The world lost a damn good dog on Monday. I can't cry myself out. I have never lost anything that I loved so dearly. I guess I'm lucky that in almost 40 years, my biggest loss so far was a dog. I guess I should count myself lucky to spend 15 years with such a great animal. But the only things I feel right now are sadness and the temporary numbness that your body grants you right before it sends the pain signals again.
In 1998, I was finally on my own. The Marine Corps had forced me to live in tight quarters, never alone for a minute, for four years. But they didn't pay me enough to build up a savings account, so when I got out I lived with roommates and then with my parents. Finally, after 18 months of civilian life, I had saved up enough for an apartment. Within a month of moving in, I was ready for a dog.
The humane society had setup a puppy adoption on the sidewalk of a shopping plaza. I went down there just to look around, and I wanted to be picky about the dog I adopted. I was thinking of a boxer or a bull dog, and wanted to name it Chesty after a famous Marine General. I know: cheesy.
I can't tell you why I stopped stopped to look at Joey. I don't remember much of that afternoon. All I can say is it felt right. We made a connection, I paid the tab, and took him home.
Joey was enthusiastic and fearless. He sniffed my apartment down and pee'd on every tree in the yard. Twice. I was tired, so I called him into bed and we took an afternoon nap together. Then we went to my parents house to show him off, and he was instant friends with my parents dog (who I eulogized on this blog here.) It was the perfect first day.
A few weeks later I brought a girl home for our second date, and she instantly fell in love with Joey. And of course he fell in love with her. He never had an enemy, and really loved the ladies. I had my doubts, but he insisted I keep her around. Her name was Rachel.
I remember one day that Rachel wanted me to go to her family party where all her cousins and aunts/uncles/grandparents, etc would be gathered. I spent every second I could with Joey, so I took him along. The cousins were playing baseball and wanted me to play. My team was batting first, and soon I was up. I told Joey to sit-stay (he was usually obedient.) I got a hit and ran to first. When I ran, Joey ran. We were both safe at first. Next batter gets a hit, we both run to second. Rachel's family thought it was hilarious. We scored, and eventually played center field together. That was Joey in a nutshell: having fun and making friends.
Nobody could poop like Joe. He was infamous for quantity and quality. We would take him to a dog park or to my parents and bet on if he would poop 3 or 4 times in the space of a few hours. When my parents moved into a new house, he ran around the new huge basement and then laid a massive poop on a carpet scrap. He's lucky it was on the scrap and not on the newly installed carpet--or did he plan it that way?. After I married Rachel (Joey's idea) we bought a house. We brought him over to to check it out. He ran around the backyard for a while peeing on everything. Then he came into the house to sniff around...and to lay a massive poop in the center of the living room. Rachel swears she can still see the dent it left in the hardwood floor.
One day Rachel's sister ended up with an abandoned puppy that she couldn't keep. Rachel took one look at the puppy and insisted we take her in. I was skeptical, and let Joey decide. Joey let the little Cujo jump all over him, bite him, take his bone, and bark in his face. Then he licked her silly and gave me a nod. She stayed. I'm pretty sure Joey regretted that decision, but he would never admit it. Nina turned out to be crazy, selfish, messy, and loud. But she was his sister and he remained loyal to her. I have a picture of him licking and snuggling her moments before I took him to the vet, 14 years after adopting her. In his last few months, she was confined to a cage at night due to some accidents she was having, and I would find him in the morning in front of her cage, keeping her company.
Sometimes I am not as patient as I should be. Joey had his quirks that would really get me upset because no matter what how loud I yelled, he was still quirky. I'd feel guilty later and apologize to him, and he always forgave me. He was quick to forgive, but he didn't let his guard down. When he saw my temper rising, he avoided me. He trained me to use something other than anger when communicating with him. It took years, but I'm finally making progress. Sometimes Nina would cross a line trying to dominate him, or would try to take his food and he would bare teeth and back her off.
He put up with a lot of shit, but he wasn't a pushover. He drew his lines and stood his ground when it mattered to him. Joey was true to himself in a way that I may never emulate. And all the while, he was this humble, patient, generous dog who everybody loved. He always wanted to play, but he didn't push the issue when I was dog tired. He always wanted affection but if you told him to go lay down he would, and wait patiently for your love to come to him. He always wanted what you were eating, but he didn't beg. He would give you the saddest eyes you've ever seen, as if he had never eaten, but he wouldn't make a big thing of it or be disobedient.
Rachel and I had a child. Like the puppy, our first child wanted to climb on him and chew on him. He would just lay there and let her climb and drool. When she got bigger, she wanted to ride him. That wasn't going to happen, but he was gentle about it. He didn't run off or nip or buck. He simply laid down, let her bounce on his back till she got bored, and then gently disappeared. Nina was nowhere to be found during any of this. She learned to hide, slink away, and stay scarce.
