FMC 3.0

I haven’t mentioned it yet, but I kinda figured that by know I’d told every one in person, or had picked up on it from Liz’s blog. It turns out that preparing for the worst wasn’t a bad idea. Mousse came home from the Vet last Thursday, mostly because there wasn’t anything more to do for him. After three days of dialysis, his toxin levels had just gone up. The doctor said that they might stabilize, and his body might adapt. That was so long as he kept eating and drinking to keep up his energy levels. Well, it went downhill very quickly from there.

Part of me knew that Mousse making it through that first weekend would have been a miracle. I thought that if he made it through the weekend, I might start thinking positive. Unfortunately, I was right. He came home, and didn’t want to eat. And then, Saturday he stopped drinking, and was in very obvious bad shape. So it boiled down to three options - let him starve to death, let his system poison him, or just relieve the pain altogether. When given those options, it’s pretty simple.

So Saturday evening, we lost pup number 4. It was the second time Nighthawk made the trip where the pup only goes one way. Even after 4, it doesn’t get any easier.

What gets you, after the initial depression and sadness wanes away, is the little reminders you get. That’s why I’ve never liked condolence cards - sure, it’s great that you wish me well, but you’ve also reminded me that my dog just died, and thanks for bringing all those emotions back to the surface. There’s also things that are so innocuous on the surface, yet just rip you apart. It’s things like feeding times - in the past, it was when you went to feed pups, and there was one less bowl to fill. Now it’s the emptiness of the house - and more importantly the bay window. There’s been a dog in that window every time one of us came home since we moved in here all those years ago.

I got another of these reminders yesterday while doing yet another innocuous task - mowing the lawn. As I rode around the backyard waging my little war against the flora, I happened across a tennis ball, no doubt left in the yard by Mousse some months before. The backyard’s always been littered with them, but now there’s no canine mouth to collect them and bring them back (only to be thrown again, of course.)

I’m sure there will be more sad reminders later down the road. But somehow, I don’t expect to see this house remain dogless for long.