I won’t spend my days
waiting for an angel to descend.
Searching for a rainbow with an end
Now that I’ve found you,
I’ll call off the search.
And I won’t spend my life
gazing at the stars up in the sky
Wondering if love will pass me by
Now that I’ve found you,
I’ll call off the search.
Out on my own
I would never have known
This world that I see today
And I’ve got a feeling
it won’t fade away.
And I won’t end my days
wishing that love would come along
‘Cause you are in my life
where you belong
Now that I’ve found you,
I’ll call off the search.
-Mike Batt (sung by Katie Melua)-
I was looking for a lapdog; she was looking for a lap. We found each other, so call off the search. Her little stubby body held an over-sized heart. Her opaque eyes shone with love for her human. She was the perfect size for a lapdog, and knew exactly how to keep my back warm at night.
The turbo-tail never stopped, and the retractable tongue didn’t fully retract anymore, but these added to her charm. A companionable nuisance at first, her annoyances quickly became endearments.
I’m sitting here thinking about her, and the memories are flooding in…
That restless first night in April 2004, when she didn’t really know who I was or where she was. She jumped over a babygate that night, surprising me with her agility and her grace.
The struggle to get her weight down while continuing the maintenance dosage of prednisone for her “liver abnormality.”
Her sheer enjoyment of almost any food. If it was edible, she was pretty much all over it. I learned early on to push in the chairs around the kitchen table. I didn’t have to do that with my big dog, and one day after lunch I looked up and saw her front paws on the table, her back feet on my chair. She was polishing off the rest of my lunch, that I had intended to have for dinner.
After she learned not to eat from the table, she would lie in wait while I ate, her cloudy eyes alert for any dropped crumbs. I never had to vacuum under my table after she moved in. As her eyes deteriorated, her nose took over, sniffing out every bit of dropped food.
She was not a young dog when she joined my family 2 1/2 years ago. She had spent 9 years devoted to a little old lady in Alabama, but the new husband didn’t appreciate the value of an IG’s love, so she needed a new home. I needed a lapdog and a companion for my greyhound, so it seemed like a good match.
And once we got past the adjustment period, it was.
Well, except for the time she wasn’t looking, and jumped off the sofa onto the sleeping greyhound. (oops)
There’s a reason someone coined the expression “Let sleeping dogs lie.” We did a “peace of mind” visit to the vet after that incident. I think that was our first peace of mind visit. There were many more after that.
Not only was she an older dog when she moved in with me, but she came with her own set of health issues. A “liver abnormality” that required prednisone to control it, cataracts (that are exacerbated by the pred), and a heart murmur. She got enalapril every day for that. The adoption lady was afraid no one would want an elderly dog with health issues, but my only concern was whether I could afford her meds. Thank goodness for the Costco pharmacy.
I was unemployed, so she came to me as a “permanent foster.” She would live with me, but the adoption group would pay the vet bills. Then I got a job. To celebrate her “gotcha day,” I adopted her.
My vet told me the “liver abnormality” was hepatitis, and the pred dose was probably too high, and could lead to Cushings Disease. We jiggered the dosage until we found one she could live with. Then one day she wouldn’t eat. I got her into see Doc the next day, and we discovered a severely abcessed canine tooth. She wouldn’t eat cause it hurt too much. She lost 5 teeth in that dental, including the abcessed canine, and was back to her sassy self again. That was last summer.
As the summer faded into fall, I realized she was losing her hearing, and her eyesight. It seemed an unfair blow to a little dog that had already dealt with so much, but we worked around it. She slept more, and would often be sleeping soundly when I arrived home from work, because she didn’t hear me come in. She would walk down the hallway like those robot toys that bounce off the walls, adjusting their path each time they hit an obstacle. We joked about getting her a bicycle helmet with curb-feelers on it so she would know when she was getting close to a wall.
This summer, it seems that every month brought some type of concern. She wouldn’t eat for a day or so, and then would be back to normal. On August 8, I dropped her off for her routine dental, at 8am. Doc called me at 915. Her bloodwork didn’t look good – kidney values were up, which is a side-effect of the enalapril. I’d never worried about her kidneys – my concern had always been the liver, because of the hepatitis. We postponed the dental, and put her on a kidney diet. I went out of town on a business trip.
My dog-sitter called me Wed night after I’d left. Jessie hadn’t eaten for 2 days, and didn’t want to come out of her crate. “Take her to Doc,” I said. “Drop her off in the morning when you take Angie for her dental.”
She did. Doc called me that next evening. UTI. Fixable.
Strong anti-biotics and life will be good again, we hoped. But she was apathetic about food still, and it took her over a week to get back to anything like her usual self.
I was still on the road, and found myself dreaming about my dogs. In my dreams they had gotten loose, and I was looking for Jessie. One night as I was falling asleep, I saw her in my mind. She was standing next to a hedge at the edge of a busy street. There was a gap in the hedge, and on the other side it was green grass and blue skies and sunshine. On my side of the hedge it was speeding cars, drizzling rain, and grey shadows. She looked around at me, and looked through the gap, trying to decide which one to choose.
