My Very Best Dog, April 1996 - July 2011

My Very Best Dog

I hadn’t realized how much Schnitzel’s breathing had become the background white noise on the boat. As the tumor in her nose grew, it pushed its way into her nasal cavity so that she alternately snored, rasped, and panted as her breath whistled and gurgled past that bloody lump. Her nasal passages filled up with the intruder and she began to sleep with her mouth open, her tongue bulging against what was left of her teeth while she sucked her breath in and out.

When the tumor bled, which was not constantly, the blood and mucus dripped from her tongue and pooled under her head as she slept. I’d sponge her jaw with a wet paper towel in the morning. Some mornings she would lean into the towel as I rubbed her jaw, as if it soothed her. The seepage didn’t seem to hurt, but it made an awful mess.

The worst part was that it clogged and distorted her once black button nose and cut off her keenest sense. She couldn’t see much and had been mostly deaf for some time. Being unable to “snuff her snuffs” must have been confusing and equivalent to a human going blind. The last few weeks she hasn’t been able to smell anything but fried grease. Her head would come right up whenever I fried chicken or made pancakes. The last few days she has been feasting on once-forbidden pancakes and syrup, bread and butter and honey, and other diabetes-instigating treats. What the hell.

But the tumor, messy and invasive as it was, didn’t kill her.

Her back legs have weakened steadily over the last four years and finally failed her. The same dying nerves caused her to lose feeling in her insides. As long as 18 months ago she didn’t realize she had to poop, and only much later, the last month or so, she has been unable to pee without help. For a short while, lifting her back end with the harness triggered the reflex and she was able to urinate, but over the last few days even that trick failed. She’d release on her bed, and while I didn’t mind gathering up the soggy dog training pads, she was constantly damp, either from urine or from her twice daily backend shampoo.

Her paralyzed back legs didn’t kill her either.

It was her liver, swelling up until it looked as though she had eaten a softball and hot to the touch that told me it was time to let go. I knew it wasn’t a fat stomach filled with what she ate, because she didn’t eat much. Mostly bits of Wal-Mart roast chicken infused with butter, another forbidden treat. Her insides were just shutting down, and instead of helping her release the toxins from her body, her kidneys and liver were storing them up. I could see that those poisons were bound to make her miserable, like having a worsening case of the flu, with all its attendant aches and pains. She slept 22 hours a day, sometimes running and barking in her dreams, something she hadn’t done it the waking world for months, if not years. When she woke up she was alert and herself enough to growl menacingly at other dogs from the safety of the little blue cart she rode in when her legs went limp. She never lost her spirit. Her little body just gave out.

Finally, after it being not right, not right yet, not now but maybe soon, it was time. So we put her on some towels on the front seat of the truck between us, where she has ridden thousands of miles over the years. We went to Burger King, where they prepared a small bag of salty hot fries hours before they usually do, just for her. She was wide awake, head cocked toward the fast food window. She knew those fries were coming. I cooled the fries in the draft of the truck’s air conditioner and fed her bit by bit and she gobbled them up as she always does. We drove to the vet and sat in the parking lot and waited, me feeding her those salty treats one by one.

The vet and the tech came to the car to give her the knockout shot. It stung and she whimpered a little, but it was over in less than 30 seconds. Then they left us and her attention was back on the warm French fries. She was scarfing them eagerly when she suddenly lost interest and went limp against my leg. Her breathing evened out and slowed. We waited as her body relaxed as it hasn’t relaxed in months, if ever, as she drifted deeper and deeper to the floor of consciousness and then sank through it.

I tried the handle of her harness. Usually no matter how deeply she is sleeping, she feels my tug and bursts awake. Now she hung limp as a rag dog. I handed her gently to her bed that was waiting on David’s outstretched arms and we walked her into the clinic. The techs had prepared the cold steel table with a brightly striped blanket. Maybe some who bring their dogs in don’t know that those operating tables are cold and hard. I was glad Schnitzel was sleeping on her own bed.

The vet was kind and solemn. She shaved part of Schnitzel’s leg and inserted the needle. She and the tech screwed in a vial of cheerful pink liquid and depressed the plunger. They followed with a vial of neutral clear liquid. Then the vet listened until Schnitzel’s heart stopped beating. Schnitzel never moved from her deep sleep. We stayed with her the whole time, our hands on her head and neck, combing her curls with our fingers. They said they’d dispose of the bed and her body.

