Read My Blog … Or I’ll Kill Your Dog

            I think it was in the year 2005 … summertime … we were at my brother-in-law’s house and were taking advantage of his pool in spite of the hot weather.  Everyone, including my mother-in-law had jumped in.  Brando, our German shepherd sat at the bottom of the steep stairs of the new pool deck my brother-in-law and his brother had recently built together.  Brando always wanted to be involved in everything we did.  He always had to be around us.  Even if it meant he was getting in the way and was risking injury to himself.  As a result, he would indeed sometimes get injured because no matter how we tried to divert him or keep him in the house or lock him on the deck, he would find a way to escape and get into the mix.  That day, after repeatedly being told to “STAY!” Brando could no longer maintain his good behavior and when the last person, my mother-in-law, climbed the deck to go into the pool, he was not far behind her.  The stairs were open-faced, steep, and narrow.  Not designed for a top heavy dog like a German shepherd.  Not sure if he wanted to continue to climb to the top or not and surely knowing he was going to get into trouble if he did, he stopped in mid flight and waited for my response … when I finally noticed him.  My brother-in-law noticed him first.  He brought the trespassing misbehaving dog to my attention. 

            “Brando,” I said in a ‘caught-your-hand-in-the-cookie-jar’ tone of voice and he turned to go back down the stairs.  Inside the pool, I couldn’t see him go down and suddenly I heard my wife say …

            “What’s the matter with Brando?” 

            That was all I needed to hear.  I jumped out of the pool expecting the worst and discovering I wasn’t too far off.  If he had broken his leg, at his age of almost ten-years-old, it would have been a better outlook for him.  Instead, he tore the ligaments of his right front forepaw completely in half.  I braced his leg and picked him up and we went home to make emergency vet calls to desperately find one open for the weekend.  Not an easy task.  The closest vet to us in any direction was an hour away.  The ones with a better reputations were well over an hour.  We received a call back from the closest one and drove him right away.  She was admittedly over her head with the injury and referred us to a place in Norway, Maine, some two hours plus away.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t get there until the beginning of the new week.  That summer was dedicated to getting our dog back to a level of comfort or making the ultimate decision not to let him suffer too greatly.  The vets in Norway, Maine were fantastic, but surgery was out of the question.  It was not financially viable, and even if it were, the vet openly admitted that because of the dog’s age, he sincerely doubted that it would result in success.  Instead I was referred to a man that made prosthetics for people and he eagerly jumped at the opportunity to try to help Brando and start a home-based business on the side.  He was also in Maine and also a couple hours away.  A couple visits to him and he had made a custom-made molding of Brando’s leg and in the interim, I had built a wide ramp going down our backyard steps for him to climb and descend.  I carpeted it with that fake green grass like carpeting and it was a great success.  But because of Brando’s age, other injuries of his past started to haunt him,  He had a fractured pelvis (not sure how that happened but he did jump into my tackling my nephew in the back yard once and we kind of landed on him … yet another time when we had to keep telling him to stay or lay down, but he wanted to play football, too … or basketball … or volleyball … and if you tried to put him in the house, he would stand by the door and bark his fool head off and the second someone went in or out, he’d beeline straight for the action … or he could have simply also injured his pelvis on the pool deck stairs) his hip dysplasia was becoming an issue and trying to walk with the man-made prosthetic splint was wreaking havoc on other parts of his body to compensate for the awkwardness of getting around with it on.  It ended up that after all that, we just medicated him on Rimadyl and some arthritis joint medicine and let him lumber around on the broken leg without anything at all.  After a while, even though it looked like hell to see him walking, it stopped hurting him so much.  So with a level of comfort achieved, our little loving buddy beat the system and found a way to still be somewhat (lovingly) annoying and get by on his own.  There were a few setbacks.  He must have splayed once when we were away from home … most likely on the linoleum kitchen floor and re-injured his hip, but after a while, he responded to the meds again and got better relatively quickly. 

            Then came the summer of 2006.  The thing I never thought would happen did.  Our cat of 16 years suddenly passed away.  He went so fast.  He was playing with a toy he had rediscovered under our bed and I was laughing at him because I hadn’t seen him with that toy in years … and within two weeks of that incident, he died.  Within five days, his kidneys shut down and he went into a catatonic shock.  On the way to be euthanized, he died on his own terms.  We had him cremated and his ashes, his cremains, are on our makeshift mantle.  I was so devastated and after Brando’s injuries of the previous year, I never saw it coming.  I was floored.  Six weeks after the passing of our cat, my grandfather passed away.  Again, although he was 92, he had just been driving a year or two before he went into the nursing home.  But when he went in, it was like he had given up all hope and went downhill so fast.  It didn’t give me enough time to absorb the data.  I was again, devastated. 

            With my grandmother smothered in a deep recess of dementia, my mother still in the throes of suicide by inhalation … she was life-long smoker who just could not kick the habit … on a Nebulizer and on Oxygen, but continued to smoke … and the inevitable age of our dog and his obvious complications, I knew it wouldn’t be too long before my wife, my daughter, and I endured even more death. 

            That started at the end of July this year.  My grandmother had suffered a stroke and was placed in hospice.  At or about the same time, my mother was also placed in hospice and we all waited to see who was going to go first.  My grandmother did and we drove down for the service which they had at the manor so my mother would be able to attend.  We fixed her a plate of food after the service, which she didn’t eat.  She was wheeled back to her room and asked that we come see her before we go.  We did and we got to kiss her and tell her we love her and my mother let her life go that very night.  She died on the same day as her mother’s funeral.  A week later we attended hers. 

