I’ve had dogs for as long as I can remember. My first dog was a Dalmation named Lacey, she lived for 12 years, so pretty much most of my childhood. My second dog was a chow-lab mix named Dakota, then a cocker spaniel named Harley. When I moved away to college, I missed the presence of dog, if you’ve always owned one, I think you probably would. My second year of college I moved in with my then boyfriend, and we decided to get a boxer. Her name was Chloe and she was a beautiful fawn with black and white markings. Chloe was full of life, energy, and completely determined to have her way all the time. Chloe was my everything, literally. Every minute I was not in classes I was home with her. My then boyfriend was an alcoholic and often would disappear for days on end and return home hung over, sometimes with black eyes, sometimes covered in his own vomit. Most of the time it was just Chloe and me, and at least I had someone.
At six months old, Chloe had developed a bad streak of independence. She liked to run and would no longer stay by me when we went outside to potty. My then boyfriend came home one afternoon from a long night of drinking, hung over, and let Chloe out to potty without using her leash, she took off running. I knew what had happened the minute I heard the screeching tires. I ran outside to the street just in time to see my ex scooping her up off the road. I ran back inside and grabbed the car keys and ran to the car to meet him. I drove like a maniac all the way to the vet, cursing the red lights and anyone that dared get in front of me. The vet took her and rushed her into xray. Broken hip, broken ribs, internal bleeding. They had her stable and on a pad and blankets on the floor, an IV of pain meds running through her. The surgery was going to be expensive, so while my ex called his parents to get help with the financing, I sat on the floor holding Chloe’s head on my lap and talking to her. While I sat there convincing myself that everything was going to be okay, I could tell from the way Chloe was looking at me that it wasn’t. Surgery was scheduled for the next day and we went home to wait. I have to add here, animals are not stupid, despite what we may think sometimes. Chloe knew she wasn’t coming home, she was trying so hard to tell me that while I held her there on the floor of the vet’s office. We received a call from the vet, too soon after Chloe’s surgery was scheduled to begin. Chloe had passed away in surgery. I cried myself into a fog, my ex drank himself into a stupor and started disappearing for weeks at a time. I was alone again.
I’ll take a moment here to tell you why things were as they were, why I couldn’t get out, why I was afraid to leave, why I was so alone, and the healing powers of an animal’s love.
Why didn’t I just leave my ex? I was broke, I couldn’t afford rent by myself, and I did still care about him and was hopeful that eventually he would realize that and stop his drinking. I was also young and stupid. I had isolated myself to stay at home in case my ex came home and wanted to hang out, and also out of fear that something would happen to him while I was away and he would have no way of contacting me. I pretty much left the house only for classes or to pick up groceries. Now back to my story…
Chloe died in January, by April I had started to recover, but was still very alone. With my birthday right around the corner, I decided it was time for me to change that. When my ex and I were looking to find a boxer pup, we had run into several breeders. I called a woman who bred boxers and english bulldogs, she had one female left, I promised her that if she held her for me, I would be there bright an early Saturday morning to buy her. I spent the rest of the week deciding on a name for her, and bright and early Saturday morning I drove the 45 minutes to pick her up. She was a beautiful fawn boxer with a black mask, not quite as flashy as Chloe, but with the most precious face any dog lover could ask for. I picked her up out of her play pen, she extended an unusually long tongue and licked my nose, and my heart melted. An exchange of money, a signature, and Ada and I were on our way home. I chose the name Ada for two reasons, 1. When I was five, my parents bought me a Cabbage Patch Doll, her given name, Ada, and she was my favorite thing in the world, 2. Ada means “Happy” and that’s what she made me.
Ada was my shadow and I was hers. We did everything together, including separating from my ex. We were alone, and I was okay with that. When I graduated from college and was moving to Jacksonville, I had no job and no place to stay but with my grandparents, who couldn’t have pets where they lived. I had to take my Ada to Pennsylvania to stay with my mom until I could get a place of my own. The day I left Ada to come to Jax I cried for hours. Less than a year later, Ada was back in Jax and we had a home.
Fast forward to 2007, I have a wonderful fiance, wonderful job, amazing friends, loving family, and a home of our own-time to grow our family! Gil and I had decided that Ada needed a playmate, and we needed a puppy in the home. We loved Ada so much and the boxer breed overall (boxers are amazing dogs) we felt that another boxer was the way to go. We did our research, found a reputable breeder, and when the litter was born, we drove to pick out our pup. We specifically wanted a boxer with the same coloring as Ada, and we found her. The runt of the litter was a little fawn with black mask, and same big round eyes as Ada. Eight weeks later I drove to pick her up and surprise Gil after work with our new pup Calla!
Calla was not like Ada in anyway except color.
Calla was feisty, independent, bull headed, and a tornado of destruction wrapped up in a tiny little furry package. Her small size did not stop her from doing anything, if she wanted to do it, she found a way. Her first year was full of medical issues because of her runt status and small size. She developed separation anxiety and had to be crated while we were at work, something we never had to do with Ada. She destroyed 2 laptop chargers, a phone charger, a power cord to our sound system, the power cord to the dryer, a lamp cord, 7 dryer hoses, and chewed a hole through the drywall on 3 different occasions. Owning Calla was proving to be our biggest challenge yet, and a source of daily frustration. Calla was, overall, a sweet pup though, just too clever and destructive for her own good. She loved cuddling and playtime just as much as she enjoyed destroying everything she came in contact with.
