My Husband's First Love Was A Dog.

A boy dog called Moses. Now he is my love too. He is 18.

Today I need to write about my dog. I know that my emotions are close to the surface...last week I saw "..Benjamin Button" and though I think it is overlong and too slowly paced, an interesting movie that somewhat misses the mark, I admit, I cried. The movie raises issues to do with age, every age, but particularly old age. It also says something about souls recognizing each other for what they are within in spite of how they appear.

I have gone round and round about this. Right now I am at that place on the wheel where I am questioning that I(we) are doing the right thing. Moses is 18. He reluctantly takes three pills each day. One is a steroid, prednasolone, for severe arthritis in his spine and back leg joints. One is an antibiotic to prevent the urinary infections which seem to be a side effect of the steroid, and the other is pentoxi mepha, a pill which is meant to be for dogs prone to seizures, but is also said to possibly assist to treat other general nervous system maladies.

So he functions pretty well. The arthritis that we thought would take him down more than a year ago is managed so that it appears as though he is in no pain. Just very very slow, and still sometimes unsteady or falling. He is still interested in his food, which is beefed up with yummy biotin beef tasting B-complex vitamins, he still dives after whatever size Greenie you give him, even the ones larger than his mouth! He still teases our other dog a bit about her bone and they can make a little game of it, very very occasionally, and it is a very slow game, one where it is easy for him to be knocked down. (If he gets knocked down, he is usually stuck, unless I or my husband give him a hand back to his feet.) Our other dog, Girl, a small Chow Chow, still dotes on him and worries if he is out of her sight for long and gives him the once over inspection when he returns....all good.

But lately I am really noticing how very tired and disoriented he is. I question whether he is newly tired or whether I am getting tired and so finally really noticing. It has taken some time (a year) for my husband to grasp or at least admit out loud that the things we are doing for Moses, the meds, the tacky carpeting on every surface of the floor, the little adjustments are all not going to improve his health, but really only make him comfortable as he is not to ever go back to his young self again.

He has frequent accidents in the house. I have tried with all my heart to make a routine, any routine, so that I could have a schedule and some predictability and not feel like every time I leave the house it is a risk to return to stinking difficult-to-clean grossness on him and on the house. I think I may be a little depressed by this imprisoning, though also a bit guilty about my own resentments. This wouldn't be such a drastic change if both our dogs did not used to be able to hold it for 10 hours, and if there was an emergency, 11 or 12. I always tried to make it back to them within 9 hours, but knew I could rely on them both doing all they could to avoid going within our home. It freaks Girl out if Moses does it while we are gone, but Moses seems to have lost the concept. I have made it a point to yell at him every time it happens, and praise him when he goes outside, but again I am not certain that he understands or is concerned about the difference anymore.

Last night, when he was sort of pacing about in uncertain circles, I pulled him up onto the sofa with me and put a movie on to watch. I pulled his old bag of bones on top of me as I stretched out, and he rested his head on my chest so that his long nose was right under my chin. He looked into my eyes and his body relaxed and he began to breath as though sleeping, with a little purring snore. I stroked his soft soft soft head and ears and tried to fathom what life was for him, in this day, in that moment.

My husband is at work all day. I believe he has faced the truth of what may be coming very soon on a mental level, but I fear for him and pray about how it will effect his emotions, and me too. I think of the best outcome for both of us, that we will have our grief in the moment that Moses is gone, and then the joy for knowing he is just resting worry-free forevermore after that. I know I am clinging to him, to his body and cuteness. FOr those moments where holding him seems to be what makes him the happiest, the stillest, the most at peace. There is really nothing else I am able to make my life about at the moment. I pray every day for him to die softly in his sleep.