clickmom

eulogy for bear bait

Bear bait and I had some seriously good times together.  What ever day it was she was always bringing the excitement.  Some times that will go down in history and forever be stories in my arsenal are the crazier times.  While we had many many long walking adventures the times that really stand out are the the ones we got to laugh about afterwards.  

How bear bait, with her enthusiasm and affection,  terrorized the three dog fearing boys who lived on our street until the evening I, through my tears of shame, called and ordered an electric fence for our yard.

My neighbors remind me of how when bear bait was young she'd bite the ankles of anyone visiting, from the neighbor's kids to the UPS guy,  trying to drag them back to the house when they attempted to leave.  

I'll remember preparing steak every week on the night before puppy training class so I could bring left overs to puppy training class and desperately try to get bear bait's attention when all she was doing was whining and shaking because one day a train had gone past and frightened her while we were entering the puppy training school. 

I'll always laugh about the day we thought bear bait had left our lake property and were searching and calling for her, joined by the concerned sentry who had heard the distress, when we thought to look to look in the truck, and there she was snoozing away on the back seat.

How bear bait, a retriever, was terrified if water the first two summers she spent on the lake and how by the time the third summer rolled around she would paddle around after me as I kayaked in circles around the cove trying to give my little energizer bunny of a dog enough exercise to finally wear her out.

And then there were the hours and hours we spent walking in circles on the fields behind the stepford high school, under the power lines, or through the streets with Peanut and her pooch, bear bait's bestie.  Ofcourse, we were desperately trying to wear our young dogs out so we could have a more peaceful day.  Peanut and I would laugh that drivers would see us romping through the rain, cold or wind and marvel at what dedicated dog owners we were when really we liked to gab with each other so much and this way of doing it was multitasking.   I'm not sure when walking the dog evolved into simple joy time spent with the dog, but it did.

And then bear bait started listening to me, so I could walk with her unleashed and we'd get up before dawn and walk for hours, me with my camera and bear bait running circles around me just so happy to be out and free.

Then there was that one evening bear bait brought the newly born baby bunny into the house.  She set us up for two weeks of amazement and wonder as we first found the bunny nest and then protected it from her, as she seemed to have a penchant for removing the bunnies from their nest, and scattering them all over the yard, and the kids and I observed as the little hairless helpless bunnies grew into adorable fluffy bunnies and evenutally ran away.  Without bear bait it would have happened right under our noses and we might never have known. 

I will forever remember the magical formula for removing skunk odor (peroxide, baking soda and dawn dish soap) ever since that quiet twilight morning waiting for the sun to rise when bear bait managed to get into it with a skunk and then get skunked right in the face.

I'll always recall fondly bear bait's last summer, when I decided that swimming was better to walking because of her arthritis.  I decided we'd do long distance swims together, so I put on flippers and jumped into the lake with her. We'd swim and swim, and bear bait would swim and drink, so I'd have to swim up to someone's shore everyonce in a while so she could climb out and pee,  and sometimes kayakers would glide by and ask with concern if I was swimming all by myelf in the middle of the lake and I'd say "NO!  Bear bait is with me!"  

And mostly I'll recall how I spent years calling her bear bait, confident that if I ever ran into a bear she'd warn and then protect me by distracting a bear by barking at it.  This gave me the courage to be quite adventurous in the wee hours of the morning, trying to photograph sunrises from different locations and forging through unknown woods around the lake.  Then that one day a bear finally did show up it was right in our utopian yard and bear bait silently high tailed it into the house while I lingered outside, weeding and wondering why what I thought was bear bait was making such thrashing sounds like never before in the bushes.  Then I went inside and found her sacked out on the couch.  

Good times.

But better than the times we spent together are the lessons I learned from her about unconditional love, friendship and a positive attitude.  Bear bait loved all people and she only ever asked back to be loved in return.  She was always ready for an adventure, loved good food, and even in the end when she was sore and limping, she'd try to do a little happy sprint when she got the open field, because for bear bait life was just that good.

she's gone

Bear bait is gone.

I can't remember the last time I felt this sad.  I'm sadder than sad.  I'm crushed.  My entire being has been wrapped around a rotting rod of pain which is emanating toxic waste and it's choking me from the inside.  It's not like I can't inhale, it's like what I exhale is too dark and thick to leave me.

