called a “barkery” because dog people leave no dog pun unturned) where you can buy a customized, decorated birthday cake for your dog and the other canine guests at your dog’s birthday party. People fork out huge sums for “premium” food brands that satisfy human emotional needs more than dog nutritional needs—dogs are, after all, capable of surviving on literal garbage. (While I don’t think you should feed your dog garbage, if your dog doesn’t have specific health-related restrictions, they really honestly are okay eating kibble.) Veterinary medicine has expanded so much that pet health insurance is becoming a necessity to keep up with the expenses incurred when your dog gets orthopedic surgery followed by physical therapy that includes cold laser treatments and pool time. Toys? Yes! Costumes? You bet! Doggy nail polish? It’s a thing! Blue lifejackets with shark fins on top? TAKE MY MONEY NOW!

It may seem ridiculous, but the fact is, when you pet a dog, it triggers a release of oxytocin—the same hormone that is critical to childbirth and promotes bonding between a newborn and its parents—in both you and the dog. Oxytocin is also released when we fall in love and it promotes trust, reduces stress, and leads to feelings of positive wellbeing. To love and be loved by a dog is to live in a perpetual positive feedback loop of hormonal bliss. 

Mutual oxytocin production in action.

A dog is such a gift in that regard. It’s no wonder that we attempt to give our “babies” so many things in return. 

I never felt like Abbey’s “mommy”—that didn’t fit our relationship at all—but I have at times felt like a "mommy" to Nala and Bixby. In the case of Nala, it is because she’s needed so much special, nurturing care. I’ve remarked that the older she gets, the younger she seems, because helping her overcome her trauma has allowed playful, silly, puppy-like behaviors to emerge. In the case of Bixby, it’s because he was so clearly cherished as a puppy that he decided that being a baby doggy was the best thing ever. If he was a baby, that made me his mommy.

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I don’t go in for regrets. I believe that every one of us is doing the best we can given who we are and what circumstances we are in at any given time. It’s not necessary to like who we are/what we do at any given time, but the fact is that we are, at each moment, the sum of ourselves. But we can change that sum! This is not a magical prescription, of course. There might be any number of limiting factors, both external and internal. But still, we can accumulate changes that lead us to different circumstances. One thing we can't change is the past. Ruminating over it, being embarrassed by it, clinging to it: it doesn’t help anything or anyone. Learn what you can, change what you can, forgive what you can’t, going forward.

My disabilities mean that I truly am, at any moment, doing the best I can. And that best is often so very limited. I have no cushion. I live each day pared down to the bone. I have to be utterly unflinching and entirely forgiving in my assessment of who I am and what I can do. So I regret nothing. 

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This applies to Bixby.

But, oh, I am so very sorry I ended up so sick from first COVID and then cancer. It was so hard on my sensitive buddy. The impact it had on his emotional state led to terrible health issues at a time when I was completely unable to support him. It damaged his belief that the world was always wonderful and that it was always good to be a Bixby and I am incredibly sorry that he lost his innocence.

Self-Portrait of the Photographer Hairless from Chemo in Glass Door with Dogs

We were working so hard on getting him healthy again. When I was finally well, I prioritized getting strong enough that I could fulfill my longtime dream of doing agility with him. Agility was even more awesome than I thought it would be and it did wonders for his mental health. If we'd had another year, I'm sure I could have brought him back to a state of physical, mental, and emotional wellness, even if I could never restore his innocence. I'm so sorry we didn't have that time, that he never had the chance to fully heal.

We had so much fun doing agility!

I’m sorry, too, that due to a series of injuries and disability-related complaints, I hadn’t played his favorite game with him after dinner for a couple of months. Every evening he would ask and I kept having to telling him no. “Soon, buddy. Soon, I promise,” I told him on the evening before he died. I couldn’t play that day because it was too hot. I have limited heat tolerance and it was hot enough outside my air-conditioned room to make me sick if I lingered, so I really, truly, absolutely couldn’t. But if I’d known that he was going to die in July, I would have played with him on a couple of the days when I felt too tired in the weeks before his death. But how could I know? And I really was tired on those evenings and the amount of activity it took to play Bixby’s favorite game—which involved making one of his toys dance and swoop and then playing tug with him when he caught one of the arms—could have make me sicker. So every day I was doing the best I could and I can’t regret that I didn’t play with him more. And while I'm sorry that there weren’t more days, more days have never been in my power to grant to any dog I’ve ever loved. 

