No One Will Write to the Colonel Anymore

This morning, we went to an appointment we really did not want to keep. Last Friday, we found out that Joyko's kidneys were failing. Our vet told us that he would die in a few weeks if we did nothing. She told us there was no guarantee even if we took steps to treat him. Vova called a friend of his in Germany who is a vet for a second opinion. His friend agreed with everything our vet had told us, but added that kidney failure makes the dog miserable and that it would only get worse.

We've known for some time that we would most likely face the need to put our beloved Cocker Spaniel to sleep. Vova and I both had hoped and dreaded that we would wake up one morning to find he had passed in his sleep. For about the last two months, Joyko had been having accidents in the house, no matter how often we took him outside. This is not a good sign in a dog as well house-trained as Joyko. We moved his bed and food and water bowls to the sun porch so that it would be easier to clean up the puddles of pee. He seemed to be drinking a lot more water than usual. Then, one morning, I found him lying in vomit in his bed. These symptoms spurred last Friday's visit to the vet. They also sparked many a conversation between us about how we would know when we would need to put him down. We also talked to our friend Ma Beagle about it. She noted that a lot of people oppose euthanasia for pets because they say it's playing God. She pointed out that, on the other hand, no one considers it playing God when we give them medicine or perform surgery to prolong their lives. 

We have all these euphemisms:  "put down," "put to sleep," even the technical term "euthanize" avoids directly confronting the fact that one is killing one's pet. During one of our conversations, Vova asked me, "If it's not callous for pets, then why is it callous for humans?" Aside from the fact that some believe it's not callous for humans, the answer is simple. Pets are like children that never grow up. We make all their choices for them. They do not choose what they eat, whether or not they exercise, what kind of bed they sleep on, etc. We owe it to them to make good choices on their behalf. That doesn't seem like a big deal when we feed them high-quality food, buy them temperpedic beds, give them regular baths, or take them on daily walks. Knowing when life becomes a burden for them is the hard part. Having the strength to relieve them of that burden is the big deal. Knowing that Joyko did not have long left and that those days would be increasingly miserable for him did not make our decision any easier. He still loved us and wanted to be with us, even though he didn't wag his tail anymore when we petted him. I think he held onto to life because he loved us so much. What we did for him today was take his burden from him. We essentially said to him, "We know you love us, but you don't have to do this anymore. We love you so much that we won't let you do this anymore."

The entire staff at the veterinary clinic was very kind. Ma Beagle went with us to hold our hands. The patient advocate explained that the doctor would give Joyko a pre-sedative shot, which would sting a little like when we get a shot. Then, once he was sleepy, the doctor would give him the euthanasia injection. She asked if we wanted to stay with him during the whole procedure and we said we did. Then the doctor and technician came in. He let out a little yelp when they injected the sedative. The doctor said it would take about ten minutes for it to take effect. She and the tech left the room then. They had barely closed the door behind them when it was clear that the sedative was already working. He began to stagger and stumble. He went behind my chair and lay down. I petted him until his breathing sounded strange. His nose was pressed against the wall, so I moved the chair and gently moved him away from the wall. He sounded okay again after that. We took his collar off and petted him some more. Then the doctor and the tech came back in. They said it was good that the sedative had started working so quickly. They lifted him up onto the metal table, which was covered in a thick, torn blanket. The doctor was not able to find a good vein in his rear leg, so she switched to one of his front legs. It seemed to me that he had already stopped breathing by the time she finished giving him the injection. I was certain he had by the time she put on a stethoscope to check for a heartbeat. She announced that he had passed then told us we could stay in the room with him as long we wanted. She said the muscles would begin to relax, which might result in the body spontaneously urinating, defecating, or exhaling. He passed so peacefully and so quickly that I'm certain he was ready to go. I'm sure we did the right thing, even though it hurt us so much. I'm also convinced that the burden of our grief is worth the suffering we took from him.

They let us keep the blanket that was on the table. We used it to lift him into a box we had brought from home. Ma Beagle helped us carry him out to the car. The drive home seemed very long.

We dug him a grave next his buddy, Aristotle the Cat. We laid him in his grave with the blanket from the vet's office and covered him with a towel we used to use to dry him after baths. We filled in the grave, then covered it with heavy rocks so that none of the wildlife would dig him up.

Joyko was a dog of good humor as well as a good sense of humor. Ma Beagle and her family nicknamed him "the Colonel" after the dog in the movie The Aristocats. This is my last love letter to him.