Goodbye, Sweet Boy

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

--From "In Blackwater Woods" by Mary Oliver

Last Friday, Michael and I said goodbye to our sweet boy, Flynn. It was the hardest decision I have ever made.

Flynn began slowing down during the summer months, lagging behind on walks and having more difficulty with his back legs. Michael and I chalked it up to his age. When he suddenly stopped wolfing down food and actually began leaving it in his dish, I knew something was wrong. I took him to the vet in early December and was told that it was probably "doggie dementia," that a switch in his brain had flipped, causing him to lose his previously ravenous appetite and become more of a picky eater.

By January he had lost more weight and his ribs began to stick out. We began hiding treats in his food dish to entice him to eat. Meanwhile, he was having more and more trouble getting up from a lying down position and when he stood, sometimes his back feet would curl under so he was standing on the top part of his feet.

One night I got a call from Michael, who had gotten home from work before me. Flynn had slipped on the linoleum floor in the kitchen and wasn't able to get back up. Michael had found him sprawled on the floor, shaking, sitting in poop. Who knows how long he had been there. After that we made a little "pen" for him in our living room, since he kept his footing better on carpet than on slippery linoleum. We moved his food and water into his little area along with his bed and he spent most of his time napping or nosing through his food dish looking for treats.

In early February, I took him to the kennel for a bath (since we didn't dare try getting him up and down our stairs and in and out of the bathtub), and Flynn did not do well. I got him in the car by lifting him in (front legs first, then back legs), but when we got to the kennel, he would not jump out of the backseat. I ended up having to drag him out. The kennel called me when Flynn was done being bathed and when I went to pick him up, I knew that something was very wrong. He could no longer support himself all the way on his back legs, but was instead waddling along. It was heartbreaking. The kennel staff said he must have been tired out from being bathed, and they are probably right since I'm sure he struggled. Still, when I finally got him in the house and on his bed, and he didn't move for most of the rest of the night, the warning bells clanged in my head. Perhaps it was time for someone to have a look at him.

Michael and I didn't want him to deteriorate to the point where he could no longer stand or walk, and it seemed that point might be fast approaching. However, Flynn recovered from his ordeal at the kennel and was able to walk around fairly normally within a day or so. But a couple of weeks later, he began to get "stuck" when in a sitting position. His spindly legs (once so strong), simply no longer had the strength to lift his back end off the floor. We would help him out by lifting his hips and then he was able to walk once he got his feet underneath him. At this point, I decided it was time to seek the advice of a vet. After the traumatic trip to and from the kennel, I didn't want to subject either of us to a trip to his regular vet (whom I never much cared for anyway), and especially if it ended up being a situation in which he would need to be put to sleep, I didn't want it to be at the vet's office because he always hated going there, shaking and whining and getting very upset. If we had to put him down, I wanted him to be as relaxed and peaceful as possible going into it.

A few months ago, I had come across an article in the Oregonian about a local woman vet whose entire practice consisted of home euthanasia. She talked about how much easier it was on both pets and owners to go through the process in a comfortable, private environment than in a busy, often loud, public veterinary office. It made perfect sense to me and I clipped the article to keep for future use (thinking of Flynn), but when I tried to find it when I needed it, it was nowhere to be found. I tried searching for her on the Internet but couldn't find her. Instead I found another lady vet, Dr. Louise Mesher, who also makes housecalls. She provides routine veterinary care as well as home euthanasia when the time comes. I decided to give her a call and see if she would evaluate Flynn and give us some guidance as to what would be best for him.

I called last Wednesday and left a message as their recording said they were closed Wednesdays and Sundays. On Thursday, Jennifer, the doctor's assistant called me back and left such a sweet, sincere message expressing her sadness that we were at this point with Flynn, that I knew I wanted them to help us. When I called back, Dr. Mesher herself answered, and we talked briefly about Flynn and his difficulties. I told her that I was concerned about how thin he was getting because he had become much thinner since December/January when his ribs began to stick out. Now I could clearly see the bones of his pelvis and his cheekbones, and all of his vertebrae. He looked like a skeleton but I attributed it to old age and to his greatly decreased appetite. The doctor said she could see us the next evening as she would be out in our area at another appointment. My heart caught (I'm not ready for this!), but I gave her our address and she said she'd call between 6 & 7pm.

I stayed up late that night, sitting by Flynn's bed, petting him and chatting with my best friend on Facebook. I hoped I was ready for what Dr. Mesher's visit would bring.

The next morning, I got ready for work and the thought occurred to me that I could call in sick and stay home with Flynn, just in case it ended up being his last day. I brushed it aside, feeling sure that the doctor would say he still had at least a month or two left before it would be time to let him go. Again, in my car on the way to work, I got a gut feeling that I should turn around and call my boss to explain the situation. I could spend the day with Flynn, petting him and talking to him. Maybe we could even go for a short walk to the mailbox across the street, which was all the further we dared go with him, since his legs were so unsteady. But again, I brushed the feeling away and continued on my way to work. Later I would wish I had listened to my intuition.