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If I could undo one thing, it would be COVID. Not because I was in bed for months, not because of the lasting health issues it has caused me, not even because it delayed my cancer diagnosis and treatment by half a year, but because it broke Bixby’s heart. I was isolating in my bedroom. Nala had decided that she was in charge of me and let him know he wasn’t welcome. My mother was working out of our dining room where Bixby couldn’t join her in case he saw some critter on the front lawn and had a barking frenzy while she was teaching. And so he spent roughly three months alone in the family room during the day, growing increasingly depressed and increasingly ill because affection and a feeling of belonging were critical to his well-being. By the time my mom retired and my sister started working out our dining room while my mom cared for my little nephew, by the time the house was once again full of people and fun and company and activity, Bixby’s psyche was damaged to a degree that he never fully recovered from. 

Bixby had finally gained some couch privileges in the beginning of 2020, but he lost them not due to any misbehavior of his own, but because we discovered that Nala was discretely using the rug in that room as a bathroom. Because I wasn't well, the easiest way to deal with the issue was to shut the door. That meant no more couch for Bixby. 

In an attempt to draw me out from my COVID isolation, Bixby took to dragging his brass-studded collar along the wall in the upstairs hall because he discovered that I would get out of bed to stop him. Sadly for Mr. B., I took away the studded collar instead of rejoining the family.

The dynamic between Nala and Bixby changed when I got sick. She decided that she was in charge of my care and he didn't get to be part of it. In this photo, Bixby stress-yawns after he's asked if he can come up on the bed and I've said yes but Nala has said no.

Facebook post from 2/21/2021: 
I have to say, I miss Bixby. Yes, we're still in the same house, but I've been under orders to isolate as much as possible because my white blood cell count was so low that I managed to get a cold despite masking in the house and no one around me being sick. Nala has made it clear that Bixby is not allowed to be on the bed with me in the daytime and I had enough nights where I didn't feel well enough to have a large dog in bed with me that Bixby is now choosing to sleep in my parents' room. I say hello to him whenever I see him, but it's not nearly the same. It's going to be another three months before I'll be in a position to spend a lot of time with him. Sigh... Nala, of course, is with me pretty much 24/7, either curled up on my feet, snuggled next to me and using me as a pillow, or sleeping during the night on the bed next to my bed.

In this photo from July of 2021, not long after I'd finished chemo, I'm down on the floor to try to give Bixby the cuddling I knew he desperately needed but would no longer seek out from me. Nala inserted herself into the activity by vigorously licking the stubble of my re-growing hair.

Facebook post from 5/21/2022:
Bixby has been refusing to sleep with me for a year and a half after being banned while I was going through chemo. It hurt his feelings and I think he was also afraid that if he came back and got used to it, he might then get shut out again. (To be fair, that happened when he was banned after my mastectomy, was invited back after I'd sufficiently healed, and then banned again a month or so later when I started chemo.) So he's been sleeping in a dog bed in my parents' bedroom all this time and flat-out refused to sleep in my room even when I've asked. But a few weeks back he gave himself a phobia—he got scared on a windy night and then was scared to be in my parents' bedroom and so he ended up sleeping his crate for a few nights, during which he licked his rear end raw. So I said, "Enough is enough." He is now back sleeping in my room, on my bed, and I am SO happy and he's happy, too. Nala might be slightly less happy, but he is pretty good for cuddling with before I turn my light out and she doesn't sleep on the bed at night anyway. Last night, Bixby fell asleep his great big lovely warm head on my chest for the first time since being back in my room—I'd missed that so much!

