Letting Go

“Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”   

                                                               - Percy Bysshe Shelley

October 2009

One evening Knox and I head into the house after a long walk and I find Hunter with her back to the door rammed in the corner shaking with one foot in a basket her nerves all a-shatter, and mushy crap all over the carpet. As I run to her my heart sinks to basement level and I know. Her heart is racing a mile a minute and I wonder how long has she been in this state: a minute, an hour? I can’t contain her and clean up the mess so it doesn’t spread about the condo and she is so freaked out by the whole ordeal that she won’t stay still. Here is my steady, Zen, wise old pup acting like a toddler on a double dose of Ritalin.

I’m finally able to contain her in the kitchen by closing her in with a doggy gate. My home looks more like an old folks’ home then a place of dwelling; there are cut up pieces of carpet and giant size pee-pee pads strewn about the hardwood floors to catch drips and to give Hunter a grip as her hind legs have been buckling out on her. If she falls on the hardwood she can’t get herself up which, only makes her panic more and more as she flails like a fish out of water.

Some days when I’m lucky enough to get work I can be out of the house for ten hours or so, not knowing if Hunter is having one of her episodes brings a razor sharp sting to my heart and streams of tears to my eyes. People suggest crating her or barricading her in certain parts of the house; when I have done this in the past she has such an aversion to it that she uses all her limited power and might to bust her way out and when I get home I find that she has indeed broken herself out of doggy jail; giving prison break a entirely new meaning. This is a dog who has never been crated, barricaded or locked away; she is a free and wild spirit that cannot be caged……..it simply kills her……and me…. and again I know.

Knox is cowering in the corner of the room as he usually does when something is wrong with Hunter.  He knows what’s to come before I do.  She is soundly asleep, safe at the side of my bed near the door where her bed has been set up, since she started wetting herself in the middle of the night. Frequently I’m awaken at 3:00 AM to the lapping sounds of her licking herself in shame, trying to hide the evidence that her body has betrayed her and again, my heart breaks.  I purchased a fancy orthopedic bed for her and the surrounding area is covered with pads in case of an accident. I lie down on the floor next to her and stroke her supple plush coat. She is still a beautiful dog, a pedigree above all pedigrees. I put my arm round her and it gently rises and falls with her every breath. I am next to her and she is at peace. Instantly hot burning tears invade my face and my chest is so tight that I fear if I breathe it will crack open into a million tiny pieces. I cry like I haven’t cried in years, when death was all to new to me, as tears continue to pour from my eyes, gushing rivers of raging water that will not stop. I feel like there is a volcano erupting inside me and I open my mouth as if to let hot steaming lava out, but nothing comes: no sound is released; there is nothing but crystal clear silence.

Hunter has always been a sound sleeper; when she slept on the corner of my bed I would wake up many a time to find her slammed up against me like a steamroller.  When I tried to move her over so I wouldn’t fall off the bed, she would not budge; it was like moving a boulder. Often I’d see how harmonious and cared-for she looked and, as I turn onto one side, holding the side of my bed for dear life, let her be. On many occasions when we’d hit bumpy ground with Hunter, I prayed to a higher power to please just let her go gently in the night. Most mornings when my eyes first crept open, I’d listen for her breath. Usually with my heart a pitter-patter I’d meekly approach her, searching for signs of life, even having to shake her at times before coming to and when she does, I’d be relieved and devastated at the same time.

                                                                                         

I needed Hunter to make that decision for herself so I won’t have to, and apparently, she needed me to make that choice for her so she wouldn’t have to. I had made all her important decisions for her later in life so I guess she thought I should make this one as well. As she followed me from room to room always by my side, always checking in, getting a reading, I often got the feeling that she was sticking around for me, wanting to make sure I was okay, out of crisis, and that it was safe for her to leave. Crisis has been a constant on my menu. I’ve always been a night owl, staying up until all hours of the late night staring into the abyss, searching for answers, going over life’s plays over and over in my head, punishing myself for my past and fearing my future and wondering if “I should die before I wake.”

Knox is on his own time clock and every night around nine or so he pries himself off the couch, opens his trap and releases a noise that sounds like a yawn and an old man’s sigh at the same time, and he escorts himself to the bedroom. If Hunter weren’t sprawled out on the carpet at my feet, she would soon pop up out of her deep sleep and head to the living room in search of me. What a comfort to know that you’re a top propriety in someone’s life. Knox, at every turn reminds me that he is my sole protector and Hunter is my guru, my shaman, and my spiritual guide.

I drift off into a deep sleep of wet tears lying on the floor next to Hunter, and dream about Knox’s 5^th birthday on Cinco de-Mayo and the party we had to celebrate. I remember Hunter having the time of her life, bobbin for apples, guarding the Scooby Doo piñata, sniffin Coronas and wearing a party hat, she was most certainly, the Bell of The Ball. She seized every moment of every day, a lesson I know she was trying to teach me. I awake hours later stiff and cloudy. My eyes sting as I peel myself off the floor getting a better idea how Hunter has felt lifting her old body up and into action day after day.

                                                                                                                       

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Dogs 102

“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.”

–      Roger Caras    

The dog days of summer have come and gone and the crisp cool hint of fall is doing its dance. I’m grateful for the reprieve from the heat as I know this temperature is much more pleasurable to Hunter, she isn’t doing well these days and our walks are getting shorter and shorter. Many times I feel a huge twinge of guilt as Knox and I clear the doorway with leash in hand and I close the door as she still tries to nudge out pushing forward with her nose.

In so many ways Hunter still acts like a puppy, she unearths joy in every moment of every day and she is the closest thing to a pure yogi that I know, as she and most all animals for that sense, live in the moment. They aren’t wondering what shoes to wear with a certain outfit, how to best hide a double chin, or what so and so thinks of them for that matter. When Hunter is napping she does it in full bloom with deep, deep pranayama inhales and exhales, she even hums in her unfathomable state of slumber as if she is chanting. When Hunter eats, the only thing that exists in her life at that moment is the meal that is laid out before her and anyone else’s if she has her way. When she goes outside she relishes every scent as if she’s just discovering it for the first time. When she lies with her head in my lap, she is at such complete peace that I can feel her body melting into me as if we are one. When she goes for a walk her tail does a nonstop wag as if she is a windshield wiper in a torrential down pour, and, god love her, that she’s still able to go neck and neck with Knox at his high speed pace. I’m told animals will push on full steam ahead no matter how much pain they are in and have no problem paying for it later. Again, I can look to her to learn.

Her legs have been failing her for sometime now and though I’ve been in denial, I purchased a ground level condo with her in mind. Just two steps down once outside the door and she can claim a patch of grass. I’ve made a deal with myself that when she can no longer make it outside on her own….then I know what I have to do. My friend Kathy who’s a vet tech says that she knows owners feel better about letting their “pets go” when they still have some dignity left in them. I hate the words “put down” and my mind can’t even dance around the issue. I mean, I know many a human folk that I wouldn’t have a second thought about “putting down” and out of their misery, but a loving spirited furry friend who looks deep into my eyes as if she is trying to tell me some secret of the universe, send me a message, for I know, she knows I couldn’t do it. I’ve been told that sense of smell is the last sensation that leaves dogs and I know her hearing and sight has been compromised for sometime now. I feel such a colossal kinship with Hunter, like she’s giving me warning signs of future things to look for in myself; my sight is becoming an issue and as for my hearing….I have always sort of heard only what I want to hear.