These Thing Happen In Threes

While I was out the other day I bumped into a friend of mine who I'd not seen in some time, and I recalled the reason for that long absence approximately two minutes into our conversation. I remembered that this was one of my "friends" that I could only be around for short periods of time, because the more time we spent together, the greater the likelihood of our friendship devolving into, at best, a total crazed bitchfight, or, at worst, possible manslaughter, (tho I kinda believe I'd get off with a temporary insanity plea if it came down to me actually choking the life outta him.)

It was around the 2-minute mark that he asked me how everything was going and what I'd been up to recently. I mentioned that my mom, whom he'd met, had passed away as had my dog Buster (whom he'd also met, tho I think Buster liked him less than my Mom, but I can't be certain.) He grabbed my hand and said, "Oh, honey... you must be so worried, since these things happen in threes."

I kid you not... that was his response to the death of my mother and my dog. "Oh, honey ... you must be so worried, these things happen in threes."

It was one of those moments where time stood still and this post practically wrote itself in my mind. "These things happen in threes." OMFG... what a putz!

My near-instantaneous and totally snarky reply (probably one of the reasons I won't see this guy for another 6 months) was, "Threes huh? Well, if there is any truth in that statement I'd better back up so as to avoid the gigantic boulder or grand piano that should be dropping onto your head in true Wile E. Coyote Warner Brothers fashion. This will deprive me of having such a truly sympathetic friend as yourself, but I think I'll soldier on."

Mourning The Loss Of Man's Best Friend, (Or In This Case) Two Men's Best Friend

Ten years ago, John and I traveled out to Greensboro to a greyhound rescue called Greyhound Friends. John wanted to get a greyhound. He picked a beautiful black female greyhound and we put the deposit down for her. A few days later, John got a call that she didn't make it through the operation to get fixed, which apparently is not uncommon as greyhounds are especially sensitive to the stuff that vets use to knock them out, and could we come out and pick another dog?

So, back out to Greensboro we went. That time, we both agreed that we needed to get a male, as we didn't want to go through the same thing with another female. So we took our little girl dog Max with us to make sure whatever dog we looked at was OK with small dogs. John was favoring a brindle colored male in the top row when I spotted a big black and white dog with his tail wagging furiously at us as we walked by. I popped his cage open and leashed him up and motioned to John. It was his happy, tail-wagging demeanor (and the fact that he was about 4 inches taller/larger than the other greyhounds) that caught my eye. He wasn't nervous or skittish like some of the other dogs in the place. It was like he knew that we were coming for him and was ready for us to get him. He even tolerated our little dog Max, which was what clinched it and made him part of our family.

There's been times, over the last ten years, that I was furious with him, like when he went through his brief "chewing" phase from which the newel post on the stairs of our condo has never recovered, or when he would escape from our gated dog area and run off to the trailer park that was the next development over from our last house, or when he would "mark" various areas of the house to prove that it was indeed his house.

There's an old saying though, that "time makes all memories golden". I know that it's true. I wouldn't have traded him for anything.

About four months ago, Buster seemed to get a bit of a bladder infection, which when added into the fact that he's already an old dog, it made him unable to hold his bladder for more than a few hours at a time, and usually he'd let it go if he fell asleep, and he wouldn't realize it until he woke up. The truly awful part was the look on his face when he realized that he'd peed his bed, or peed my bed, or didn't hold it until he got outside and peed on the floor. Buster is the most facially expressive dog I've ever had. He gets this horribly sad, guilty look on his face that clearly says, "I'm sorry! I couldn't hold it! I tried! I'm really, really sorry!" To see this look... it's like having a knife stuck in your gut and twisted around a few times. There's no way to be angry at him for something like this, so you just pat him on the head and say, "Don't worry about it buddy, I'll make sure you get out more often."

About 4 weeks ago on Saturday, John and I were sitting on my bed talking and all of a sudden our poodle Algonquin started barking like crazy at Buster. John and I peered down over the foot of the bed where Buster had been sleeping on his dog bed and saw that he was trying to stand up but was unable to do so, and his head was pointed down and turned at a funny angle. He was also panting like he'd just run a race and his eyes had gone all wild. I shooed Algonquin off him and helped him get to his feet, at which point he stumbled towards me and fell over.

His breathing was becoming more labored, and he was finally able to get up, kinda sorta. He began to walk like he'd had a stroke or a seizure on the right side of his brain, which caused his left legs to not work real well. But, he soldiered up, walking up the hallway to the kitchen and got himself some water.

He then walked to the front door and waited as I got my shoes on and the leash onto him, then he stumbled outside and peed, then promptly fell over again. He got back up and dragged me down the walk where our neighbor was looking at my rather stricken appearance with alarm. I explained that I thought he might have had a stroke or a seizure, but that he had "demanded" to go to the bathroom. While I explained, Buster peed on a nearby tree, then leaned on it for a while and panted some more, then he decided he'd had enough, and dragged me back up the walk to the house. I got the leash off him and he stumbled back to the bedroom and laid back down on his dog bed and, once settled, promptly fell asleep.

