Eulogy for a Dog
I had my old dog Gus put to sleep this morning. He had been declining for the last year, in the same way old humans do -- getting frailer and frailer, getting more senile and less apparently connected to the goings-on around him, as well as going deaf. He hadn't been in pain, per se; he had arthritis, but not so bad as to make him whimper or wince or show any other sign of pain, no swollen joints or flinching away from touch, and so I was reluctant to have him put down just because he needed more attention and care. I hadn't wanted to spend nights away (I am especially grateful to know that I am loved by friends who cared enough about me to not mind sleeping with dogs) because my former partner wouldn't stay downstairs and keep an eye on him in the night. A couple of weeks ago I went overnight to Vermont to hear Raven's talk, and Gus had gotten stuck in a corner in the night, where he stayed until he was discovered in the morning and helped to his feet. Gus was even more gimpy than usual when I got home, and I thought that was it, it was time. The next day (Monday) he had rallied, so I went to talk to the vet about what day was best for her to come to the house, but didn't schedule it yet.
Yesterday he'd been doing so much worse, hardly able to stay on his feet at all (his hindquarters had mostly withered away, no muscle power to hold himself up or get up from most positions), so I went to the vet again and arranged for her to come today. It's so much easier on the dogs, I've found, when they don't have to go to the office and be made nervous by that, and so much better for me to say goodbye here at home, where the other dogs can come back in and see/sniff the body and know the other one's gone. It was peaceful and not too hard, like it was with the last one. That time, Fletcher had been very arthritic and in pain and nearly completely immobilized, but he'd been himself still -- a happy, outgoing, bright dog. I'd scheduled the vet to come to the
house 3 weeks ahead, knowing that by then the cortisone would escalate to the point where I couldn't give him more, and it really was time, but that was just too hard a way to do it. It felt like I chose the timing at least partly for my own convenience (an expensive pre-paid vacation coming up, and not wanting to leave Fletcher in the kennel) and it was a bad, bad feeling. This time I made no vacation plans, just for that reason, and I was determined to wait for the time when it would be a kindness to Gus, not a convenience for me. He was pretty much incontinent and had to be boosted into the car and up the back steps, and sometimes I held up his rear end so he could eat from his raised food-bowl while still standing (he wouldn't eat sitting or lying down), and of course, I rescued him from the corners he'd wander into in the night, which meant not sleeping very deeply. But he still didn't seem to be suffering, or at least -- I wouldn't want to die just for that. I'd want somebody to take care of me and love me. So that's what I did. I don't understand people who can say they love someone, and then decide they don't -- love doesn't stop just because someone isn't new and exciting anymore, or because being with them is messy and inconvenient, that's what love is. I wouldn't have minded doing those things forever, as long as he was still having a good dog's life, with things to be happy about. But the past few days he started to seem miserable, like he wasn't really there, he was so blank-looking, and he wasn't dancing to go out for his car-ride and walk, like he had always done before, however unsteady he'd been recently. I said I wouldn't put him down while he was still dancing. But he wasn't, these past couple of days. It was time.
I am glad to still have clear memories of him at his prime, which I didn't when my first dog had to be put to sleep -- it was months before I had a dream of him young, and could remember again. But Gus was a strong dog, with a certain gravity about him, dignified even when prancing and dancing in excitement for something. He was always my guide in the woods, when I couldn't find the trail back, he always could, and I'd follow him. He was not a dog who liked to be petted, generally. He loved car rides -- he'd see a truck or a bus coming up ahead and start quivering with excitement, then, as it went by, he'd bark and "chase" it, racing to the back of the station wagon as it passed. He never chased a car on foot; he was a smart, sensible dog.
