Do You Realize?

Of Dogs and Death

It's 4:35 a.m., and I'm sitting in my living room, listening to our dog struggle mightily to take in enough oxygen to keep her little body alive. My husband & I were in bed, with Poogan at our feet making the same brave attempts to breathe, taking turns lying down beside her and in our regular positions in bed. As we lay there with our heads next to hers, petting on her, my husband posed an interesting idea, one that some might find painful. The idea was simply this: Might Poogan be more comfortable downstairs, instead of on the bed? We made the decision to go downstairs. We put Poogan in the floor, in the spot where she loves to lie, and we went to the sofa to camp. She's moved about downstairs as she wishes, and, not surprisingly, she's not stayed with us for more than a couple of minutes.

This was so hard for us to do. As human pet owners, with human emotions and attachments, we want to be there with our pets for every one of their last moments. But do they want us there? We like to think that, yes, they are put at ease by having us there, but I actually think the opposite might be true. I think having us there, hovering, doting, worrying, only adds to any anxiety they may be feeling. They are dogs, and dogs are not humans. We share some of the same emotions, yes, but not our attitudes of death.

Think of how dogs choose to die, if given the choice. Alone. Away from their pack. Even domestic dogs do this. I grew up with animals, and I could never understand my parent's gentle but mysterious explanations when a dog "went off to die." But I've always known that they do. And yet, in a dog's final moments, we still want to "be there for her (or him)." In times of grief, rational thought need not apply.

When I die, I do, indeed, want my "pack" around me. I don't think I want to be alone. But, then, I'm only human.

Tripawed Tuesday

As you may recall, Poogan was officially tripawed on Monday of last week, because of a soft tissue sarcoma. I am officially in awe of this dog's (and every animal's really, as they are so much tougher than we humans) resiliency. Day One post-returning-home saw her able to go upstairs on her own; by Day Three she could also go downstairs, a much tougher task when the paw missing is a front paw. By Day Five, she could jump up onto and down from the sofa and eat from her bowl in the floor (another tricky one, requiring more balance than one would imagine). On Day Six, two days ago, I can officially say she made my heart swell with joy and pride.

Every evening, around 7 or 8 o'clock, we walk the dogs. They all seem to know what time it is, and the indoor dogs all get excited when they see us head for the back door to gather the leashes. Lorcan starts sneezing uncontrollably, Nibbles starts tap-dancing in circles, and Poogan winds up her Jack-Nicholson-in-The-Shining-smile (you know, when you can see her last molars and her eyes take on a slight smidge of madness).

Every day up until Sunday, Poogan didn't show much interest at walk time, but Sunday, she lined up with everyone else, channeling Jack in full force. She's still not wearing a collar, so I couldn't leash her up, but I figured, "Hey, she's missing a leg. We can catch her if she decides to run off." We also fully expected to carry her most of the way. Not a chance. She was very good to stay with the pack, but when her feet hit grass she was bounding like a puppy. She made it almost all the way around the block before I made hubby pick her up & carry her; she likely would have kept going but she was panting pretty hard, and I didn't want to risk her overdoing it.

Watching her return to her former self and abilities has been an inspiring lesson in sticktoitiveness. It's amazing to see her nonchalant response to a slip of the paw and resulting face-plant. A human's reaction would include self-consciousness and embarrassment, but all she thinks about is trying again to get it right. We all could learn something from our courageous canine counterparts. Here's to you, Poogan!

(This photo was taken on Sunday morning, when Poogan decided we should just lie in the driveway for fifteen minutes or so and enjoy the breeze and the quiet at 7:00 a.m. She's so wise; it was lovely.)

P.S. On a totally unrelated note, Middle, his girlfriend, and I rented Cloverfield last night. While I liked the movie, it was no better for sensitive stomachs on a television than the big screen. I missed a half hour or so while I regurgitated my dinner, my lunch, and my breakfast, and possibly even dinner from the night before. Dramamine, people, Dramamine. They weren't lying.

A Tuesday Ten--Family Stampede Edition

I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but my family is coming out to Texas. Remember them? They will all be here, PLUS my aunt (Hey, Mimi! ) and my two rambunctious cousins, along with my dad's mother. Nine people. For almost a week. They'll be here tomorrow in time for dinner, I'm hoping. There's still a lot to do to get ready for them, especially my mom, who has special needs post-transplant. So today, to help me clarify things for myself, here are ten things I still need to do to prepare for my family's arrival:

1. Go to Whole Foods. Lots of fruit is on the agenda. And a water filter; there will be no bottled water, except Sigg bottles of our water.

2. Take the cockatiel to the vet's office and move the finch to our upstairs bathroom. My mom can't be around birds post-transplant. They stir up dust and potentially carry parasites that my mom doesn't need to be exposed to. I think my kids do, too; I wonder if the vet will take them, too?

3. Change the air filters on the air conditioners & vacuum. Sneeze less.

4. Visit Poogan in the hospital today. She will probably come home tomorrow, looking so fantastically like a Frankendoggie. I'm telling my little cousins and niece that she was being too loud and running around too much, so we cut off her leg; now sit down and SHHHHHHHH!