I came home and bleached the bloody, urine-soaked towels and threw all her things in the dumpster.

I pretend that she is staying with friends for a few months. I imagine her chasing squirrels, 18 pounds of pure silver thunderbolt joy.

It is awfully quiet.

Jellyfish: they're not just for breakfast anymore...

How many times have you been late to work because you had to pull a jellyfish out of your air conditioner? I thought so.

The warm waters in the Gulf make jellyfish happy and prosperous. At this time of year they drift up the channel and into the waters of our marina. Unfortunately, as interesting as jellyfish are, they are a bit on the dim side and don’t understand air conditioning intake systems. Actually I don’t either, but I don’t swim in the marina water (yuck) and I am far too large to be sucked into the intake. Jellyfish slurp right in and, gooey as they are, jam (pun intended) the A/C flow. The happy trickle of water over the side, which means a functioning A/C and relatively cool boat inhabitants, stops dead when a jellyfish is sucked inside. The fan whirs but nothing happens and in a matter of minutes the temperature rises 3-4 degrees and we’re all sweating. This morning it goes off while I am dressing for work.

I investigate the strainer. Located under the sink in the head, it’s really hard to get to for me, since I am left-handed. I have to sit on the stool, reach in and behind with my left hand and shine the flashlight in the darkness with my right, while pretzeling to see what I am trying to get to. Then I unscrew the top of the strainer tube, pull out the little plastic basket and…eeeeeeew. Jelly. It’s clear as glass and looks just like soft-set Jello. Fortunately there are no tentacles, eyes, or condemning looks from the deceased, just a big glop of clear goo. Out comes the strainer, in goes the spare. I have to hold the new one in, twist it around until it fits, and hold it down while putting the top back on the tube and screwing it down. Not an easy job for someone with only two arms.

Not done yet. Then I get the hose off the dock and turn on the water. I attach that hose to the hose under the port side settee (which involves holding the long sofa cushion up with my head while I fish around in the storage area below), turn the valves, and turn on the water. Water from the dock whooshes through the system, chasing out the air bubbles and priming the pump, so to speak. After about a minute, I turn off the water, unhook the hoses, reverse the valves, stuff the settee hose back in the hole, toss the dock hose back out on the dock, turn on the A/C, and scramble up the ladder to see if there is a little waterfall out the port side of the boat. If so – rejoice and sit in front of the fan for a bit, since the temperature rises from 79 to 85 in the cabin while I am doing all that. If not, cuss like a sailor and do it again.

Try explaining that to your boss.

My dog is dying. She is a little over 15 now. I’ve had her for almost exactly 15 years. When she came to us, she was barely a handful of black fur. Now she is 20 pounds of gray fur, mostly deaf, mostly blind, but still herself. She hasn’t played in years, so maybe not exactly herself. When she was a puppy and a young dog and even a middle-aged dog, she’d run like a rabbit after squirrels or a ball, growl ferociously over a game of tug of war, and pull ahead on the leash like a sled dog. Now it is I who pull her, coaxing but insistent. I don’t take her for a walk, I joke, I take her for a drag. It isn’t funny, but I don’t want to cry. And she still stops now and then to sniff another dog’s passing. She doesn’t do that much any more either, because of the cancerous nose tumor that’s killing her.

We thought we had lost her this past weekend. On Thursday and Friday she refused her food, which she has been noisily gulping down all through her illness. She turned her head away from the water dish. She wouldn’t accept the pill pocket stuffed with her meds. That last was the scary part – one of those meds is a pain pill, and if she didn’t eat that, she’d hurt. I have no idea how much she hurts, because like most animals she doesn’t groan, moan, or otherwise tell you she’s in pain. I have been told that’s because in the wild that sort of noise would get an injured or sick animal quickly found and eaten. I do know she sleeps most of the time, hard, and barely walks, and wants to be lifted up and down the curb.

We made an appointment for euthanasia Saturday afternoon. They were booked, but they’d fit us in. Not a good situation, to say the least, but she still hadn’t eaten, and I was afraid the meds would wear off long before Monday. Our plan was, and is, to have the vet come out to the car to give her the knockout shot. We’d sit there, or drive around awhile in the air conditioning, and only when she was under would we take her in for the final round. Needless to say, I had to hold myself very stiff, mentally and physically, to keep from weeping. We sat there in the truck for 45 minutes, with no sign of the vet. David got madder and madder and finally we agreed just to go home and take our chances.

