Compassion or Murder

by Lyn

I finally came to a decision today, after months of putting it off. I must have my little dog put to sleep and the pain and the frustration with the decision has made me tearful, weepy, frustrated and deeply depressed.

She is an ancient thing for a dog -- 20 years old. She has lost one eye to glaucoma and the other is covered with a cataract. Her hearing has diminished such that I'm fairly certain she can't hear any but the loudest sounds. She has kept a slight ear condition that has resisted treatment for years, and now her balance has been affected, such that she tends, with the one eye, to go in circles. The muscles in one of her back legs has atrophied, and there is spondylosis in her spine that is causing the extensor muscles of her back legs to operate while the contracting muscles do not. She is able to extend her legs, but not pull them back, effectively causing her to have to walk on stilted legs behind. Added to this is a little doggie Alzheimer's which causes her to become confused and disoriented. When all of the conditions are acting together, she walks around and around in circles, becoming frantic, panting madly, running into walls, and falling because her back end goes out on her.

As I write this, I think, how absurd that I should feel badly about putting this dog to sleep. What a selfish person I am to keep her alive, just to ease my pain. And yet, there is that thing about her that she has had all of her life -- this never say die attitude. She never quits and I hate to be the one to make her do so.

I got her 13 years ago. I was a respiratory therapist working at a small hospital in Harrison County, Kentucky, and I passed her on the road on the way to work one morning. She was sitting in the road, I thought for the warmth, as some old dogs will do. It was in the brief flash as I passed her that I noticed the blood. I turned around and went back and walked over to examine her, and that's when I saw what was really going on. She had obviously been hit by a car or worse. Her jaw was fractured, and one eye was hanging out. And she was sitting because she had obviously been hit such that she couldn't walk.

There was no picking her up without getting bit, so I threw a blanket over her and carried her into work with me under the disapproving stares of my co-workers -- that I should bring a dog into the hospital. I put her in my boss's office, prayed I wouldn't be paged, and called the local dog warden. He showed up a little later and took her to the vet. I told him to tell the vet to do what he needed to do (which I thought surely would be to put her to sleep), and to send me the bill.

Several hours later the vet called to ask me what I wanted him to do with the dog. She had a fractured jaw, a dislocated hip, a broken pelvis, and seven broken ribs, but nothing vital had been injured. I was amazed, but told him to "fix" her. It didn't seem right to put her to sleep after surviving that kind of injury. When her owner called later to thank me for rescuing her, she also told me she didn't have the money to pay for the bill, and did I want the dog? So by the end of that day, I was a new dog owner.

I took her home a couple of weeks later not sure if she would ever walk again. I made her comfortable in a box in my bedroom, then joined my roommate to watch TV. Shortly we heard a dragging noise and looked down the hall to find her dragging herself towards the living room. A couple of days later she was walking and within a week she could run enough to enjoy going outside like a normal dog. I re-named Zena, Princess Warrior. I was amazed by her heart.

She was never an affectionate kind of dog. She was a cross between some kind of hound and some kind of terrier and had the spiky hair of a punk rocker that defied brush or comb. The eye that had been knocked out had been put back into place, and was functional, but was now slightly rotated to the outside. Her jaw, which was wired back together, was slightly rotated in the other direction. Hers was truly a face only a mother could love. She was content to be picked up and cuddled only as long as your hand was constantly scratching her or rubbing her. The moment that stopped, she was struggling to be put back down again. She would never lay content, dozing in your lap.

Outside her nose would immediately go to the ground and she was off and running (albeit rather lopsidedly) chasing down a smell and totally impervious to the call of her owner. She had a nose that could smell any kind of food, any where it was. She had no fear when food was concerned. My boyfriend, when cooking out one day, learned to become ever vigilant around her. He had the grill too close to the porch on one occasion, and when he became distracted and turned the other way, she grabbed a 16 oz T-bone steak off the grill and, waving her tail in delight, went bopping off to her lair underneath the porch. Eating was the most important thing in her life, and the very moment she smelled cooking she would bounce about the kitchen voicing a cross between a bay and a bark that could slice through the thickest insulation or consciousness. My father, who was the world's worst at feeding snacks to animals, adored her.

My Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1995. He had complained for months of an aching in his shoulder which his doctor attributed to "Uncle Arthur." Of course, a respiratory therapist could have told him it was an early symptom of lung cancer, and I did, but his particular doctor was old and content in his ways and was not the least bit interested in listening to anyone else, not the least a newly graduated RRT. Finally the cancer was discovered, way too late, and an emergency left lung removal was done. My father, always a tough nut, sailed through the surgery and chemotherapy with no outward affect. However, shortly afterward he developed an aneurysm and had to have surgery for that. Shortly after that it was a hernia operation, which he said was the worst one. By the end of that one he was in severe pain and for the first time in his life, I think, fell deep into depression.

That was when Zena began to shine. She had long realized that Dad was the bearer of such delicious treats as the chips from Long John Silver's fish and chips, or roast leavenings, or slices of country ham fat, pieces of hamburger from Arby's and the coup de foudre, the creme de la creme, the ham bone. All it took was the sound of his truck coming down the driveway, and she was voicing like a bloodhound on the hunt. Dad would make her and Ladybird, our other dog, sit politely and wait for their treats, but Zena, so excited and hungry, would bounce in place. He was tickled. He was charmed. He was enthralled. He was delighted. And once again he began to laugh the laugh I was beginning to think I would never hear again. I watched him watch her as she zig zagged lopsidedly through the tall weeds one day and I could almost hear him say "if she could get through it, so can I." He never complained about the pain again.

She has been to me my little monkey sent from God. Her comical antics, her crooked grin, her lopsided lope all reminders of the cruelty fate can sling at you, but that, with perseverance, can be overcome. Strange to credit such power to a dog, but without her in my life will I begin to falter?

Gretchen Jackson, Barbaro's owner said it so succinctly. The price of love is grief. To have to say goodbye suddenly to someone you love, without warning, is horrible. To have to say goodbye in a slow, painful way is just as bad, if not worse. To have to say goodbye in a clinical, controlled, planned way feels like insanity to me. Yes, she's old, but so am I. Yes, she's lame, but so am I. I have glaucoma, I have inner ear problems. It's altogether likely I could develop Alzheimer's. They would not put me to sleep, because I am human. She is "just" a dog. But in many ways, she has been more human to me than many people I have known.

I prayed to God to help my father die at the end. I prayed for my mother in that way as well. God apparently heard and granted both of those prayers. I have prayed the same for my little dog, but unfortunately, God's grace is not forthcoming this time. And so I must take His place. There's no vital organs affected. Amazingly, there is no heart or lung disease, no diabetes or any of the other arrows of old age. Simple mobility issues and a little confusion. There's times I wish it was cancer or even diabetes. I could act swiftly and easily then. But this is not easy.

When she is frantic and agitated, whirling around her pen, panting like crazy, I say, "No, no, no more. I can't stand it." And when she is asleep, curled into a little spiky ball, snoring softly, paws twitching after dreamy rabbits, again, I say, "No, no, I can't take it." There is no feeling of correctness, of making the right decision, of feeling I've done the best for her. It's a sad, sad thing, and I do not like playing God.