She and her brother came to me almost 14 years ago, joyous balls of fluff with puppy breath, endless curiosity and an uncanny ability to stay underfoot. Many a sock and shoe met its demise during their teething period--and never a pair, oh no. Once they figured out my schedule, I never again got to sleep past 7:00 am, and if there was more than one hit on the snooze button, a cold wet nose would work its way under the covers before the alarm went off again. In January, by God, that'll wake you up. And a quiet moment in the bathroom? Ha! There's a saying at our house: You'll never pee alone.
Her brother, who could always somehow manage to leave eye boogers on clothes no matter how vigilant you were, and snored louder than any human being I ever shared a room with, left this world two years ago. He was sick for a while before we knew it, the cortisone that helped his hips masking the symptoms of something far worse. By the time we realized he was ill, it was too late to do anything but let him go. My beloved and my father dug the grave he now rests in, and while his passing left a hole in our lives, we still had her.
But now, that too, is about to end. Shortly it will be time to dig another grave, beside her brother, and while I know it is the right thing to do, I am devastated. I do not want her to be old. I do not want her to go. She is laying on the bed as I type this, sprawled out sideways and sleeping peacefully.
But when she wakes, and tries to get up, she will stumble, maybe even fall over because her right leg doesn't work so well anymore. And she may not be able to make it outside to go to the bathroom. Her once jet-black muzzle is now mostly gray, her cataracts are thick, and her hearing almost gone. Often she doesn't realize who is near her until she sniffs. She still eats and drinks, but she rarely has good days anymore. She sleeps most of the day and night, and when she does move around, the arthritis occasionally stops her in her tracks, and her joints just won't do what she wants them to do.
The vet gave her a steroid boost the other day, to help the arthritis. She has improved quite a bit, but medicine, like many things in life, gives with one hand and takes with the other. Will the medication that soothes her joints ultimately destroy her liver? Right now, I only care that my girl is hurting, but if this works, how long do I maintain this regimen, and at what cost? Loss of bone density, compromised immune system, Cushings, diabetes, kidney or liver failure...to maintain her this way, even for six months, is risky, and I may be faced with an sudden crash in her overall health because of it. Much like her brother, powerful steroids of this kind could mask a greater illness.
Logically, I know all of these things, but when I look at her, the memories simply overwhelm me. I see her flying down the hill to the pond so that she can, with perfect aim, jump on her brother's head and dunk him with the enthusiasm only a sibling can have for besting the other sibling. I see the two of them racing back up the hill, desperately trying to be first so that the dog door can be guarded and the loser prevented from entering the house. I see her sitting in the living room, all proper and lady-like, staring at her brother with disdain as he discovered, yet again, that he had a tail. I see her prancing in front him--sometimes for hours--with a dog treat that she hasn't decided to eat yet because its more fun to torment him with the fact that he can't have it. I see her trying to slide quietly off the couch when I come through the front door, hoping I won't notice that big, warm divot because, after all, dogs aren't supposed to be on the furniture.
She was always the smarter one, the sneakier one. While her brother was sitting in the living room looking pitiful in the hopes of a few table scraps, she was in the kitchen stealing the chicken off the counter. More than once. When we remodeled, we added three inches to the counter tops partly because of her ability to grab items and devour them in the two minutes or so that no one was paying attention. The only reason she wasn't obese is because she ran every bit of it off. There was no bunny, no squirrel, no chipmunk, no bird, that did not get chased out of the yard with energetic aplomb.
My beloved joined our clan during the Great Goundhog Massacre of '04, helping me dispose of a carcass almost daily, it seemed. Why the groundhogs decided the yard was a good place to hang out remains a mystery, but after the first few deaths, you'd think word would have gotten out to the rest of the groundhog community. All summer long, body after body turned up in the house (the drawback of a dog door and fenced in yard--not only can they come and go as they please, they can bring whatever they want with them). We were usually at work during the murders, but the evidence was always proudly on display when we got home. Ten in all, some whole, some not. While her brother would usually stand over them as though they were his trophies, in truth, they were hers. He would confront them, she would sneak up behind them, grab them by the neck and...well, you know.
And, of course, there were adjustments to a new member of the pack. While her brother spent a few months playing Mr Alpha in his usual passive-aggressive way (no room on the bed for you? too bad...), she took to being Daddy's Little Girl like a duck to water. She would sashay up to him with all the subtlety of a dock trollop, batting those big brown eyes and rubbing up along his arm for attention every chance she got. Suddenly, my socks weren't important enough to carry around, only his were.
She is beautiful, a long-haired German Shepherd (courtesy of a recessive gene I never knew about before she came along), with big brown eyes and a gentle disposition (although I will grant you, the groundhogs did not think so). She is always delicate taking food from your hand, always quick to obey, a face-kisser of the first order. And in her day, she could run so fast she was almost a blur to the naked eye.
Once upon a time, she was small enough to pick up with one hand, smaller in size than her whole head is now. I almost lost her and her brother before they were eight weeks old when they both barreled head-first into a water-filled post hole. She went first, he went in right behind her (somewhat the story of their lives). I still quake thinking of the minute I was unaware of their predicament, and the instinct that made me go check on their sudden lack of activity. I fished them out, sputtering, coughing up water, soaking wet and covered in red clay from head to toe, and after I got them cleaned up (you can guess, I'm sure, what the once-white bathroom looked like by then), they curled up beside me on the floor and shivered themselves to sleep. She couldn't get close enough, burrowing into my side even in sleep. Years later, when thunderstorms would come through, it was the same. She would try so hard to burrow under me she would almost push me off the bed.
So I saved her life once, and she has been saving mine ever since. She has seen me through years of trial and trauma, personal and professional devastation, as well as recovery. She has licked the tears off my face when I cried, sat quietly beside me and listened to me rant, jumped up and down with excitement when I was happy--the reason never mattered, she has always been there.
She has devoted her life to me and I can do no less for her than to make certain she does not suffer. I cannot be selfish about this, much as I long to. So I cry for what is to come and try to brace myself as best I can. It is not quite time yet, but soon. Winter is coming, and old bones and joints that barely function in summer do much worse in the cold.
My beloved tries to be strong for me, but I know this is breaking his heart as surely as it is breaking mine. He would make her young again if he could, would postpone her slow decline forever if he had the power. This is not a decision either of us want to make, ever, but we know that her frailty will only increase, and if we are not vigilant, she might truly get hurt in a tumble on shaky legs, or a jump off the bed on joints that can no longer take that kind of pressure.
I cannot help but weep, but I haven't forgotten how lucky I am to have had her this long. She has always been, is now and will always be, a gift. Love, devotion and joy wrapped in fur. And I know that as much as I long to keep her here, her brother longs to see her again--and she him. They were never apart more than eight hours in their lives until he passed, and she grieved so deeply then that I feared her loss as well. Although she eventually chased rabbits and barked at the power guys and stole socks again, she has never quite recovered. It is a great comfort to me that when she is released from this life, her brother will be waiting for her, but it does nothing to relieve the pain I feel thinking of the day she will not be here.
But she is here now, and I will savor every nuzzle, every kiss, every moment that I have left with her, because I do not know how many that will be.