 In the end she had barely eaten for a month and hadn't eaten for five days, unless I gave her people food.   I gave her people food.  One day she was so crippled that she couldn't even get up.  But then she seemed to rally, kind of.  And she started to slip and hobble around on her dead leg again, but only when we really worked hard at pursuading her to go outside or join us on the couch.  Other wise she would stay in the same spot she had collapsed into for hours and hours, maybe 6 or 7 until I tried to carry her outside or into another room so we could be together. I lied on the floor to be near her.  I lifted her onto the couch to be near me.  I sat outside.   No matter what I could have been doing I just kept coming back to the house because I didn't want her to be alone.  

Sometimes when we were outside bear bait hid underneath this one bush.  When I called her out of hiding out she found a quiet corner by the garage and scratched out a little dip in the dirt, sat down into it, and laid her head down.  Was she testing out final spots?  I wondered if she was preparing for giving up.

Every time I came back to the house I was afraid she'd be dead.  But I'd find her lying around somewhere odd and she'd thump her tail without moving anything else and it broke my heart that she could be in such bad shape and happy to see me at the same time.  And then I wished she would just go in her sleep so I didn't have to make the choice.   But every time I found her lying all stiff on her side she'd keep thumping that tail.  And I kept giving her the pain killers.  I didn't think they were doing anything at all, until I took some photos and saw her eyes.  Those weren't her eyes in those photos.  They were drugged yes, and I tried not to imagine what I would say if I was on that many pain killers.  And then she started crying for me.  When I was home she wanted me to be close to her.

I asked everyone I know for advice.  People talked about dogs suffering and doing the right thing or the grace in dying on your own and unfortunately I met a woman whose 1/2 paralyzed (but young and pain free) dog uses a wheelchair.  A couple of people asked me if we had tried acupuncture.  But one woman's words kept echoing in my head becuase she spoke of making the same decision with her dog and asking herself "Is my dog going to get better?"  Bear bait was not going to get better.

In the end I chose to have the vet put her down and  I am wracked with guilt.  I asked the vet to come to our house, because bear bait hated going to the vet.  And we lied in the back yard while the vet gave her the shots that slowed her down and then turned her off.  I held her the whole time, and told her to run and play and be free and then come back as a mutt one day and I'd find her again at a shelter.  And then she was gone and the vet and her assistant carried her to their car and drove away with her old broken body.

Every time I turn around I am reminded of bear bait.  I see her blanket in my trunk, or feel that pang of guilt when I drive away from the house without her, or I see her photo on my cell phone screen saver.  I have to keep reminding myself that we won't be swimming together this summer, or kayaking or hiking around before dawn looking for a good sunrise vantage point for photographing because I've been looking forward to these things all winter.  And then I relaize I will be truly alone when the kids are off on all of their adventures for the first time ever.  Because my friend is gone.

 

sick over it

Things are looking bad bad bad for bear bait.  This morning her right rear leg just gave out and she ended up spayed out on the floor, desperately struggling to stand up.  It was horrible.  Then this afternoon the leg went out again.  

I've been discussing my bear bait situation with people today because I'm just trying to get some clarity on what I need to do so that I do the right thing and one woman tld me that the day she knew it was time to put her dog down was the day she knew the dog was never goign to get better.

Also, I think bear bait is in pain.  She is only eating her dog food if I am standing by the bowl, and something tells me she is doing it just to make me happy.  Just like no matter how large of a dump she makes in our back yard she will manage to squeeze out another dump within the first 3 minutes of a walk because she thinks of it as a requirement.  And even though she's ten I still tell her what a good girl she is everytime she does it.

I've got a call in to the vet, and I am going to phone my BIL's wife (a veterinary assistant) this evening but I do think that bear bait won't make it to the weekend and I'm completely sick over it.

roller coaster descent

I've been guardedly happy that bear bait seemed to be somewhat returning to herself until today.  She didn't eat again.  Times she has not eaten in her 10 years before the past month: 0  Times she hasn't eaten or has only eaten half her food in this past month: nearly every day.  She is getting pretty svelte, and the only thing that is keeping her from starving is all the treats and people food I've been hand feeding her.   I even cut up some of her favorite crack greenies and have been doling those out too.