This makes him sound clingy and needy, but it wasn’t the case at all. Before 2020, Bixby was a canine ray of sunshine. He did everything with gusto. I’ve never seen a dog nap exuberantly before, but he did it with the same joyful abandon he brought to everything. He so firmly believed in life’s abundance that he didn’t even bother licking small crumbs off the floor. His motto was “It’s Good to be a Bixby!” His theme song was “The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers,” with his name subbed in, of course! My other saying for him was “It’s not that Bixby isn’t deep, it’s just that the water is extremely clear.” His embodiment of sensuous leisure made it easy to forget that he was extremely intelligent until he snapped into training mode and demonstrated his capacity to focus and learn quickly. I did hurt his feelings terribly once early on when I used a squirt bottle to stop him from trying to climb up on the leather chair in our family room, but we quickly reconciled and it was back to la dolce vita: decadent naps, gleeful zoomies, passionate snuggles.

My favorite photo of Bixby doing agility is not any of the ones where he is doing an awesome job, but this one where he's SO EXCITED that he's got the zoomies and I can do nothing but wait until he's run off some of his overflowing joy before we can resume working on the course.

To then hold that same tender soul in your arms after he’s been up all night vomiting because he’s terrified that you don’t love him anymore; to see him turn away from the affection that you know he needs as desperately as water because he can't face that you might withhold it; to watch as he, in his distress, literally starts withering away; to be powerless to explain or change the circumstances that have led to him to fear for his place in your home and heart: it's agonizing.

A sick Bixby curled up tight as can be in my lap.

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For all of this, I don't think of myself as someone who is overly sentimental about dogs in that I recognize not all dogs are pets. The whole idea of a "pet dog" is really quite new, at least in evolutionary terms. Up until the Industrial Revolution created a large middle class, very few dogs were kept solely as companion animals. It was then that an interest in breeding dogs for appearance and not for function gained popularity, giving rise to the "show dog." These non-working dogs were precursors to the family pet. In other words, from as many as 32,000 years ago up until the late 1880's, all owned dogs were first and foremost working dogs. There are still many dogs working today: ancient breeds serve as guardians just as their direct ancestors have for thousands of years; meanwhile, the very modern service dog can perform tasks as complex as calling 911. But it's really only very recently, in just the past few decades, that dogs have become surrogate children. The idea that dogs are furbabies that need and deserve all the best of everything is extremely anomalous to who and what dogs have been for the entire history of canine domestication. 

While it may be a new role, a lot of dogs discover that the inside pet life is a good gig, though it can be challenging for a dog that retains a lot of its original working drive to fully adapt to being a placid perpetual puppy. It's irresponsible on the part of people to expect, say, an intelligent, high-energy dog to be able to settle into all that luxury without a ton of exercise and mental stimulation, but it should be noted that genetics are not destiny: you'll find absolutely all kinds of temperaments, intelligence, athleticism, and other traits among dogs of a single breed. When genetics do still play a role in behaviors, it can be quite fascinating. For example: my childhood dog was a Basset Hound-Springer Spaniel mix whose genes, when he once found a dead bird in the yard, instructed him to pick it up very gently and bring it to us. My mother had a colleague whose Shetland Sheepdog was a real handful until she found a place where the Sheltie could herd sheep every weekend. I've never forgotten how a coworker's Wirehaired Pointing Griffon, a type of gun dog used for hunting birds, instinctively zeroed in on the smell of a bag of dyed decorative chicken feathers in a drawer in a very large space with lots of scents despite never having been used for hunting. It fascinates me that recognition of a smell was hardwired into his brain! Otherwise, of all the dogs I've known, only Jazzy the Mini Aussie, who didn't really come with an "off" switch, and Cutie the Pyrenees, who retained many livestock guardian traits—such as barking loudly in response to anything "suspicious," much to the chagrin of the neighbors—were driven by their DNA in ways that could only be mitigated rather than overcome.

Every dog I've ever owned or cared for.

