My first dog, Roxie, who, along with Charley, started my great love affair with dogs almost fifteen years ago.

Being in college at the time, I probably should have waited a few years before I found a dog. Dogs were expensive, took a lot of time, needed exercise and training.  I knew these things–I wasn’t completely naive–but still, even with a full school load and working two jobs to pay for it all, I felt the joy of having a dog, something sentient that I could call my own and that I would be responsible for, would be reward enough.  Who would have guessed that my twenty year old, inexperienced self would be right?

I found a listing for lab/pit mix pups in the paper–yes, this was before Craigslist and people actually read a paper back then.  They were free to a good home and I thought, what the heck, I’ll call and see if any are still available.  Only one was left–a female–and if I didn’t come by that evening to look at the pup, she would be going to live with one of her litter mates who was on hold for another adopter.

When I got to the address, the lady there took me to her laundry room.  Inside were two black and grey, merle colored pups, tails whipping in unison like a metronome.  She told me the mostly grey pup was already spoken for, so my pup would be the extremely bloated, mostly black with grey.  The lady had taken them to her vet that morning for them to be vaccinated and dewormed.  Momma dog came in to say hello–a very sweet and gentle chocolate lab.  The daddy dog of these pups was the neighbor’s merle colored pit bull, who, in his lust, jumped the fence to father these illegitimate offspring.  Even though he looked all pit bull, his merle coloration spoke of some additional breed and, because here in the south people breed pit bulls with Catahoulas to make more intense hog dogs, he probably had some leopard dog blood.  I really didn’t care what breeds she was–she was a dog, she was cute and friendly, she was free and I wanted her.  I offered to reimburse the lady for her vet expenses, but she just said take good care of her as I was doing her a favor by giving her a home.

One of only a few pictures of Roxie as a pup. If digital cameras had been in mainstream use then, I’m sure I would have had hundreds of pictures of her.

Roxie, I soon found out, liked to chew.  She ate the coaxial cable at the outside cable box, chewed holes in the wooden fence and ate the window frames at my rented house within two weeks of having her.  I soon learned the value of a crate.  She loved her crate and I ended up with happier housemates, less destruction and a house-trained dog.  Like me, she loved food; any kind would do.  She really enjoyed counter surfing and many times ate the bread off the counter when all the house-mates and myself were in the adjoining room.  She could be spooky quiet at times (I swear she held her tags on her collar so they wouldn’t jingle) and carried out her mission impossible re-enactment with never a hitch.  Of course, no one stayed mad at her for long.  Roxie could charm the horns off a goat and never failed to win affection, even from those who didn’t really like dogs.

As she got older, her never-ending chewing stopped but I soon realized just how smart she was.  It became a challenge for me to come up with new behaviors and tricks for her to perform.  After some time (and after Charley joined our family), it was more fun to teach the dogs new tricks than to study for my exams.  There was a definite correlation between my acquisition of dogs and my falling GPA.

I eventually started bringing Roxie (and Charley) to work with me where she made herself the official greeter.  She became such a fixture that clients would ask where she was if she wasn’t up front when they came in.  Once she heard her name, she would grab a toy, usually a rope, run up front, jump up on the gate separating the reception area from the waiting area, and wiggle and sing until she had been thoroughly loved on and the client had played a short game of tug.  Roxie loved people, all people, and was never happier than when children were around.  She would bask in their adoration, even when they were pulling her tail and ears and poking her in the eye.

The only thing Roxie loved more than children were baby kittens.  She ADORED kittens and would come running anytime one came mewling into the clinic.  Many a client has a picture of their new tiny kitten getting thoroughly soaked by Roxie’s tongue.  Roxie was so good with the babies that I decided to foster several litters of homeless kittens over the years.  She mothered them, cleaned them and watched over them like a hawk, earning her the nickname “Mama Roxie”.  She was never really that fond of young pups, curiously enough, but would tolerate them and sigh audibly when they got too annoying.  That was my cue to come to her rescue.  My beautiful, sweet girl had the kindest soul and the biggest heart.  Cruelly, it was her heart that betrayed her in the end.

Roxie liked to lounge on the couch and daydream about baby kittens.

As she got older, she started to develop a heart murmur.  The grade of her heart murmur became higher very quickly, meaning the sound of the murmur was getting louder.  I took her to a veterinary internist for an echocardiogram and soon learned that, besides a leaky mitral valve which caused the murmur, she also had cardiomyopathy–her heart was too big, didn’t pump efficiently, and would eventually kill her.  She was started on several different heart medications to help her heart beat more efficiently, reduce blood volume to keep congestion away and to control her blood pressure.  Her very kind and well-meaning specialist advised me to keep her calm, keep her quiet and to discontinue letting her swim and run.  Roxie loved to swim and chasing rabbits gave her such joy, I had no idea how I was going to implement this plan.  Who was I to take away these very small things which brought her so much happiness?   For me, quality of life greatly outweighed quantity.  I expressed my sentiments to the internist.

“Well,” she said, “I guess there are worse ways to go than chasing bunnies.”

