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. 

✯    ✯    ✯

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

✯    ✯    ✯

A Dog Named Bixby

Demerits! Bixby's Collected Complaints

A Love Larger Than Loss

Moving Forward

A Dog Named Bixby

Who was Bixby?

A dog of contradictions: stoic in the face of physical pain but keenly emotionally sensitive; tremendously athletic but incredibly lazy; extremely intelligent but a total goofball; a big, strong dog who remained a puppy at heart. 

He could run so fast...

...and sleep so bonelessly.

But he was indisputably very, very handsome.

We don't know what Bixby's early story was, since he was brought into the shelter as a stray, but we do know that his first family absolutely adored him. He'd been the captain of the couch, king of the bed, and master of all the laps. He'd been cuddled and rather coddled―while he knew "sit," "shake," and "here, boy," it was clear that there hadn't been much in the way of "no" and "off." He had learned that the best thing in the world was to be a baby doggy and in some ways that is what he remained. 

Bixby firmly believed his place was on the couch.
Ideally, tap-dancing on your lap.

How he got separated from this home where he was so loved is a mystery, but my guess, given how he pulled to investigate strollers on our early walks, is that his family had a human baby and Bixby was too much. While he wouldn't intentionally hurt a baby, he was used to trampling around on people's laps and nibbling rather roughly when he was excited and other goofy behaviors that lead to serious scratches and bruises when all this joy comes in a 70-pound package with dinosaur talons instead of claws. I suspect he was rehomed by his family and it was those people who lost him. The people who loved Bixby as a puppy, the people who neutered him in an area where neutering is extremely uncommon, who cherished him so much, would not have simply dumped Bixby no matter how their circumstances changed. If he was lost, they would have found him.

Bixby in the San Bernardino shelter

He came into our lives via a rescue that pulls dogs out of overcrowded shelters in Southern California and transports them to Seattle for adoption. I'd contacted them initially about a different dog that I ultimately concluded wasn't a good fit, but they continued to keep an eye out candidates that fit my criteria for the kind of dog I believed Nala needed. This is the email that changed our lives. On the strength of this email and the two videos below, I said yes to a foster-to-adoption arrangement for Mr. B.

8/1

Hey C.,  

I think I found your dude. I pulled him from the shelter today because my friend (who scouts the shelter for our dogs) said he was not to be passed over, that he was special. He was in between two highly reactive dogs and just the most mellow boy. He's estimated to be 4 years old, though the shelter lady I talked to said he could be as old as 6. His name is Bixby. When being transported from the shelter to the vet today, he rode loose in between a small male terrier and a female pit/shepherd mix and paid zero attention to them. He was all kisses. He also gets the biggest award for turn that frown upside down from his shelter photo to his freedom photo. 

If you would consider fostering him he arrives Sunday. This would give you first dibs to adopt if he turns out to be a good fit, otherwise we would find another foster/adopter for him. Let me know your thoughts! Very excited for this hunk of a dog! He's our transporter's favorite.

Bixby's kennel card with his worried intake photo...

...and how he turned his frown upside down when he was pulled from the shelter.

Airborne Bixby!

We did indeed decide to keep that hunk of a dog. I am sorry that he was parted from his original family, but so thankful that their care made Bixby into the joyful, happy-go-lucky, people-loving dog whose motto might have well been "It's Good to be a Bixby!" He was just what Nala needed to show her how to be a pet. And while Nala may not have known much about being a part of a family, she DID know all about puppies and started putting him in his place.

Vroom! Bixby zooming at high
speed while Nala does a brisk waddle.

Because it turned out, he was still a puppy. We thought we were getting a 55 pound dog who was 4-6 years old. Instead, we got a dog who filled out to be 70 pounds and was approximately two years old. And a very young two, at that! To be honest, he was a bit much at first. Just like a little kid, he'd get wound up and naughty when he was hungry or tired. He'd carry around his dog beds, get the nibbles, and pounce on top of Nala like a ton of bricks, which was not the inducement to play that he thought it should be. At first I tried to stop him, but then I decided to let Nala, who had proved to be extremely tolerant and savvy with other dogs, handle things herself. All it took was one big roar and air snap from Nala to get Bixby into line! She had one hard and fast rule: No tap-dancing on her while she was sleeping. And even if she did have to tell him to knock it off, she'd immediately lick his muzzle to assure him that she wasn't mad at him, he just needed not to trample her. If he stepped on her by accident, she never made a fuss. She spent a lot of time simply shutting him down by pointedly sitting and ignoring him if he was feeling too frisky for her. Thus, he learned to respect her rules for engagement. Since we didn't have her same powers, we'd put him in his crate for a time-out when he got too wound up and he'd inevitably conk out and take a hard 45 minute nap. As he matured, he learned to manage his overexcitement and also to modulate his intensity when engaging with Nala so that she would be willing to interact. 