When we got home, I decided to try one more time. She’d refused chopped fresh chicken (cooked chicken thighs), honey, chocolate milk, jam, and cheese by this point. All of them are her favorites. But I had the chicken thighs out to feed our ancient cat (age 17) and had the thought to try a chicken shake for Schnitzel. I whirred up a thigh and some chicken broth to a nasty consistency, poured it in her bowl and….she ate it. No, she devoured it! Oh, glory! At least she wouldn’t have to be hungry, even if she did hurt.

Sunday morning, I made pancakes. It was sort of a “last meal” idea – she loves pancakes. I didn’t know if she’d eat one or not, but by golly she scarfed a piece down. So I wrapped her pills in more pieces, and she ate the lot. Later I tried dog food, pill pockets, etc. but she was adamant. Nothing but pancakes and chicken shakes.

She is still going to die. But maybe not today and maybe not at the vet.

Coming home. Just the phrase evokes a sense of well-being and comfort. In my mind’s eye, I am walking over frosted fields toward a small, isolated house sitting in a copse of bare-branched trees. An icy wind is whistling around my ears; it is early evening and the first stars are appearing on the horizon. I keep on, toward the house, toward the lighted windows, toward the winding path of the gravel driveway. The scent of woodsmoke reaches me from the chimney, and someone steps out onto the wide porch and waves to me. Come on! I’m waiting for you. I walk faster, toward light, warmth, companionship, and a hot bowl of soup.

That is the way I am feeling on my spiritual journey. I have been away a very long time. I used to live in that spiritual house and then a traumatic divorce made me suspect it. I couldn’t understand how I could live in that house and yet feel as though my life had been ripped open and emptied and cast aside. I ran as far away as I could and looked for other places to live. I found some beautiful houses, but I was always the guest there. I read the texts and adopted some of the practices and considered the world from those points of view. Some of the beliefs I encountered centered on the power of the individual, some on purification, some on self-actualization, some on the importance of keeping God’s laws.

As beautiful as those ideas and goals may have been, none of the spiritual houses I visited seemed to understand the idea of the love God has for His creation, including me. None of them seemed to see God’s hand stretched out toward us. None of them offered me the chance to talk to the Creator of the Universe, and much less did they allow that He would be interested in the fact that my car died or that I really needed a new job or that a friendship needed to be mended. None of them offered relief from the spiritual burdens I carried. None of them helped me look at the dark places of my soul and helped me to heal from the filth I found there, gently, firmly, and completely without condemnation.

At some point, I received the grace to see that all these beautiful homes were empty for me. So I turned my feet toward the home I knew best, the one I knew I could trust even though I didn’t always understand why it was trustworthy, the one that was full of light and power and grace and truth and healing. As I turned toward it, the One Who Loves Me opened the door and came out on the porch. He waved to me, a huge grin splitting his face. Then He ran down the steps and out into that frosty field and threw His arms around me and welcomed me home.

If you are lost, as I was, if you are hurting, ask God to come into your life, ask Him to show you your shortcomings and your rebellion, and give your life to Him. There is forgiveness, mercy, love, and plenty of room in this house. I am joyful to know in my bones that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light – and that His house is mine again.

"This Train Is Bound For Glory" By Terry Mcmillian (FULL)

Direct response marketing - who knew?

Under the heading of “Old Dog Learning New Tricks” I am listening to a weekly internet broadcast called “Internet Marketing for Smart People Radio”. The link to each broadcast is sent to me by http://www.copyblogger.com/, to which I subscribe because they have great tips on business writing and sales writing and a number of other writing for money styles I am exploring. Currently, I am trying to master the basics of direct response marketing so when I launch that new money making website I keep dreaming about, I will actually make money.

Unlike mass media marketing (think of all the Coca Cola jingles you know) or direct marketing (a mailbox full of junk you didn’t ask for and intrusive calls by people you don’t know selling things you don’t want), direct response marketing tries to match a product with people who are actually interested in the product and who are willing to respond in some way to let the seller know they are interested. Sounds kind of civilized, doesn’t it?

To practice direct response marketing on your blog, you must include all sorts of things. Here are the six major Must Dos:

Direct response marketing tool #1: Speak with authority. That basically means know what you are talking about. I’m mostly talking about my life, so I’ve got that one down. Most of the time.

Direct response marketing tool #2: Be likeable. I am uncertain how to accomplish this. If you are my friend, you either like me or you are kind and if you aren’t my friend I guess you read this blog because I am going through some of the same things you are. Either way, this doesn’t seem like something I can cultivate.

