Update: It occurs to me that I perhaps should have clarified something. When I wrote the main content of this post so many months ago, I started it in a more lighthearted fashion (hence the playfulness of the "love of my life" part), and it then grew sadder on its own as I went. I just realized that the couple paragraphs I removed to make it shorter were the lighter, playful ones (the "these are the crazy things my dog has done" and "how weird and lovable is she?" sort of stories), which pretty much cleared out the lighter aspect of the post. Just FYI.
Back near the beginning...I wrote this about a year and a half ago. I post it now because if I
hadn't written it back then, I'd be writing it now. I warn you that it's ridiculously long because I've cut out only a couple short paragraphs from the original; when I wrote it, it wasn't for the blog.
Chance's thyroid level is low--really low, as low as it can get--and it's not hypothyroidism; she's actually been losing weight the last couple months (despite my increasing her food), not gaining weight as dogs with hypothyroidism tend to do. She's also losing a lot of hair, more than usual. X-rays on Saturday night showed nothing, but it was also difficult for the veterinarian, who was looking for tumors, to see everything because her stomach and intestines were not empty. Late tonight, she will have an ultrasound. Then if necessary, there will be scopes. The word
cancer has been tossed around. I am terrified and periodically falling apart.
March 2007
Some people marry or live for most of a lifetime with the love of their life. Some people find that love early and then lose it. Some people don’t find it until late in life and then spend the remaining years trying to make up for the years they didn’t get.
And some people—well, some people…
I met the love of my life almost three years ago. She was on the rebound from seven years of bad experiences and was looking for a second chance. So was I. I saw her photo and description on a Web site and spent the next month repeatedly going back to look at it. I checked out other options during that time—even almost made a commitment to another who was closer geographically—but finally, fate intervened and led me to go meet her. And the second she turned the corner and waddled into the room, I knew it—this was love.
She was carrying several pounds more than in the online photo, and she had adorably short legs for her proportionally too-large-for-them body, so “waddled” really is the appropriate description of her entry. But then, it wasn’t surprising that she’d gained a few while in that place. It wasn’t as if she had control over what she was fed or as if anyone was walking her daily.
That’s right. The love of my life is a dog. She is my priority, and I would easily choose her over any human who dared to tell me I had to choose.
When I brought Chance home, she was 7 1/2 or 8 years old. No one knows for sure. For the first several years of her life, she had been an outside dog, tied up and not taken care of, and at some point, she’d ended up at the Humane Society in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. I don’t know if those so-called caregivers finally got tired of not caring for her and relinquished her or if she got there by some other means, but halfway through her life, she moved from being tied to a tree to being confined to a tiny indoor space in a shelter. Some time after she got there, a couple adopted her. But after a few weeks, when their two-year-old daughter wouldn’t stop tormenting Chance, they decided that the situation wasn’t fair to, or safe for, either Chance or their child, and they returned her to the shelter.
Chance spent another several months in a shelter cell before a young woman came to take Chance to her third home. A couple months later, the woman’s attempts at in vitro fertilization worked, and she decided she didn’t want a dog after all. So back to the shelter Chance went yet again.
When I met Chance, a couple workers had dubbed her Second Chance. In reality, she was pretty near her last one. She was an older dog. She had terrible allergies and chronic ear infections. Because of her years spent outside, she wasn’t completely housetrained and sometimes had accidents. A Corgi-Lab mix, she had short stubby legs that were bound to become arthritic and troublesome as she aged, carrying around that big lab body.
But she was sweet beyond comparison and smart and funny and beautiful. From the moment I saw her, from the first time she rolled over for me to rub her belly, from the first time that I took her outside on a leash at the shelter and she nearly knocked me down running after a squirrel—I knew. This was my dog. It was mid-week, so I asked for two days to get back to Champaign and make preparations. I wanted to come get her at the beginning of a weekend, so that we’d have a few days at home before I’d have to go back to work (for the first few months I had Chance, I was still working for La Diabla at the law office). So two days later, after spending a small fortune at pet stores and for the adoption fee, I loaded that stinky dog into my car and headed back home.
