The End: Part One

By the end of September 2011, Molly's cough, her diminished senses, and the impending winter weighed heavily on me. I was genuinely worried about how she might fare through another four or five months of snow and sub-zero temperatures. Her cough was not getting better and never would. She didn't seem to be suffering, but dogs don't let on.

On the other side of the exact same coin, I was happy with how otherwise healthy Molly still seemed to be at her tremendous age (112 people years). Long ago I'd met a man who had an eighteen-year-old dachshund. It was fresh out of teeth, but otherwise seemed like a pretty OK little dog. One small part of me then formed the ambition that my dog could probably live that long and have a few more teeth left to boot.

I'm happy to say that ambition carried no weight whatsoever in the events related here.

With her cough as the ostensible reason, I took Molly to the veterinarian on Remembrance Day, 2011. As a civil servant, I get the day off and it has, over the years, become the day when I do important things, such as meet with my financial advisor or start to make the decision to put my dog down.

I was completely dissatisfied with the care Molly was getting from the vets we'd used since we'd brought her home as a puppy. I went to a new place on the ground level of the old Sears warehouse - long since converted to condos - on Mutual Street. 

The vet was a nice young man. I told him about Molly's cough. While we talked, Molly walked around and around and around the perimeter of the small office, nose down, seemingly oblivious.

I still remember feeling ridiculously pleased when the vet said that we must have taken very good care of Molly.

When I asked him about whether he thought she might be at that point, he said her heart and lungs sounded healthy and strong and that she could probably live another year or two.

I still remember feeling deeply conflicted when he said that. 

The vet seemed to notice. He said, "Write up a list of all the things she liked to do and that made her happy - and write a list of what she does now. That might help you decide."

Then we talked some more about the cough. There was no cure, but there was a treatment. It was $60 for a week's worth and had to be administered three times a day, forever. He would also have to make a special order to have it brought in.

I said, sure, order some in.

I hooked my blind, deaf, little dog - still circling the vet's office - back onto her leash.

The vet said, "You know, the literature's still not very strong on this, but there's a growing hypothesis about dementia in dogs - and Molly might be showing some signs of that."

Right. So I left the vet's office with my blind, deaf, demented little dog and went home to mull things over.

I never physically wrote down the list of things the dog liked to do, but this blog has mentioned many of them. Molly loved to play, chase squirrels up trees in parks, go for long walks, attack the vacuum cleaner, meet new people, sleep on Bruce's lap, boss around other dogs, make a giant fuss over myriad things like changing the dining room table cloth and generally just be that high energy little super hero / 'toon we welcomed into our home so long ago and that she had been until, it seemed, just minutes before.

After more than sixteen years of life, Molly didn't play, couldn't hear, wouldn't go for long walks and lived a muffled, circumspect life with a cough that bedevilled her. And winter was coming.

These were the things I slept on. When I woke up the morning of the 12th, I said to Bruce, "I think we should put the dog down."

Bruce said OK.

I called the vet, cancelled the order for the treatment for the cough, and booked an appointment for first thing in the morning on Saturday, November 19, 2011.

I sent an e-mail out to all of Molly's friends and admirers, inviting them to one last visit before Molly went on to her next reward.

Finally, I called Brent, Molly's walker, and asked him if he would like to come with us that day. He said yes.

Before Molly's very last day, I like to remember some of the things she really enjoyed.