At this point, I was pretty wrung out and upset, so I called my friend Daniel, who is a real fan of Buster's and left a message explaining what had happened, then mentioned that we were thinking that (if he did have a stroke and was in pain or incapacitated) we might have to take him to the vet and have him put him down. Neither John nor myself want to see Buster live in pain. He's been too good a friend to have to go though that. Daniel called back about 30 minutes later and asked if, after we ate dinner, he could come over later in the evening and see Buster, in case it was the last time he'd see him.

So I went up the road to a local Chinese restaurant and had dinner with Daniel and his partner Don and, afterward, they came back to the house. And wouldn't you know it, Buster gets up off his dog bed and runs to the door, tail wagging and happy like nothing had happened. I just shook my head and explained that he had looked really awful a few hours before, and that it seemed nothing short of a miracle for him to have snapped back like he'd done. On the upside, the seizure seemed to cure him of his bladder issue, so I took it as a sign that it just wasn't his time yet and allowed him to sleep in the bed with me again.

When my mother died in mid-April, I was fortunate enough to be able to get John's mom to come and stay with him and the dogs and take care of all of them while I went out to Nevada for the funeral and to spend some time with my Dad afterward.

When I got back from Nevada on Wednesday, I was expecting the worst. John and his mother had both sent messages saying how Buster hadn't been eating, and how, in general, the dogs had been going wild since I left. I walked in around dinnertime and Buster was sitting on the leather chair and he sort of wobbled his way off it and came over to me, tail wagging. I petted him and let him and the other two dogs out to pee. He then came back into the house and went straight to his food bowl and ate every last stitch of food in it. Seems he was just waiting for me to come back.

Later that night, John's mom and I were watching tv and I noticed Buster's chest near his front left leg had turned bright red, almost like a bruise, and that his leg had begun to swell. Over the next day, his leg swelled to double its usual size, and he began to limp badly on it. I gave him some painkillers and hoped the swelling would abate on Thursday.

When I got home it was worse. Buster stood next to my bed on Thursday night, looking longingly up at the covers... Apparently John's mom didn't allow Buster to sleep on the bed with her like I do. So I picked him up carefully and put him gingerly down on the bed, and covered him up. I slid into bed next to him and was nearly asleep when I heard him try to roll over. His swollen leg caught on the covers and he yelped in pain. It was then that I knew; knew that this would be his last night keeping me warm in my bed, and knew that I would be taking him to the vet tomorrow because he'd been too good a dog to allow him to live in pain like that.

I got off work at about 4 pm and hustled home to let all the dogs out to do their business. I hitched Buster up to the porch as I put the other two dogs back in the house, then he and I walked down to my car, where I carefully put him in his favorite traveling place, the back deck of my Prius. He was all perked up and happy to be going for a ride as we rode the short distance up to the Timberlyne Animal Clinic. I put the car windows down and went to see if they could see us without an appointment. I explained what was going on with Buster and the receptionist said it'd be no problem.

So I went to the car and fetched Buster and got him on the scale to be weighed. He'd lost a lot of weight, and was down from his 85 lb weight a few years ago to a mere 68 lbs. We went to the room and the vet came in and took a good look at Buster and then motioned to me. He said that he was pretty sure it was a tumor near the top of his leg, where the swelling was really, really pronounced. The swelling in his leg and the redness of his chest made him think that something around the tumor had ruptured and that blood was filling those areas. He explained that I could easily spend 4-5 thousand dollars to have them x-ray and amputate and go after the cancer with chemo, but then he said that it wouldn't buy him a lot of time, seeing as how he was in advanced years already, and that he could feel more lumps on his other legs as well. He said that the kind thing to do would be to consider euthenasia. I nodded, somehow already knowing that this would probably have been the case anyways.

I called John a few times, desperately trying to get through to him before I made any final decision. Finally, just as I was giving up, cursing him for not picking up his cellphone and vowing to superglue the damned thing to his head one night very soon, he called me back. In a voice thick from crying, I told him what was going on and asked him if he wanted to come see his buddy one more time before they did anything. John's voice was gone and I could barely hear him tell me that he just couldn't do it... he wanted to remember Buster as he saw him earlier in the day, laying happily on the leather chair.

Buster knew I was upset as I talked to John. As I was crying, he limped over to me and put his head on my lap and looked up at me as if to say, "hey.. it's OK. Don't be upset. I don't like to see you crying." He meant well, but being consoled by the animal that's about to be euthanized just isn't cricket, and I ended up bawling like a baby and hugging him as I sent out text messages and made calls to everyone who knew Buster.