He seemed like such a funny looking, ugly dog when he first came to us, with his big floppy dew claws hanging off his back legs and a muzzle that had a slight sideways twist, with a large pink nose that got darker (tanned!) in the summer. He'd been dumped by the side of the highway at a pull-out up by Charlemont, and he'd been reported to the town dog officer by a motorist who'd noticed him still there after 3 days. He was waiting for his people to come back, just staying right there. So the dog officer called the paper to put an ad in, that he'd be available for adoption after the 10 days required by law (she was sure he'd been dumped, not lost) and told the story to the woman who took the ad, who told my then-partner Chuck (she was working there at the paper, then), who told it to me. As soon as I heard it, I said he was coming home with us. Chuck called the dog officer and asked if she knew how he was with cats, since we had several, and that was the only real concern, so the dog officer took one of her own cats out to the kennel, to see how he reacted. He was fine. Chuck went to get him on the tenth day, while I stayed home with the other dogs so I could facilitate the meeting. They all got along fine -- Zeke, the black lab we had then, and Fletcher, the yellow lab/golden retriever mix mentioned above. So Gus became our dog. My dog, really. I was the one who walked him and doctored his wounds and cleaned his ears and gave him medicine. I'm the one the dogs would allow to do those things, and I did basic obedience training with all of them. Gus was the only one who never ran off in the woods after a scent, who always stayed by me and came when I called. He was the one trustworthy enough to go out for walks with human guests, when I didn't want to worry about paying attention to what dogs might be getting up to.
Gus was half starved and stuck all over with pine pitch and dirt, when he first came home -- plus that nose and those dew claws. He had eyes that you couldn't read, not like most dogs. I was a little afraid of him, at first. Then I discovered that he had a thing for tea; if I had a cup of tea, he would stare and drool until I put the cup with the last bit in it down on the floor for him. It was so funny. (Then, he'd do the same for anything in a coffee cup, even when it was a guest's -- I never had the heart to try to stop him.) Between that and his intense excitement at seeing big yellow highway machinery -- barking and wagging and leaping in the car when we drove by any -- that we joked that he was the reincarnation of an otherwise sober and dignified ten-year-old English boy. He never was the least aggressive with me or most of the other dogs (only his nemesis, the ironically named Pax) and treated cats with enormous respect. One of them, Izzie (hand-raised from a few minutes old, never knew a mama cat and seemed to think she was a dog herself) would go up to him where he was sleeping and ever so delicately tap him with a paw, at which he'd get right up and give the bed to her.
When humans die, there's always things to say about their accomplishments and their personalities and what they left behind them, but when a dog dies, there's only one thing to say, and it's always the same, the only eulogy there can ever be: He was a good dog. My Gus was a good dog, and I loved him. Now I'll never have a cup of anything without missing him. I'll get lost in the woods without my trail guide. There will never be another one like him, and when it's time for me to die, it won't be quite so frightening, I think, knowing that he will be there waiting for me in the Summer Country.
Yesterday he'd been doing so much worse, hardly able to stay on his feet at all (his hindquarters had mostly withered away, no muscle power to hold himself up or get up from most positions), so I went to the vet again and arranged for her to come today. It's so much easier on the dogs, I've found, when they don't have to go to the office and be made nervous by that, and so much better for me to say goodbye here at home, where the other dogs can come back in and see/sniff the body and know the other one's gone. It was peaceful and not too hard, like it was with the last one. That time, Fletcher had been very arthritic and in pain and nearly completely immobilized, but he'd been himself still -- a happy, outgoing, bright dog. I'd scheduled the vet to come to the
house 3 weeks ahead, knowing that by then the cortisone would escalate to the point where I couldn't give him more, and it really was time, but that was just too hard a way to do it. It felt like I chose the timing at least partly for my own convenience (an expensive pre-paid vacation coming up, and not wanting to leave Fletcher in the kennel) and it was a bad, bad feeling. This time I made no vacation plans, just for that reason, and I was determined to wait for the time when it would be a kindness to Gus, not a convenience for me. He was pretty much incontinent and had to be boosted into the car and up the back steps, and sometimes I held up his rear end so he could eat from his raised food-bowl while still standing (he wouldn't eat sitting or lying down), and of course, I rescued him from the corners he'd wander into in the night, which meant not sleeping very deeply. But he still didn't seem to be suffering, or at least -- I wouldn't want to die just for that. I'd want somebody to take care of me and love me. So that's what I did. I don't understand people who can say they love someone, and then decide they don't -- love doesn't stop just because someone isn't new and exciting anymore, or because being with them is messy and inconvenient, that's what love is. I wouldn't have minded doing those things forever, as long as he was still having a good dog's life, with things to be happy about. But the past few days he started to seem miserable, like he wasn't really there, he was so blank-looking, and he wasn't dancing to go out for his car-ride and walk, like he had always done before, however unsteady he'd been recently. I said I wouldn't put him down while he was still dancing. But he wasn't, these past couple of days. It was time.