“It’s ok, honey,” I whispered through my tears. “It’s ok if you want to go on. I can’t come with you right now, but I’ll be along later. I promise.”
She just sat there, staring through the gap in the hedge. That was the night before doc diagnosed the UTI.
After the UTI was cleared up, I dreamt again that she was missing. I wasn’t looking for her this time – in my dream I was accepting that she wasn’t there. This dream confused me, because she was better. Or at least, the UTI was cleared up. That meant she was better, to me.
She wasn’t better.
Doc called me last Thurs evening, and I pulled off the highway to talk to her, so I could give her my full attention. Jessie had been in for follow-up bloodwork, and it didn’t look good. The UTI cleared up, but the bloodwork didn’t. The kidney values had declined in the last month, and she had lost 2 pounds since Aug 8.
Doc said she was on a slow decline, and it wouldn’t improve. It would just get worse. She had told me last week that renal failure is NOT peaceful. That euthanasia is a generous decision. I asked her Thursday “what’s our next step?” She said “let her go.”
Earlier this summer, on one of my many “peace of mind” visits with Jessie, Doc & I made an agreement. She would tell me when she thought it was time to let Jessie go, and when she told me that, I would let her go, whether I was in town or not. I wasn’t going to make Jessie wait until I was back home if she needed to go sooner.
I was 400 miles from home when Doc called me, figuring to get home either very late that night, or sometime mid-morning Friday. Doc had a 40 minute spot open at 220pm on Saturday afternoon.We booked it. That would give me some alone time with my sweetie, and a chance to pamper her overnight, and to say goodbye to her and whisper into her deaf ears how much I love her, and how much she’s meant to me.
I picked her up Friday when I got into town, and kept her with me with me the rest of the day. I blew off my Friday night commitment, and we hung out together, watching tv and eating popcorn. She wolfed down some raw hamburger, eating like she’d not seen food in days. A couple hours later, she regurgitated undigested hamburger meat. Saturday morning, I took her out to breakfast. Some strangers at the next table collected their bacon and offered it to her. She ate it with obvious enjoyment. A couple hours later, I found undigested bacon on my livingroom floor. If I had any doubts about Doc’s call on the timing, these incidents cleared it up.
She’s a very lucky dog – she’s been deeply loved by several people in her life. Her first momma loved her for 9 years, and her vacation-mom and I have loved her for the last 2 1/2. Eleven years of love for a sweet little dog. It’s never enough, but it’s a damn sight more than some pups get.
At 205pm, we pulled into the vet’s parking lot. I had tried to time it so that we’d get there right on time, but for once the traffic was light, and we were early. My dog-sitter (her vacation-mom) wanted to be there with us, to say goodbye. I know that she loved Jessie as much as I did, so I couldn’t say no to her, even though I’d have preferred to be alone.
I sat on the floor in the exam room, holding my little one, snuggling with her, and telling her how much I loved her. Doc & Dee came in, and Doc gave her a sedative while i continued to hold her. Then Doc suggested we move her to the exam table, and we laid her on a towel-covered pad. That way we could all love on her. She fought the sedative, trying to stay awake and be with us. Finally she was asleep. Doc looked at me, and asked if I was ready. There was no way I’d have said “no” – it was the last gift I could give this sweet friend who has given so much to me over the last 30 months.
All 3 of us were petting on Jessie at the end. Doc gave her that last injection, and she almost immediately stopped breathing, but that oversized heart of hers didn’t want to give up, and kept beating, albeit weakly.
We just kept petting her and telling her what a good girl she was. I kissed her on her forehead and told her to run free, where she could see and hear and chase the bunnies, and that i’d meet up with her again someday.
It wasn’t too long after that when Doc said it was over. Then we sat there and told Jessie stories for awhile. Doc & Dee go WAY back – over 10 years, now. So it was like 3 old friends talking about another old friend.
I love the fact that she can see and hear now, and run and play without pain. But I kept looking over at the empty car seat on the way home, where her collar was lying, and every time I did, my eyes would leak. When I was cooking supper Saturday night, and dropped some fish on the floor, I instinctively looked towards where she would have been lying, to point it out to her so she could clean it up for me. That’s when it became real to me.
She knows that we loved her. That’s what matters most.
She’s seeing clearly now, and hearing the birds singing around her. The sky is blue where she is, and the grass is green. A brilliantly vivid rainbow is arching across her sky, and there’s a whole passel of greyhounds looking out for her, to keep her company and show her the sights around her new home.
I’ll see her again someday. The God who loves me created my little girl just as surely as He created me, and He doesn’t forsake his creations. Until then, I have my pictures of her, and my memories. I’d rather have my little girl, snuggling up against me at night, whining and scratching at me in the morning for her breakfast.
There will probably be more lapdogs in my life, at some point, but there will never be another Jessie.
