Then My Dog Died

Did you ever think that a puppy which was going to grow into a very large dog was choosing you, and not the other way around.  She puppy waddled out of the litter and sat on my feet.  We named her Candle, put her in the Mazda and drove her home. 

Seventeen years later, Candle lay on her four foot in diameter round downe stuffed comforter bed, unable to get up and having trouble breathing one more breath patiently waiting on me to make up my feeling guilty mind.  Her life flashed before me.  Seventeen years of life with me makes for a really big dog long run requiem.

  This will take some time, and I will take the time it needs to tell the story because Candle was my love life broken heart in a dog suit.  The word ‘Euthanasia’ stood between me and Candle’s peace with her dying life.

I will write more during this month of June 2010.

Time passes us all by eventually.

Goodness, here it is already half way through July 2010.   

When I was quite ill and in and out of a Virginia hospital, I was not able to get up and down the stairs. Candle seemed to know this. She would park her huge frame at the top or the bottom of the stairs and sit there waiting for me to take her collar and manage the stairs myself with Candle right up against my side. This was when I knew she was there for me, no matter what. What if she had gotten tired one day with the attitude of ‘I just cannot take it anymore’ and decided to euthanasia me? This was a very scarey thought, indeed.
Then years later, I wondered all of this agian when Candle was the one that I could not nor did I have the strength to get her from the house to the garage to the yard for her daily bodily functions. She had been my faithful friend for so long. I felt as though I was not being her faithful friend.

These are difficult sentences to write, even after all these years. Nothing in side of me could say, “She is just one more dog.” So I struggled, put her on a car mechanic’s dolly and rolled her willy nilly into the yard. I would take the hose and clean her butt and return her to her over stuffed round bed.

Around this time, because she was losing her sight, she began to go into attack mode to protect me. Eighty plus pounds of muscle in blind attack mode is a scarey situation indeed. A strong hand and a soothing soft voice seemed to do the trick, but it took a while, certainly longer than my strength to hold her in check. It was then that I knew I had to think of a better way. There wasn’t one. And I was faced with the facts of a dog’s life.

It was a cold and wet January morning. Paul found a vet who would let us drive up in the truck and come out to the truck and put Candle down, in the vet-speak manner. So we put the Candle bed in the back end of the ‘94 Ford Ranger work truck. Paul carried Candle to the truck bed and put her in. I crawled into the back with her. I wore my aged old Virginia seen its day full length fur coat. We tied a rope to Candle’s collar and through the back window to Paul in the driver’s seat. We had read that in fear an animal would cause them bolt and leap with super animal strength.  We had the addition of a near blind super strength dog with us.

We covered every base we could think of at the moment. Two old people and one old dog wrapped in an old fur coat tied into the bed of an old Ford truck started down the road in a cold January, Texas , misty, icy rain. Candle was half in her bed and half in my lap.  The other half of me was half in her bed with her.

Writing this has not made it any easier to remember.

THE VET:  The Missouri City, Texas Vet was a kind and gentle man with a kind and gentle nurse.  (I have known many who were not–believe me, I have.) Since he was also a large animal vet and used to doing the really big hard things in life on the open road, he was ready for our own drive by euthenasia first time adventure.  They were kind and understanding.  He was amazed at Candle’s healthy, shiney coat; and said so.  I felt uneasy telling him that she had never ever had a dog bath.  I thought they were bad for big hunting dogs.  Well, except for the time this  80 pound water spanial long legged deer dog crawled into the bath tub with me, looking for a loose duck or something.  There were other times, like when she pulled Zeb into the lake in January in Virginia.  The missing agitive here is COLD.  Our friend Richard put his new toy power boat running at full boar into the lake.  Candle lept into the lake with Zeb on her leash now propelled prone and flying behind her.  Candle returned Richard’s new Christmas present to him gently held between her teeth still towing air born Zeb.  Candle probably was thinking that was the fastest and toughest duck she ever caught.

Yes, Candle would think.  I had experience watching her think.  I had knee surgery and could not get up and down the stairs.  Candle would sit a the top or bottom of the stairs and wait for me to take hold of her collar and she would step by step get me up the stairs between her and the railing.  One day I went to the the top of the stairs and stood  there like some lame sheep.  She lay on the sofa in her favorite Queen of England pose, as if to say, I think you can do this on your own now.  And so I did.

Then it came my time in Karma to get really sick and suddenly shipped out to emergency and then ICU at MCV Hospital in Virginia.  Candle had laid in the sofa on my feet clear up to my lap and not moved for three days.  Dogs can smell death in the doorway.  She seemed to me to be standing in the way of Dr. Death. Do not ever forget that.  I cannot.  Zeb said that she took to laying in the entry way at the bottom of the stairs until I returned just over one week later from ICU.  And yes, from the hospital, I talked to her on the phone just like a good parent would do for a loyal child.

I know these are not the words to say at this moment in writing, but somewhere in my mind I looked at Candle as though she were human first and dog second.

A human in a dog suit.

My life progressed, as all lives do.  I married Paul and moved to Houston.  Upon leaving the Richmond Virginia house I looked at Candle and said,  “Zeb is going to bring you to me in Houston”.  I had seen dogs and sheep and deer and pet calves in the the air-crates and I just could not put my tired old human dog through those paces. They had to have a run of Vet Shots and $400.00 and little care.  This was a job for car care, not air freight care.

Less than three months later, after waiting on warmer than February traveling air, Zeb cranked up the old Mazda.  Together, man and beast, dog food, water, What-a-Burgers and coffee drove half way across the continent to the coastal waters of Texas and Candle was with me once again.  Both Candle and Zeb fell out of the car onto the cool Houston grass and lay there, exhausted, together for the good part of the rest of the day.  I gladly provided curb service.  And cleaned out the car.  Candle knew to make friends with Paul and Paul knew the same thing.  Once, early in the still dark of morning I heard Paul talking kindly to her and asking her if she had a good night’s sleep.  You do not nor will you ever know the peace that brought to me and my mind.  So she had Paul and a yard all her own, she slept in my art room, where she had always slept, smelling my last painting.  She was with familiar objects and smells and people.  You know,  home never really ever changes, no matter how many times you move it.  My Nomade Railroad parents taught me that.

Paul and I had Candle for two more years.  Her condition deterioted.  Slowly at first, little things.  More and more blindness and ever slowing movement and responces.  I would sit in the garage or the back yard, or the art room or the sunny den windows or the entry patio and just watch the enevitable happen before my eyes.

Then is was January again.  Cold, rainy January.  Paul and I took Candle to the Large Animal Vet.

I will always know that she knew.  I cannot write this sentence after all these years and not cry.  Guilt never leaves.  I was helping.  I was gulty.  And now I know just how long this saga can hang on in the human/animal relationship.

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