"The dog wags his tail, not for you, but for your bread." ~Portuguese Proverb
So, here's my first confession. We own an SUV -- a big, green Toyota 4-Runner. It gets about 18-20 miles to the gallon. My only consolation is that we only own one car and we don't use it that often (we ride our bikes, carpool, or walk to work). But still. It's a blemish on my environmentalist personna.
Oh, and it has a leather interior.
Next confession. Ann and I have no sense of style or fashion. I believe this is because we are lesbians and I realize this smacks of stereotyping, but so be it. We are dykes who purchase a hodge-podge of things simply because they are functional, gifts, or we like them (we pay no attention to trends, brand names, or sticking to a theme). Because of our lack of decorating sense, we've hired a designer to help us with our remodel. It feels very chic and expensive, but it's not really. The designer is very nice and works well within the limited budget we've proposed. We're hoping with her help that our paint colors won't scream middle-aged lesbian anymore.
Okay, with all that in mind, I've been thinking a lot about love these days. Perhaps it's a leftover from Valentine's Day (where Ann and I just gave each other stools for the soon to be kitchen island in the new remodel!), but love has been on my mind because of Chester.
Chester is our 12 and 1/2 year old dog. He's adorable, loveable, and loyal. Everyone who knows Chester loves Chester. Unfortunately, he suffers from seizures, brought on (the vets think) by a brain tumor. To stop the seizures...actually to limit them because he still has them (about every 3-5 weeks), we give him pheno-barbital. We started at 2 pills a day and are now up to 7, increasing the dose with every series of seizures he suffers. For his size and weight, his limit will be 13 a day. So, as we see it, we're about half way there to making the tough decision of putting him down.
The drugs make him a little loopy at first, but the biggest side effect is that he thinks he is starving all the time and spends every night before he goes to sleep, whining and begging for just one more morsel of something, anything. His moans and groans are so loud and long at times, that we have to turn the volume up on the TV just to drown him out.
We've talking a lot about when is the right time to put him down, wondering when we'll know for certain if the time comes. I've done this before, put a dog down, and I knew it was right and felt good about the decision I made, but still, it doesn't get any clearer or easier with the second dog.
Meanwhile, a colleague of Ann's has announced her retirement recently, stating that she wants to go out on a good year. This, she feels has been a good year.
Our discussion last night was, Do we let Chester go out on a good day or do we wait for the inevitable down turn and suffering that's bound to come?
There have been a lot of tears. There has been a lot of discussion about quality of life -- his AND ours as he gets up about 5-7 times a night to go out and relieve himself...this is despite the "diaper" (which we call a Speedo) he must wear while in the house.
We're tired...very tired.
And yet, every time we look at his amber eyes, his pensive smile, and watch his wagging tail flag a breeze, we know we could never put him to sleep while he is in this state.
So, we sleep less, try to catch up on the weekends, and wait for the next round of seizures, which are not only painful to watch, but require one of us to take a day off of work to make certain he doesn't have anymore.
The other night, we went to visit our designer at her house (this way we don't have to pay her travel costs) and had a nice time looking at cabinets and fixtures and laughing about the rich clients she's working with in Medina (a posh suburb of Seattle).
Chester waited for us in the car -- the big, expensive, gas-guzzling SUV dog house --and Ann went out to check on him and give him his medication once during our 2 hour meeting with the designer. At the end of the evening, Ann and I climbed into the over-sized and environmentally damaging car and realized there was something all over the seat and floor on the front passenger side.
After a moment of fear (Oh my god, he's had a seizure while in the car!), we realized that Chester, in his ferocious desire to eat, had tried to eat his way through the dashboard to get to the dog treats in the glove compartment. The dashboard was mangled and torn with bits and chunks of plastic and foam everywhere.
I turned to Ann: So, how do we react to this?
Ann: (long, long pause)...Brown duct tape?
We laughed.
Which do we love more our expensive SUV or our dog? Our dog, of course, but it was a humbling moment, a brief pause when we had to take stock of all we had of value in our lives-- our paid-for expensive car, our new remodel with its fancy kitchen, the money dwindling in our bank accounts -- and weigh it against all we valued in our lives -- each other, our health, a nice home, families who are intact and still all alive, and most importantly our dog, Chester who proved to us that he's not close to being put down with the amount of energy he exerted for the taste of just one more cookie.
Chester has many nicknames -- Boo Boo, Chester-man, Chester One -leaf (leaves cling to him like white on rice), and now DASH, the dog who'd risk plastic and airbags, steel and foam, the possibility of another seizure for the tiniest morsel of food.
Do they even make brown duct tape?
5 comments:
Atta boy, Chester!
You've got to admire such
single-minded pursuit of that which brings satisfaction...
http://www.duct-tape.com/
Go here for your choice of 12 colors, including brown.
bs
Yes, little NoApologies, they do make brown duct tape.
Dakota (another dog you knew well) twice ate portions of the interior of my '88 Honda Civic, a sort of tan and brown-trim vehicle (38 MPG on the highway) and I found a roll of brown duct tape at the old Eagle hardware -- which is now Lowe's. There were several colors available ... like red and yellow. Thirty-eight MPG on the highway. 138,000 miles before it met its doom. Dog ate it. Twice. Ate his former owners car once.
Oh, boy-- you got me thinking about Ivan again-- what is it about you people in WA? Early in my relationship with Aris, Ivan the boxer chewed up Aris's Mercedes interior. He and I argued over it, the dog's "badness" and Aris curtly reminded me that Ivan was there before me. Years later, his health began to fail, and Aris came to the painful conclusion. I loved that big "bad" boy.
I forgot some of Chester's other names:
Mr Pajama Pants (because his fuzzy legs make him look like he's wearing pjs)
Waggy tail
Foo man drool (because the drugs make him drool after he drinks water)
Now I just have to figure out how to post his picture...Fossilguy?
Our old dawg, Dakota, completely ate up Fossil Guy's car. The dash board, the inside doors (both sides) all of it. Duct tape (clear, not brown) became out interior upholstery. It didn't matter. Well, it did matter, but it didn't. As you say, we had made our choice, and the choice said: Let The Dog Eat the Damn Car.
His former owners did not worship at the same alter. When he ate THEIR car, they refused to allow him to ride ANYwhere ANYmore. Bad sports, they were. Dakota so loved traveling in cars - he even loved sitting in the car while it was still in the garage, unmoving - - that we sometimes just put him there and let him satisfy his inner-car-urge.
Now that he is gone and we have new cars, would we feel the same way? The other cars, were, it's true, OLD cars. I honestly don't know.
Hey there, CHester! I salute you! Here I am, with a pace-maker attached to my pink pygama pants (printed with dogs, by the way) and I salute you. The pain I feel, or am going to feel, is partially in honor of you. We can use pain that way, as a gift of energy and survival and comradeship.
Dr. Clear Creek Girl
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