POUNCE ON NALA!

Nala telling Bixby that he needs to settle down and stop carrying his bed around.

Even as a naughty, bratty teenager, Bixby was able to give Nala the confidence to go from cautiously observing to actively participating in family life. Within days she was hanging out in the kitchen with everyone instead of spending the evenings withdrawn under my desk. With Bixby by her side, she was eager instead of spooked to try learning simple commands. And once he was suitably respectful, she was eager to learn how to play with him. The difference he made was absolutely astonishing. Progress that I expected to take months was accomplished in days or weeks. Nala bloomed and bloomed and bloomed with cheerful Mr. B. by her side to demonstrate that things weren't scary! And it wasn't just a one-way street. While Bixby might have given Nala courage, Nala modeled good manners for Bixby. He would have remained much more of a wild child without her calming influence! They quickly formed a close bond.

Their first photo together.

Within days, Nala was hanging out with the family instead of hiding upstairs.

Often, Nala and Bixby arranged themselves so he was facing one way and she was facing the other.

Nala was extremely worried whenever a particular behavior was being asked of her and she was very fearful of treats being used as a way to lure her, but with Bixby by her side showing her that it was FUN to be trained, she started participating eagerly, if ineptly.

The two dogs became close companions. 

And so they played.

And sunbathed.

And snuggled.

They were my yin and yang pups.

And all that while, he was able to support Nala on the strength of simply being himself.

Nala had been particularly fearful while eating, but with Bixby's support, she gained the confidence to eat without bolting from her bowl or flinching when someone moved. If she was worried, she simply made some contact with Bixby's body and then she felt safe.

In other words, Bixby was everything we had hoped he'd be for Nala.

Mister and Mama, as I called them.

Bixby was such a delight for me, too. During those first months, before he learned to settle himself down, Nala and I were quite ready to hand him off to my parents when they came home from work so that we could have a break! He was so very lovable, though. He was especially keen on snuggling and it was clearly hard for him to lose the lap privileges he'd known in his previous home. I made sure he got lots of bed cuddles to help make up for it. We both loved it when he lay in the cradle of my legs with his magnificent head on my chest, though there sometimes had to be some negotiation about where his elbows went. He wasn't always easy to sleep with―sometimes it felt like sharing the bed with a heat-radiating concrete slab. I woke up many times with a sore neck and shoulder from sleeping awkwardly smashed against him. He also had a real knack for putting that heavy head of his right where it could best cut off circulation to my arm. He'd obviously grown up sleeping with his head on a pillow and sometimes he attempted to sleep with his whiskery chin pressed against my chin or his nose against my nose. But the occasional discomfort of sharing a bed with Bixby was far outweighed by the pleasure of being snuggled up against him. I miss it so much.

During our first days together, I kept Bixby on a tie-down as part of his acclimation to the household. He was clearly craving physical contact, so I spent time sitting with him. This is what he did. 

Bixby's favorite snuggle position.

Sometimes it WAS a bit heavy to have Bixby draped across your lap. Especially since he inevitably had an elbow digging into somewhere sensitive. But he made for good deep-pressure therapy.

Fortunately, he liked to cuddle in any configuration.

If you rode in the back seat with Bixby, you needed to be prepared for him to ride on your lap.

You also needed to prepared to have your thighs badly bruised by his dinosaur talons as he scrambled around. This is why he was not allowed on the couch.

I did feel bad that he didn't get couch lap time, since he obviously loved that more than just about anything, so I would sometimes sit on the floor with him.

He was the very best Bixby ever.

Have I mentioned that he was very handsome?

Total beefcake.

I mean, dang, I never ever thought I would look at a dog and say, "Wow, he's kinda sexy." But he...was. I mean, look at that butt!

Not quite a year after we adopted Bixby, my nephew was born. Bixby was quite sure that he was also a little boy and it was easy to think of him and my nephew that way! There was something very much alike about a toddler and a dog who'd been babied and therefore saw himself as a puppy for life. 

Just two little boys.