I am glad to still have clear memories of him at his prime, which I didn't when my first dog had to be put to sleep -- it was months before I had a dream of him young, and could remember again. But Gus was a strong dog, with a certain gravity about him, dignified even when prancing and dancing in excitement for something. He was always my guide in the woods, when I couldn't find the trail back, he always could, and I'd follow him. He was not a dog who liked to be petted, generally. He loved car rides -- he'd see a truck or a bus coming up ahead and start quivering with excitement, then, as it went by, he'd bark and "chase" it, racing to the back of the station wagon as it passed. He never chased a car on foot; he was a smart, sensible dog.
He seemed like such a funny looking, ugly dog when he first came to us, with his big floppy dew claws hanging off his back legs and a muzzle that had a slight sideways twist, with a large pink nose that got darker (tanned!) in the summer. He'd been dumped by the side of the highway at a pull-out up by Charlemont, and he'd been reported to the town dog officer by a motorist who'd noticed him still there after 3 days. He was waiting for his people to come back, just staying right there. So the dog officer called the paper to put an ad in, that he'd be available for adoption after the 10 days required by law (she was sure he'd been dumped, not lost) and told the story to the woman who took the ad, who told my then-partner Chuck (she was working there at the paper, then), who told it to me. As soon as I heard it, I said he was coming home with us. Chuck called the dog officer and asked if she knew how he was with cats, since we had several, and that was the only real concern, so the dog officer took one of her own cats out to the kennel, to see how he reacted. He was fine. Chuck went to get him on the tenth day, while I stayed home with the other dogs so I could facilitate the meeting. They all got along fine -- Zeke, the black lab we had then, and Fletcher, the yellow lab/golden retriever mix mentioned above. So Gus became our dog. My dog, really. I was the one who walked him and doctored his wounds and cleaned his ears and gave him medicine. I'm the one the dogs would allow to do those things, and I did basic obedience training with all of them. Gus was the only one who never ran off in the woods after a scent, who always stayed by me and came when I called. He was the one trustworthy enough to go out for walks with human guests, when I didn't want to worry about paying attention to what dogs might be getting up to.
Gus was half starved and stuck all over with pine pitch and dirt, when he first came home -- plus that nose and those dew claws. He had eyes that you couldn't read, not like most dogs. I was a little afraid of him, at first. Then I discovered that he had a thing for tea; if I had a cup of tea, he would stare and drool until I put the cup with the last bit in it down on the floor for him. It was so funny. (Then, he'd do the same for anything in a coffee cup, even when it was a guest's -- I never had the heart to try to stop him.) Between that and his intense excitement at seeing big yellow highway machinery -- barking and wagging and leaping in the car when we drove by any -- that we joked that he was the reincarnation of an otherwise sober and dignified ten-year-old English boy. He never was the least aggressive with me or most of the other dogs (only his nemesis, the ironically named Pax) and treated cats with enormous respect. One of them, Izzie (hand-raised from a few minutes old, never knew a mama cat and seemed to think she was a dog herself) would go up to him where he was sleeping and ever so delicately tap him with a paw, at which he'd get right up and give the bed to her.
When humans die, there's always things to say about their accomplishments and their personalities and what they left behind them, but when a dog dies, there's only one thing to say, and it's always the same, the only eulogy there can ever be: He was a good dog. My Gus was a good dog, and I loved him. Now I'll never have a cup of anything without missing him. I'll get lost in the woods without my trail guide. There will never be another one like him, and when it's time for me to die, it won't be quite so frightening, I think, knowing that he will be there waiting for me in the Summer Country.