The Last Gift of Love
10/13/06
I have been known to sound vaguely profound from time to time. I often say of my activities, "Sometimes I get to do what I want to do, and most times I do what I need to do." I more-or-less stole that from Gladiator. Where the things we want to do and the things we need to do cross over, life gets tricky. Sometimes in that crossover range lie difficult decisions, or rather, decisions that are perfectly clear and yet take some measure of courage to carry out. Where the decision involves some one or something we love, the decision becomes substantially more difficult to "make", even though its correctness may be totally inherent.
My mother called me yesterday to tell me of the worsening condition of our dog, Keiko. I didn't need to hear any information on my puppy's condition, I could hear in her voice that this call was to tell me that it was time to say goodbye to my childhood pet.
When I was 10 years old in the spring of 1992, I convinced my mother to drive me and my sister to the pet store to look at puppies. Dana and I were on a mission to get a puppy, and while we had been unsuccessful at convincing my mother to let us have one for several months, it didn't dampen my enthusiasm for going to pet stores and playing with puppies. I had called The Pet Lodge that day and learned that they had Cocker Spaniel/Poodle mix puppies, affectionately known to the dog breeding world as "Cockapoos". If the name of the breed is ridiculous, and it is, then the dogs themselves are ridiculously cute. We arrived to find a litter of coal black puppies with big eyes, round little faces and various white markings. While I busied myself playing and roughhousing with most of the males of the litter, my sister picked out a coal black female with a lone white tuft on her chest and went about cradling her for the duration of our visit. Within 10 minutes, the puppy was resting her head on my sister's shoulder, and I looked up to see my mom lock eyes with the puppy. Mom looked at me, I looked at the puppy, I looked at mom, and her famous last words were spoken: "Do you guys really want this dog?" We did, and so we at last had our puppy.
My father was less than lovestruck upon first sight of our jet black little puffball with the white tufted chest, but over the years even he was melted by the dog who would nuzzle his arm and tug at his shirtsleeve each night after he sat back from his dinner until he agreed to pet her. My sister and I spent hours reading over pet training books and teaching our dog to be a graceful member of our family. Over the years she grew from palm-sized to 14 pounds, and I grew from 4'8" to 6'1" and moved away to Lincoln for college. The look of our home changed, my sister moved to Nashville and came home, the Nebraska weather varied as always, but one thing was static: There was always a great, excited 14 pounds of wriggling, whimpering dog there to greet me when I came home. As always, she would not be denied until I had shared in the excitement of the reunion by getting down on the floor and saying hello. No matter what has gone wrong on any given day or in any stretch of your life, you feel appreciated when you come home and see a creature that loves you so much and so unconditionally that literally its whole body is consumed with the sheer joy of seeing you return, even if you were only gone a few hours. The color of her fur changed from jet black to gray, but she still loved everyone unconditionally and won over 100% of visitors to our home with adoroable face and classy demeanor.
Over the last few months, that demeanor changed. My dog no longer consistently noticed when I entered the house. Indeed, she no longer consistently noticed much but the movements of my mother and the sound of M&M's rattling in the candy dish. Her fur got thinner every time I came home, and her wheezing spells that onced happened only when she ran around too much were now a common occurrance. Mom informed me that on top of my pet's hazy mental state and respiratory difficulties, she had begun having blackouts that caused her to crash into things and lose control of her limbs and bladder. I needed to hear no more about my puppy's suffering. She had always loved me, and if I had always loved her, it was time to honor that exchanged by putting a quick end to her suffering. I told my mom to schedule the appointment at the vet as soon as possible. She called me back later to tell me that we would go to the vet at 11:45 the next morning.
When I arrived the next morning, I walked into a quiet house. Keiko had not noticed the opening garage door as she always had before, or if she had, she couldn't muster the strength to see who was home. I walked into my parents' room to find my dog asleep under the bench that sits at the end of the bed. I walked right up to her, but she took no notice. I tapped my foot on the floor to let her know I was there. At this, she got up, walked over to the hallway and looked a minute at my mom as if to confirm her location, and then returned to her spot, laid back down and began to cough. As sad as it was to see, this response was a confirmation of what needed to be done. I spent some time petting my dog, and let the tears roll slowly down my face. My mom wasn't yet aware that I was home, but I could hear her sniffle from the next room.
