Decline

I made myself many solemn promises about my dog. The one I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep was about not forcing her to live too long. My parents had done that with their dogs and some had lived far past the point where they were enjoying their lives. I remember scolding my father about the condition of our first dachshund Moxie, who was fourteen, had a broken back and couldn't use her back legs, but who was still dragging herself around the house, the picture of misery. Not long after that, Dad finally found the resolve to do the right thing for his pet.

Would I Have To Do That?

After Molly's sixteenth birthday on August 16, 2011, I did start wondering aloud to Bruce, if we transported the dog back seven years, would our 2004 selves be dismayed by what they saw.
  

Molly in 2007 - Post-bath crazy mode

The photo record I've scoured to build this blog shows a nimble and active Molly who could clearly both see and hear right up to around 2009, when she turned fourteen. After that, there are many photos of the dog sleeping, none of her running around.

What's That, Sonny?

Molly seemed to go deaf quite suddenly. One day she was responding to our voices, the next day not. But then she'd seem to be able to hear us the day after that, so we persuaded ourselves that perhaps she had not lost her hearing after all. 

The apparent return of her hearing I think came from Molly's own adaptations to her new circumstances. After being startled once or twice when she didn't hear us come up behind her, she compensated, and maybe paid more attention to her sense of smell to know what was going on around her.

But before long there was no real denying that she couldn't hear us. 

Our joke was then, well, she never listened to us before, either.

I Can't See You!

Molly's capacity to compensate sometimes moved faster than our powers of observation. For example, before the following incident, it did not dawn on us that Molly was blind:

During the summer of 2011, we visited friends who live in the east end of the city. They love dogs - have had several themselves over the years - and Molly was always welcome on our visits to their home. 

We were chit chatting in the kitchen shortly after our arrival. Molly was doing what dogs do, roaming the first floor of the house, nose to ground, familiarizing herself with her environs and prowling for any bits of food left forgotten on the floor.  

My eye caught Molly just as she came into view at the kitchen door, which was across a small landing from the door to the basement - which was open.

I kept my eye on the dog as she happlily nosed her way across the landing, got to the top of the stairs and flipped into the void.

I hollered her name and moved as quickly as I could to the basement door. I wasn't sure I knew what to do when I got there, but the plans forming in my head had something to do with grabbing the dog before she'd fallen more than a step or two.

Gravity works faster than that. I got to the top of the stairs in just enough time to see her tumble all the way down and land on her side on the concrete floor at the bottom.

Completely horrified, I ran down the steep, slippery stairs. It was dark down there and I had no idea what I was going to find. A broken Molly. A dead Molly. But she was getting to her feet on her own by the time I got to the bottom. She gave her head a shake so I knew she hadn't broken her neck.

I put my hands on her gently, applying slight pressure testing for sore spots. She didn't wince or whine or pull away. I hauled her up in my arms and brought her up the stairs still gently pressing her ribs and limbs for sore spots as I climbed. She was fine. No sore spots. No contusions or abrasions. I put her on her feet on the landing and she happily resumed her reconnaissance where she had left it before she fell.

Not that we were ever going to give her another chance at it, but I bet Molly would have never fallen down those stairs like that again. She was still our little evil genius. As soon as she learned that peril awaited her if she didn't change her ways, she changed.

While Molly was clever enough to adapt to her new circumstances, we couldn't ignore their effect on her quality of life. It came to the point where she really was not interested in playing with the ball anymore. I think she could still smell where it was, but she couldn't see it or hear it bounce on the floor. She also stopped reacting to the vacuum cleaner, the phone, or a knock at the door.

But, somehow, even with her shrouded senses, she was instantly aware of when I was chopping food in the kitchen and would come running to monitor for falling food. 

That facility never left her.

But the end was nigh. You can read about that here.

Health and Wellness

Aside from the occasional mishap, and her early bout with mange, Molly was a healthy little dog. We heard a lot of horror stories from other dog owners - where injuries or rare conditions resulted in thousands of dollars in vet's bills - but you can count on the fingers of one hand the times we needed to leave Molly at the vet's overnight.

Molly's first medical procedure was when she was spayed shortly after she was six months old. Our vet did not say this when we brought her in, but he used a method requiring just an inch-long incision, so Molly recovered really quickly and without complications. This was the only time we were unconditionally pleased with the care Molly received.