5. Finish shoving shit in the coat closet cleaning the downstairs. Clean the downstairs bathroom.

6. Mop floors. Obsess over a more efficient way to clean floors. If you're sticking the mop back into the dirty mop water, aren't you just swirling the dirt around on the floors?

7. Mow the lawn. Get some Agent Orange and kill this fucking nutsedge that's attacking my yard & gardens.

8. Move a different television set out to the outdoor bar. We're spending a lot of time out back, especially now that it's pretty. The other one isn't digital & we haven't cleaned behind it since we've lived here, and so to kill two birds with one stone, we took it out; I cleaned behind it, and we're replacing it with one of the kids' digital ones.

9. Plan the party we're having with our friends and family this weekend. Take a Xanax while thinking about almost twenty extra people in my house, smelling the ferrets (Oh! Clean the ferret cage is on the list, too!), inspecting my never-too-perfectly-mopped floors, noticing the dust I missed... yeah, okay, I know, they aren't really actually furrealz doing all that shit, but they are doing it in my freaking head, okay?!?!?

10. Did I mention take a Xanax?

Osteosarcoma

It even sounds insidious, doesn't it? We just got an initial diagnosis of it for Poogan yesterday afternoon. I'm headed to a specialist this morning for confirmation. Please send positive thoughts and even prayers, if prayers are more your thing. Thank you!

Update Friday 5/30/08:  Yesterday's visit to the surgeon brought good and bad news. The bad news is that this is, indeed, a cancer, and amputation will still be necessary, so Monday begins a new challenge of three-leggedness for Poogan. The good news is that he does not suspect osteosarcoma, which is very aggressive and invasive. Rather, because of its presentation, he suspects a rarer, but less aggressive, form of cancer, synovial cell cancer. Only pathology of the limb will tell us for sure, and that will take about a week post-surgery.

You Learn Something New Every Day

While considering plants for our large outdoor pots, we were thinking sago palms in one set and replacement Rum Runner hibiscus in the others. Then we remembered Marshmallow's tendency to snack on everything she can get her teeth on (yesterday she ate cotton burr compost like it was cereal) and decided maybe(!) it would be a good idea to check toxicity of these plants for dogs.

A quick Internet search ruled out sago palm; even a small amount of this plant will cause swift renal failure in dogs. But hibiscus is a different story. There are conflicting reports. Some lists of poisonous plants have hibiscus included on them, some don't.  And so it was that I sat on the phone for fifteen minutes with the ASPCA Poison Control Center. Nevermind that we had already purchased the hibiscus online. According to the ASPCA vet I spoke with, the hibiscus will cause some pretty severe gastrointestinal upset, but it is not life-threatening to dogs. We decided to proceed with the planting and place some chicken wire around the plants until they no longer seem like a novelty to Destruct-o-Dog.

So, that's what I learned yesterday. That, and hard manual labor outside with only dogs for company is not nearly as much fun as with a friend, with, say, speech capabilities and opposable thumbs and an innate revulsion to caprophagia.

Frisco

Last week, I mentioned to my therapist (who is actually a psychoanalyst) that our family therapist has made the comment a couple of times that I exhibit a lot of signs of someone who has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and that she had asked if I'd ever talked to him (my regular therapist) about it. My therapist replied that, yes, indeed, he thinks I do. All of this stems from my first marriage to C. (Remember him? If not, you need to go here. And here. And here.) Honestly, that thought had never crossed my mind. I never really think of myself as a "victim" of anything, only sometimes an unwilling accomplice in some things; I believe in accountability, and I take responsibility for a lot, even things for which others would say I am not to blame. Things like Frisco.

C. came home one day with a surprise for the kids. (I don't know where he had been, but it couldn't have been a job; I didn't ask a lot of questions before we got married, and now I realize it was because I knew on some level I wouldn't like the answers.) As he pulled out this minuscule gray fluffball of a tabby kitten, tiny enough to fit in my two small-ish palms. Eldest's eyes sparkled like a diamond in sunlight. "His name is Frisco," she declared. We spent the next several hours playing with Frisco at my parents' house.

Then I had to leave for work. Oh, how I wish I'd never left. I tell myself, even today, that hearing about an atrocious act is different than seeing it happen, and that if I'd seen it happen, maybe my life would have changed for the better.

It was a weekend, I think, because I remember being able to talk for a while when my mother called me at work to tell me that Frisco was dead.

"How?"

"C. killed him." She was, understandably, distraught.

"What happened?"

And this is what she told me:

C. was watching the kids in the living room. All the other adults were in other rooms of the house.

Middle (again, at that time he was Youngest, but you know him here as Middle) was in his playpen, one of those contraptions with fabric mesh for walls. He had a particularly endearing habit of leaning his weight, face-first, into the mesh, contorting his cherubic little face into all sorts of hideous but adorable shapes.

Eldest was still playing with Frisco. She was in love. Frisco was digging Middle's playpen, a vehicle on which to propel himself with his little kitten claws.

