No matter how many years you have a dog, the day you let go is always too soon.
I knew from the beginning I wouldn’t get to love her as long as I wanted. Angee was already four years old when I first visited her home one bright January morning in 2010. My family had bought her from a woman who suffered from bad hips and could no longer walk her. Our last dog had died 10 years prior, and my mom was desperate to get another one. She had initially set her sights on a puppy, but then an email advertising Angee caught her eye. Her long, detailed response about why Angee would be happy at our home convinced Angee’s “mom” not to sell her to a breeder.
As we watched Angee sprint from one end of her living room to another, smiling and stub tail vibrating, we knew there could be no other dog. And yet I felt anxiety: how could we take this happy girl from the only home she had ever known? After my parents and I clasped her harness into place and walked her toward our car, her body stiffened. We were not like the other people who came to visit, and this was not going to end the same way.
I helped her into the back seat with me, while my parents sat in the front. For the next two hours, she paced the back seat frantically, her tail twitching. A half hour before we reached home, she crept over to the left corner and retched up her lunch. She then lay down on the seat and stared up at me with a look of deep shame. “It’s okay,” I whispered, stroking her back, “we’ll do whatever we can to make you happy.”
And we did make her happy, though it didn’t compare to the joy she brought us.
My mom would be diagnosed with breast cancer four months later. My dad suffered from memory loss and mobility issues that one year later would receive a name: Lewy Body. My sister was battling depression. And I was in my last year of law school, preparing to take the California bar, trying to stay focused, trying to be normal.
The next two years would be among our worst. But through it all, Angee was there with her smile and her wagging stub tail. Despite being crate trained, she soon began sleeping on my parents’ bed. During the day she liked to plop down on the center couch cushion of the family room and look out the window, sitting upright like a person with one paw laid on the sill. She eagerly prowled the neighborhood on walks with my mom, often crossing the street at random when a sight or smell took her. Thank goodness she was always on leash, or her lack of street sense could have been her undoing. She quickly grew to love baby carrots as a treat, to the point where her poops started to bear an orange tint.
When my mom went through chemotherapy and radiation, as wisps of hair fell from her head, Angee would be there to snuggle, or to roll onto her back so my mom could rub her tummy. When my dad was in assisted living after a fall in 2011 caused him to forget who he was, Angee was one of the few things he remembered. We even managed to smuggle her into the facility for a visit, and she sat on the bed next to my dad while he petted her—my dad, who had hated nearly every dog we had until we got her.
She was there to greet my sister with frantic barks, as though she were a long-lost member of the family, whenever she visited from southern California. And she was there for me as I studied for the bar exam, trying to tune everything else out, including the lurking knowledge that even if I passed, there were no jobs available. Angee would scratch on the door of my room when I visited, put a paw on my leg, then sit with her back to me, waiting for me to drop everything and pet her. Whenever I stopped, she would turn her head to look at me like, “Well? Continue.”
She wasn’t one of those wonder dogs who saved people or knew remarkable amounts of information. She simply made life better for all of us with her love, and by finding joy in simple things.
My mom’s cancer thankfully went into remission, but I would lose my dad in 2012 to multiple myeloma. Angee was with us through that difficult time, her happy face and tail serving as a balm. She began howling whenever we returned home, and I would hear her howls from the garage. Then when she saw us, she would rush about the room, stopping to pull toys out of a box and toss them around. Angee was rarely interested in playing with toys unless she was excited about one of us being home; then it was like she had discovered them anew. But only stuffed toys—toss her a ball, and she’d look at you like she didn’t know what to do with it. Also, for all of her eagerness to be petted and give kisses, she wasn’t a lap sitter. If you put her on someone’s lap, she would look about uneasily, seeking the first opportunity to get down.
Still, she was a people dog, and was happy to meet any new person on her walks, as well as their dogs (as long as they stayed on leash). She even endured being put in bee costumes and clown costumes on Halloween, so eager was she to run to the door and greet kids.
One of her favorite things was to roll around onto her back and try to grab a toy in her mouth. We have a video of her doing that to a new toy on Christmas 2016. The way she rolled about, it seemed as though she could keep going forever.
At the end of June 2017, my mom noticed a trace of blood in Angee’s stool. Her vet told her to monitor it, that it was likely due to a parasite. A week later, the blood was still there, and was also starting to seep from her nose. Her blood was tested, and the next day we got the grim news: Angee had an autoimmune deficiency that prevented her blood from clotting. Her platelet levels had plummeted from 300,000 in April to 17,000.
We put her on a high dose of prednisone, but after blood showed up in her urine, we checked her into the veterinary hospital. She stayed for six nights, the first time she had slept away from us since we got her. They kept her on prednisone while giving her three-to-four blood transfusions to keep her blood levels up. Despite this, she looked good—at least for a while. She even acted betrayed when we visited her on the first night, not facing us as we pet her, her tail flat.
But her blood condition continued to worsen. The platelet levels dropped to nearly zero, then the red blood cell count started dropping. Because Angee continued to eat, drink, and show energy, the specialist who treated her said that she could go home, as long as we continued to give her medication, and as long as we made sure that she didn’t run or jump. We would continue to monitor her to see whether with prolonged treatment, her platelets and red blood cells regenerated.
We got Angee a crate to sleep in so that she would not risk jumping off of my mom’s bed. When we showed it to her, she expressed mild interest, but come bed time, left the crate immediately and placed her little paws on my mom’s mattress. My mom did not have the heart to deny her.
Angee slept a lot the first day we brought her home. The second day, she was so alert, she seemed almost like her old self. She was holding her blood level after the latest transfusion, leading the specialist to take another blood test to see if she was turning a corner. It turned out she was, but in the wrong direction. Now she was losing white blood cells as well.
Her condition changed notably from Monday to Tuesday. Tuesday morning her demeanor was muted, and by late Tuesday, her breathing seemed more labored. On Wednesday morning, July 19, the specialist pronounced that she was either bleeding into her chest, or had pneumonia. Either way, she was suffering. We would have to let her go.
So my mom and I went into a private room, sat her on our laps, pet her and thanked her for giving us the privilege of knowing and loving her. Then the doctor delivered the final shots, and she was gone. We held her a while longer, telling her we loved her through our tears.
I suppose it’s taken me six months to write this tribute because I’ve been in a state of disbelief. I look at videos of her six months, three months before her diagnosis—the way she rolled about and threw her toys around the room. Even the Thursday before her diagnosis, she had taken a long walk with my mom. She was healthy and happy… until suddenly she wasn’t. We’ll never know what caused her illness. Already she was taking medication for seizures and thyroid; maybe autoimmune was just a grim genetic inevitability. All I can say is that unlike my previous dog, who died at 14.5 years, Angee never truly grew old. Though I had 7.5 wonderful years with her, I wish I could have had nine or 10.
Even so, I can only be grateful that I had her for as long as I did. She came into our family when we needed her most, and gave us her love and years of joy. This past Thursday she would have turned 12.
Happy birthday, my sweet, funny girl. I love you and miss you. Thank you for being my dog.