In other words, the collies and retrievers, ratters and herders, the crosses and mixes, had all effectively been transmuted into a single category: pet dog. Pet dogs of various levels of intelligence, of energy, of sociability, with the typical gamut of opinions on subjects most dear to a pet dog's existence: people, other dogs, toys, baths and nail trims, car rides, the vet, treats, the vacuum, being on the people bed, getting their feet wet, walks, strangers coming to the door, mealtimes, cats, thunderstorms and fireworks, children, preferred forms of physical affection, squirrels, taking medication, the location of the best sunning spots, and so forth. 

I was Abbey's purpose.

It is interesting (and relevant) to note that while all the dogs were firmly and only and quite dedicated to being canine companions, a few of the dogs I've known have gone a step further and designated a role for themselves in their family. This is not what the family necessarily has envisioned for the dog, but what the dog has envisioned for his- or herself. It is not a particular skill-set, it is not about hierarchy, but something deeper about a dog's sense of purpose. Nala, notably, found a higher purpose while I was sick with COVID and then chemo: she knew I was sick (I'm sure I smelled very different, for one), she knew that I was in bed all the time in a way that was different from me being in bed all the time due to chronic health problems, and while all it looked like was her spending the days snoozing on the bed just as she did on days when I was in bed due to my disabilities, her purpose shifted. She became more. (It's also why she started being rude to Bixby and letting him know he was not welcome to join us on the bed during the day.) When I got better, she went back to being her usual self. For most dogs, though, it's their life's work. It's hard to describe, but people who have loved a dog like this will know what I mean. A lot of these dogs are what are referred to as "heart dogs" or "soul dogs," where the depth of the bond is one monumental and fundamental, dogs that forever change your heart and your soul. Not all heart dogs are dogs with a larger purpose; I recently spoke with Goldie's mom who hasn't adopted another dog and may never will because no dog will ever compare: Goldie, she said to me, was an angel in canine form. That may well be true. But it wasn't Goldie's purpose. She didn't choose to be an angel, she simply was. 

Abbey was the dog-of-my-heart and always will be. A dog similarly special to me is Sweetheart the German Shepherd. We only had a year together, but during that time, we connected not as dog to person but soul to soul. Sweetheart's love was vast and pure and our love had no higher purpose and none was necessary. If you'd asked her if she had a purpose, she would likely have told you it was to look after "her" kids. But I hesitate to ascribe the knowingness that animates the sort of purpose I'm talking about to Sweetheart's love for her family—it was in her nature, an intrinsic force. It's the difference between, "I watch out for my family" and "I am the one that watches out for my family." This may seem like a bunch of nonsense, but during six years as a dog-sitter, I cared for fifteen dogs in addition to my own, and I will solemnly swear that some dogs see themselves as having a deliberate purpose that goes beyond the purely instinctual, that is animated by a greater sense of self, a belief in "I am."

Child at heart.

I believe that Bixby was such a dog. Out of the all dogs I've known, he was the most childlike. Loving to cuddle, wanting to be on the bed and the couch, being fearful about certain things, and having plenty of goofiness are all standard features for today's canine companions; what was different about Bixby is there was something so strikingly youthful about his guilelessness and his joy, not just in how he appeared to others, but how he viewed himself. It goes beyond the effect of being adored as a puppy; after all, most dogs are adored as puppies. For Bixby, it was a higher calling. (Not every purpose is a great ennobling one, though I'm sure he would dispute my characterization of his higher calling to be anything less than epitome of canine achievement.) I adopted him to be Nala's service dog by modeling how to be a be a pet. That he did, by firmly believing it was his role to be cherished, that he existed to be loved. He was not at all immature and I've known far sillier dogs. He was observant and intelligent. But in his soul, he never grew up. 

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This is all a narrative. A story created by me about a dog I called Bixby. 

As Joan Didion writes, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live... We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”

Bixby's story of himself, if dogs are capable of stories, may well have been different. 

A memento of
his suffering.

But these are facts: He couldn't thrive without full-body contact. He came to us used to being not just on the couch but in laps and even years later, long after he accepted the "no dogs on the couch" rule at our house, when he wasn't feeling well, he'd try to climb into your lap to be held. He was so stressed by my succession of serious illnesses that he developed Inflammatory Bowel Disease. And once upon a time, there'd been some major change in circumstances in the loving household where he'd been raised, something that separated him from his family: his fear of be unwanted was not unfounded. 