Rachel and I had a second kid, and this one was all boy. He had a strong grip from the day he was born, and would pull tails and ears and fur. Still, Joey was a good big brother, always gentle and usually available for the abuse. Eventually, the boy grew up into a kid who understood how to play with a dog properly, and they were soon buddies.
On New Years Eve 2004, Nina got spooked by fireworks. She hopped the fence and ran off. We looked everywhere for her that night and couldn't find her. We kept looking for her day after day, without any sign from her. Joey obviously missed her, despite the fact that she took up space, attention, and food from him, and tormented him daily. We finally found her after two weeks, and when I brought her home there was a lot of excitement and tears. But no one was happier than Joey. He tried to lick all the fur off of her, and they fell asleep that night forehead-to-forehead. He could have been excited while she was gone because he had the house and the food and the attention all to himself, but instead he was happy to have his nasty sister back. That's Joey: All heart.
Joey had some nicknames. "Joe-dog". "Jose" (the Mexican in-laws came up with that.) "Jose-Martin" (I don't know how that came about.) "Butts-and-guts" (Joey filled out a little because he was half chow, and he was always hungry, so Rachel came up with that. There's even a song.) "Senor" (another mexican thing.) "Patches" because when he shed, his Chow undercoat would come out in clumps. Sometimes his sister was "Itchy" and he was "Scratchy", like the Simpsons cartoon. In the last two years of his life, he developed this panting habit that was loud and annoying. The vet said it was normal, but I would often ask him to stop. We joke that it sounded like a train, so when he started up his panting, I'd ask him to pull the train into the station. The panting earned him the name "Huff-and-Puff" (which sometimes turned into "Huffelpuff" after we read Harry Potter.) I think a nickname is evidence that you have personality, and it means people care about you. Obviously, Joey had a lot of personality and a lot to love.
Joey used to run with me. A few years ago, he started falling behind on runs. I was sad to lose a runnning partner, but he obviously had a lot of life left in him so I didn't think much of it. Last year, it got to the point that he couldn't walk for more than a few blocks. That's when I went into denial.
He started to have trouble standing up on the hardwood or tile floors, but that was where he preffered to lay. I bought him a top-of-the-line dog bed that he could easily get into and stand up in, but he preffered the cool, slippery floors. That, and his sister kept stealing his bed instead of using her own.
And then one Saturday morning, he couldn't get up. He kept trying, but his back legs just wouldn't push. So I helped him up and led him to the back door. He seemed okay, but when he had to step down to get outside, he stumbled like a drunk. He took two steps onto the deck and emptied his bladder. It was the most undignified thing I had ever seen, and I immediately snapped out of my denial: Joey was in bad shape. I carried him back into the house and tried to feed him, but he wasn't hungry. Joey not hungry? Oh shit.
I cried like a baby, right then and there. I couldn't hide it, and I couldn't speak clearly to explain to my wife what was wrong. All I could do was cry for Joey. I immediately made an appointment for the vet, but it took a while to compose myself enough to leave the house. My son went with me. The vet looked him over and diagnosed advanced arthritis. He said there wasn't much he could do, but would try an anti-inflammatory and a pain-killer. He also said that even with that, we probably only had a few more months. When he left the room, my son asked me what the vet meant, and I had to explain that Joey would soon be put to sleep, and how, and why. I explained that in the wild, his lack of mobility would have already killed him, but that we are able to prolong his life a little longer. But I also explained that for Joey's sake, we would have to end his suffering when there was nothing more we could do for him. All that time, I was crying.
The medicine helped a little. Joey moved around a little better. I followed up with the vet and asked if more medicine would help, but the vet sadly shook his head. I went online and tried to find anything that would give us some hope, but everything I read said that we were doing all we could do. Even surgery wouldn't help and would only cause more suffering for the animal.
And one of the articles made it clear: it is more for selfish reasons that we would delay euthanasia at this point. Once the animal has lost a significant quality of life, it isn't fair to them to keep them around. I thought I was delaying euthanasia because that was the right thing to do. But I came to realize that the Joey who was once so full of enthusiasm and affection was now a very inactive and sometimes irritable guy. He still ate his share and would let you cuddle him, but his heart wasn't in it. A couple of times recently I laid on the floor to cuddle him and he tolerated it for a while, then got up and went to be alone.
After a month, he went in for a followup and they noticed that the anti-inflammatory was doing damage to his stomach and kidneys. They took that away and left him on just the opiate. He started needing help to stand up several times a day. It was clear what needed to be done. I started researching euthanasia options. The research allowed me to delay the decision.