While in his heart he never grew up, it was clear from the get-go that Bixby was very intelligent and he could easily learn new commands with just a few repetitions. He was especially skilled at "leave it," which he grasped immediately. You could put a treat down, tell him "leave it," and leave the room for ten minutes (as happened when my mom forgot she'd put him on a "leave it") and he'd still patiently be waiting, not eating the treat until he was given the okay! 

This mindset is NOT
okay for a dog of Bixby's size.

Since it's important that a dog with his size and strength to have very good manners, I signed him up for obedience classes. With the instructor's permission, we skipped straight to Intermediate, since I'd already taught him the skills covered at the introductory level. What we discovered was that while Bixby did great with the actual training, it was a big challenge for him to be in a room full of other dogs, many of them excited or anxious. Bixby was very much a dog that was influenced by the energy of dogs around him. It was a concern to all of us that when he got too excited, Bixby would get emotionally aroused and start to fixate. He'd draw himself up very tall, thrust his chest out, and stare. When he was in this state of arousal, he'd stop listening to me. This is a big no-no in any size dog, but especially in a big, powerful one! Thus, obedience classes became about making sure Bixby always stayed at a low arousal level where he was "reachable." We took Intermediate Obedience over and over again until Bixby found it completely uninteresting to be in a room full of other dogs, no matter how excited or anxious they were. And then, since he did so well with the training, we decided to take Advanced Obedience. He was an absolute champ, usually the very best in the class. You tend to think of smart dogs as being inclined to make trouble, but he was much too laidback on the whole to need to invent his own problems to solve. But when he got into "training mode" during classes, you could see his brain switch on, fully focused on trying to figure out what we wanted him to do. My proudest accomplishment in the Advanced classes was when I was able to stand with my back to him across a large room and have him obey when I asked him to "sit" and then "down." The instructor didn't always teach the same skills in every session, so we signed up for multiple rounds of Advanced classes and he did so well every time.

Bixby demonstrating complete focus on the task at hand.

So Bixby had so many wonderful qualities: he was a top-notch snuggler, a fantastic service dog for Nala, a canine ray of sunshine, possessor of a keen intellect, jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and an entertainingly epic napper. Other Bixby facts: he could tell time down to the minute, was terrible at catching treats because he always mistimed his jumps, rarely barked, was great in the car, adored the vet, and needed to wear clothes in the winter because his fur was so thin that he would lose weight from burning calories to keep warm. He never stole food―despite being tall enough to see what was on the table―or got in the trash or chewed anything he shouldn't. He made zero fuss about nail trims and stood patiently in the bath. He was sometimes naughty, gleefully turning misbehavior into a game, but all in all, he was a Very Good Boy.

He loved basking in the sun.

Blissful Bix.

Check out those shoulder muscles!

"Hand over the treats!"

N & B & me at the beach.
He looks so small here, but he was 20" at the shoulder and seemed awfully big when he was in your lap!

Such a goof!

He made excellent use of both beds.

Two beds AND a sunbeam? You better believe Bixby made the most of it!

This photo cracks me up because I tried to take a sappy pine needle he pulled off his paw away from him and he ate it just to be naughty about it, but the joke was on him, he had to eat a sappy pine needle! His face clearly communicates what it tasted like...

Bixby enjoyed exploring the natural world...

...but what he loved most of all was people.

But, whoo boy, in one regard, Bixby was a hot mess

To back up a bit: We knew that Bixby was clearly a pit bull-type dog―he couldn't have gotten that noggin anywhere else―but assumed he was some kind of mix. We were very surprised when his DNA test revealed that he was a 100% purebred American Staffordshire Terrier. Fun fact: most people don't know what an American Staffordshire Terrier is! When Bixby was out and about, he was―to his delight―an absolute people magnet. So many people wanted to say hi to this gorgeous dog! They'd ask what breed he was and when I said, "American Staffordshire Terrier," invariably the response was, "I've never heard of it." I'd then explain rather sheepishly that it's a type of pit bull. I live in a place with tons of pit bull positivity, so the response to that was usually, "My [daughter/uncle/best friend] has a pit bull and it is just the sweetest dog." Bixby definitely agreed! What most people don't know about pit bull-type dogs―Staffordshire Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers, American Pit Bull Terriers, American Bullies, American Bulldogs, or a mix with any of those breeds―is that many are super-sensitive in both body and soul. Bixby, alas, got the worst of that aspect of his genetic legacy.

Bixby's family tree.

