When I was 10 or 11 I remember my father taking me with him to an animal hospital out in the sticks. The cat, Friday, was in the back seat in its travel trailer. I don’t remember much about the cat other than that we didn’t care for each other very much. It was effectively my mom’s cat, I never cared for it (nor was I expected to). In those days we lived in West Texas where every vet was trained for large animals (horses, cows, other varieties of cash-generating livestock), but they could do a few things for your household pet if they had to.
I didn’t know it until we arrived, but this was the day the cat was put to sleep. I don’t remember why. I knew it was at least as old as I was and there was a reason mom didn’t join us on this excursion. I waited in the car while my dad brought the cat, in its carrier, inside the hospital. A moment later he was back in the car.
Not a tear was shed.
I wouldn’t have animals for the next 15 years.
The grief of losing a pet starts about a year before you think it does. It happens quietly and without announcement. It’s the moment that she doesn’t quite nail the jump onto the couch or the time she sleeps through the dinner that she is begging for by 4:30 every single day. It starts very quietly and is met with all kinds of little excuses.
We met Lucky by chance at a Farmer’s Market on South Pearl Street in Denver. It was Labor Day weekend, still sweltering outside, and the municipal shelter had a handful of adoptable dogs in the stall next to organic produce and honey and overpriced hand soaps. Lucky was the only non-Chihuahua there.
Denver had a rash of Chihuahuas running around. It was something of a problem in those days. 20 minutes later I signed the forms, two days later I picked up the dog I would live with for the next 14 years.
She had all of the new dog jitters. She peed on the floor of our rental house and made short work of our other dog’s food (Chloe was a day-long grazer, eating a kibble every so often. All of that changed with Lucky. She ate like she was in prison and someone would steal her food). Lucky was terrible on a leash and aggressive towards other dogs.
She liked people. Well, most people. If she got a sense about you she had no problem barking at you for hours on end.
But we loved her no less.
When Chloe passed a few years ago, we were a mess. We had an in-home service come and take care of things. Outside a February Thunderstorm dumped water on the town and inside one dog was consoled to sleep while the other, Lucky, tried to make friends with the vet and her bag of dog cookies.
She had no idea what was happening then. She probably didn’t know why we doted so much extra attention on her. A few weeks after Chloe, Lucky was apprehensive about her food. She wasn’t eating and we immediately feared the worst. Fortunately, it was just a matter of diet, Farmer’s Dog turned her around in a matter of hours.
Somehow, you will know it’s coming. You will be looking at the next few months of travel plans and what kind of dogsitting they will need. Then you find yourself talking about a plan for when that day comes.
And somehow, 12 hours later, it arrives. No matter what you think will happen, it will happen in the earliest hours.
Lucky was at the emergency vet by six in the morning. She was at rest a few minutes later, full of sedatives and most of a bag of shredded cheese. I’d like to think there wasn’t any pain.
The next few days you will be entirely inconsolable. People text their condolences, everyone says they’ve been there and they know what I’m feeling – but do they? You didn’t know this dog like I did. You didn’t know the best dog to have ever trotted around this planet! But you give them your thanks and tell them it’s all for the best and you think: wow, they might feel worse for the dog than they do for you.
Over the next few weeks you might make a lot of very sudden decisions. Let most of them happen. This is grief at work and it’s not like anyone is going to talk you out of anything at this point anyway. The world is an awful and dark place, everything is too quiet without a dog in the house, who can live like this?
The plan was to spend the week of Thanksgiving on Tybee Island. The only change in the plan is now there wasn’t a dog to walk on the beach. Our flow feels weird – not having to make room in the camper bed for Lucky, not having to plan the evening around returning to the trailer to dish out her supper.
We tell ourselves that we will meet a few dogs through a shelter in Savannah. We agree that it has to be the right dog, we agree that we don’t need to feel pressured into adopting anyone right away. Still, we come back to Asheville with a pitbull mix we name Tybee. She might be the only creature on the planet lazier than I am.
Technically she is only here for a week on a “sleepover.” If things don’t work out, the rescue service will take her back and she will live with another foster family. I don’t see how that is possible. We bought all the stuff and she naps on all the couches.
Still, it’s everything in me to not accidentally call out to her: “Lucky!”