Direct response marketing tool #3: Bring commitment and consistency to your blogging. Ooops. The consistency thing has not gone well so far. I’ve been too busy kidding myself that I can make a living at $15 an hour. For those of you who follow my woes as a free lance writer, you will be thrilled to see that this is up from $10 an hour…

Direct response marketing tool #4: Social proof. What a new century phrase that is! It means, get people who like what you write to tell other people about your blog so they will visit it and read other things that you write. The radio show today said you should ask people to do this, so I am now asking you to send this post and my blog site address (http://unedame.blogspot.com) to two other people. Then we will see what happens. I am also to ask you to “follow” the blog if you enjoy what I write. I am minding my teachers and asking! I even have a button for you to advertise the blog on Facebook and Twitter. Very mod of me.

Direct response marketing tool #5: Reciprocity. I am supposed to give you compelling content so that you will be interested in what I have to sell. Unfortunately, I have nothing to sell at present. If any of you have ideas to get the money rolling in, please feel free to comment! Meanwhile I will try to write compelling content.

Direct response marketing tool #6: Scarcity. I’m afraid I nodded off at this point and am not sure what it refers to. There is only one of me, so I can assure you I am scarce. Perhaps they were referring to the use of the old-fashioned “limited time offer”.

Now you know what I know about direct response marketing. I am serious about asking you what I could sell online. I love to write for myself, I have a lot of stories to tell, but I am so busy writing 500 word articles studded with key words for real estate sites, travel sites, and legal sites I am not squeezing out much for myself.

In the meantime, if you visit Copyblogger, be sure to tell them I gave them a plug!

It's been one of those weeks

Back in the day when my daughter was about five years old, I had a good friend with two girls, ages 5 and 7, who was trying to balance a career as an assistant district attorney with motherhood and marriage. Her observation was that as long as everything went as planned, it was completely worth the effort, but if one thing went wrong, down went her carefully constructed house of cards. The “one thing” could be anything from a sick child to a husband’s out of town business trip to forgetting to do the laundry and having no clean socks. Those of you who have been there can relate.

We’ve had a spate of that “one thing” this past week and David and I are going glassy-eyed coping and trying to stay centered enough to know that it will all work itself out eventually. The downhill slide started Halloween weekend with a quick sailing trip to Offat’s Bayou. Offat’s Bayou is a really nice anchorage right behind Moody Gardens on Galveston Island. There is plenty of room to anchor out and a small marina for anyone who wants electricity. We’ve been down there only twice since we moved here, but enjoyed the trip tremendously both times. Weirdly, both trips involved stormy weather, but even the bad weather was fun because 1) it was warm weather, 2) we know the waters around here really well, and 3) Raven sails wonderfully regardless of the weather. We joined some other Cape Dory owners on the trip, had a dockside party, and enjoyed ourselves very much.

Unfortunately on the way home things began to unravel. David started sneezing and coughing with a bad cold and Hobbes, the cat, peed all over the settee, which was completely out of character for him. Then as we approached Redfish Island, the exhaust coupling sheared off, filling the cabin with diesel smoke! We turned off the motor and sailed in toward the channel on 22 knot winds with no problem, but called Tow Boat U.S. for a tow down Kemah channel to our slip. The next day it was clear Hobbes was in a bad way, having peed all over his bed and not even moving to get out of it. The vet confirmed diabetes and dehydration and our very sick cat spent the next 5 days in the cat hospital. Now he is home, being hand fed, dosed with insulin, and placed periodically in the cat box, since he is still very wobbly on his pins. In the meantime, David suffered through his cold and then generously shared it with me. I am still hacking, but better.

The cabin is a wreck. I haven’t given it a good cleaning since before the Offat’s Bayou trip. There are piles of clothing and mislaid boxes on one side, bare wood on the other settee since we had to take out the one the cat peed on and haven’t had it cleaned yet, and a third of the cabin sole is walled off by seat cushions to make a “cage” for the cat. Meantime I cower at the nav station trying to earn enough to pay the vet bill. Even as reasonable as the vet was (very reasonable, considering all the time and care they gave Hobbes), it was $700 at the end of the day, which consumed every dime I made this week.

So. We are very, very tired and feel as though we are truly living a Matrix-like life on a real Nebuchadnezzar. I have always sympathized with Cipher and for today at least I wish I were plugged back in eating a phantom piece of steak.