I’m a dog person.
I’ve always been a dog person, even though I’ve had cats as well in my 4+ decades on this Earth. But when it’s a choice, sorry… I’m a dog guy. Right now we have four… No.
No.
We have three.
I keep waiting to see Yugi walk into my office, his nails clacking on the laminate floor as he slowly enters. He would patrol the house at night, and that clack-clack let me know that he was making the rounds.
He’d come into my office, and park himself near me. His basset-hound frog-legs splayed out behind him. He loved it when I rubbed his long brown ears, and grunted a positive murmur.
Fall of last year, he started not eating. He started having problems with walking. We took him to the vet, and they quickly diagnosed he had a tumor, and it was bad.
We dipped into savings, and paid for the surgery. He had a bad couple of weeks, tore his stitches. We thought it was all for naught. But… He got better. He gained the weight back. He became Yugi again.
It bought us six months.
A month ago, the cancer came back, with a vengeance. He started losing weight , and his hind legs stopped working very well. He was becoming non responsive.
Then we woke up one Saturday morning and found that he had fallen down, outside. In the mud. He couldn’t get up. He stayed there all night.
It was time.
People talk about tough decisions. I am lucky that most of my life I don’t have to make hard choices. I’m blessed in that regard. But sometimes the moment to decide is Just There, and you have to make a decision.
Six months earlier, as Yugi was recovering, I railed and yelled at my wife and son, angry at EVERYTHING. I was not yelling at them for anything THEY had done, I was yelling because I was upset about Yugi, scared and upset and not ready to make that hard decision. I didn’t want to let go. I didn’t want to lose him. 14 years is a lifetime for a dog, but to me it was Not Enough Time.
I chose.
He’s gone now.
I held him, in the end. And saw the light go out, and I can’t not think about him.
I pass his bowl and collar every day now. It’s in the room just behind my office, and I see it every time I grab something from the fridge we have back there.
The first week was hard. The other dogs were confused. Milo, our newest dog, knew. He knew before Yugi was gone that he was suffering, and he stopped eating for days after Yugi left us. The other two were confused.
They kept looking for him.
Hell, I still expect to see him come through the doggy door, as he did countless times before. But that won’t happen, ever again.
Goodbye, Yugi. I will miss you terribly.
