It's been an emotional week for dKos pets and their humans. I thought a week ago today that the toughest thing I was going to face in the next 24 hours was a brain surgery to remove a benign adenoma on my pituitary. (I'd set aside hosting a statewide theater conference and discarded directing duties on the school musical already earlier in the week). Of course, my light reading for distraction was DailyKos, but the recommended list featured sweet Madison, so the pet owner in me ached.
But by 6pm, I was in a vet's OR holding my own sedated dog's feet as the vet closed up a massive incision where exploratory surgery had revealed the massive inoperable hemangiosarcoma that had invaded his abdomen and slowly involved every organ except his kidneys over recent, symptom-free months.
Next morning, I was up and getting my own anesthesia, recovering, spending the night in ICU, eating ice chips fed patiently to me off a spoon by my sweetie about every 25 minutes for the entire day and night. She had also assisted the surgery on the dog (she's the jr doc at the clinic).
******
Sallah came to me in the spring of 2004. I was a candidate for the Oregon Legislature, a semi-active dKos poster, and a modest blogger on my own campaign site. A friend knew I was a softie and knew I would help the moment her shared back fence neighbor related the tale of this mutt who'd been adopted as a puppy by a young college aged couple the Christmas of 2002 and now was 90 lbs of homeless sweet energy, as the couple had split, both were now in little apartments, and the parents of neither were remotely interested in lodging a 18 month old rambunctuous dog.
Enter moi.
We'd had a 'foundling' home for about two years. Dogs, cats, humans... if it needed someplace to stay, it found us and moved in. His name, when I was introduced, was "Saul" and the previous owners pronounced it closed to "Sal", which was ironically the name of my opponent. When I saw him, I was immediately reminded of Sallah, Indiana Jones's digger from Cairo - large, full of energy, and clad in this light, long flowing garment than swirled around him with far more grace that it should, given his size and strength.
My long time furry companion, Bandon, had passed several weeks earlier and I was not in the mood to get anyone to replace her, but the one dog still at the home (a recent foundling named Buster) was pining, and I thought he'd be better off with a big playmate than with the cats (that turned out to be tragically prescient, but another story).
Sallah moved in happily. (as you can see in this first photo I took of him) All he needed to consider it home was a small orb of green felted rubber, and those were easy to come by.
Life with Sallah was a bit more than I'd bargained for. He was huge and young and singularly focused on the zen of the tennis ball. He was incredibly strong and seemed to have never been on a leash a day in his life.
Buster was a problem child, too, and his fondness (in the worst way) for cats and his ability to open doors to escape made it seem like my little world of dog piling was fated to go horribly wrong. An unhappy end was in the cards for Buster (and before the evidence was able to be assembled, for four local cats), but fate still decided I was supposed to be a two dog house, as stray 'Little Brown Girl' turned up a little over a week before Buster's final morning of carnage...
my usual MO with strays is to coax them in, take their photo, post it all over the neighborhood, call animal control, take flyers to every pet store in the town, put the free "Found" ad in the paper, and sit back until somone claims their dog. But with Indy (and then the next year with both Harbor and Odin), this practice brought absolute silence in response. I even walked Indy in the Fourth of July Parade with an "Am I Your Dog?" sign... noone even faked that she was. Naming Indy was easy: Look at her next to Sallah... completely loyal companions and she's in that beat up brown coat (besides, "we named the dog "Indiana"" - her 'official' full address: Dr. Henrietta Jones). So Sallah's little pack grew to two, then three, (at three I said STOP and was much more proactive in getting a home for Harbor - yes, she showed up on Dec 7), plus me, plus the cats that had survived, and he was 'the old man' of the house at the bouncy age of 4.
He loved the snow, the lake, the beach, open fields, every little thing he could sniff. Tennis balls were the ultimate, but he befriended every creature in the home, from the budgies to the cats to the koi in the pond. He'd dig out from the back yard, sometimes twice a day, but never to run away - he just wanted to sit on the front steps.
And so the next two years passed and we moved into this early spring. It looked like he was gaining some weight - getting on some fat after age finally started to gain on him and he wasn't playing as much bally. We kept an eye, but weren't too concerned (6.5 isn't really a risk age for any dog, under most circumstances), but his coat lost its gloss and his bally playing became 'chase it once, then lie down for a bit' and we felt him one night last week, in the midst of all the hubbub about MY situation and tumor, etc) and were shocked to find he was scrawny under all that coat... the bulging midsection was ALL that was big. So the morning before my slated time, Jen whisked Sallah off to work - for ultrasound and bloodwork. And none of it was good, as the exploratory later that evening would reveal.
He stayed with the people at the clinic each day and night while I got myself out of hospital. (They adore him, since all he wants to do is play bally and clearly doesn't know anything is wrong with him.) We brought him home Tuesday to join me in my recovery and his final journey. We have what we need to ease the final transition for him, but he (so far) is still in good spirits, eating, drinking, and dropping a tennis ball in front of you in the hopes you'll play (as long as you won't make him chase it too far), so yesterday was me sitting in the recliner (not doing much, you know, brain surgery) and him putting his head in my lap and watching me while I read Kim Stanley Robinson, or dKos, or watch Olbermann.
Given how wrecked I was with noweasels last two diaries, I decided I needed to get most of the writing done on this one in the wee hours of Thursday AM (sleeping wasn't happening), but held off on posting a few hours. Once we got to the morning, it was clear the time had come, so we helped him along about 20 minutes ago.
I am totally stealing noweasels' plan for a dogwood in the backyard. We'll put Sallah's ashes all over in the planting bed that was the koi pond until last spring and do a dogwood there. And the dogs of our lives will go on... my other two are already facing the prospect of the 'blended family' as Jen comes to this party with a black lab mutt and a NS Duck Tolling Retr of her own... Odin and Indy have been very good and sweet to Sallah this week, and I mentioned in a dif post (comment, something), that the cats have been tender with him, too - at least Hrafnr and Skitters, not so much Thought and Memory (they are semi-feral - ours in that we get them vet care, vaccs, food and make sure they don't freeze at night).
There's a far away land,
so the stories all tell
Somewhere beyond the horizon
If we could get there,
then all would be well
Troubles there are few
Someday we'll go to...
Solla Sollew, Solla Sollew
They say breezes are warm there
and people are kind
Maybe it's something like heaven
I close my eyes
and I see in my mind
Skies of bluest blue
Solla Sollew
I've had so much trouble
finding my way there
when I get close,
it disappears
If we can get there,
we're gonna stay there...
if it takes us miles
if it takes us years
High on a mountain
or lost on the sea
sooner or later I'll find it
I have a picture
of how it will be
On the day I do
Troubles will be few
And I'll be home with you
Solla Sollew, Solla Sollew
The lyrics are from Seussical the Musical (Flaherty and Aherns). We did it last year, to great acclaim (as small town high school theater oft is). Phonetically, it works even better than I want it to for this. Delivering the news, just of his intial diagnosis, let alone the end, to the students who knew him especially those who were visiting me IN the hospital, particularly main pet-sitter (who also choreographed this song) is not something I ever want to repeat.