The nurse came in sometime during this emotional outburst and I gave her the go-ahead to start the procedure by passing her my credit card. After my credit card cleared, the vet came in and told me how it would work, that he'd give him two injections, one of a tranquilizer to calm him down, and the other would be the euthenasia drug (some potassium mixture, according to my sister Kathy.) He then said that I could leave if I wanted to, that I didn't need to see it done. I was horrified at the very idea. "No!", I said to him, "He's my bud. I'm not gonna leave him now. I'm gonna hold him til the end." The doctor smiled kindly at me and nodded and patted me on the shoulder.

So, I got down on the floor next to the little cushioned dog-bed they'd brought in for him and he put his head on my lap. He barely twitched when the doctor gave him the first shot in his back leg. After a few minutes, he lolled his head up at me with a dull, stoned look that clearly said, "Wow... this is some GOOD SHIT!" A minute later his tongue sort of involuntarily popped out of his mouth and he drooled on me as he tried in vain to pull it back into his mouth. I scratched his head, ears and back all the while as the first drug took hold, talking to him and telling him how much I loved him. Just before the doctor came in to give him the second shot, I mentioned that, with him leaving like this, that it meant that Algonquin was now gonna be in charge. Buster's eyes narrowed slightly at the name and he looked up and actually gave me what I can only describe as a pitying look; one that clearly said, "I'm sorry, but that really sucks for you."

The doctor came in and told me that it was time to do the second injection. Buster didn't feel like going quietly, however, and as the doctor stooped down to where he would inject him in his rear leg, Buster let loose with possibly the most vile, bilious-smelling gas he's ever had. The doctor literally got up and had to go open a door less we all get sick. It was a rare bright spot in the whole visit, and probably the only time I smiled, though briefly, while in that building. After the smell abated, the doctor mentioned that he would check his pulse and let me know when he passed on. That was not really necessary. As he pushed in the plunger of the second syringe, about just less than halfway down, Buster gave a light shudder and was gone. I whispered, "Goodbye Buster. Bye-bye Buddy." I already knew he had gone, and that he wasn't in pain anymore. It was a small consolation to me, seeing as how the pain I was feeling now from his loss felt so enormous. The doctor listened to his chest and confirmed that he was indeed gone and then left me with him.

I looked down at him and carefully put his tongue back in his mouth and closed it, and then gently took off his collar. It's funny, when we used to bath him, I'd get him dried off and then hold his collar out and tell him that I needed to put it back on him so he'd be owned by us again, and he'd usually run right over to me and help me put it on him. This time, when I took it off him, as he lay so still, I knew I'd never really owned him, and that having him in my life wasn't an ownership responsibility thing as much as it was just a sheer blessing. I bent down and kissed him on the head once more and then got up and gathered up his leash, the invoice, and his collar along with the 30 or so kleenex that the vet and his assistant kept handing to me during my tear and snot filled visit. I stopped at the door and bid him goodbye once more, then walked out of the room.

I dumped the kleenex into the trash at the front desk and turned around as the vet walked toward me to shake my hand. He said that I'd done a very unselfish thing, by letting him go like I did; that it was a very good and noble decision.

It was then that I asked him why those types of decisions make you feel like you'd carved out your own heart, threw it on the floor, let everyone stamp on it, shit on it, then tried to stick it back in. Unprepared for this line of questioning, the vet gave me rather wide, alarmed-looking eyes. I went on to mention that other far less good or noble decisions, like for example, having a random fling hookup with a local college kid or skipping out on work on a nice warm Spring day, now those wouldn't even bring about a hint of ennui, guilt, or even, for that matter, a pause.

Then I asked him why that was, did he think? Again I got the wide, alarmed-looking eyes. I'm sure he thought I was just overwrought and half-crazy with grief. Let's hope so! After I got in the car, I really let go.... I wailed like a baby for a few minutes. Seeing Buster die, watching it actually happen, was a hundred times worse than seeing mom's body already dead at the mortuary a few weeks before.

Then I got really mad. I yelled at God, asking him "what the fuck was next?!?!" A heart attack for me? John's cancer to return? A car accident? Maybe a home fire or tornado? Lacking any immediate reply from on high, I pulled out of the parking lot for the Timberlyne Animal Clinic and headed home.

As I walked in to the house, I noticed Algonquin looking at me somewhat aghast and more than a little frightened. Apparently he is smart enough to do the math... Fat Owner and Buster leave the house together... and Only the Fat Owner comes back... holding Buster's empty collar. That can't be good! Funny, he's been on his best behavior since then. He must think his number is up next.

I walked upstairs and handed Buster's collar to John and sat down on the bed beside him. He just cried and I hugged him and told him just how good Buster was, this one last time.

It's a very sad day indeed now as we begin to mourn the loss of man's best friend, or in this case, two men's best friend.