Good-bye Dear Friend

When you put your dog down, I mean permanently down, people say, “It was her time,” and “Take comfort that you did what was best for her.” 

I put my 15-year old boxer Phoebe down this weekend, and I feel no comfort, no comfort at all. I feel sad; I feel empty; I feel consumed by an overwhelming sense of guilt. 

Phoebe and I bonded in many ways, but I think our primal responsibility in the relationship was to protect one another. She held up her end of the bargain.

The guilt, no doubt, would have been even worse had I let her live, for my benefit, into the realm of real pain. Phoebe was recently diagnosed with bone cancer – a form of cancer incurable without amputation followed by chemotherapy. At fifteen years old, that was not an option.

So we got the pain meds and were told we could expect another two to six weeks together.

I put a post on my blog -- "Come see Phoebe this month and get your face licked." She was always an exuberant hostess and loved to entertain. The next day I amended the post to say "Come by this week." And then, another day later, I cancelled all future appointments. Because we didn't have a month, we didn't have a week.

Her back end couldn’t support the cancer leg on the front end. And when she fell, she looked at me with such fright in her eyes. This dog who had never been frightened of anything in her life.

I got Phoebe as a 3-year old rescue. And she was a handful; no, a houseful; no, a yardful. Practically a cityful. Until quite recently, she could leap six feet in the air from a standing position.

We put in a lot of miles all over California – Anza Borrego, Yosemite, Santa Ynez, Big Sur. But most of all, we liked to hike in and around Altadena – Echo, Mt. Lowe, the Haha, Chaney Trail, Brown Mountain. And we walked the streets of Altadena. I expect there are very few neighborhoods we missed.

Oh, Phoebe had her faults -- mainly in the realm of appetites. She liked to digest the binding on my more expensive books; she liked gamey dead things and kitty perogies. Also, she always jumped up to lick a face -- any face that came her way bearing a kind word. I mean, I just stopped trying on that one, and figured it was every man for himself.

To some, Phoebe looked imposing. A force, as they say, to be reckoned with. One time in Ojai, I laid on my horn when a pick-up truck blocked my way. This big burly guy got out of the truck and stomped over to my car. Phoebe stuck her big face out the window and, much to my relief, he stomped back to his truck without saying a word. 

But to some, Phoebe looked very sweet. There was the time at the Cobb Estate when we met up with a hiking group from a children's orphanage. One boy, a hurt and angry little boy about six years old, walked up to Phoebe and kicked her with his little tennis shoe. Phoebe licked his face. He threw his arms around her and we all continued the hike, Phoebe with her little human knapsack, up to the water tank and back again. True story.

Phoebe never seemed old to me. So the end of our years together just snuck up on us. We turned around, and there it was. 

Albert, my other dog, a foundling that I kept mainly upon Phoebe's recommendation as she needed a consort, has been wandering around the house. He knows his queen's favorite spots to sit and sleep, and keeps checking each of them. Round and round the house he goes, and then sighs and flops down on the floor. For about an hour, until it's time to check again.

I know the feeling. I keep looking at the same places she's likely to be. I never realized I checked up on her so often. Just automatically, almost like breathing.