After a year and a half of failed crate training, we took Calla to the vet to find out if there was any medical reason that she couldn’t hold her urine while crated. We had exhausted all other methods of training and only looked to the vet as a last resort. The vet ran a sample of Calla’s urine and found high levels of toxins, they then did an ultrasound of Calla’s kidneys. After a year and a half of blaming ourselves, and blaming Calla for failed potty training, we had an answer. Calla, having been the runt of her litter, had poorly developed kidneys, deformed and barely functioning. We did not take this news lightly, especially because there was no fix for it. We were given medications to help her situation, but no real cure. Kidney transplant for dogs in rare, expensive, and risky for not only the sick dog, but the donor dog. No one would want to risk their dog’s life for a stranger’s dog, I know I wouldn’t. The vet didn’t give Calla til the end of the year (2010).
Calla stayed her crazy, energetic, happy self through the end of 2010. She surpassed all of our hopes. Around the end of January, Calla started having problems keeping her food down. Almost every night Gil and I would get up to clean her vomit, sometimes three of four times a night. She started loosing weight and continued. Some nights we would catch a break and she would be able to keep most of her food down, other nights we weren’t so lucky. We switched her food mid-February and she seemed to rebound. She was still thin, but she wasn’t throwing up every night. At her last vet visit, the ran tests on her blood and told us that dogs with the level of toxins in her blood usually come into the office comatose. Calla had walked in herself and walked out herself, like nothing was wrong. She truly was fighting this with all she had. Calla entertained a string of puppies Gil and I had fostered throughout the year, putting up with their ear biting and ankle nipping. She played non-stop with our friend Varick’s dog Wicket, and used her big bark as a makeshift door bell to let us know when someone was at our door. She spent every evening trying to sweet talk her way onto the couch, where she knew she was not allowed, but often succeeded anyway. Every night she would cuddle up to her big sister Ada and keep me awake with their synchronized snoring. Her craziness leveled out to a more peaceful existence and we waited for help to tell us she was ready to let go, while remaining hopeful that her body would continue to hang in there.
Last Saturday Calla stopped being able to eat or drink.
Not for a lack of trying, but she just couldn’t keep anything down. The new food wasn’t staying down anymore, and she couldn’t keep any water down. She started sleeping all the time, had no energy to even cuddle. Getting her to go for a walk was hard, and watching her tiny frame struggle to walk was hard for Gil and I. Calla was bare bones and painful to look at. Neighbors in our complex gave us stink eye and I’m sure thought the most horrible things about us. We debated on when to make the hard decision of letting her go, how do you really know? She had rebounded before, what if she does again? We also had to weigh whether we were making the decision for her or if we were making the decision for us because we hadn’t slept a nights sleep in weeks, or we were worried about what the neighbors thought, or we had spent the last two and a half years of Calla’s life cleaning up her messes because she couldn’t help the accidents and the vomit. We knew that was certainly a strain on us, but we also knew we had to hold on as long as she would let us, she was our little girl. Tuesday night I came home after work to a very lethargic Calla. She didn’t feel like eating, which was unlike Calla (her appetite was something Calla had maintained through it all). While Ada ate her dinner, Calla went to the door, she wanted to go for a walk. The two of us took a walk, the whole time Calla seemed disinterested in what was going on around her. She walked right beside me, also unlike Calla, and kept looking up at me with the saddest face. I cried the whole time we walked. I had seen that face before. When Gil got home I told him, he said she had acted the same way on their morning walk. That night Calla vomited four times, each time she looked more sad and more scared. I cried all night. Gil and I made the decision. In the morning we would call Calla’s vet, we couldn’t watch her starve, and we couldn’t look into those eyes and keep seeing that sadness. In the morning I sat with her until it was time to go, I said my goodbyes and told her I was sorry, it wasn’t her fault, and I loved her. When Gil came home to get us, he spent time with her doing the same.
Calla was quite in the car, seemed disinterested in the drive. At the vet’s office she perked up, new smells, new people. We questioned our decision, but she still wasn’t Calla, she was emaciated, had spent the whole night miserable, and the whole morning curled up on her bed. The vet confirmed our decision. Had we waited longer, eventually Calla would have gotten dehydrated and her body would start shutting down, we could have come home to her in a coma or dead. We didn’t want her to suffer alone while we were at work. They put us in the EU room with fluffy blankets for Calla and us to sit on. Calla sat watching the door, the most alert and proud as I have ever seen her sit, it was like she knew what was coming and she was ready. We pet her while they fed her ham flavored baby food, the vet gave her the shot, and it was over in a matter of seconds. What took seconds for her will last a lifetime for me. It was by far the hardest thing we have ever done, the hardest decision I hope to ever have to make.
I will always think of Lacey, Dakota, Harley, Chloe, and now Calla, but probably mostly Calla because she was able to teach Gil and I the most. Patience, humility, love, and that sometimes all you can do is laugh. When we came home to find Calla had escaped her crate and chewed a hole the size of a bowling ball through the drywall, we were furious, but looking at her proud little face, covered in white drywall, all we could do was laugh to keep from having a meltdown.
I wrote this to tell the story of how animals can change your life and to remind you fellow pet owners to “Love em’ while you got em’”. It applies to pets, spouses, children, family, and friends. We are not promised tomorrow, tonight, or even the next five minutes, so learn from life, whether its how to love, how to manage anger, or how to patch drywall.
- amy