            Despite the inevitableness of it all, it’s still a hard pill to swallow.  I must admit, in an odd sense to myself that I had already come to terms with the passing of my grandmother and mother long before they actually had died.  My grandmother didn’t even know who we were anymore when we’d visit her so I felt I lost my grandmother a long time ago.  As for my mother … well, she was my mother and I loved her for that, but it’s hard to sympathize with someone who refuses to change their habit knowing its killing them.  It put a tremendous amount of stress on this family every time she went to the hospital via ambulance and after a while, we all became somewhat desensitized by it all.  Like we surmised one of the trips would be the final one.  My mother had decided on giving up on her own life a long time before she died. 

            So after enduring two funerals within a seven day period, we were faced with the cumbersome task of trying to have Brando watched while we drove the three hours south and three hours back north.  He refused to get up and go out for my mother-in-law.  As a matter of fact, he barely lets my wife take him out anymore.  We have hip sling that we brace under his belly and assist him along the linoleum floor and down the backyard ramp and then let him walk on his own terms to do his business.  I think he’s not comfortable doing that anymore.  He barely gets up now and only goes out about twice a day.  That’s highly unusual for him.  We knew we didn’t want him to endure another winter … which up here in the North Country can be extremely brutal.  It’s heart wrenching to watch him with all his injuries trying to lift his paws out of the snow because they’re so cold.  That’s only on the extremely cold days, but it happens and I didn’t want him to have to suffer through that this winter. 

            Well … it seems that Brando … although when he lays down he perks his ears up high in a coherent state of mind which contradicts the inevitable task … has made us come to terms with what and when to do with him.  We called the vet and made the appointment.  The last appointment.  Is it the right decision?  How can we tell?  We have to base it on his level of comfort.  Our beloved dog has suffered for so long with such pain and never once complained, still happy to spend what time he can with us in any capacity.  That’s what makes this so hard.  But if he’s not getting up regularly to be taken outside … even assisted in being taken outside … then he’s holding his bladder and bowels so that he doesn’t disperse pain from dispelling them in the back yard.  It’s the only conclusion I can come up with to validate the appointment that we have made. 

            To know the date that your beloved pet is going to die and scratch him on the head and behind the ear and tell him you love him feels like such a betrayal.  You’re making the decision for him, based on his behavioral patterns, but if he were given the chance to choose, would he choose differently?  We can punish ourselves thinking all kinds of scenarios and most likely we will.  Until it’s over.  We’ll mourn his loss in our lives, somehow try to fill the void his absence has left us with, take a side order of guilt pondering our choice every now and then, and inevitably move forward. 

            I think the hardest part of this appointment we’ve made is going to be the drive there.  He’s going to be so excited and probably a little nervous … he’s never traveled well in a vehicle … about being with us for a ride.  I don’t know how I’m going to be able to make that ride bearable knowing I’m going to be losing my best friend, my little enema as I would often call him because he was always right up my ass every time I moved … all the endearing names and nicknames we’ve come up with to call him … all the memories, the good, the bad, the scary ones when he hurt himself … everything racing through my head.  The arrival at the vets, picking him up and helping him out of the truck.  Carefully lumbering him into the office, we’ll be somewhat embarrassed and inconsolable I’m sure.  Taking him into the room and waiting for the injection, all the while his trusting soul and expression of joy and expectation that after he gets a shot we’re going back home again.  Not quite my little man.  Not that day.  You’ll come back to our home later … in an urn … and have your spot on the makeshift mantle next to the cat … waiting for my urn to join both of yours.  That will be the one day I will no longer mourn my surrogate family.  My beloved pets. 

            I don’t want to sound as if I’m more devastated by the loss of a pet over a family member.  That is quite far from the truth.  I think what makes my pets harder for me to come to terms with the loss of them is that I acquired them on my own when I was single.  They were my responsibility and I was always the father-figure that did all the things with and for them.  They moved with me when I moved, they endured the changes of my lifestyle and adapted to it on their own terms, never once complaining, always just happy to be with me.  It makes losing them quite personal.  Some people do not consider losing a pet as significant as a family member.  Personally, I don’t think it’s any worse, but I don’t think it’s any better either.  The loss of the loved one is one and the same whether they walk on two legs or four. 

            Next Thursday we are going to endure the third death of this summer of 2008.  We’re going to mourn the loss of another loved one in our family … and what makes this the hardest one of the summer for me to deal with is he’s sitting in the living room right now with his ears perked up undoubtedly hearing me type and waiting next to Mommy for me to come out and coerce him into going outside to relieve himself.  That’s been our morning routine for a while.  When he was a puppy, he’d get up with me and I’d take him right out on his own.  Or he’d wake me up to be taken out.  Now, I have to prod him along.  It’s time for Brando to be comfortable again.  To be able to run again in the meadows of his dreams.  To catch the Frisbee again or tug on his Jolly Ball … he used to be so obnoxious with that slimy thing … challenging everyone … anyone to tug it from him … all sticky and slimy with his spit and drool.  No one wanted to touch it … but he just kept wiping you with it … challenging you until you reached down to get it and he’d turn his head away playing “Keep-Away” with you.  He’s been a wonderful dog.  The best dog in the world.  He’ll be sorely missed, but like my grandmother, we lost the real Brando a few years ago.  We’ve been hanging onto him and evaluating his level of comfort and waiting for the day to make the appointment.  That day is next Thursday.  Somewhat appropriate considering the date.  It’s not the first time I’ve bawled my eyes out on September 11^th.

Jody L. Campbell

R.I.P. little buddy.