As we prepared to go to the vet, my mom informed me that after we had spoken yesterday, Keiko had another seizure and fell down the stairs. We sat and petted the dog for a while, then gave her some M&M's, which had always been her favorite treat. Her stomach instantly rejected the candy and she vomited it onto the kitched floor along with the rest of her breakfast. As I looked more closely at her, it was clear that she had lost weight. Indeed, it did not need to be made any more clear to me that this was a mere shell of the constant companion who had chased me around our backyard on countless afternoons. Mom cleaned the floor, picked up the dog, and we got in the car to go to the vet.
When we got to the office, I couldn't look anyone in the eye. They knew who we were and why we were coming, and if I saw their sympathy, I wouldn't keep my own composure. I didn't want to shock some child who was walking in the shoes I walked in those 14 years ago to see a grown man with tears streaming down his face and have to ask, "Mommy, why is he crying?" Let the child come to understand that all things happen in time, but for now let him be the child taking his new best friend for a checkup and let me be the man who must take his beloved pet to the doctor one last time.
The vet came in, and I was instantly struck by how old he looked. He introduced himself to me, not remembering that at 17 I had shadowed him at length because at that time I wanted to be a veterinarian myself. Suddenly I felt swept away by the current of change, but there was little time to wax philosophical about the myriad differences between all of our lives then and now. He gave us something of a warm up speech which seemed designed for the purpose of convincing us that we're doing the right thing. While I needed no convincing, I welcomed the distraction. He explained that Keiko would be given a purposeful, drastic overdose of anesthetic which would induce sleep, and then death. We agreed to the proceedure, and he returned with a syringe of pale blue liquid. This, he explained, was a standard dose for a 30 pound dog, so that there would be no doubt. Indeed, I had no doubt that the remaining 10 pounds of my dog would quickly succumb to the drugs. The vet put a tourniquet on Keiko's right forelimb and inserted the syringe. Keiko jumped a little at the stick, but ever well-behaved, held still. The vet then drew back the plunger to get some blood and make sure he had hit the vein. No blood came. He drew the needle back a little and tried again. No blood. He drew the needle back a little, and as I cradled my puppy's head in my hands I could see her discomfort, but she would not fight. Still, though, no blood. Horrible as I felt for my poor dog, I felt worse yet for the vet. It must be hard enough to do something like this, and I'd watched him do it a multitude of times, but my dog was so old and frail that her veins wouldn't serve his purpose.
The vet threw out the first needle, screwed on another, and told us we'd try the other leg. He clipped some hair from Keiko's left forelimb, applied the tournequit, and inserted the syringe. Again, she jumped, but a little more this time. Several times her instinct had been to bite at the hands that kept pressing the needle into her flesh, but too well trained, she would not. This time, though, she struggled and cried. She looked up at me for a moment with pleading eyes and my own welled up with tears. She looked at me a moment longer. One doesn't need the sort of animal intuition that dogs have to see that I didn't want to be putting her through this, but that this was something more than just a routine visit. The vet quickly gave up on the left leg, suggesting that she seemed to be especially defensive of it. I then remembered her fall, and realized that at her age, it was unlikely she had fallen down the stairs and come away without an injury.
He threw away the second syringe and screwed on a third. He applied the tourniquet and tried the right leg again, and this time got a little blood to draw into the syringe. He began to press down on the plunger and administer some of the blue liquid, but it was clear he hadn't quite hit the mark when Keiko began to struggle again at the discomfort of the pressure rather than lose consciousness. At this point, I was starting to feel sick with guilt. I wanted to scoop up my dog and walk out, so that this man would stop sticking my poor puppy with needles, but if I took her home now then it would all be for nothing and she'd still be suffering. Maybe next time she fell she'd really hurt herself. Still, though, my jaw was clenched tightly enough that I believe I might have bitten through steel. The vet apologized and left to get a new syringe of barbituate. From outside the room I could hear him frustratedly call to the techs for the drugs.
