I’m a dog guy. It’s no secret. I’ve had seven dogs as a part of my family, and I love my parent’s dog like he is mine, though he loves them probably more than he loves me. He’s a rascal, but I’d take him in a heartbeat.
The thing is, however, I’ve never been around for any of those dog’s end of life. The first dog was a collie when I was very young that I barely remember, and who we didn’t have long.
Then there was Buck, my beloved black lab when I was a kid. Buck was a great dog who was discontent in our small yard. He used to climb the backyard chain link fence to play with Chief, the dog in the yard adjacent to ours. My parents feared he would climb a different fence and get hit by a car or run away, so we surrendered him to a family that lived a ways away on a large plot of land. We visited Buck a few times after that, until one day he went hunting and never came back. Either he got snake bit or was picked up by another person, but we never saw him again.
Following Buck, our family got Lad, a neurotic sheltie who was a good dog, but he wasn’t great with kids. We surrendered him when our family moved out of state, which was good for Lad, but sad for us. In between we tried to adopt a lab puppy, but I don’t remember him lasting too long before we gave him back.
There was a few years where I didn’t have a dog around, and then I was studying at university, but as soon as I could, I adopted a little papillon who was so sassy I named her Cordy after the Buffy the Vampire Slayer character Cordelia Chase. If you know, you know. Anyway, only a few years after adopting Cordy, I had to re-home her as I moved to Texas and wouldn’t be able to have her with me where I was living. This is when I really bonded with my parent’s little shitzu-mutt Rufus. He and I are great friends.
When I married a few years later, my wife came with two dogs: Duncan and Cassie. Duncan is a super dumb beagle mix, who nonetheless is sweet and gentle. Cassie is a spitfire of a miniature poodle with a gimpy leg. She is super cute, and knows it. Recently we took Duncan and Cassie to the vet for their annual check up.
Both dogs passed their routine checks with flying colors until the vet listened to Cassie’s heart. The vet came into the exam room with Cassie and asked us if we noticed any change in her behavior. We hadn’t seen anything alarming, but that’s when the vet said she had heard a little heart murmur during the examination. Without more advanced tests, it is hard to know exactly what it going on. The diagnosis is that Cassie has a deformed, or deforming, heart valve. The end result of that will be congestive heart failure. Apparently it is a common development for small dogs, but it hit my wife and I pretty hard. Duncan and Cassie are both senior dogs at this point, but they aren’t nearly where they are as lived as they can be, and we certainly aren’t ready for either of them to leave us just yet.
There are a few things we can do for Cassie. The first step would be some imaging, either an X-ray (not very effective) or an echocardiogram (best). Both options are pricey. Then, there is medication which will delay the inevitable and help Cassie’s be more comfortable as the degradation progresses. Medication is also expensive. For a human, we could do heart surgery and replace the defective valves or address the underlying trouble, but we aren’t there with dogs, and the cost wouldn’t be approachable.
I do not want my Cassie to suffer, neither do I have the funding to pay for expensive studies and medications. To be clear, she has plenty of energy at the moment, and whatever is going on with her little heart is in the very early stages at this point. But it won’t stay there. So what to do? There is the thought that Cassie is just a dog, and as much as we anthropomorphize her, she isn’t human, but that doesn’t quite match how my wife and I feel about her, and how much a part of our family she truly is. But, we can’t really do much for her. Certainly, when her condition advances enough that she is in pain we won’t let her live that way, but what do we do in the interstitial time?
I don’t have answers to these questions. Right now I am trying to process my early grief and face the reality that however much time Cassie has left, it isn’t going to be that long compared to my lifespan. I will have to say goodbye to her, either sooner or later. None of us, canis or sapiens, are guaranteed the next day, and it is tragic that we are with dogs (usually) during their whole lives but that is such a short chapter in our stories.
I hope when the time comes, whenever that is, I will know what path to take and how best to care for her. However, for now, our vet told us that we don’t have to take immediate action, and that we are to monitor Cassie’s symptoms and energy level. In the next few months we will determine whether or not to get the echo, and what to do about meds. Whatever happens, we will face it as a family.
I love my Cassie girl. I don’t want to say good-bye to her.
a simple man 