Now I don't feel good about going to Berlin again.  I have only a week left to figure out if she is going to be stable enough for me to go.  We had a beagle a long time ago and we had to put her down.  I was almost full term pregnant with Matt at the time and I asked the husband to please walk the dog (her biggest happiness) to the ASPCA and hold her when they put her down.  He did neither.  He hopped into a cab and was back at our apartment 20 minutes later.  I have to be here for bear bait.  It's just not optional.  Also, she is totally my baby.  It has to be me.

I have the sick feeling bear bait isn't going to make it to the summer.  I just want to tell her that if she can just hold on we can go swimming together.   We had so many good long swims together last summer, when I was trying to swim her instead of walk her because of her limp. I think she liked it as much as I did.

portions

I've been feeling pretty nervous about my upcoming trip to Berlin and the other day Evan may have pushed me into the guilt arena with this comment:  "I figure the maximum numbers of times we can order pizza and chinese food when you leave us are three times each, and then we'll manage to fill in the rest of the nights with something else."

For a long time my parents were snowbirds.  They would both go down to Florida sometime after Halloween and then my dad would fly back to NY every other work from Monday until Friday and stay in the apartment alone.  Before they left for Florida my mom would always stock their freezer with frozen diet dinners.  Somewhere along the line I figured out how to make a pretty decent lasagne, which my dad really enjoyed, so for years, every October I would make a huge lasagne and my mom would portion it out and freeze it into individual pieces for my dad to eat when he was home alone.

I figured, since Evan could only come up with pizza and chinese as meal alternatives, I'd over cook for the next week and half and leave some things they can defrost and microwave while I am gone.  Tonight I made a big honking lasagne, and then I carefully packaged up individual portions and bagged them in groups of three and put them in the freezer. 

This seems pretty obvious by now but I'm missing my dad tonight.

thumper

I had phenominal stats yesterday and then I saw that someone on a soccer forum had googled "massive toe" and linked to this photo of Josh's bandaged foot from 2011.  Funny.  Even funnier is that he said it was obviously a dainty woman's foot.  Just this morning I ordered Josh some new sneakers in (I kid you not) size 15 EEEE.  

Despite my excessive bear bait related crying, I do want to gloat a little and tell you that last time I went to photograph lake guy his younger brother was visiting.  We all went to the area where a bunch of charming manly men hang out and one of the manly men asked me if lake guy's 32 year old brother was my husband.  (I'm intentionally leaving out the part about the free flowing beer)  He's so young!!  It was flattering.

Bear bait is thoroughly medicated and today she actually got up and came to greet me when I returned from picking Josh up from school.  I was shocked.  For the past week she's been lying flat on her side and only lifting her head and thumping her tail on the floor when I come home, search and find her.  She just started another new medication, which is for seizers, but also a pain killer.  I think she's high as a kite.  Truthfully, I'd rather spend my last days high as kite over writhing in pain so I'm okay with it. My BIL's wife works for a vet, and I sent her bear baits x-rays for a second opinion.  I'm holding my breath and waiting to see what she makes of the mysterious non-defined hip bone.   Now I just have to figure out what I am going to do about having to leave bear bait (and the family) for 2 weeks for my next school session coming up in 13 days.

adventure buddy

Bear bait is in bad shape.  I know I have to bring her back to the vet until they figure out what is going on with her but truthfully, I am afraid that when they finally figure it out it will be BAD and for years I have been spouting this "It's not fair to make dogs suffer" crap and then I'll have to have her put to sleep.  In my heart of hearts I know she is pain right now.  Because deep down inside I suspect that it is just THAT BAD.  She can barely walk now, I know it is all coming from her rear right leg, she can hardly move it and barely put it down, but she also still has this crazy thirst and isn't really eating.  Despite the fact that when I relaized she was getting kind of skinny I went out and bought 2 huge boxes of her favorite crack (greenies) and have been tossing her little cut up fattening greenie treats all day long she still seems bonier than I've ever seen her.

This is going to be rough.  

She's my girl!  My little partner in crime!  She's my little adventure buddy!  I've been crying off and on all day.  This is hard.

