Yesterday, Arlene got trapped under the bed again and pee’d all over herself. I was headed out to aerobics but instead got her unstuck and tried to hold her but she was shaking and covered in pee. I put her in the laundry sink with some warm water and was stroking her fur when she went into a full blow panic attack and so I rushed her out sopping wet to the yard. My neighbor came by to accompany me to the gym, and she rushed to help with towels for Arlene while T cleaned up the pee under the bed. <\/p>\n
I had had lunch with my neighbor earlier and asked her when is it time to put your dog down? <\/p>\n
A neighbor had told me a few weeks ago when they can no longer smell. A closer neighbor said when they no longer enjoy life. My vet had told me about Sam, when the quality of life has vanished – mine and theirs. But truly I believe it is when the soul has gone out of their eyes. <\/p>\n
But how can I tell when Arlene is blind? <\/p>\n
My neighbor went and got this device that burrows into the ground and you attach a leash and we hooked Arlene up to it in the backyard and she spun in a circle for one hour despite having been given a half a Xanax. She kept walking endlessly around and around – like she does inside pacing till she finds an obstacle to burrow into and get stuck, which leads to panic, and peeing, and my heartache. <\/p>\n
I called Dr. Ghere but he’s off today so we are waiting till tomorrow to consult with him – I want someone to tell me what to do. <\/p>\n
Her 14th birthday is on Friday, April 24th. I had hoped she would make it till then, but at this point I’m not sure. Her quality of life is gone and the soul has gone out of her eyes, but I still see the little puppy that zipped through the house with a stuffed animal in her mouth for more than a decade spreading joy and love where ever she went, my two-colored eye lucky dog, and now I see it clearly, she ends, as she begun, peeing in the house. <\/p>\n
Dog’s Death<\/p>\n
She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
\nToo young to know much, she was beginning to learn
\nTo use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
\nAnd to win, wetting there, the words, “Good dog!
\n Good dog!”<\/p>\nWe thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
\nThe autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
\nAs we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
\nAnd her heart was learning to lie down forever.<\/p>\nMonday morning, as the children were noisily fed
\nAnd sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest’s bed.
\nWe found her twisted and limp but still alive.
\nIn the car to the vet’s, on my lap, she tried<\/p>\nTo bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
\nAnd my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
\nThough surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
\nNevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.<\/p>\nBack home, we found that in the night her frame,
\nDrawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
\nOf diarrhea and had dragged across the floor
\nTo a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.<\/p>\nJohn Updike<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday, Arlene got trapped under the bed again and pee’d all over herself. I was headed out to aerobics but instead got her unstuck and tried to hold her but she was shaking and covered in pee. I put her in the laundry sink with some warm water and was stroking her fur when she went into a full blow panic attack and so I rushed her out sopping wet to the yard. My neighbor… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1kHSD-105","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}