Dogs & Death Pt 2
aIt was about 10-1/2 months ago that I posted Dogs and Death about facing the decision to help my beloved Irish Wolfhound, Liadan, out of her pain. You can read her eulogy there. The time finally came and in reading back what I wrote nearly a year ago, I'm even more amazed at her tenacity and love, although the changes were very slow.
As far back as October, I thought the end was near. But kids were coming for Thanksgiving and Christmas--three sons, a daughter-in-law, and a daughter. We named them, telling Liadan they were on their way. She knows their names. She loved my kids and they loved her. It was after our daughter Emilie left, a few days after Christmas, that Liadan had a noticeable decline. She went very quickly from struggling to get off her bed to being completely unable to do so without help. Although she'd developed a fear of our very shallow porch steps, only a couple inches each, she now needed me to hold her back legs up so she could climb them, and within a day or two I was also supporting her front to encourage her.
She still ate well--when she could get off her bed--but drank very little and one day managed to hold it for more than 24 hours as she didn't want to get up. We knew it was time. She would soon either be wetting her bed, which would be difficult to impossible to clean up with a 100-pound dog on it, who didn't want to, or couldn't, move, or she would hold it in (as she had so far managed to do) and begin to poison herself. I called the vet on Friday, January 3. I had the option of having someone come the very next day, on Monday, or on Wednesday. The next day was too soon to adjust. Given her condition, I thought Wednesday was too far away for kindness to Liadan, even though that would have been her regular vet.
We chose Monday, January 6, with the owner of the vet practice, who had not met us or Liadan before. She had been whining and in clear pain and difficulty getting out. With the decision made, I prayed that God would grant her some peace in her last few days, which He graciously did. It became a bit of a double-edged sword, as her whining all but stopped and I almost second-guessed myself. But the facts were clear: she still couldn't get up without a great deal of help. She was living from one pain medication to another. I had started giving her more than her dose of medications to try to ease her discomfort.
We have a hot tub set up downstairs with a movie screen. After long days on the farm and at work, we usually watched a movie from the hot tub, but in her last several nights, we stayed with her. On Saturday, we watched The Princess Bride. I sat on the floor with her and gave her popcorn, which she absolutely loved.
I tried to brush her, thinking of the words of the mortician, John Miller, in the movie Flowers of War, as he talks about making his daughter beautiful again after her death. It's important, he murmurs, as he cuts the hair of the Ladies of the Quin Huai River, to make them look like schoolgirls.
I thought of this line frequently in Liadan's last days. I wanted her to be her beautiful self. The truth is, she'd begun to look a bit mangy. Her fur had thinned in places so that her tail was not the beautiful tail it had been. She didn't like being brushed. I could only do so much before she objected. Far worse, though she never wet her bed, she had lost control of her bowels. I cleaned her bed and washed her sheets almost daily, sometimes twice a day. Cleaning her was far harder. I tried warm water on paper towels to loosen the mess that stuck to her fur and matted in her tail. Nothing really worked completely. I didn't want to tug and pull to the point of hurting her. Even when I clipped the 'affected' fur from that area to get the filth out, I could only do so much for fear of hurting her.
I just wanted her to be beautiful again. I hoped maybe I could brush her well after the vet put her down. But it all happened so fast, I didn't get that chance.
As I sat on the floor with her and we gave her more of her beloved popcorn, we turned on Secondhand Lions. I have no idea why that seemed to me the perfect movie to watch on our last night with her.
But as we watched, it made sense. Secondhand Lions is the story of Walter, a 30-something cartoonist who gets the call that his elderly uncles have died while trying to fly their bi-plane through a barn. Most of the movie is of his first months with them in 1962, when his mother, a ne'er-do-well, ditches him, a lonely and lost 14-year-old boy, at a ramshackle Texas ranch with two 60-something men he's never met. She tells him there are rumors they have millions stashed on their property and he should try to find it for her.
Hub and Garth come across as curmudgeons who don't want him there, tell him he better fend for himself. But when Walter discovers a picture of a beautiful woman and finds Hub sleep-walking and fighting invisible battles in the night, Garth begins to tell Walter stories of their adventurous past, touring Europe just ahead of Nazi invasions, being shanghaied, fighting in the Foreign Legion, of Hub's amazing fighting skills and rescue of a captive woman, which earned him the attention of a princess promised to a Sheik; of Hub's escapes from and fights with the angry Sheik when he marries the princess. Walter never knows if these stories are true or if Hub and Garth really have millions stashed away. In one scene, a woman whispers to him that they do have millions because they were with the Mafia.
He does know that these two old men love him in a way his mother never has. She says she loves him but her actions say otherwise. They tell him to fend for himself--but their actions say otherwise.
There's a scene where 60-something Hub, barely out of the hospital, fights off four young men coming at him with knives. Garth sits back enjoying the show, assuring Walter it wouldn't be fair if he helped Hub out.
I saw parallels in my dog's life, both in living life large and in the love that she gave.
She starred in movies! My daughter made a Mother's Day movie that included Liadan doing a typical Irish Wolfhound thing of taking something very gently in their mouth--usually an arm but in this movie my son's entire head! My kids made another movie where one of my sons, a Mafia type, gets back at his younger brother who cheated them out of money, by smearing that son with peanut butter and leaving him locked in a room with Liadan. Then of course, she starred in the heavy rock video, A Day in the Life of an Elderly Dog.
It's true that life had become very stressful in letting her in and out and out and in and take her out again, eat, snoooooze! Yet I treasured each moment with her and we found some levity in creating a humorous take on the hair bands of the 80s, combined with what our life had become.
