Dog Days

Hello from mid-November.

One of the poems in my upcoming collection is titled “Mid-November and You Ask Me How I’m Feeling.” It starts like this:

November is a hard month. The time change. Five o’clock in the evening out here acting like nine o’clock at night. The shifting temperatures. The cold sheets when you first get into bed. The looming holiday season with its unreasonable demands for merriment. It’s a lot. This year, added to our normal November struggles is a sudden illness for our family dog. This post is about that experience this week and about some of my past pets. I give you this warning because I know that reading about this kind of stuff may not be in everyone’s best interest right now.

Feel free to skip this one if you feel you should. I mean, feel free to skip any of my newsletters. Please never feel obligated to read. Though of course, as always, I am so thankful for your support.

Four months after my husband and I got married, we got a dog. Ty, a golden retriever/chow-chow mix, was three years old when we adopted him and he lived to be fourteen. He was the best dog in the world. I know everyone thinks their dog is the best dog, but everyone else is wrong because that title rightfully and solely belonged to Ty.

I mean, just look at this good boy!

He was big and fluffy and beautiful. Most of the time he looked like a friendly lion and then he would get a haircut and he would morph into a friendly bear. So much so that once when I was walking him through the park, a young kid stared at us with a mixture of fear and awe before asking me, “Why are you walking a bear?”

Ty was gentle and patient, and incredibly sweet. He was a perfect dog and an amazing companion. As he aged, he developed the kinds of conditions you come to expect if you’ve spent enough time with older pets. First came a thyroid condition that was easy enough to treat. Then came an issue with his heart valves. He had to get some special tests and go on blood pressure medication. We were told that he could manage for a while on the medication, but given his age and his size…I feared I would be out walking him one day when his heart would suddenly give out and I’d have to figure how to carry his eighty-pound body back home all on my own.

That did not happen. In fact, after a little time on the medication, he had a follow-up test and we were pleasantly surprised to learn that not only had his condition not worsened as we feared it might, but he seemed to be improving. He was fourteen years old and was declared to be in surprisingly good health. Less than two months later he was dead.

All that time his heart was getting stronger, something was growing inside his gallbladder.

His death was incredibly painful to bear. Sudden and unexpected. One day he stopped eating and a few days later he was gone. At the time, I thought the surprise of it was what made it so excruciating, but five years later, nearly to the day, oddly, our seventeen-year-old cat died after a long drawn out illness. It turns out, knowing it was coming didn’t make it any less painful when the moment arrived.

I bring up these sad stories now because our family dog just got home from a two-day stay in the hospital. I took him to the vet in October because of a persistent hacking cough and he was diagnosed with a thyroid issue. (Hello old pet conditions, how unpleasant to see you again.) This past weekend, he had multiple episodes of vomiting, after which he would stumble around, lose his balance and collapse on the floor. It wasn’t good and the reason for it remains somewhat unclear. He is back home with a whole bunch of pills to take daily. He has little energy and his body is weak. He needs help to stand and once he is up, he can’t walk very far before he’s exhausted what little strength he has. We are hopeful that a few more days of rest and medicine will bring some improvement.

I love this dog, I do. We adopted him in the spring of 2021 when my son, who was two-and-a-half when our dog Ty died, had been asking for a dog and someone we know was trying to quickly find a home for a gentle, approximately eight-year-old dog. Huck is a good, sweet dog. Eternally patient and loyal, he has been a wonderful dog for our family with two young kids. I love him and I will miss him whenever the day comes that he is gone. But he is not my dog. Not the way Ty was my dog. Not the way Maggs was my cat. It will be upsetting when he dies, but really, this is my eight-year-old son’s dog, and watching him go through this experience is the truly difficult part for me this time around.

My son is worried and that worry has turned to anger and agitation. I want to give him hope that right now this feels especially scary because Huck is still recovering. He needs time to feel better and get his strength and energy back. But I don’t want to give him too much hope because Huck is not a young enough dog to have lots of good years left and my son is not a young enough kid to be oblivious to Huck’s condition and the range of possibilities it presents. He has been confronted with the reality that his dog could die and he has to live each day with hope and heartache competing inside him. It is painful to experience. And it is also painful to watch your child experience it.

Yesterday I told him that though I know it will be nearly impossible to do, for now, he should try to set his fear of what might happen aside. Whether his dog dies tomorrow, next week, a few months, or even a few years from now, it is going to be absolutely heartbreaking. No amount of worry or preparation will make that moment easier to bear, no matter when it comes.

There is no way to protect ourselves from the pain of loss, I told him. No fortress we can build around our hearts that will forever isolate us from grief.

“This is going to be painful,” I said. “Whenever the day comes, it is going to be feel unbearable. But you will get through it. We will get through it together.”

I told him that, for now, he should try to focus on what is happening each day. Today, Huck ate. Today, Huck rested. Today, we gave Huck comfort. We petted him and gently kissed him on his head. We sat with him so that he didn’t feel alone. We gave him his medicine. We helped him stand. We told him what a good boy he is. We loved him. Today, we felt especially thankful for the opportunity to love him.

We will see what tomorrow brings.

You can find more of my writing & contact information at clairemtaylor.com. If you’d like to further support my work, please consider purchasing one of my books, or a copy of Little Thoughts Press. I also have a ko-fi page.