In her simple little mind she began to ask me if he was going to be o.k. and said we can give him some yucky medicine like Dr. Brown Bear gives Peppa (this is a scene from her favorite cartoon, Peppa Pig). She continued to babble on about how bad medicine tastes but it always makes her feel better. I'm barely listening to her because I am going through differential diagnoses in my head and at the same time thinking I have been wondering when this day was going to come and it feels like it is right around the corner. For the last year I have watched this one time athletic dog slowly grow old. As of late, he spends more time sleeping than he does on his feet. If he can hear anything at all, it is very little. When I call for him in the yard, I have to cup my hands creating the mega phone effect to amplify my voice. I have seen the muscles in his hind end slowly atrophy and oftentimes he wanders aimlessly around the house. Father time has been good to our old man but now, I am afraid, he is coming for him.
We get home and sure enough it was just as Charles had described. Ransom was very unsteady on his feet, swaying when walked. He had a slight head tilt, his right eye was drooping and seemed to be very dry. As I looked him over, Wallace Anne stood and watched everything I did. As I stood up, relieving the intensity of the moment, she asked "Mommy, what can I do to help?" I told her we were just going to get his bed out of the laundry room, let him lay down on it and watch him for a while and that we just needed to talk to him and comfort him. Ransom immediately walked over to his bed, stepped up on it, turned his customary two circles and laid down. Wallace Anne followed him over to the bed. She laid down on her stomach, put her chin in her hands and began to talk to him and tell him how she feels when she gets sick and that he will soon feel better. I had been able to control my emotions until that moment of unadulterated kindness and empathy.
Here we are two days later and the old man is currently back at home with us. His clinical symptoms have lessened in intensity. He continues to eat and drink and currently is on his bed right next to me as I type this blog. In the last few days I have begun to feel the guilt. I think of the times I passed on the opportunity to throw the ball for him and have wondered how many times I pushed his face away from mine when he would come over to me panting that hot breath that smelled like something had died in his mouth. The things I should have done and the opportunities I let pass weigh heavily on me.
I don't know if dogs, or any animals for that matter, go to heaven. I certainly hope they do. What the bible says about animals in heaven is confusing to me. What I do know is that the bible says, in Genesis, we are to have "dominion" over the animals. That, coupled with my school of thought that it is the quality of life versus the quantity of life that matters, makes me tell him when the time does come, I will keep my promise to him. The promise that I will never let him suffer. But for now, I am just going to try and make up for some lost time and make sure his last days, however many or few they may be, are happy and that he leaves this earth knowing he was a very loved dog.