When he returned, he told us that he didn't want to have to do this more than once more, so he would inject the solution into Keiko's jugular vein. This, he told us, was far from acceptable if this were a blood sample, but the times seemed to call for the measure. We removed her collar and held her still. The vein was easily found among the patchy fur on her aged neck, and this time the stick was good. He pulled back on the plunger and the light blue liquid turned a deep crimson. He quickly emptied the contents of the syringe into her vein, removed the needle and said, "She'll go to sleep now." Keiko took one last look at me, and then went limp. As I held her head in my left hand and my mom laid her down, she looked once more at Mom, and then lost consciousness.
"Take as much time with her as you like. I'm sorry it didn't go better." the vet said. I could hear the shame and frustration in his voice, and I could only imagine how awful he must feel.
"It's o.k." I stammered. The words forced me to release the breath I'd been holding since the needle went in, and I broke down in tears. Next to me, my mother cried as well. As we petted our dog and wept, Keiko's body gave one last shudder, and then was still. I laid my head on hers and cried. After I lifted my head, Mom and I each looked the body over and petted our beloved pet a moment longer, then prepared to leave. Outside I could hear the sound of a father and his son with their own dog. I waited until I could hear them exit into one of the exam rooms, and then open the door.
For as many times in my life as I've felt beyond my years, I felt 10 years old again when I walked back out into the lobby. I looked up at the vet tech with sad eyes. She looked at me, then at my mother. The sympathy she felt poured out of everything about her, but she knew there were no words that would comfort the man with the quivering lip and empty collar clenched in his first or the mom who had come in holding the last of her "babies" and now held only a purse.
As I left the office, I battled mightly to hold back the tears. As I drove home from Omaha to Lincoln, I realized that the last strands of my boyhood were severed this week. I cleaned out my old bedroom at home, then returned five days later to part ways with my boyhood pet. As I write this, I periodically break into sobs and can no longer see to type. Letting go hurts, even if it is the right thing to do. As I type by feel through a blur of tears and listen, fittingly, to "All Things in Time" by Toad the Wet Sproket, I see that something about this moment is right, even though it is undeniably sad. I owed it to my puppy who always gave me her love to not let her slowly suffer out the last of her days.
I have been known to sound vaguely profound from time to time. I often say of my activities, "Sometimes I get to do what I want to do, and most times I do what I need to do." I more-or-less stole that from Gladiator. Where the things we want to do and the things we need to do cross over, life gets tricky. Sometimes in that crossover range lie difficult decisions, or rather, decisions that are perfectly clear and yet take some measure of courage to carry out. Where the decision involves some one or something we love, the decision becomes substantially more difficult to "make", even though its correctness may be totally inherent.
My mother called me yesterday to tell me of the worsening condition of our dog, Keiko. I didn't need to hear any information on my puppy's condition, I could hear in her voice that this call was to tell me that it was time to say goodbye to my childhood pet.
When I was 10 years old in the spring of 1992, I convinced my mother to drive me and my sister to the pet store to look at puppies. Dana and I were on a mission to get a puppy, and while we had been unsuccessful at convincing my mother to let us have one for several months, it didn't dampen my enthusiasm for going to pet stores and playing with puppies. I had called The Pet Lodge that day and learned that they had Cocker Spaniel/Poodle mix puppies, affectionately known to the dog breeding world as "Cockapoos". If the name of the breed is ridiculous, and it is, then the dogs themselves are ridiculously cute. We arrived to find a litter of coal black puppies with big eyes, round little faces and various white markings. While I busied myself playing and roughhousing with most of the males of the litter, my sister picked out a coal black female with a lone white tuft on her chest and went about cradling her for the duration of our visit. Within 10 minutes, the puppy was resting her head on my sister's shoulder, and I looked up to see my mom lock eyes with the puppy. Mom looked at me, I looked at the puppy, I looked at mom, and her famous last words were spoken: "Do you guys really want this dog?" We did, and so we at last had our puppy.
