a dog's dash

"...but he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years."

 (from The Dash, by Linda Ellis copyright 1996)

I've been missing Bennie a lot this past week.  Maybe it's the holidays.  Maybe it was my birthday, which is when I usually reflect on the previous year rather than on New Year's Day.  Or maybe it's just that my heart has healed enough to allow my brain to start thinking about her again.

I still can't believe that she's gone.  That little dog was a fighter from the moment she wandered into my life right up until the moment she took her last breath.  I knew she would fight the ending.  I told Mitchell that she would.  I worried so much about it that I considered putting off the appointment for another day.  I wanted her to give up, but she wouldn't.  Her body had given up;  it was her spirit that hadn't.  Her final days consisted of a cycle of her lying down on the bed, sleeping, and going out to the bathroom.  She had stopped eating altogether three days prior.  Her seizures had increased in frequency and in severity.  I witnessed two that I thought would take her life.  Yet, still she fought.

She fought the injection by the vet.  She had to be catheterized.  She jerked her leg back again.  I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, "STOP!!!  JUST STOP!  I'm taking her home!"  But, I didn't.  I knew that it was time to let her go.  I knew that her life had lost all pleasure.  I mean, really.  This dog had lived to eat, and now she couldn't be enticed by any of her favorite treats.  I knew that she must be in pain.  Her liver was not working properly.  She was toxic.  It had affected her brain.  I knew that it was time.  I knew that my duty now was not to take her home and keep trying to keep her alive.  I knew that it was my job, my duty, my responsibility, to help her die.  I knew that I loved her enough to face that task.

I left her side and went to the end of the table--to her head.  I cradled her little face in my hands, and I buried my face into her cheek.  "You can go now," I whispered.  "It's OK to let go.  You don't have to fight anymore."  I felt her relax--not from the sedative, but from the comfort of having me close.  She stopped fighting.  She trusted me, and she let go.  She let one last sigh pass through that perfect, little, black, wet nose, and she left her no-longer-useful body behind.  She left me behind.

I debated about sharing her last moments.  I felt guilty for telling her to go when I so desperately wanted her to stay.  I felt like a fraud for putting her to sleep when I should have been doing more to keep her alive.  I felt like a failure for not being able to fix her. 

But, the truth is that I had already fixed her--at least a couple of times.  I had already saved her life.  She probably wouldn't have lived more than a few years longer if I hadn't found her.  She was so heavily infested with heartworms that her heart would have become unable to beat.  She was nearly bald and would have likely lived in constant pain and discomfort from her irritated skin.  She was not yet spayed and would have probably become pregnant again and again, bringing litters of unwanted puppies into the world and becoming more and more depleted and malnourished with each pregnancy and nursing cycle.  She would continue to wander loose, perhaps being hit by a car, maybe being picked up by someone with less than noble motives, certainly never knowing as much love as I would eventually feel for her. 

She wouldn't have received treatment for her heartworms, or if she had, she may not have survived.  She nearly died on me following her second injection.  She wouldn't have had the x-rays that revealed the pain that she lived with daily, her ribs splayed outward on one side, her left rear femur bone had been out of the hip socket for so long that it had created a pseudo socket from wearing down the pelvic bone, and her left rear kneecap refused to stay in place due to the angle of her hip.  She wouldn't have received the care she needed when one of her molars became infected.  It was during the pre-anesthetic bloodwork for that tooth extraction when her liver issues were first hinted at.  She wouldn't have been on a daily supplement to support her liver from that first early warning. 

She wouldn't have survived the gall bladder issue that emerged in May 2012.  She had only missed one meal.  Most owners wouldn't rush their dogs to the vet over that.  I did.  I knew better.  The stars aligned and she received an ultrasound that day that diagnosed the severity of the problem.  Her vet had just been to a workshop on the same topic.  She knew that surgery was the best solution, but didn't feel that Bennie would survive it.  She prescribed a medication that was compounded especially for Bennie.  I believed that she would heal, and she did, surprising every vet who had seen her.  She wouldn't have been put back on the gall bladder medication when things seemed "off" again later that year.  She wouldn't have had the last sixteen months.

And when she had the first seizure, she might not have gone to the vet immediately.  She may not have been diagnosed as being in the end stages of liver failure.  She may not have gotten the medication that helped her body shed the toxins that were building up within it.  She may not have gotten a choice of chicken salad (from Leblanc's, not Albertson's) or hot dogs or cat food or cooked chicken or whatever-she'll-eat.  She may not have been able to stretch a two-week prognosis into a two-month process of living each day to the fullest--a prolonged kiss goodbye.

She would not have had any of these experiences.  She would have lived and died in Indiana.  She would have never seen the inside of a U-Haul truck on its way to Chattanooga.  She would have never lived on or near a mountain.  She would have never spent a week without power after an early Nor'easter.  She would have never been to the city that housed the famous coffee shop where her namesake "donuts" were made and sold by the millions every year. 

She would have never, ever, ever have been as loved as deeply, madly, truly as she was by me.  And, I never would have known what an amazing little soul she was.  I wouldn't have been saved by her.  I wouldn't have known her constant and faithful companionship.  I wouldn't have experienced her soft moments.  My life would have been much emptier.

I miss you, Bennie.  More than words can ever say...

In memory

Beignet

~4/1/97-9/16/13

sweet & sour

 I haven't written much about Bennie, but she has been a constant in my life for almost 14 years.  She's seen many animal faces come and go and has lived in five states.  She's been around for the end of a marriage and for the evolution of another.  She's gone from being the youngster to the matriarch.  And, after all these years, I can still remember the first time I saw her like it was yesterday.

