My little dog was going to die. It was a fact I thought of often, and always with a profound, pit-in-the-stomach dread. How would I ever live without my little white dog, my ride-or-die, my everywhere companion?
His name was Gizmo. He was between two and four when we got him the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 2010. The vet estimated his age based on his teeth, which were tiny and crowded, because he was a little dog with a little mouth. I had never heard of brushing a dog’s teeth until we got him, but it didn’t matter anyway. There was no way he was going to let me anywhere near his face with a toothbrush, no matter how meaty the toothpaste smelled. I can’t say I blame him.
Although there was a lot to blame him for. He growled at children. He regularly bit my husband, and would lunge at our son if he misinterpreted his actions as aggressive towards me. He would nip pant legs and bark at friends over for dinner.
I’m still surprised I could love a dog like that as much as I did…but I did. I loved his scrappiness and his attitude and his loyalty and his attention. I loved his mohawk and his gait and his curiosity and his patience. I love him with everything. So the thought he was ever going to die was enough to make me feel physically sick. I wondered how I would know when it was time. I wondered if I would have the strength to let him go. I wondered a lot.
And then late last May—he was about 16, I think—he started vomiting. And then came the diarrhea, at least hourly. It was coming out one end or the other for three days in a row. He was barely eating.
I had a decision to make. Should I rush him to the vet, which he absolutely hated, which often seemed to exacerbate versus resolve whatever condition I originally took him in for? Or should I wait and see if it would resolve on its own? Or…was it time to help him to a peaceful death?
How are you ever supposed to know when it’s time?
There were a number of factors informing my decision. I had taken a job at a summer camp that would be starting in a month, followed by my residency, which would mean I would be gone around 12 hours a day, at which time he would be at his human dad’s house, which I knew he didn’t like, because Gizmo only cared about one person and that was me.
Additionally, I knew he was quite aged. He’d gone deaf and was going blind. He had horrible teeth that were likely painful for him and made his breath a perpetual garbage dump. (Was that why he had become fickle about his food in the preceding weeks?) He was also quite arthritic and had a worsening heart murmur that made him cough in the rare moments he still got the zoomies (and which prevented me from getting him the sedation he would have needed to clean his teeth).
He hated going to the vet, but I’d taken him recently for some other issue and the vet had told me then, “There is no one right day to euthanize a pet. Think of it as a window of time before things get too bad…that’s ideally when you want to do it—before the animal is suffering.”
…
“You are within that window now.”
In the days of his final illness I waffled back and forth over what to do. I spent every minute with him. I had two entirely sleepless nights. Even when you know it’s time, how can you ever make that call? It was excruciating.
The only way I got through it was by reminding myself this was inevitable. I could take life-saving action and postpone his death, but I would still have an old dog that was in a lot of pain and losing his faculties. Nothing at all could change that but the greatest healer: death.
So I called an in-home vet and arranged for her to come that Saturday morning, May 27. I made a playlist to listen to when he was crossing over so the mood would be calm and intentional. His human dad and brother came over and we held hands in a circle around him and said a prayer, thanking him for his life and service, for his devotion, for being a part of our family for thirteen years. We laughed about how ornery he was and cried about how much we would miss him. And then the vet injected the sedative, which took a little time to take effect. I picked him up at that point and cradled him like I had hundreds of time in our 13 years together.
It took two injections to finally stop his heart. Two injections for me to understand just how devoted he was to me, that he would have held on as long as he could, in spite of any pain, because that’s how seriously he took his duty as my companion.
After a few more minutes snuggling his little body, I walked him to the vet’s car and tucked him into his blanket and kissed his face again and thanked him one last time. I walked home empty-handed.
And life continued, as it does. No matter who died, no matter what’s changed. People are still buying lattes.
I think about the day that Gizmo died frequently, because I meet so many people who are making similar decisions for or with their beloveds. Husbands acknowledging their wife’s wishes. Children coming to terms with their dad’s final decision. Parents having to face the reality that their child, if they did survive their injuries, will never experience any quality of life.
At the hospital we call it comfort care. Machines are withdrawn. Drugs are stopped. Food and water are withheld. The intention is to treat pain and anxiety so the person dies comfortably, and at peace. Sometimes death takes moments. Other times, days.
Always, it is inevitable.