So, with her almost blessing, Roxie continued to swim, run after rabbits, greet people at work and mother orphan kittens.  She would have periods when she would get tired quicker than normal and not eat as well.  Fluid, or ascites, would sometimes fill her abdomen, making her uncomfortable.  At these times, we upped the dosage of diuretics and hoped for the best.  I was lucky her congestion was not in her chest, as that would have made it hard for her to breathe.  Having congestion in your abdomen, though, is bad enough and was causing stress to her liver.  Each time, however, the diuretics did their job and deflated my sweet girl.  I made a promise to her, at the beginning of her disease, that when things got too hard, when life lost it’s luster, I would not let her suffer.

Roxie loved to swim, even up til the end.

One day, Roxie was more quiet than normal and wasn’t greeting clients as enthusiastically as before.  She had been doing this job for well over eleven years and never had a down day in her life.  That same day, she seemed to be bumping into things, so I ran some lab work on her, which was normal for her, and had her veterinarian (my boss) check her heart sounds.  The murmur was about the same and she still had her very regular, irregular heart beat.  Instead of a bu-bump, her heart went bu-bu-bump *swish* bu-bump *swish* and would repeat the same pattern.  I decided to watch her and see how things went.

That evening, she was out with the other pooches and even managed to rustle up a bunny to chase.  She ate well, but after a while, I noticed that she was really tripping and running into things and acting as if she was blind.  Concerned about high blood pressure causing retinal detachment, I rushed her to the emergency vet to have her examined.  Blood and eye pressure were normal, her pupils still responded to light and her EKG was still abnormal as always.  The emergency veterinarian offered to keep her for monitoring, but since I was an experienced technician, she didn’t think she could really offer her anything more there than I could do at home.  If she got worse, I was told, come back.

Later that night, or really it was early the next morning, Roxie seized.  Her poor, weak, worn-out heart was not able to adequately oxygenate her brain–her heart was finally giving out.  Because her heart wasn’t able to move blood efficiently, clots were forming and causing her to have strokes.  She was totally blind by this point and unable to open her eyes.  I could not let her suffer any more than she already had.  I had made her a promise long ago and now I had to honor her by keeping that promise.

Since my boss and her primary veterinarian [oh, how Roxie adored him!] would be in the office soon, I bundled all the dogs into the SUV with Roxie for her last trip.  They seemed to know something was up and snuggled around her in the back.  I cried the whole way.

By the time I got to the clinic, I was a mess.  I was crying, sobbing actually, and cursing God and other beings of higher power for daring to take her from me.  She was still so young!  How could they be so cruel?  Couldn’t I have just one more day?  Even though my heart was breaking and didn’t want to let her go, my brain knew she couldn’t go on this way.  I owed her peace–and besides, I made a promise.

The decision to let her go was the hardest day of my life.  I get upset even now when I think about it.  How do you kill your best friend?  How do you tell yourself that you are ending their suffering even as you end their life?  I never understood how people could compare their dog to a child–one is a human and the other is, well, a dog.  After Roxie, I knew.  She may not have been human but she had feelings, emotions and loves, too–she had a soul.  Because I loved her, I let her go.  Keeping her alive, even though Roxie would have endured the pain to please me, was selfish.  I whispered to her all the ways she brought me joy and tried to convey to her all the love I had for her, all the love in my being, as she took her last breath and quietly, gently, left this world.

This was one of the last portraits of Roxie taken about a month before she died.

It took a very long time for me to adjust to a life without Roxie.  All the places we had been together, all the trouble we got into together, all the friends I made because of her–everytime I saw or thought of these things, the tears would begin to flow.  Charley had a really hard time without Roxie.  He had known her all his life (there was only a three month age difference between them) and relied on her strength in so many ways.  Zella tried to distract Charley as best she knew how, but even though she had some of Roxie’s mannerisms, she still wasn’t Roxie.  He was so depressed that he was actually on anti-depressants and natural supplements to alleviate anxiety.  One day, about six months later, he finally instigated play with Zella and that was when I knew he was healing.  Roxie was gone, but not forgotten, and we had to continue on without her.

These two were the best of friends.

Looking back through some of my pictures today, I came across the last picture I ever took of her.  It was taken only two days before she died, but in it, she is clearly eating a frisbee.  It made me laugh–how easily that could be Grimm (and Grimm had been wearing her old collar which is shown in the picture until he and his Doberman friend decided it would be more fun to eat it).  How cyclical life can be!  Grimm could never replace Roxie, just as none of my dogs could replace the others, but I was reminded that rough times do get better.  I would never give up my memories, even the hard ones, but knowing that new memories are wanting to be made, well, what are we waiting for?

Even though her poor heart was wearing out, Roxie still enjoyed munching on a good frisbee. Sound like anyone we know?

Here’s Grimm, wearing Roxie’s old collar, following in her footsteps. Nothing like a tasty frisbee.

Grimm reminds me of Roxie in this photograph.

Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds

will continue in others.

-Rosa Parks

Read Full Post »