A Dog's Tale: The End of the Story

A week ago Thursday I wrote my last post here. It was called One Dog's Tale, and was about the importance of the time I was spending with my dog Hershey, as her health slowly declined. Sadly, a week after that post, we would need to say goodbye to our sweet dog.

On Sunday, at a family get-together, we were talking about our hope that she would make it through the holidays. The next day, she started to have trouble walking. At first we thought she might have slipped going up or down the stairs during the night as she would come up to her bed, in the bedroom. In the next two days however, she got worse, not better. The tumors which were all just under the skin, were now appearing and quickly growing on her rib cage. The vet also believed her kidneys were shutting down. All in all, her immune system had enough.

At the beginning of the week, we hoped to let her enjoy one more weekend at the lake, but by Wednesday it was obvious, she was not enjoying anything. I brought her bed down to the living room Wednesday night, and because she seemed to be more uncomfortable, I decided to sleep on the couch to keep an eye on her. It also seems to be a ritual I have when my dogs are near the end. After getting her settled, I fell asleep for a few minutes when I heard her moan. Time to move a little closer, so I took my not-used-nearly-enough exercise mat and got down on the floor next to her. I rubbed her and pet her and talked to her all night. If I would drift off to sleep, I either got a paw swipe or a nose rub, to remind me that this night was not about me. Someone told me she kept waking me up because she knew her time was short, and wanted me to be with her til the end. I think he was right.

It was a long night, but a longer morning waiting for the vet's office to open to make the call.

Saying goodbye to anyone you love is hard, watching them take their last breath is even harder. As I had with my other two dogs, I kept my face in front of hers til the end. I don't know what she was feeling, but I wanted the last thing she saw to be the face of someone who loved her completely.

As with any eulogy, I thought it would be nice to remember a few of the sweet things about Hershey.

Whoever owned her before she became a stray, took time to train her. She was generally well-behaved, though wary of strangers. One day, probably months after she came home, it was time for a walk and one of us told her to go get her leash... and she did. So this became part of the routine. The interesting thing is we had two leashes for her. One that was aqua, matched her collar, and was for going for a regular walk. The other was a leftover from Norton, our last dog, and we used that for a quick trip out to the backyard, or when she was in the car. She knew the difference, and would routinely fetch the correct one for the occasion. The few times she picked incorrectly, we would say "no," and she would drop the wrong leash and pick up the right one. I never did remember to get it on video, I'm not a big video taker.

The one other fun thing she would do would be ask for permission to jump on the couch. Yes, we let our dogs on the couch, I like having them there. Apparently in her first home, this was not the case. Now if she was home alone, or if we were home and not on the couch, she had no problem just making herself at home. But if one of us was on the couch, she would walk over and give a little woof, or cry, look at us, then put her head on the couch. And this would go on until we gave her "permission" to jump up. It was a very sweet thing that made us laugh, every time.

Of course there are so many other things you remember. Like the relationship she had with her favorite peeps. Every relationship was unique, mine was different from Freddie's. My mom's had a different basis, as did my dad's when he was still with us. And the one she had with her "uncle," well that was another animal onto itself. But through it all, she was just a dog who unexpectedly became part of a family..

A family that is a lot sadder today. Another friend told me that he had recently gone through this, and one thing that helps is knowing that all dogs go to heaven. I agreed and only hoped she would put in a good word for me.

Goodbye sweet girl.

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