310. The Rest of His Days

Losing a pet is devastating, but our listener Diane shares how she made the end of her dog’s life okay.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

I’m Nora McInerny and It’s Going To Be Okay.

Today’s okay thing was sent to us from Diane Silverthorne from Hillside Beach, Manitoba Canada:

A few weeks back our 12-year-old wheaten terrier, Trevor, went in for what has previously been routine surgery to remove some growths on his gums. While anesthetic is always a worry and increasingly so, as our animals age, we were pretty calm about the whole thing. Much to our shock – and apparently that of our vet- we got the news a week later that the pathology report indicated that this time, the growth was an aggressive cancer. While we could put him through radiation and chemotherapy and removal of part of his jaw, we all agreed that this was not a route we wanted to travel with our beautiful boy who had already been showing his advancing age in other ways. His hearing has significantly declined, so that no longer is every passing car or visitor to our home announced loudly, with his clarion call then taken up by our other dogs. His back legs have weakened and appear to be one ligament away from disaster. He often seems to be asking us to spot him now when he makes his extravagant leaps up onto the bed or couch. On our first camping trip of the year, just prior to his surgery, we noticed the difficulty he was having getting up the trailer steps and wondered if this was his final camping season.

Instead, we will let Trevor live out his days in the manner to which he is accustomed. A few more camping trips and his favourite daily walks that he is quite insistent on having despite our foot-dragging some mornings. On our beach he takes off at least 200 yards away ahead of us – still able to outrun his much younger brother and sisters despite his spindly legs. He can’t hear us call him back so he pretends to briefly be a wild dog, only coming when he notices we have turned back in the other direction. He can continue to use his old man seniority status to stare down our other dogs if they happen to be sleeping in one of his favourite couch spots They quickly give in and vacate their positions for him to lay down. And most of all, we will continue to appreciate his enthusiastic greetings when we come home -those ones where you would swear we had been gone for days not hours. We will enjoy his kisses when we wake up and the position he takes at the end of the bed to get his morning cuddles and show off his spectacular tail-wagging which we liken to a hummingbird in its blurred speed. When he is finally ready, we will do our duty to help him out of this life but until then, we will give and receive the unconditional love that all of our dogs model for us so well. Its Going to be OK…