Your Kindness Is So Appreciated

As one could predict, I was a bit of a mess last week. Making the euthanasia appointment for my beloved Otto, and being with him until it was time for the final injection, was just impossibly hard. It was the second-guessing that was most torturous – wondering at the moments when he seemed to be doing well whether this was the right decision.

I’ve had several friends whose dogs were suddenly stricken with a condition that either killed them or had an impossible prognosis, making immediate euthanasia the only rational choice. Is it bizarre to say that, as Otto passed his 15^th birthday, I started to wish for such an event, a crisis that would take the “Is this the right time?” euthanasia decision out of my hands? But no such event occurred; I had to take full responsibility to decide whether and when Otto’s bad days were outnumbering his good ones. Making life-or-death, suffering-or-release decisions should be difficult, but man, was it taxing. And over the course of the week following I did all the things that humans tend to do when overwhelmed with grief: locked my keys in my car while getting ready for an early-morning walk with Woody and Boone (fortunately at home, where my husband was available to help sort this out once he woke up), couldn’t eat, then ate too much, burst into tears at random moments . . .

Maybe not completely random. Some of the puppies I haven been fostering for the past six weeks for my local shelter had neuter surgery and were up for adoption at the shelter. Two days after my husband and I buried Otto, I was training some new volunteers at the shelter when a young couple and their five-year-old daughter came in, looking for a puppy of a small-to-medium size to adopt. I raced to gather “my” puppies for them to meet in the shelter’s “get acquainted room”– I was disappointed that none of them had been adopted the first day they were available, and any one of them would be perfect for this family. Happily, the family chose one of the pups, and I got to see them preparing to carry him out of the shelter – the whole goal of my fostering and volunteering efforts, right? I said, “Wait! Let me say goodbye!” and I ran over to hold his little face in my hands and kiss him on the nose and say, “Be a good dog! Have a good life!” But then my face immediately crumpled and I barely choked out the words, “Thank you!” before rushing out of the shelter lobby, tears flowing. I wanted that adoption to happen – I practically forced them to take one of the puppies! – but the whole idea of just launching that little life out into the world with unknown people and an unknowable future … it just overwhelmed me for a minute.

People’s kindness also is overwhelming when you’re feeling raw. I would be perfectly functional, and then would receive a text or call from a friend saying, “I’m so sorry to hear about Otto!” and BOOM, the tears would flow freely again. I had cancelled a dog-training class I was supposed to teach the day before Otto’s appointment, and, early this week, thanked the class for accepting the postponement of that session. After class, some of my students (a couple) handed me a gift bag that held a bottle of wine and a fine chocolate bar – and immediately, again, I could barely choke out my thanks. They said, “We know what it’s like, we’ve lost some fine dogs over the years, it always hurts!”

All of your comments and messages, too – thank you, I so appreciate your kind remarks and remembrances of some of Otto’s early exploits. I have been reading them in short spurts, because it’s so emotional. It’s obvious that you guys get it, you’ve been there. Many of you shared stories about your own lost, sainted dogs, and those stories are painful and wonderful, too.

When we make the decision to love a dog, most of us expect to outlive them; the difference in our usual lifespans makes our surviving their death an almost certain event. We know what we’re getting into – that we’re signing up for some future pain – from the outset. And the more we love them, and the more that they love us, the more pain we can expect! So, I’m rolling with all of it – the sudden face-crumpling, on-and-off crying jags, and even the locking-my-keys-in-the-car moments – in memory and celebration of my very good dog. Thank you for allowing me to share him with you for all of these years, and for your appreciation of him, too.