My father was less than lovestruck upon first sight of our jet black little puffball with the white tufted chest, but over the years even he was melted by the dog who would nuzzle his arm and tug at his shirtsleeve each night after he sat back from his dinner until he agreed to pet her. My sister and I spent hours reading over pet training books and teaching our dog to be a graceful member of our family. Over the years she grew from palm-sized to 14 pounds, and I grew from 4'8" to 6'1" and moved away to Lincoln for college. The look of our home changed, my sister moved to Nashville and came home, the Nebraska weather varied as always, but one thing was static: There was always a great, excited 14 pounds of wriggling, whimpering dog there to greet me when I came home. As always, she would not be denied until I had shared in the excitement of the reunion by getting down on the floor and saying hello. No matter what has gone wrong on any given day or in any stretch of your life, you feel appreciated when you come home and see a creature that loves you so much and so unconditionally that literally its whole body is consumed with the sheer joy of seeing you return, even if you were only gone a few hours. The color of her fur changed from jet black to gray, but she still loved everyone unconditionally and won over 100% of visitors to our home with adoroable face and classy demeanor.
Over the last few months, that demeanor changed. My dog no longer consistently noticed when I entered the house. Indeed, she no longer consistently noticed much but the movements of my mother and the sound of M&M's rattling in the candy dish. Her fur got thinner every time I came home, and her wheezing spells that onced happened only when she ran around too much were now a common occurrance. Mom informed me that on top of my pet's hazy mental state and respiratory difficulties, she had begun having blackouts that caused her to crash into things and lose control of her limbs and bladder. I needed to hear no more about my puppy's suffering. She had always loved me, and if I had always loved her, it was time to honor that exchanged by putting a quick end to her suffering. I told my mom to schedule the appointment at the vet as soon as possible. She called me back later to tell me that we would go to the vet at 11:45 the next morning.
When I arrived the next morning, I walked into a quiet house. Keiko had not noticed the opening garage door as she always had before, or if she had, she couldn't muster the strength to see who was home. I walked into my parents' room to find my dog asleep under the bench that sits at the end of the bed. I walked right up to her, but she took no notice. I tapped my foot on the floor to let her know I was there. At this, she got up, walked over to the hallway and looked a minute at my mom as if to confirm her location, and then returned to her spot, laid back down and began to cough. As sad as it was to see, this response was a confirmation of what needed to be done. I spent some time petting my dog, and let the tears roll slowly down my face. My mom wasn't yet aware that I was home, but I could hear her sniffle from the next room.
As we prepared to go to the vet, my mom informed me that after we had spoken yesterday, Keiko had another seizure and fell down the stairs. We sat and petted the dog for a while, then gave her some M&M's, which had always been her favorite treat. Her stomach instantly rejected the candy and she vomited it onto the kitched floor along with the rest of her breakfast. As I looked more closely at her, it was clear that she had lost weight. Indeed, it did not need to be made any more clear to me that this was a mere shell of the constant companion who had chased me around our backyard on countless afternoons. Mom cleaned the floor, picked up the dog, and we got in the car to go to the vet.
When we got to the office, I couldn't look anyone in the eye. They knew who we were and why we were coming, and if I saw their sympathy, I wouldn't keep my own composure. I didn't want to shock some child who was walking in the shoes I walked in those 14 years ago to see a grown man with tears streaming down his face and have to ask, "Mommy, why is he crying?" Let the child come to understand that all things happen in time, but for now let him be the child taking his new best friend for a checkup and let me be the man who must take his beloved pet to the doctor one last time.
The vet came in, and I was instantly struck by how old he looked. He introduced himself to me, not remembering that at 17 I had shadowed him at length because at that time I wanted to be a veterinarian myself. Suddenly I felt swept away by the current of change, but there was little time to wax philosophical about the myriad differences between all of our lives then and now. He gave us something of a warm up speech which seemed designed for the purpose of convincing us that we're doing the right thing. While I needed no convincing, I welcomed the distraction. He explained that Keiko would be given a purposeful, drastic overdose of anesthetic which would induce sleep, and then death. We agreed to the proceedure, and he returned with a syringe of pale blue liquid. This, he explained, was a standard dose for a 30 pound dog, so that there would be no doubt. Indeed, I had no doubt that the remaining 10 pounds of my dog would quickly succumb to the drugs. The vet put a tourniquet on Keiko's right forelimb and inserted the syringe. Keiko jumped a little at the stick, but ever well-behaved, held still. The vet then drew back the plunger to get some blood and make sure he had hit the vein. No blood came. He drew the needle back a little and tried again. No blood. He drew the needle back a little, and as I cradled my puppy's head in my hands I could see her discomfort, but she would not fight. Still, though, no blood. Horrible as I felt for my poor dog, I felt worse yet for the vet. It must be hard enough to do something like this, and I'd watched him do it a multitude of times, but my dog was so old and frail that her veins wouldn't serve his purpose.
