An Ode to my Beloved Pet

Today, we had to put Miles, the first dog I've ever owned, to sleep. His decline started on Thursday - he was sluggish, lethargic, and struggled to eat. "Maybe he ate something bad while countersurfing", we thought, and felt affirmed on Friday when he appeared to rebound, waking up and immediately wanting to play with Ruby. He was eating, he was doing great. Then Saturday, same thing. I breathed a sigh of relief on Saturday, thinking we were out of the woods.

We very much weren't, I realized, on Saturday night. We went out to do some Christmas shopping and when we returned, he was again sluggish. He had to be coaxed to eat. He was Officially Not Himself. "Let's give it the night," I told myself. "He'll wake up in the morning better just like he did on Friday. This is a passing thing." I think we were both trying to convince ourselves that this was not him telling us that it was time.

He woke me up around 2am, pacing and whining quietly. He tried to lay down, but was up again after a little while, would pace and drink water, rinse and repeat for about 6 hours. Ruby had training class this morning, so Rob agreed to take him to the emergency vet and I would meet them there after class was done. Before he left, we had to have the conversation: If it was really bad or it was going to take something really invasive and drastic to make it ok, would we take those measures? For both of us, it was a resounding no - his quality of life forever being our North Star, we couldn't do that to him. To have tried to prolong his life at the expense of his quality of life would have only benefited us, and after all he has given us in his 9 and a half years, we just couldn't do that. If it was something small that could easily be fixed, absolutely. Fix it. Get him back to his old self. I think at this point we both knew in our hearts and our guts that this wasn't the case. I checked in after we finished and they still hadn't taken him in, but by the time I got there they had and they had an answer: Massive internal bleeding probably from cancer somewhere in his abdomen, or potentially a ruptured spleen. Either way, there was nothing we could do, so we had to let him go.

We got the news and I just...sobbed. And sobbed. I wondered how this could have happened because he got two pristine bloodworks - one in July and one before his dental surgery in September. And then we learned that only one of us could go in with him. I sobbed harder. Rob and I talked about it, and I offered for him to go in - he was Miles' Person, but Rob, ever the compassionate soul that he is, let me go in. We brought him for a cheeseburger, which I ordered through tears at the McDonald's drive through, and I wondered to myself how many people they had done this for. He he didn't eat it, which I expected. Then we brought him back to the vet, Rob said his final goodbyes, we brought him in, I petted him and whispered in his ear that he was the best boy, kissed him one last time between the eyes, which was my favorite place to kiss him, and then let him go.

I don't think I've ever been more anxious about an animal as I was Miles' entire life. I mean, literally from the moment I picked him up from work (I was working at the SPCA at the time) on that March 31 in 2011. We were kindred spirits, he and I, because he was so anxious that we had literally JUST had an appointment with our vet about putting him on drugs like a week ago. A week ago yesterday. The prozac is waiting at CVS right now to be picked up, even. He bonded with both of us right away, but because I was around him more (because I could bring him to work with me at the time), he bonded with me quickly. He bonded with Rob more slowly, but theirs was a love that was so deep and plentiful that I just loved watching them together. I often found myself envious of their bond.

I'm not sure if it was the stigma of owning a pit bull that I had unconsciously internalized (though he never had a single bite in his history ever - but he was a Big Dude, and I remember when he was younger but full-sized, there would be times that I would walk him and because he was so reactive, people would cross the street to the other side, and to top it off, he was a smiler - when he got excited, he'd show you his teeth, which tended to scare people until we explained), or if it was just First Dog Jitters, or a combination of the two. But I was constantly wracked with anxiety the entire nine and a half years that we had him in our lives. My worst nightmare, today, was on my mind all the time, especially in the last year or two. It was with me when he had kennel cough and then a secondary infection, during which he had a chronic cough for a year and a half and there were times I was sure we were going to lose him. It was with me whenever we passed another person or a dog and he got reactive. It was with me when he got into my Jolly Joes when he was six months old. It was with me whenever we had visitors. It was always with me. 100% of the time. There was no reason for it and if I had been able to let it go, the quality of relationship that I had with him may have been better, but the love we had and still have for this dog is a long-burning one. I can say with 100% certainty that we did the right thing today. I can say with 100% certainty that we did our best to make sure that we spoiled him rotten, as he deserved. And he responded in kind by making me feel more loved by a dog than I could have ever dreamed of. What could we do in that unconditional, unabashed, and constantly present love we were being shown? We did everything we could to do right by Miles and show him the love that he has so unconditionally shown us, and that included listening to him when he told us it was time.

Do I grieve? Of course I do. But I'm also filled with this overwhelming sense of relief that we did the right thing and that we gave him the best life possible. I don't know what to do now that he's gone, and there's this sadness and grief that has descended on our house that will dissipate eventually, but his absence is BIG. His absence is felt not only in the not barking at every passer by, or when my neighbors across the street deign to get in their car and drive away or at the mailman or the UPS guy, but also because that anxiety I felt was a huge weight that I now no longer carry, I don't know what to do with that not being present anymore. I'll miss his butt wiggles and him greeting me at the door. I'll miss him licking my feet when I do yoga. I'll miss him wrestling with Ruby and showing her how to dog. I'll miss him just coming and chilling out in my office when we're both in the middle of a work day and my clients cooing at him because he was just SO DAMN CUTE with that FACE. I'll miss his tap dancing whenever he sees us. I'll miss coming downstairs from a session or five in a row to him just chilling on the couch. I'll miss how excited he'd get when we brought out the toys or treats. There are about 15,000 other things that I will carry with me as a result of having him with us, and I have so much gratitude for each of those things that I might burst. But I also know that having those little things with me comes at a cost. Love this big comes with grief in equal measure, so I'm in for it over the next few days and weeks as I adjust to his absence. I've only sobbed randomly once, and so I have hope that this weight will get easier to carry, having no expectation that it's ever going to go away, nor do I want it to because it means that I loved him, and I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Miles, you're the best first dog a girl could ask for. Thank you, endlessly, for the lessons and the love.

01/31/2011-11/22/2020
(He's also pretending to sleep in this picture which he did VERY
often whenever I tried to take pictures of him.
He absolutely hated having his picture taken.)