I’ve been contemplating writing this for months now, knowing that the end was looming, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to begin or how to tell it. Its a complicated thing this love, and I just have to get it right, for her.
My entry into adulthood wasn’t the smoothest chain of events, to say the least. But this isn’t a story about my life, its a story about my dog. Simply put, I was deeply affected by trauma, sank into the first of many deep depressions I would ever experience and managed to come up with a way out of it. At a time when I felt like nothing was worth living for, let alone getting out of bed for, I decided that maybe a dog would give me a reason. I had lost deeply and I wanted someone to take care of desperately, someone to love. Sometimes, even in our most irrational of minds, we can make brilliant decisions.
I went to the shelter looking for something, anything that would speak to me. As I passed rows and rows of big dogs and scrappy looking dogs, I began to think it was a hopeless and stupid quest. What good would a dog do me anyway? I turned the corner and passed by a kennel sandwiched by two huge dogs, to find two little paws and the tip of a nose sticking out from underneath the gate. I crouched down, and heard the tiniest, quiet, little broken “oooo-oooh” sound coming from her. I didn’t even know what she looked like yet, but I knew she and I shared the same heart. I had the staff bring her out and fell in absolute love with her at first sight.
She was feisty, scrappy, energetic, and terrified, but still full of licks and love all the same. Another family had put their names in for her ahead of me and I was devastated, but she was the one I wanted so I waited. A few days later I got the call that the other family had a small child and miniature pinchers would not be adopted to families with small children, she was going home with me! After my friend and I staged a false number to give the shelter to convince them that my “landord” would allow me to get a dog I took her home and realized quickly that I was in for more than I had bargained.
Not only was she NOT housebroken, she was a little Tasmanian-devil-ball full of energy! She was a master at flipping her kennel upside down, sliding the base out and escaping while I was at work or school, she could open doors, climb shelves, and eat rotten trash with an iron stomach. Not once did she get sick from something she ate from the garbage, not once did she get hurt climbing the shelves of my pantry while I was away. This dog was indestructible, and determined. Her main objective for the majority of her life has been to find a way to get past me and out the front door. I have spent hours chasing her miles and miles only to find that the only way to get her back is to let her roam for a while, she always came back. After all, there really is no dog more motivated by food, she wouldn’t dare be gone for dinner. I’ve never truly understood her desire to escape. She was the only dog at the dog park that would walk the perimeter along the fence line as if she was a prisoner. At the same time I can identify with that need to run, for most of my twenties I was on the run; from pain, confusion, anger, my diagnosis.
As someone living with bipolar I can tell you that I have learned over the years that stability is the key to staying alive. This dog has been the only stable thing in my life- ever. For 14 years, my entire adult life, she has been in the background. She’s licked every tear from my cheek, been in every relationship with me, been in every apartment and state I lived in. She’s seen me sick, happy, healthy, depressed, manic, full of fear and anxiety. She’s always been waiting, with no judgement, upon my return from each of my many hospitalizations. When I lost my first baby she let me squeeze her hard and cry all over her. When I lost the others, she laid with me while I recovered each time. When I had to leave my ex and move back in with my parents, she was the only thing I took with me that I had before I met him. When I had ECT she stayed in bed with me on my off-treatment days. Same routine, same energy, same love.
She has been the ONE thing in my life that has never changed, been only mine, the one thing no one could ever take away from me. She is the only one that knows it all, the whole story; she helped me write it.
I knew this day would come, I just didn’t think that 14 years could go by so quickly. My little indestructible baby girl is now fragile, confused, and scared to be outside. She still loves to eat, but that is about all she loves to do. She isn’t the daring and spunky alpha-dog that she used to be. She now sleeps under the desk and wants nothing to do with her little brother-dog. She can’t stand on her own most of the time, and when she does she doesn’t move. There are about 3 hours of every day when her blood sugar is just right and you can get some action out of her, but it isn’t much since she can’t see well or hear you calling. Tomorrow is going to be full of sadness, and the most awful, imminent decision.
Life is hard and full of shitty decisions we have to make. I made a terrible decision when I was 18 that greatly affected my future and destroyed my faith in a lot of things: men, love, fairness, family. But out of that decision was born the decision to take her in, and I think that is how God works. If it weren’t for her a lot of things in my life would have been different. Maybe I would have lived in student housing in Nevada instead of an apartment and not ended up coming back home. Maybe I would have sent in that application for the JET program and lived in Japan for a year without fear of losing her. But maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have survived that first dark time in my life- and that is what I really think her story is about: she was always my light, when there was darkness.
When you adopt a dog, you know you are doing something good. You know you are saving a life. But what I’ve only just begun to understand is that I had that whole concept backward.
I didn’t save her life, she saved mine.
-M
mybeautifulmonster 