An Act of Love

Like most humans, my life has been filled with ups and downs, ebbs and flows.  I haven’t had too many of what I would describe as truly awful or terrible days.  December 2, 2023, though, would turn out to be one of the worst.

It was on that day that my wife Darlene and I had to make the excruciating but necessary decision to euthanize Lollie, our English Shepherd.

To be fair, Lollie was an old dog.  She was just a few months from her fifteenth birthday, and feeding her twice a day had become a project, given all of the medications and supplements that had to be added to her food.  Mostly, they had to do with brain health, arthritis pain, urinary tract infections, incontinence and the like.  We had nearly lost Lollie to pneumonia a year earlier–a battle she had won against the disease despite a nine day stay in the hospital.  

So we knew the time was coming.  And it is easy to allow ourselves to be fooled, because the truth is, that’s what we want.  She has a good day, and we think the medication is working, and even though we know the day is coming, we think at least it won’t be soon.  The fact is, Lollie was having a really good day–until she wasn’t. 

A Friday night trip to the emergency vet indicated what we didn’t want to hear was likely at hand.  A failed hail mary treatment, followed by a sleepless night from all three of us, left really only one decision left to be made in the morning.  The fact is, Lollie couldn’t walk without losing her balance, she needed to be carried in and outside the house to do her business, and perhaps worst of all, she was frightened and anxious, unable to understand what was happening to her. 

Even though I knew it was her time, I still didn’t want Lollie to go.  And at the risk of anthropomorphizing, I don’t think she wanted to go.  Much as she refused to give in to the pneumonia that tried to take her the year before, she continued to fight what was happening to her.  In spite of her condition, she kept trying to follow us around, and do her job: making sure the herd (Darlene and I) was organized and safe.

John Katz describes in his excellent book “Going Home” how we have to act as advocates for our animals.  This means when they are at the point when their quality of life is gone, we have the responsibility as pet owners–as those that love them the most–to decide that it is time for them to go. It’s a huge part of why animals trust us to feed, house and love them. They can’t communicate this to the veterinarians themselves–we have to do it for them. Ask any animal hospital employee and they all have stories of pet owners who kept their pets alive in misery far longer than they should have because they couldn’t bring themselves to say goodbye to their beloved dog or cat. As tempting as that is, we have to remember that our pets are trusting us to be their advocates. As Darlene told me, “This is the most selfless thing you will ever do.”

So we spent one last morning together.  I fed Lollie two chicken breasts by hand, and then Darlene and I sat with her all morning, petting her, giving her chin and ear scritches, letting her know that despite how anxious she was, she wasn’t alone.  When the time finally arrived, I carried her out to the car, and took the long, slow ride to the veterinarian. In one way, it was less than ideal, because the animal hospital may very well have been Lollie’s least favorite place in the world.  But I am glad Darlene and I were with her, that we would be the last people she would see.  If you are not familiar with the process, the vet gives two injections–the first is a sedative, which dispatches her to literal sleep, and then the second is an overdose of an anesthetic that sends her on her way.  

I watched after the first injection, which sent her off to a much-needed peaceful sleep.  I was happy her last memory wouldn’t be the pain and stress she had been feeling from her condition.  I noticed her legs were pumping her through one final dream. I’ll never really know what that last dream, those last thoughts, that last memory was, but I hope it was of us hiking together, or one our evening walks, or her running up and down the stairs with her beloved busy bone, or playing in the yard with her favorite rope toy.

Actually, I have decided: it was all of the above. 

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