He was the best of dogs, he was the... no, he was just the best.
So what happened with Bo was, about two months ago we noticed that he was less enthusiastic about his dog food than usual, and there were intermittent traces of blood in his saliva when he licked his paws. We couldn't see any obvious bleeding -- it was just a pink tinge in his spit. We thought maybe that he'd cut his tongue on a cat food can, which he occasionally steals. We took him to the vet, who couldn't find anything obvious either. But he wouldn't let her look in his mouth, so we thought maybe he had a bad tooth. She gave us some antibiotics, and we scheduled a tooth cleaning. The antibiotics seemed to mostly clear up the bleeding, but he continued to be 'meh' about his dog food -- he'd eat it, but slowly. And he started getting sort of listless and off in general.
We hadn't been taking him out for walks through the hottest part of summer, so I thought perhaps he was bored and depressed about that (walks were his favorite thing ever -- given a choice between leash and food, he'd pick leash nine times out of ten.) But it had cooled off a little bit, so I decided to take him out -- just for a short walk, because it was still hot, and I thought we should ease into it. He was very eager to go out, but it soon became obvious that something was wrong. He walked at his normal speed for a block or two, and then slowed to a plod. I cut the walk even shorter than I'd planned, even stopped to let him rest halfway through, but by the end of it, he was limping, and when we reached the front porch, his legs folded under him and he collapsed. We had to roll him onto a blanket and carry him inside.
An hour or so later he seemed to have recovered. We knew he had arthritis, for which he was taking joint supplements; perhaps, I thought, he was starting to get hip dysplasia, and we hadn't noticed because we hadn't been doing any strenuous walking with him. I called the vet the next morning, and she suggested that I bring him in the next day to do the bloodwork for his dental cleaning early, so we could check his kidney function prior to putting him on heavier-duty arthritis medication. So I did, and just as I was checking him out after getting the blood draw, the vet came rushing out of the back wanting to see him. She said the preliminary results they could get there in the office showed that he was anemic to the point of needing a transfusion. She managed to pry his mouth open this time, and... he had a cancerous growth all over the roof of his mouth. Same thing that our last dog Sam had, except in Bo's case, it was in a spot that made it impossible to remove, even if we'd caught it earlier. Given his anemia and behavior, it had almost certainly metastatized anyway.
So I cried a lot, and said goodbye right then and there.
I took the next day off of work, and put his leash and bowls away, moved the dog crate outside and replaced it with an end table, and took all his food to a local charity that provides dog care for housebound seniors. But there is still a huge Bo-shaped hole in the world. No Bo to greet us at the door, no Bo to agitate for a walk, no Bo to nobly put up with cats stealing his bed, no Bo to be Deeply Concerned when one of us goes out to the yard and the other stays in the house. I miss him so much. We have had dogs before, and I've been very fond of them, but Bo was MY dog, and I was his person, in a way none of the others ever were.
Part of me wants another dog right now, but another part of me suspects that what I really want is another Bo -- and that would be deeply unfair to whatever dog I ended up comparing unfavorably to him. Bo would be a hard act to follow under the best of circumstances: he was smart, good-tempered, easily trained, well-mannered, endlessly patient with cats and kids, and aside from being an inveterate counter-surfer, had no real bad habits. Besides, we're going to be out of town for a week in October, and it would not be good for a new dog to have to be boarded for so long so soon.
So I will wait -- there is no lack of dogs who need homes, no matter when I start looking. And perhaps by then I will have decided that convenience of not having a dog outweighs the pleasure of being greeted at the door.
Rants Talk to me
We hadn't been taking him out for walks through the hottest part of summer, so I thought perhaps he was bored and depressed about that (walks were his favorite thing ever -- given a choice between leash and food, he'd pick leash nine times out of ten.) But it had cooled off a little bit, so I decided to take him out -- just for a short walk, because it was still hot, and I thought we should ease into it. He was very eager to go out, but it soon became obvious that something was wrong. He walked at his normal speed for a block or two, and then slowed to a plod. I cut the walk even shorter than I'd planned, even stopped to let him rest halfway through, but by the end of it, he was limping, and when we reached the front porch, his legs folded under him and he collapsed. We had to roll him onto a blanket and carry him inside.
An hour or so later he seemed to have recovered. We knew he had arthritis, for which he was taking joint supplements; perhaps, I thought, he was starting to get hip dysplasia, and we hadn't noticed because we hadn't been doing any strenuous walking with him. I called the vet the next morning, and she suggested that I bring him in the next day to do the bloodwork for his dental cleaning early, so we could check his kidney function prior to putting him on heavier-duty arthritis medication. So I did, and just as I was checking him out after getting the blood draw, the vet came rushing out of the back wanting to see him. She said the preliminary results they could get there in the office showed that he was anemic to the point of needing a transfusion. She managed to pry his mouth open this time, and... he had a cancerous growth all over the roof of his mouth. Same thing that our last dog Sam had, except in Bo's case, it was in a spot that made it impossible to remove, even if we'd caught it earlier. Given his anemia and behavior, it had almost certainly metastatized anyway.
So I cried a lot, and said goodbye right then and there.
I took the next day off of work, and put his leash and bowls away, moved the dog crate outside and replaced it with an end table, and took all his food to a local charity that provides dog care for housebound seniors. But there is still a huge Bo-shaped hole in the world. No Bo to greet us at the door, no Bo to agitate for a walk, no Bo to nobly put up with cats stealing his bed, no Bo to be Deeply Concerned when one of us goes out to the yard and the other stays in the house. I miss him so much. We have had dogs before, and I've been very fond of them, but Bo was MY dog, and I was his person, in a way none of the others ever were.
Part of me wants another dog right now, but another part of me suspects that what I really want is another Bo -- and that would be deeply unfair to whatever dog I ended up comparing unfavorably to him. Bo would be a hard act to follow under the best of circumstances: he was smart, good-tempered, easily trained, well-mannered, endlessly patient with cats and kids, and aside from being an inveterate counter-surfer, had no real bad habits. Besides, we're going to be out of town for a week in October, and it would not be good for a new dog to have to be boarded for so long so soon.
So I will wait -- there is no lack of dogs who need homes, no matter when I start looking. And perhaps by then I will have decided that convenience of not having a dog outweighs the pleasure of being greeted at the door.
Rants Talk to me