I’ve always been a dog person. My #1 all-time favorite dog is our rescue miniature poodle Max. He’s now about 14. When we picked him up at the rescue shelter in Howard County, MD, he sat in my lap on the drive home and got inseparably bonded to me. My saintly wife does almost all of the dog care, but Max always stays by me. In particular, the other two younger poodles sleep with my wife, but Max always sleeps next to me in the living room, where I sleep in a recliner due to breathing issues.
Max has had a severe attack of pancreatisis over the last week, and we’ve spent more than $4,000 schlepping him between four different vet facilities. We were never able to have children despite lots of trying and medical help, so our dogs are virtual children. It looked like it might be the end of the road for poor Max, but we’ve resisted that as hard as we can with money and prayer.
Two days ago, Max was away in one of the vet ICUs, and I was very unhappy he was not by my side. I kept thinking of the great Leonard Cohen song The Gypsy Wife
And I kept thinking, as I was half asleep, “Where, where is my little dog tonight?!”
That’s about as lugubrious as one can get, but I had some incredible tears over that.
Max is back with us tonight. He keeps falling down, and sometimes can’t get up. But he’s still Max. The medical situation with him is very complicated, but there is still hope. I’m never, ever going to give the order to euthanize him.
Update: I’m amazed to see this little diary hit the reclist. Thanks. I have what seems like a miracle to report. My wife and the dogs (our pack) tries to take a W (walk) every day, but I’ve been out of action for two months from illness. Today I insisted we take the dogs on another W. We were going to leave Max behind, because has has been so wobbly. But when I made my special sound for a W (Oh the DOGS!) Max perked up and started trotting toward me, tail wagging. So I insisted we take him with us, and darn if he didn’t get through the whole W without falling down! This was a short one, about half a mile, up and down a couple of steep hills, but he survived just fine. Three days ago I would have said it was 100% certain he had only hours to live. That’s what one vet told us. But miracles happen!
Probably nobody will see this, but thanks for all the kind words in the comments.
BTW, yes, I understand about euthanizing a dog, and I’ve had to do it. But I just won’t do it with Max, at least not as long as he’s alert and not in horrible pain.