What happened next will never be completely known, since the only three people in the room were C. and two toddlers, and a 6-to-8-week-old kitten. What we do know is that within seconds, this picture-perfect Norman Rockwell scene would transform forever. Frisco would lay bleeding and convulsing at the base of a nearby wall, where C. had thrown him.

C. insisted that Frisco had attacked Middle, and that Middle was crying and bleeding. (For the record,
Middle had a scratch on his cheek that was one quarter of an inch long, and my parents said that when they walked in, he was not crying.) C. reacted quickly, simply wanting to save Middle and get the cat off of him. He didn't mean to slam it into a wall.

What I believe to have happened is another story. I've played this scene out so many times in my head, I feel like I was there, and sometimes I have to stop myself from actually thinking that I was. I suspect that Middle had mashed his face into the side of his playpen at the very same time that Frisco decided to climb up the very same place. C., who was probably not watching very closely, heard a commotion, grabbed the vile, vicious kitten, and hurled him into the wall, killing him.

As with some of the other things I've related about C., I wish I could tell you this was the end. But it wasn't. It was only the beginning; we hadn't even married at this point. Why did I stay? Because I thought I was damaged goods, a young woman with two small children, and I thought my possibilities for a mate had diminished to the point that maybe this was the best I could expect. Why do any of us do things at the ripe old age of twenty that will later cause us to cringe with remorse? My fuck-up was just more grand than others.

See how blurred lines can become? Will we ever know C.'s reason for throwing that kitten? No. I've tried to tell myself time and time again that C. hadn't grown up with cats as I had, that he really thought the kitten was hurting Middle. I told myself that because the alternative was too painful to consider. What I do know is that I was expecting more than one tiny scratch on Middle, and that I was expecting some remorseful behavior. I got neither. To the bitter end, C. insisted he'd acted as a hero with quick instincts.

They were killer instincts, anyway.

Woofday Wednesday--Perkins

This is Perkins. He is our Prince Charming. He has the sweetest, most laid-back disposition of any dog we own. In fact, were it not for the fact that whatever Bozo dumped him out didn't have him neutered as a puppy, he would be an indoor dog; as it stands now, we couldn't de-activate his sprinkler system in time to avoid that nagging desire to piss on every immobile object.

He has one other terrible trait: his wanderlust. This boy was born to run. If he ever gets loose, he will lead you on a footchase to the ends of the earth (I've had to chase him a half mile before). One day a couple of years back, he took off, lost us in the footchase, and didn't come home. He always came home. We searched for days, we made reward posters, we got a few tips, but, ultimately, nothing came of it. We were heartbroken. Then, one day, more than two weeks after he went missing, a neighbor called & said she'd been hearing a dog bark near her house for a few days. She'd thought it was in a faraway yard, but it turns out Perkins was trapped in the crawl space of a house next door to hers that was vacant and for sale at the time. My husband had to crawl through a tiny hole to retrieve him. The vet said his body had started to break itself down from lack of food, and he was dehydrated, but blood tests showed no harm to his kidneys; Perkins dodged a bullet. We were so very lucky.

Love a stray; neuter & spay!

Wordless/Woofday Wednesday

Photo Hunt Saturday--Different

This week's theme is: Different. I took these photos after the two snowstorms we just had, which is very different for Texas weather. For five years, we had snow once every single year we lived here, then it stopped. Our last significant snow was Valentine's Day of 2004. I'm posting two photos this week, which is different for me; usually, I'm a one-photo gal.

The first photo is of Marshmallow in the snow. This photo really captures the intensity of her two different colored eyes. (You can click to enlarge it.)

The second photo is of my boys, whom I refer to here in my blog as Middle and Youngest. It never fails to strike me how very different they are from one another, in every possible way. I remember when the tags in their clothes were as close in numbers as their age. They are only sixteen months apart, but they are farther apart physically and emotionally than they have ever been in their lives.

Meowy Monday--Taylor Mae

Before we get to Meowy Monday, I want to mention my Blogiversary Giveaways again. Today, for Meowy Monday, I'll be drawing a random name from my comments to give away a bag of Feline Greenies and a can of Pet Promise cat food. (My kitties love it. It has no rendered animals, no factory farmed animals, and no animal by-products, like fur or toenails, in it.) You have to comment to be included, though!

And now...

Since you've already met all four of my beautiful kitties, I now get to have guest ambassadors for Meowy Monday. This week's guest is Taylor Mae, one of my aunt's kitties.

Mimi has two kitties, and they look exactly alike. How, then, you may wonder, do I know that this is Taylor Mae (and not Pepper Ann)? Because she let me take this photo. Pepper Ann only tolerates men, for whatever jacked-up reason, and I don't qualify.

My cousin is a veterinary technician, and she is always bringing home injured, abandoned, or otherwise misfit critters (witness Woody the Woodchuck, who weighed at least 15 pounds and had not a single hair on his pink ass). She has the sad, unfortunate job of going to help with her county's euthanizations once a week; if I'm not mistaken, Taylor Mae was in the queue that day. How Beth chooses which animals she takes home to the Farm of Misfit Critters, I'll never know. I could never choose; I want to save them all, even though I know I can't.

Love a stray; neuter & spay!