The Mixed Blessing of Veterinary Care

Most of the rest of Molly's health problems arose from trying to keep her healthy. We had the vet clean her teeth exactly twice. The first time was fine. The second time, when she was about seven years old, she reacted so badly to the anaesthetic she needed to spend two days at the vet to rehydrate and get her electrolytes back in balance. We never did that to her again.

Sometime around her eighth or ninth year, Molly's blood tests came back abnormal. The vet said the results suggested kidney disease, or maybe cancer. The next words out of her mouth were that we should subject the dog to a round of chemo therapy. 

We were stunned by this, and had trouble believing it was true that our dog was so sick. We asked what would be the other symptoms besides Molly's blood levels. "Lethargy," said the vet, "and lack of appetite." "OK," we said, "you have absolutely not described our dog." The only response from the vet was to tell us to bring Molly in for more blood tests. We said we'd keep an eye on her and they could test her again when she came in for her next annual check up.

Subsequent tests were normal. The result that led the vet to believe that Molly was sick was due to lab technician error.  

Second Last Procedure

Molly's penultimate medical procedure was to have two growths removed. Here's an e-mail I wrote in January 2010:

Late last year, we had noticed Molly was worrying a small wart on her right hind leg. It was getting red and inflamed and, when we took her in for her annual shots, we asked the vet if it should be removed.

The vet took some time before she answered. "Sure," she finally said, "and you should probably remove the one on her back, too." 

So, two Fridays ago, Molly went in. 

We picked her up after work. She'd been given some hydromorphine and a sedative along with two local anaesthetics, so she was a little groggy. Consequently, she wore her "cone of shame" (thank you, Disney) without any fuss or commotion. Bruce carried her the whole way home.

When we got her home, we took the cone off to make her more comfortable, but she was anxious, unhappy, restless and, I think, really hungry. As well, the stitches on her hind leg had not really "taken" and she had bled a lot on the way home.

The blood horrified Bruce. "We should never have done this to her," he said.

A view of the shaved patch on Molly's back.

The botched stitches on Molly's ankle.

A Nagging Cough

In her last couple of years, Molly was troubled - or, probably more accurately, we were troubled - by a cough caused by her collapsing trachea. The condition is just as it sounds, due to illness or advanced age, a dog's trachea will collapse on itself, changing from a circle to a kind of half-moon shape; when the collapsed sides of the trachea touch, this creates a slight vacuum inside the dog's lungs, which causes her to cough. There's no real treatment for the condition and the medicine that treats the symptoms is very expensive. 

This was just one of the things - along with being blind and deaf and really not enjoying herself, more about which next week - that helped with the final decision and her last procedure at the vet.

More about that in the next post.

Inspirations Part Three: Works of Art

Molly provided services as a muse to more than just Bruce. Many people have made artwork of Molly-the-Dog.

Photographs

During a photo shoot so protracted that even the dog began to wonder, I got these shots of Molly. They were featured in her first Christmas card.  

Handicrafts

Bruce's Mom made a hooked rag rug with a portrait of Molly. 

Fine Art

Sherree Clark drew a pastel portrait of a giant green Molly standing astride the Allan Gardens.

Shattered Glass, Ceramic and Grout

Sudarshan Deshmukh immortalized Molly in a mosaic.

Festive Baubles

Kathy MacRow painted a Christmas ornament with the dog's portrait on it.

Posthumous

Even with all of these many representations of Molly already in hand, I commissioned this portrait from Trenton artist Mandy Bing after we sent the dog on to her next reward. The pose is taken from a photo of Molly hunting squirrels in the tree tops from the comfort of Bruce's lap. The background is from the photo I really wanted turned into a portrait (see below).

Constant Reminders

I love all of the works of Molly-art and most of them hang in my home (and some day soon, the Molly rug will, too). 

The "Look Both Ways" photos are in the second floor bathroom; I face the mosaic when I sit at the dining room table. I see Giant Green Molly every time I go down the stairs from the dining room to the kitchen. Mandy's version of the dog waits for me every morning as I come down the stairs from our bedroom.

When Molly was still alive, I'd look at the works made during her life - especially the mosaic - and think, "these will be here after Molly is gone." I wondered then how it would feel to look at them without a live little JRT roaming around at my feet.

It feels OK.

Now it's time to turn this narrative to the signs that Molly would soon stop roaming around my feet. 

Karen