That night Michael and I waited with Flynn for Dr. Mesher to arrive. As we did I watched Flynn lying quiet and peaceful on his bed and felt so glad that I had arranged for this visit instead of hauling him in to his regular vet's office which only would have upset him (and me).

Dr. Mesher and her assistant arrived and bustled into the house with the briefest of introductions. They went directly to Flynn and in a moment the doctor was on her knees examining him. It couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes before she said that something was very, very wrong with him. She said that the massive muscle wasting we were seeing was probably due to cancer. She asked me to have him get up so she could see him walk. I gestured to Flynn with the big, swooping, "Come on, boy" wave of my arm that we had been using for a long time since his eyesight was so bad. He dutifully pulled himself up, slowly, slowly and began tottering forward, following me into the kitchen--such a good boy. Dr. Mesher watched him and then told me that she was pretty sure he had either a liver or spleen tumor. She pointed out how the left side of his ribcage stuck out more than the right side and said that it was most likely caused by the growth of one or more tumors pushing from the inside. She couldn't palpate them since they would be underneath his ribs, but she was pretty positive that was what was going on. Besides that, his arthritis was so bad that she said it would be a matter of weeks before he wouldn't be able to get up on his own at all. It was up to us what we wanted to do.

She told me how strange it was seeing Flynn because his condition was so similar to what her own dog's had been. She'd had a sixteen year-old labrador and had had to put her down a couple of months ago once it got to the point where the dog couldn't get up anymore to go to the bathroom.

Dr. Mesher said that if we wanted to keep Flynn around for a few more weeks, we would need to get him on some arthritis medication. I asked her if he would still be uncomfortable from the tumor pressing on his ribs and she said that he most likely would be.

So I decided it was time. I didn't want this dear, sweet, dog--the calmest and gentlest dog I have ever known--to suffer for one more day. He didn't deserve that, and to keep him around because I couldn't let him go would have just been selfish. I kept thinking of that part of Mary Oliver's poem, and as much as it hurt and as much as I wanted to do anything else, I knew I had to let him go.

We gave Flynn all the doggie treats we had in the house, including one entire unopened bag of his favorite Cesar "Softies," that are shaped like little paw prints. Needless to say, he was one happy boy. :) While he gorged himself, we took pictures and hugged and petted him.

Dr. Mesher gave him a sedative while he was eating and he didn't even notice, so intent was he on getting every single treat in the dish. It only took about a minute before he started feeling the effects of the sedative. His back end plopped down, but he kept eating. When his front end sagged to the carpet, I took the remaining treats from his dish and fed him from my hand. He just kept licking them until they were gone. Then Michael and Jennifer lifted him onto his bed so he could be more comfortable. We petted him and talked to him while waiting for the sedative to take full effect. The doctor explained that the drug that would stop his heart was just an overdose of anesthetic, and that it would go to his brain first, so he would feel no distress over his heart slowing down.

When she said that Flynn was ready for the lethal dose of medicine, I watched her inject it into his leg, and knew that there was no going back.

She was right--he slipped very peacefully away while Michael and I petted him and told him what a good boy he was and how happy we were that we got to have him with us, even though it was only for a short while. Well, that last bit I said mostly in my heart because I was crying so hard that all I could get out was "I love you," and "I'm sorry."

Dr. Mesher and her assistant gave us as much time as we wanted with Flynn after he was gone, and then they very carefully and very gently placed him on a fabric stretcher and took him away.

Dignified Pet Services in Tualatin is cremating Flynn and we'll pick his ashes up in a day or two. They will also have a clay paw print for us to help remember him by.

This has been much more difficult for me than I guess I had thought it would be. A few things have been comforting: looking through pictures we took during the 13 months he was with us, and compiling my favorites, finding poetry that expresses how I am feeling, writing in my journal.

When she was at our house, Dr. Mesher pointed out something that I hadn't thought of, but which was absolutely true. When we agreed to foster Flynn back in January of 2010, we thought we were doing someone else a favor. It turns out we are the ones who were lucky. We are the ones who benefited from having this extraordinary dog in our lives. We are the ones who are forever changed.

I already knew that he was a special dog, but the doctor told us that Flynn was truly an exceptional dalmatian, since many of the breed are aggressive and hard to control. She said that she had never seen a dalmatian like him, so calm and so willing to please.

This poem by Dalia Shevin makes me think of Flynn (and of the dogs I grew up with: Sienna and Winston). It's called "In My Good Death."

I will find myself waist deep in high summer grass. The humming

shock of golden light. And I will hear them before I see

them and know right away who is bounding across the field to meet

me. All my good dogs will come then, their wet noses

bumping against my palms, their hot panting, their rough faithful

tongues. Their eyes young and shiny again. The wiry scruff of

their fur, the unspeakable softness of their bellies, their velvet ears

against my cheeks. I will bend to them, my face covered with

their kisses, my hands full of them. In the grass I will let them knock

me down.

I miss you, good, sweet, BEST boy ever.