Namely, allergies. So many allergies. Bixby suffered from a genetic skin barrier defect that allows allergens easier access to the body―a condition called atopic dermatitis―and he was particularly prone as a result to secondary bacterial skin infections that looked like hives. He was also highly susceptible to bacterial and yeast infections of the paws that led to open sores between his toes. He was tested for environmental allergies and came back with a number of commonplace allergens that, unfortunately, were difficult to control for, including a wide variety of blooming trees in the spring, grasses and weeds in the summer, and naturally-occurring molds in the dirt that are particularly prominent during the wet fall and winter. No matter the season, Bixby was allergic to something during it, and even inside he wasn't safe, since he was allergic to dust...and mildly allergic to people! (Funnily enough, we shared many of the same allergies, dust included, so if mine kicked off, I knew his would, too.) He also had food sensitivities. So we tried all kinds of things, including antihistamines, medicated baths, special diets, and topical medications. He had an allergy doctor. I even took Bixby to an alternative medicine veterinarian to see if he had anything helpful to add. Minor infections were so common that my vet kept me stocked in prescription medications for bacteria and yeast, allowing me to treat issues as they arose rather than having to come in for every secondary infection flareup. 

Those bumps and circles are all secondary bacterial and yeast infections brought on by allergies.

Bixby ended up needing a lot of medicated baths. These baths involved standing around for ten minutes with the shampoo on his skin. Fortunately, he was very patient.

Since Nala needed medicated baths for chronic yeast, sometimes we'd take the two of them to our local Petco's self-service bathing facility. It was much easier than putting the two of them in the tub at home.

To keep him from scratching and licking himself when he was itchy and thereby making himself itchier yet, I made this outfit―boxer briefs worn backward and pinned to a tank top―so he didn't have to wear a cone or donut all the time.

For several years, other than a searingly painful stomachache every six months requiring injected nausea medication and pain medication, our treatment plan worked well enough. But then my life―and his life―was wholly upended. In March of 2020, I came down with COVID. While I wasn't horribly sick, it took a very long time for me to get better. I spent three months isolating in my bedroom and was often in bed for the month that followed. During this period, Nala decided that she was the one who got to be with me all day and made him feel unwelcome. No matter how much I invited and even begged him to join us on the bed, he'd glance at Nala and apparently she told him no. I finally recovered enough from COVID to get some diagnostic work done...and was diagnosed with breast cancer. So Bixby spent his days feeling sad and lonely, to the point he made himself sick. He was frequently queasy and sometimes vomited, his gut was extremely noisy, he had increased flatulence, and his poop was soft. Especially concerning was that he lost a ton of weight, even when I doubled the amount of food he was fed, indicating a serious malabsorption problem. With tests ruling out other conditions, the most likely explanation was Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Skinny, unhappy Bixby.

Bixby during one of his stomachaches, tucked in with newspaper spread around him in case of vomiting.

For the Bixby's inflamed gut to recover, it was imperative that his diet be rid of all allergens. That meant putting him on a strict elimination diet. We knew, from having to feed him a bland diet on so many occasions after spells of vomiting, that he was able to tolerate rice, cottage cheese, and scrambled eggs without issue. From that base, we slowly tried adding one ingredient at a time, gradually ramping up the amount over two weeks, then seeing how he did. If he got sick, whether it was a flareup of skin allergies or an upset stomach (or both), we'd get rid of the offending food, give his body time to recover, and try it again.

I was going through chemo at the time, so I don't have clear memories of all the things we tried, but I do know that things he couldn't eat included wheat, corn, oats, soy, peanut butter, beef, duck, lamb, potatoes, carrots, green beans, and sweet potatoes. There was no food on the market that was free of all his allergens, so we (and by "we," I mean "my mom") had to make his food at home. The final recipe, with amounts determined by a nutrition calculator, was rice, cottage cheese, scrambled eggs, turkey, peas, salmon oil, and two supplements. He absolutely loved his new food and after several months, his digestive distress abated, he started putting on weight again and was much happier and healthier!

Bixby admiring a week's worth of food.

Still, despite everything we tried, his allergies remained an issue. In the spring of 2023, he struggled with some very persistent staph-infected sores on his belly. It took three rounds of antibiotics and careful cleaning of the affected area and the application of ointments and diaper rash cream several times per day for months for the lesions to heal. We were planning to start immunotherapy for his allergies in the fall, which hopefully would've reduced or eliminated his environmental allergies. His physical health was going to get fully back on track.

Bixby visiting me while I was going through chemo.