We marched for a couple of years in the St. Patrick's Day parade in St. Paul. People were always amazed by, and in love with, the giant Irish Wolfhound contingent.
She was known and loved in my neighborhood, both by the kids at the park who saw us walk by and flocked her, and by kids in the neighborhood who knocked on our door to ask, "Can we play with Liadan?"
My kids for some reason developed a backstory about how she had a Ph.D. from Harvard--and right up until the last few days, she reminded us that she had a degree from Harvard!
She tramped with us on our land in northern Minnesota, happy to run the snowy hills there with us and right up until her hind legs failed her on our steep Appalachian hills last August and I had to forbid her--she would not hear of me taking care of the sheep, rabbits, and chickens, without being right there by my side.
She was a bit of a feature on our Wordsmiths and a Wolfhound videos and also made somewhat regular appearances on Books and Brews. She has been in our Reading with Sheep videos.
Like Hub, she had great love. He loved his princess. Liadan loved everyone, but she especially loved me. I sometimes wonder what I did to deserve that love. But she loved me deeply. Hub never loved again after his princess died. It's early days but right now I still feel I'll never love any animal again as I did her.
Hub came to love his great-nephew, Walter, in a way that healed Walter's broken childhood and gave him life. Dogs can be the same in the unconditional love they give. Could I say Liadan was my Hub?
Hub and Garth lived a long and full life and died doing what they loved. In some ways, so did Liadan. Until almost the very last, she was outside, still trying to head down the hills, exploring the land, being out with me and Dustin, our helper, as we worked on building fences; still happy to see Boo Bear, our guard dog, still patient with his puppy playfulness; still loving eating burgers and popcorn with me in her last 24 hours, still loving me and laying her head on my lap and wanting to be loved with petting and my presence.
Okay, true, she wasn't flying a plane through a barn. But I felt she lived, in a dog's way, a full life right up until the end.
I wanted her to reach 11, which was only two months off. Really, I wanted her to live forever. But in her passing, I realized I was the proverbial frog in the pot, with more and more time going to care for her basic needs. I was unable to run my business other than at my kitchen counter, because she needed to know I was there. I'm now able to have an actual office where I can be more organized and focused. I was struggling to get my business responsibilities taken care of, as I spent so much of each day preparing her food and medications, helping her outside and back in numerous times, cleaning her bedding, or just sitting beside her, loving her when she whined in pain and wanted me there.
that needed doing with just sitting with her, loving her in her last few hours. As the minutes and hours ticked on, I hoped to have more time with her.
But the vet called about 1:20 to say he was on his way. Dr. Russell and his vet tech, Paul, arrived about 1:35. The whole time, I wanted to convince myself I was making a mistake. She'd been so peaceful for two or three days. I could still tell them to stop. But I knew, despite her peace, she could barely get up to go outside.
They sat with her, gave her a relaxant. Her head relaxed onto my lap. My husband, who sat in front of us, said he saw the tension drain from her body. It was telling to me, how much stress she was under, even as she still seemed so happy most of the time just loving being with us.
They gave her a few minutes, shaved a bit of fur from one of her front legs, and inserted the needle, with a blue bandage wrapped around it. I stroked her, watching her eyes, and I believe I saw the life drain out of those beautiful golden brown eyes, as they became dark. Dr. Russell checked her heartbeat and assured us she was gone.
There is a devastation in losing a loved one, human or pet--but in cases like this, also knowing they're free of their pain.
Dr. Russell and Paul helped my husband lift her off her bed, using the sheet she'd been on, to carry her out to the 'gorilla cart' on the back of the UTV, to carry her down to the grave that had been dug on our property. Dr. Russell helped my husband lower her carefully to the bottom of the hole. It was painful to see her body lowered there, with her hind legs not fully covered. Chris laid on his stomach to get the sheet fully around her--although I shortly after got on my stomach myself to lay one of her Lambies in the sheet with her. I suppose it's pure emotion, putting a stuffed animal with the body of a dead dog. But I suppose we have our emotional needs.
We paid Dr. Russell and went to work burying Liadan. The dirt Chris had previously dug up was now semi-frozen. In this area, it's hard clay. Even with Chris working the tractor, it took most of an hour to scoop all the dirt back onto her. I scooped the dirt bit by pathetic bit with a shovel and with my hands, as he took bigger parts with the Kubota.
I had fears a coyote or some animal would manage to dig her up but the temperature dropped, and the ground froze to a point there was no fear of that.
I wish I could have convinced myself to let her go on, but more and more she looked at us with pleading eyes. I think she would have lived forever, out of sheer love, no matter how much she hurt, and I know we had to be the ones to release her from her pain.
I wish she could have lived forever, even as she aged. And yet, I face her loss with gratitude.
- I am grateful for the wonderful memories of children flocking around her at the park, of their parents (often from countries where they'd had bad experiences with dogs) looking on in wonder and joy; of old people meeting her with joy at the talks I gave with her as my companion.
- I am grateful she lived almost three years beyond even the outside life expectancy for her breed.
- I am grateful she lived to make it to Appalachia with us.
- I am grateful she still felt good enough to follow me on all my chores on our land for a full year.
- I am grateful she got 14 months with our new dog, Boo Bear. He loved her and she loved him.
- I am grateful five of our kids were able to get here to see her in her last two months.
- I'm grateful for the medication and vets who gave her extra time with us.
- I am grateful for the peace she seemed to have in her last two days.
- I am grateful we live in a place where vets do house calls and she could die in peace in her own home, on her own bed, with her head in my lap.
- I am incredibly grateful for her long life with me, the love she gave to so many, and the peace she had in her last days.
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