I soon learned that Chance had separation-anxiety issues, and after her previous three experiences with people and homes and returns to the shelter, who could blame her? For the first couple weeks, she wouldn’t eat or drink unless I sat beside her. If I tried to put food in her bowl and then go to another room—or even walk across to the other side of the kitchen—she abandoned the food and ran after me (those of you who know Chance and her voracious appetite and her unreal efforts and escapades to get at all kinds of food and food refuse know how significant this is). So at mealtimes, until she could trust that I wasn’t sneaking away, I sat next to her on the kitchen floor and waited while she inhaled her food. For the first couple months, she also slept right up against my body at night, as if she wanted to make sure she’d feel it if I tried to leave. She eventually started sleeping in her own bed, only periodically climbing up to mine in the mornings or when she wanted something. To this day, she still comes running to find me once she's finished eating.
She loves everyone—dog, cat, adult, child. She really loves children, and not just children who behave and leave her alone—all children. She lets them play with her ears and her tail. She licks their feet and their faces and their hands. If they sit on the floor near her, she crawls all over them, tail wagging like mad and tongue licking them frantically while they giggle. She is enamored.
When my Grandma Marie was fading in the nursing home, Chance accompanied me on my last three visits. She brought Grandma Marie—and indeed, all the residents who saw her—the same smile she brings me.
And whether I really saved her may be in question—I’d like to think that someone else too would have soon seen what an amazing soul she is and taken her home—but that she saved me is not. This dog was witness to the darkest, saddest, and longest days, weeks, and months of my life. She was at times my sole source of laughter and motivation. When the circumstances of my life and my work together meant that I otherwise could have gone weeks on end without even leaving the house, she was the reason I was outside every day, breathing fresh air and saying hello to neighbors. When weeks and months passed when nearly nothing else brought me joy, this dog brought me daily laughter—truly every single day, even when it was laughter through tears. When I went literally days and weeks without seeing or speaking to anyone outside of those I encountered on dog walks, I still had the comfort of this sweet, loving creature. When friends were absent, she was not. This dog’s presence, affection, personality—and, yes, need for my care—saved my life, quite literally and more than once. She may not have been there by choice, but she was there, and she provided comfort and love and lightness and laughter. I owe her a great deal.
December 2007
Age has been catching up with her these last several months. The arthritis has set in; she is, in general, simply not as coordinated and spry as she was three years ago; and sprains have slowed her down a couple times. Her allergies grew worse with the move to St. Louis and are only partially relieved by the immunotherapy. The white in her face has spread. I worry about her constantly. The night (or early morning, rather--it was around 2:30 or 3:00 AM) that I started writing this several months ago was a rough night. She had been breathing heavily and rapidly for an abnormal length of time and had seemed to even stop breathing a couple times by the time I got her to the animal hospital around 12 or 1 AM. I cried the whole way to the animal hospital, begging her to be OK.
People tease me about spoiling her or being too attached to her or having a codependent relationship with her. They think that how hard it is for me to leave her while going on trips is silly. They think that my refusal to even consider ever going back to a day job while she’s still around is utterly ridiculous.
But in the first 18 months I had her, we weren’t apart for even one night, and in all but the first couple months of our time together, I’ve worked at home. For two years, before we moved to St. Louis, it was just the two of us, day in and day out. And as much as she has depended on and needed me, I have relied on and needed her.
In the last year and a half, I’ve left her behind for overnight trips—whether for just one night while visiting friends or for a full week during trips—four times, and I’ve had to choke back tears each time. It seems to be getting harder rather than easier. Probably because of how quickly she’s aging before my eyes. Probably because of how much that terrifies me. Probably because I know that when that inevitable day comes sometime in the next couple years, it will break me down to a state of sorrow that I’ve felt at only one other time in my life—and this time, she won’t be there to comfort me during it. Probably because I don’t want to miss a single day of her life, because I don’t want there to be a single day in which she wonders where I am and when or whether I’m coming back, because I know that when she’s gone, some part of me will go with her, and I will regret every moment lost. I want to say all of this every time someone calls her “just a dog,” every time someone fails to realize that I love this dog as much as I’ve loved any human and that this dog has seen more of me and my experiences at the most raw and honest level than any human being.
I love this dog. I truly, deeply love this dog. I would do anything for this dog. But I can’t make her immortal or impervious to illness. Oh, how I wish I could.