I finally made the decision, but couldn't make the appointment for several days. In the middle of the work day last week, I went down to my car and called the vet. We made the appointment, I hung up, and then I cried. That sucked. I went home and told the family. We all cried. That sucked. But then we all went to work on making Joey's last days as great as they could be. Everytime I walked past him, I said his name and gave him a pat. I brought home treats and let him eat whatever he wanted, though his appetite wasn't quite there. On Sunday, I threw a party for him. The kids made signs for him, and we had balloons, and he got his own hot dog.
That last night, we all cuddled around him. I was planning on taking him to the vet alone, but the whole family wanted to be there. It was a school day, but this was more important. A great dog was going to leave us. Their brother and best friend. They understood the whole thing and were ready for it, so I said they could be there.
That morning, I had to help him to his feet. I carried him outside to the grass, and let him enjoy his yard one last time. We sat around the living with him and I told the kids stories about a younger, faster Joey. The dog who kissed Rachel for the first time before I had a chance. The dog who tolerated a naughty puppy and two curious toddlers. A dog who plays baseball, and swims like a champ, and poops like no other dog. And then it was time to go.
I called him to the car. He took his time, and I let him. He sniffed, and he stalled because he never liked car rides. But I didn't force him. I let him come to the car on his own, and I lifted him in. In the parking lot at the vet, I set him down and let him take his time walking in. I hoped that it gave him some dignity to be able to walk at his own speed, on his own legs, into the vet.
The staff made sure that we understood everything. Then the vet explained that she would take him in the back, prep his leg and put in a catheter and then bring him back to us. She led him out, and we waited. After a few minutes, we heard huffing and puffing outside the door and knew it was our dog. Rachel joked that the train was pulling in. We chuckled a little, and encouraged him to come on in.
There was a blanket on the ground for him to lay on. The vet went to get the final injection while we spent a last few mintes with him. My son gave him a biscuit. we all pet him and told him the sweet nothings that came to mind. The vet came back in and asked if we were ready. We had been saying goodbye for days, so we couldn't be more ready to see him finally at peace.
It happened way faster than I expected. She slowly pushed the plunger and he suddenly relaxed like he was going to sleep. He let out a final sigh, she listened to his heart, and said, "He is in Heaven now." It looked like he was asleep. It was a dignified end to a life well-lived. We were then left alone with him.
We cried. Holy shit did we cry. My son, in mid cry, remarked that he had never seen me cry so hard. We didn't want to leave, but we new that eventually we had to. I don't know how long we stayed, or how we decided to leave. But eventually we left him there alone on that blanket in the examination room for the vet staff to deal with.
It was hard to drive home without crying, but someone had to be strong enough to get us safely home. Once in the house, I cried some more. And then I cried some more. My daughter was ready for school, but my son sat with me on the back porch and we cried together and talked about life, and death, and dogs, and medicine, and Joey. And I think we cried a little more. Then we cleaned our face, I took him to school, and I went to work.
I kept it together at work, and got through the rest of the day. Then I went home and cried a little. I went numb, watched TV, ate dinner, worked a little, and got into bed. And then I cried again.
That night, I had trouble sleeping because I wondered how they dealt with the body. We left around 10 am. Did they carry the body out while the waiting room was full of people? Did they gently lift him onto a cart? We paid extra to get his ashes back. How did his body get to the crematorium? Was it treated with dignity throughout the process? How would we know we actually got his ashes, and not just some random ashes?
This morning I woke up numb. I thought perhaps I was cried-out. But after everyone had left, as I was preparing to leave, I look at his food dish sitting there and I cried hard. I made gutteral noises I had never made before. Everytime I thought I was done, I started crying harder and couldn't stop. It was 20 minutes before I had enough composure to leave the house.
While driving home tonight, I cried a little. I talked to Joey, and told him how I planned to honor his memory. When I pulled into the driveway, I remembered how he would be at the fence to greet me on most spring days like this, with his curly tail wagging and his multi-colored toungue hanging out and a smile on his face. I cried again.
My son and I ran some errands, and played some tennis. And then I sat down to write this, and I have cried a hundred times while writing. I miss that dog so much. I know that I made the best decision for him, and that ending his pain was the best thing to do. I know we had a fantastic life together, and that he lived longer and with more vigor than most dogs. But I still can't get over the fact that I can never cuddle him. Never see that dog face looking up at me without any judgement or resentment. Never call his name and hear the click-clack of his nails on hardwood. Never hear his huff-and-puff to remind me to let him out or feed him. Never come home to find the one person who was always glad to see me and always had time for me--even if I didn't always make time for him.
Joey, you were the best dog that ever lived, and I didn't deserve you. But I am honored that I got to spend so many years with you. My days were brighter with you in them, and you trained me to be a better man. I will never forget you, and I will always strive to be more like you. Thank you, buddy, for being the best friend I could ever ask for. I love you.