I was on the phone when I noticed a skinny, nearly hairless, little beagle wandering around the homes of my cul-de-sac street.  I grabbed a handful of dog food, filled a bowl with water and went outside to see what I could determine about this dog's condition and where it might have come from. The dog came right to me and was obviously hungry and thirsty, but her priority was to give and receive love.  She was the sweetest thing, not at all scared, and she climbed into my lap as soon as I sat down on the sidewalk next to her.

Up close, she looked even worse than she had through my front window.  Her coat was extremely thin, and her feet were completely bald.  I can remember noticing that I could see bare skin where the nails grew from the toes.  I had never seen that before.  And when I ran my hands over her body, I could feel that her ribs were deformed and turned out where they should turn in.  Her back was humped upward, and she walked with a limp on her back left leg, which turned outward from her body at an awkward angle.  She was absolutely beautiful!

Of course, she wasn't wearing a collar or any form of identification.  I suspected that she might belong to the neighbors directly across the street from me, but I didn't knock on their door.  I had had experience with them and their pets before.  Once, I found a young Golden Retriever with an injured and severely infected tail on their property, and I had called the animal control officer.  On another occasion, I took in what I thought was a stray Basset hound.  Several weeks later, those neighbors came to my door looking for the dog.  When I confirmed that I had her, they asked if I wanted to keep her, so I did.  I thought that they had had two beagles, but I hadn't seen the dogs in months, and their grass was over a foot tall in the backyard.  If this little one "belonged" to them, I certainly wasn't going to be the one to return her to that hell.

When the animal control officer showed up, she confirmed what I had been thinking.  She was sure that this dog belonged to my neighbors, but she told me that she wasn't going to contact them.  If they wanted the dog back, she said, they would have to answer to her, explaining the dog's condition and probably facing charges for animal cruelty.  "They won't call," she said, "and in three days, she's yours if you want her."  So, three days later, when I called the officer, I was informed that the gate would be unlocked and I was free to claim my "new" dog any time.

A trip to the vet confirmed the degree of the neglect that she had seen.  She had heartworms and she had bone deformities on her ribs which were most likely caused by malnutrition and neglect as a puppy.  (It would be several more years before I discovered through an x-ray that her limp was caused by her left rear thigh bone being out of the hip socket, probably since she was a puppy.)  Her hair loss was not the result of mange, but was also most likely caused by a lack of nutrition.  The vet explained that her body had gone into survival mode, so any food that she did eat had gone to simply sustaining her life and other functions, like growing and maintaining her coat, had shut down.  It would be a long road of recovery ahead, but since this little dog had escaped that horrible place, I was committed to doing what I had to do to help her get there.

The first big decision was to pick a name for this sweet, cute, little dog.  Beagles may just be the cutest dogs ever to walk the earth, and this dog was superbly cute, even by beagle standards.  She had big, brown doe-like eyes, floppy hound ears, and freckles up and down her legs.  She loved to be held like a baby and was as quiet as a mouse.  She needed a name that matched her cute face and sweet disposition.  I also wanted something that represented my Louisiana roots.  I soon settled on Beignet and started calling her "Bennie" for short.

It would be several months before the vet would determine that Bennie was healthy enough for the dangerous and painful heartworm treatment.  She had the first injection on a Thursday afternoon and the second injection the following day.  She was released to go home on Saturday morning on a strict order of crate rest with limited activity.  That was no problem since she wasn't a hyper dog anyway and seemed even more content than ever to nap her time away.  I was sitting at the kitchen table, her crate at my feet, when I noticed that she didn't look quite right.  I opened the crate and pulled her towards me.  She was too still, almost listless, and when I pulled back her lip, I noticed that her gums were a pale gray color.  I called my vet, who instructed me to take her to the vet on-call, his father, who ran a small, country vet practice.

I've never driven as fast as I did to rush her there, and I was relieved that she was still breathing when we arrived.  The vet told me that a large clump of dead heartworms had been released from her heart, entering her bloodstream, and becoming lodged in her lung.  He would administer steroids, fluids, and oxygen and would watch her through the night, but he didn't give me much hope for her survival.  When he called me the next morning, he actually sounded surprised when he said that she was ready to go home.

Bennie is now almost sixteen-years old.  She has been relatively healthy until a year ago when she needed to have an infected tooth removed.  A few months later, she suddenly refused to eat, and it was discovered that she had an infection in her gall bladder and gall stones.  Her age didn't make her a good surgical candidate, so she was treated with medications and a change of food and recovered.  Another month later, a lump was tested and removed successfully when it indicated a cancerous growth.  Now, she is experiencing new problems with her liver and is being again treated with medication and a food change.

She has evolved from that sweet, quiet, little dog in need of love and attention into the queen bee of the household.  She found her beagle bay after a few years of silence and now slips easily into it whenever another dog (or person) needs to be given a warning.  And, her warnings sometimes aren't the end of it for the offending party.  Bennie has been known to relentlessly pursue her target, requiring intervention and removal to stop the attack.  At this point, she has completely and totally embodied the "grumpy old lady" moniker, though her face, now white with age, is no less cute than it was in the beginning.  She still has those same puppy dog eyes that hold the power to melt the coldest, hardest heart and, of course, those freckles....those freckles!

Those freckles belie the tough spirit of the dog inside that little, less-than-perfect body.  Bennie's attitude and tenacity have carried her through some hard times, and she has been at death's door more than once only to turn her tail on it and to walk away from it.  She's a survivor, and she's taught me about what it means to face adversity with bravery, faith, and more than a little stubbornness.  And now, as she returns to the vet tomorrow for a recheck of her bloodwork, I pray that I will have more time to learn from her, more time to make up for her rough start in life, and more time to admire those freckles.