It is also a fact that there remains, on the wall of my bedroom, a spray of the anti-nausea drug Cerenia where it squirted when I depressed the plunger on the syringe too hard when prepping the dose before injecting it into the nape of Bixby's neck at 3 a.m. during one of his worst stomachaches. It is a fact, likewise, that when it's windy, my first thought is, "I'm glad Bixby isn't here for this anymore," because I spent so many exhausting nights dealing with his anxiety—an anxiety, it should be noted, that hadn't been severe until the stress brought on by my sickness.

And this is my narrative: I believe that, as pet parents, we must honor dogs as who they are. Bixby had been bred to have a canine companion's arrested development, he'd inherited the emotional sensitivity common to pit-bull breeds, his first family doted on him and he grew up in their laps and beds and arms; through a combination and nature, Bixby's wellbeing was wholly dependent on human affection and he lacked the emotional fortitude to cope without it. I may not have seen him as a furbaby, but I do believe he was an innocent. I wanted that for Bixby in a way I haven't for another dog: a life where he was always bonny and blithe, good and gay. It's tantamount to a sin, I feel, that a heart so pure and so joyful should be broken. I couldn’t prevent that breaking any more than I could prevent his dying, but I am so sorry that he suffered that terrible fear of being unwanted when he was, in fact, so loved. What I grieve is not that he died of cancer, but that he lost his sunshine in the years prior. It wasn't that he was never happy again, but there had not been time enough to fully restore him to a state of belief that it was good to be a Bixby.

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But in the end, Bixby was just a dog.

I forget that sometimes, caught up in the story of Bixby. I'm glad to have videos of him not doing a great job at agility because it reminds me that he was just a dog. "Just" may seem dismissive, but only if you think that being a dog is not enough. He was superbly a dog. He was everything I asked for and more than I ever hoped for. He gloriously fulfilled his purpose. As a friend put it, "He managed to achieve peak dog early and had to move to his next stage of being." Born a pet, lived a pet, died a pet. Bravo!

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I wish we'd had more time. Of course I do. But death is absolute. Battering away at death with powerless wishes will do nothing but further break your heart. My heart is broken enough.

It's final days of March as I type this and the angle of the sun has changed enough that it's just starting to shine in the space between the front window and the side of the couch in our living room, which was Bixby's very favorite sunning spot. He is not here to bask in that spot, as he was not here to bask in the winter sunshine that spread across the family room rug. Every day he recedes further and further away from me, less and less a dog and more and more a character in the chronicle of my life.

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There's another story here, too.

Twice, in the days immediately following his passing—perhaps even that very night?—I went on PetFinder and searched for medium-sized adult dogs with short gray fur. I was not looking to adopt. I just needed to know that the story of having dogs would continue, that Bixby's death wasn't just an ending, but a beginning that paves the way for future dogs. It doesn't end with Bixby.

I mused, at the beginning of this piece, if we get just enough time with our dogs rather than too little. Dogs can help us change and grow. When I ask myself if I would want to have Abbey, dog-of-my-heart, by my side forever, I don't think I do. After twelve years together, her work was done. She'd help to transform me completely, but to change and grow more would require a different dog. That's what life is, by definition: a capacity for growth and continual change. I wish very much I had a couple more years with Bixby, but I'd rather love and lose dogs than stay the same forever.

And so, the tragedy I purchased for Nala in August of 2017 has come to pass. Yet, I continue to choose love and I will choose it over and over because to choose love means to choose life. My life. That life will forever be lit by the glow of my golden boy. He has set the standard for canine rays of sunshine very high. There will never be another like him; there will be others. This is the story of my life: choosing and being chosen by dogs, again and again, knowing that every dog will die, knowing that every loss will be worth the love.

Bixby, you were so worth it. 

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Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs? — Mary Oliver, “The Summer Beach,” Dog Songs

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A Dog Named Bixby

Demerits! Bixby's Collected Complaints

A Love Larger Than Loss

Moving Forward

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.

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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