Sadly, it wasn't just Bixby's physical health that suffered during the year+ period when I wasn't able to be there for my boy: it did a doozy on his mental health. He couldn't be on the bed at all, much less sleep with me, immediately after my mastectomy, of course. And I didn't really feel like sharing the bed with a large dog while going through chemo. As a result, he ended up sleeping in a dog bed in my parents' room. Meanwhile, Nala, as I mentioned previously, wasn't letting him join us on my bed during the day. So Bixby, who needed cuddles to thrive, was cast out. I felt so bad. But I wasn't well enough to do whatever would have been necessary to make Nala stop giving him the stink eye. She really was a jerk! She took to doing things like walking over to where he was laying down and standing over him until he moved, then taking his spot. Bixby was flat-out depressed―we even tried putting him on antidepressants, to no avail―and there's nothing so sad as seeing a dog whose previous motto was "It's Good to be a Bixby!" living a life where he felt it wasn't so good to be a Bixby. It was a long time before he would sleep in my room again after I was well, even though he'd been invited―he was worried that I might change my mind and put him out again and couldn't face that prospect. After he'd been sleeping back with me for a while, my mom thought his big dog bed could be moved out of her room and back into my office. (Where, it should be noted, Nala also made him feel unwelcome.) This made him horribly sick. He thought maybe my parents in general and my mom in particular didn't love him anymore. So his bed went back into their bedroom and he was okay, but it was sad to see him so vulnerable.

Nala is extremely jealous in this photo that Bixby is in my lap and she isn't.

Nala hovering over Bixby in order to make him give up his spot. 

Previously only worried about wind, Bixby got a lot more anxious about many things and anxiety meant stomachaches. He was especially afraid that he would get a stomachache when he was worried, creating a feedback loop. I didn't blame him for fearing his severest stomachaches. Sometimes, before the nausea injection had taken effect and he could take his pain medication, he would be in so much agony he couldn't even move. I'd taken to keeping some Pepto-Bismol by my bed to give him if he got queasy in the night and noticed that most of the time he immediately felt better after being given the Pepto-Bismol―i.e., it was working as a placebo: he knew that he wouldn't feel sick and that made his incipient nausea go away. I took to giving him mini marshmallows without half a tablet of Pepto and most of the time that did the trick. Still, there was a lot of holding him in the night and playing Beethoven to calm him and other rather exhausting (for me) soothing that had to go on. I'd started trying some calming treats for him―it was no easy feat to find ones that didn't contain anything he was allergic to―and some knockout drugs for scary situations like fireworks, which hadn't bothered him before I got sick. The next step down the road would have been prescription anxiety medication. We would have worked it out, though. If I stayed healthy and he stayed healthy, while he may not have gone all the way back to Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky, his emotional resilience would have rebounded. We'd already started on that road, because I had found the perfect confidence-booster for my boy.

Cancer had made me reassess my priorities and I decided that one thing I wanted to do was get strong enough to do agility with Bixby. I knew, with his athleticism and his intelligence, he had the makings of a good agility dog. By the time I was done with chemo and was sufficiently recovered to start on the next phase of my life, I'd been in bed for the better part of a year and half. My legs were like toothpicks and walking around the block was stretch. So I started working out in a local therapy pool with the specific goal of getting strong enough to do agility with Bixby. First, we did another round of Advanced Obedience to give Bixby a refresher on obeying commands from a distance. When I was fit and he was primed, I signed him up for an assessment at an agility facility to determine what his starting level should be. He proved utterly fearless on the equipment and was attentive to commands, so the trainer said, "Sign him up! I've got space in my Advanced Intro/Intermediate Class." 

Agility Bixby!

An agility course map.

He was such a champ. I was so proud when the trainer, during our third class, told everyone how hugely talented he was and how talented I was as a handler and it was so impressive because we were just beginners. I was astonished when, early on, she said he had the makings of a great competition dog! I had never considered having Bixby compete in agility trials, but when that seed was planted, I started thinking of that as being our goal. If we never competed, that would be fine, we both were having a blast, but the idea that I had a dog who could be competitive? Wow! And I was so flattered when the trainer asked if I would be willing to keep training with her. Which we did! I liked that the class atmosphere she created was really low-key and positive. It was okay to make mistakes and it was okay for your dog to make mistakes and that certainly made it easier for me to learn. Everyone was working at their own level, anyway. So I learned from watching the more experienced handlers and the trainer really only stepped in when Bixby and I needed specific help or were ready to up our game. 