 

 

I got vegetables too

This morning just as I was wondering what I would serve the family for dinner tonight I heard something about National Grilled Cheese Day come over the television and I knew I had my answer.  I went to the store and bought a variety of bread choices, and cheese choices, and other stuffing choices, and came home with bags of yummy food.  Then I was browsing an internet news web site and saw the National Grilled Chesse Day is actually tomorrow, and I thought about how in my benevolent desire for unlimited sandwich choices I bought enough grilled cheese ingredients to start a restaurant, and I figured I'd take a page from Kitten's playbook and declare the next three days to be National Grilled Cheese Weekend.  We started tonight.  And just to let you know how enthusiastic I am breakfast choices will run the gamut from plain old grilled cheese, to cream cheese and lox grilled cheese, to cinnamon bread grilled cheese, to bacon, egg and cheese grilled cheese.   In my FDA food pyramid defense, I served a nice crudite with all that gooey grilled cheese tonight.  I am certain of one thing though.  There will be no cholesterol tests in this family's immediate future.

fix

Yesterday when Evan went to the school nurse for some gauze pads because he had tried to gnaw the metal covering off of the pencil eraser and ended up stabbing himself in the mouth the nurse asked "Aren't you the one from last year who stapled his thumbs together?"  Yup.  I'm a tree.  Meet my apple.  

I pretty much slept through the last two mornings.  Yesterday I sat in front of the computer like a zombie until 2.  Today I brought Josh to school , came home and slept on the couch until 1.  Then it occurred to me that it was possible that one of the common side effects of the prescription arthritis medicine I decided that I would actually jeopardize my liver and take is drowsiness and lo and behold, it is.  Tomorrow I will not take the medicine in the morning, I will wait until night time and sleep like a baby.  Also, I went out and bought some coffee for myself for tomorrow.  I will not sleep through another day!! 

The good news is that if I have to risk my liver safety at least this medication appears to be relieving some of the pain and restoring some of my ability to lift my arm out to the side.   A nice side effect to all of this liver killing is less pain in my soon to be replaced (kidding- maybe) knees!  I was thinking that since I am all drugged up for the arm and shoulder, and can't swim right now (my actual plan when I joined the Y back in November) maybe I can sneak in a little running.  I just love running, which is absolutely insane considering my current size and condition, but I can interval run, right?

The only bad thing is that right now my running partner (bear bait!) is all strung out on sedatives.  Yeah, she's fun these days.  Today she whined and whined until I finally relented and gave her second fix of her daily crack.  (a greenie)  But she didn't really eat any of her actual dog food for the day, so that extra greenie isn't going to make her fat like that dark fat period in her life when someone (husband) was sneaking her 4 or 5 day and she got so big she was no longer a curvy dog, but a roundy dog.  Now she's just a sleepy whiny dog.  I'm so sad about it.  

who am I gonna call?

I'm quite worried about bear bait these days.  She just isn't herself and no matter how hard I command the forces of good and evil to let her talk for 60 seconds ,so she can tell me what exactly is going on, she isn't talking.   Damn.  

I'm not one hundred percent certain that the gift of language would find her explaining her aches and pains instead of complaining about all the alone time or the taste of the most recent dog food switch, but the idea of allowing her to speak for a single minute is incredibly appealing to me.

I called the vet.  

The other magical thing I'd love to be able to do would be to shrink my kids back down to some easy to carry age, say 6 months or so and carry them around all day.  I'd really just like to be able to hug them whenever I'd like to.  I wouldn't shrink them often, just enough to keep them in their place as the teenagers and young men that they have become.  I'd only shrink them from the morning untl their bed times, because lord knows that last thing I need in my life is a baby who doesn't sleep through the night, so I'd grow them back up right after I finished hugging and kissing them to sleep.  

In other news, I am starting to suspect that my house is haunted.  Early this morning I saw a black shape standing next to my bed.  I heard myself say "I'm gonna kill you" because I somehow thought the husband was about to wake me up but it was actually the sound of my own voice which woke me up and then I was laughing at myself because my own sweet little girl voice is not threatening at all.  It's like hearing Snow White having phone sex with the dwarves.  Something just doesn't mesh with it.  But I did realize that this was not the first time I have experienced someone standing over my bed and now I think I might have to call ghost busters.  The house that was on this property was orignally on the other end of the long lot, so I'm ruling out anyone dying in here in any interesting times, it would have had to have happened since 2005, but I am wondering if perhaps this new house is on an ancient burial ground or a battleground or something.  In any case, I think I'll have a long talk with my personal family ghosts today and ask them to visit me when I am awake instead, just in case.