The vet threw out the first needle, screwed on another, and told us we'd try the other leg. He clipped some hair from Keiko's left forelimb, applied the tournequit, and inserted the syringe. Again, she jumped, but a little more this time. Several times her instinct had been to bite at the hands that kept pressing the needle into her flesh, but too well trained, she would not. This time, though, she struggled and cried. She looked up at me for a moment with pleading eyes and my own welled up with tears. She looked at me a moment longer. One doesn't need the sort of animal intuition that dogs have to see that I didn't want to be putting her through this, but that this was something more than just a routine visit. The vet quickly gave up on the left leg, suggesting that she seemed to be especially defensive of it. I then remembered her fall, and realized that at her age, it was unlikely she had fallen down the stairs and come away without an injury.
He threw away the second syringe and screwed on a third. He applied the tourniquet and tried the right leg again, and this time got a little blood to draw into the syringe. He began to press down on the plunger and administer some of the blue liquid, but it was clear he hadn't quite hit the mark when Keiko began to struggle again at the discomfort of the pressure rather than lose consciousness. At this point, I was starting to feel sick with guilt. I wanted to scoop up my dog and walk out, so that this man would stop sticking my poor puppy with needles, but if I took her home now then it would all be for nothing and she'd still be suffering. Maybe next time she fell she'd really hurt herself. Still, though, my jaw was clenched tightly enough that I believe I might have bitten through steel. The vet apologized and left to get a new syringe of barbituate. From outside the room I could hear him frustratedly call to the techs for the drugs.
When he returned, he told us that he didn't want to have to do this more than once more, so he would inject the solution into Keiko's jugular vein. This, he told us, was far from acceptable if this were a blood sample, but the times seemed to call for the measure. We removed her collar and held her still. The vein was easily found among the patchy fur on her aged neck, and this time the stick was good. He pulled back on the plunger and the light blue liquid turned a deep crimson. He quickly emptied the contents of the syringe into her vein, removed the needle and said, "She'll go to sleep now." Keiko took one last look at me, and then went limp. As I held her head in my left hand and my mom laid her down, she looked once more at Mom, and then lost consciousness.
"Take as much time with her as you like. I'm sorry it didn't go better." the vet said. I could hear the shame and frustration in his voice, and I could only imagine how awful he must feel.
"It's o.k." I stammered. The words forced me to release the breath I'd been holding since the needle went in, and I broke down in tears. Next to me, my mother cried as well. As we petted our dog and wept, Keiko's body gave one last shudder, and then was still. I laid my head on hers and cried. After I lifted my head, Mom and I each looked the body over and petted our beloved pet a moment longer, then prepared to leave. Outside I could hear the sound of a father and his son with their own dog. I waited until I could hear them exit into one of the exam rooms, and then open the door.
For as many times in my life as I've felt beyond my years, I felt 10 years old again when I walked back out into the lobby. I looked up at the vet tech with sad eyes. She looked at me, then at my mother. The sympathy she felt poured out of everything about her, but she knew there were no words that would comfort the man with the quivering lip and empty collar clenched in his first or the mom who had come in holding the last of her "babies" and now held only a purse.
As I left the office, I battled mightly to hold back the tears. As I drove home from Omaha to Lincoln, I realized that the last strands of my boyhood were severed this week. I cleaned out my old bedroom at home, then returned five days later to part ways with my boyhood pet. As I write this, I periodically break into sobs and can no longer see to type. Letting go hurts, even if it is the right thing to do. As I type by feel through a blur of tears and listen, fittingly, to "All Things in Time" by Toad the Wet Sproket, I see that something about this moment is right, even though it is undeniably sad. I owed it to my puppy who always gave me her love to not let her slowly suffer out the last of her days.
posted by Beav at 11:54 AM
1 Comments:
Sorry to hear about this...i love you. Caitlin
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