Bixby's favorite obstacle was the A-frame.

He was a wonderful jumper.

The weave poles are the toughest obstacle!

Bixby had so much fun. I had so much fun. And everyone loved Bixby! He made people laugh! Everyone assumed from his gleeful behavior that he was a very young dog, not a guy well into middle age. He was so full of joy. Which, as the trainer said, was the most important thing, much more important than doing agility well. But Bixby did do agility well. He learned very quickly. He loved the obstacles and he loved wanting to know what I was asking him to do next and he definitely loved the turkey he got for treats. Oh, he certainly had his moments when he didn't focus or wanted to run around like a goofball, but all the dogs did, even the trainer's dog. But he was improving steadily and I was starting to think that by the time we got his weave poles worked out, say, in six month's time, he might be ready to start competing at the beginner's level.

We did not have time to work out his weave poles.

This is the last photo I took of Bixby.

At 5:36 on July 6, 2023, I gave Bixby his pre-dinner medicine and he was fine. At 6:00 p.m., when my dad got home from work, he was fine. When I came downstairs at 6:36 to feed the dogs, Bixby was not fine. He didn't stand up. He didn't even lift his head up. I'll remember that always, I think, Bixby laying there on the carpet, dressed in the outfit I used to protect his almost-healed belly sores, starting intently into my eyes, not getting up. We got him to the emergency vet and I was still thinking his collapse probably had something to do with those multiple rounds of antibiotics throwing his chemistry off, maybe exacerbated by the heat. What I did not expect was the vet to come in to tell us Bixby was dying.

It turns out that he had hemangiosarcoma, a rapidly growing vascular cancer that develops most often on the spleen, liver, or heart and causes the dog no problems whatsoever until the tumor ruptures and the dog dies from catastrophic internal bleeding. Even if the bleed is detected in time to prevent a full rupture, the cancer is highly malignant and usually already spread widely through the body, so surgery may only prolong the dog's life by a matter of weeks. The other option, the vet said, was euthanasia.

I didn't want Bixby's last days to be spent recovering from a surgery that couldn't save him. In the end, it wouldn't have mattered―Bixby would not have lived long enough for the on-call surgeon to arrive.

By the time we were moved into the clinic's "comfort room" and Bixby had been brought in after given some pain medicine, he was really already gone. He'd turned completely inward. I don't know if he was even aware I was there. I hope so and I hope it gave him some comfort. I cradled his magnificent head and cried and told him all the things I wanted him to know and then I sang to him as the drugs took hold. His breathing had already become so shallow that even though I was nose-to-nose with him in those final moments, I couldn't tell for sure when his breath stopped. And then Bixby's collar was in my hands and we were walking out of the clinic. It was still light out. He'd been fine at 6:00 p.m. and was dead at 9:00. My beautiful golden boy, the dog that had brought us so much joy for five years and eleven months, was gone. He was just eight years old.

I told Bixby in those final moments on the vet's floor that if it is indeed true that heaven is the place where every dog you've ever loved comes running to greet you, I expected him to be at the front of the pack.

I also told Bixby that he would never die as long as anyone was still alive to remember him, that even after I was gone, he would live on in my nephew's heart, that he could still be alive eighty years from now, because he was so beloved.

That I do believe.

It's been hard. Of course it's hard. He'd had so much presence. He required so much care. He was so much fun. And we'd been right in the middle of everything! Agility was going so well! His emotional resilience had rebounded to the point that he was no longer letting Nala push him around! I'd finally found the perfect toy for Bixby and we'd developed the perfect game to play with it! I'd quite reasonably thought I had at least four more years. I'd been preparing myself for elderly Nala's passing and instead it was my golden boy who was gone. Also, it turned out Nala had still been relying on him for her sense of safety much more than we realized and it was heartbreaking to see her regress. We all miss him and mourn him. 

Some of him lives on now in Nala, and, after Nala, in all the dogs that I love because of how he changed Nala and what that taught me.

And he lives on in me, of course.

I will love other dogs in my life. But there will never be another one quite like Bixby. Bix. Bixer. Bixbean. Bixerdoodle. Bixby Bond. B. Mr. B. Mister. Bud. Buddy Boy.

My beautiful boy. Sensitive and stoic. Fragile and powerful. One hundred percent gorgeous and one hundred percent heart.

Bixby Alexander

d. July 6, 2023

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Demerits! Bixby's Collected Complaints

Now Cracks a Noble Heart: Thoughts on Loss and Bixby

Introducing Nala