MelDog

MelDog
Last pets

If there wasn't a rich, collective memory of Mel's existence here with us, I would have thought she was a dream.  She is a dream and now she is literally in my dreams since she is no longer here in our physical reality.  A week ago today, our dog withered until she came to her fated end.  By Sunday, a stealthy abdominal tumor which had made itself obvious enough to be diagnosed a couple of weeks prior, finally wreaked enough havoc, disrupting her bodily functions: breathing, appetite, and ultimately the will to live, that she just simply sputtered out in the comfort of her bed in the coolness of the farmhouse while I transplanted tomatoes.

Having just celebrated Mel's rescue day/birthday in April, Rich and I had projected having a minimum of 2 years left with our sturdy, happy 10ish-year-old girl.  I believed in this as if the natural world hasn't taught me anything by now.  The truth is that every being has its time, a time which thwarts statistics, projections or plans.

Sweet Mel never complained of anything other than the company of smokers who would happen to cross our paths over the years.  We presume this was likely due to a bad memory of someone from her life before we all met who smoked.  She channeled all the good things about the heeler in her: loyalty and companionship, a keen sense of accounting for all things here on the farm...making rounds, notifying us of any visitors to the property including coyotes who routinely come here to test our limits, an intelligence and a desire to listen to us.  She had some of the idiosyncrasies of a bluetick coonhound: a very curious nose which seemed to completely control her at times, a playfulness which kicked in when she heard our dance music or the kids' rough-housing, and a sweet soft howl which came out during those playful fits.  She had charming qualities which couldn't be assigned to a breed, but instead to her inimitable self: slithers across the living room floor to end at our feet for some love and affection, a gentleness and comradery with our kids and even with the various farm cats we have cohabitated with here and while farming in New York, a love of food not dissimilar to ours (I'm remembering the days she would use her teeth to gently pluck ripe raspberries from their cane), and a contentment with life which allowed her to thrive here on the farm, at my folks house where she would lounge and enjoy the extra snacks offered there, or behind the vet's desk where they allowed her to float free with them while we were away.  Mel, who was named Smiley when we adopted her, would literally flash smiles at you during those tail-wagging moments when we gave her our full attention and lots of pets.

Rich and I rescued Oyamel the southern belle from Alabama a few months before we married.  She moved into our barn apartment in the Fingerlakes of New York when she was the only 'thing' we had to our names. She immediately won over the farmers we worked for and would ride in the back of the big, bouncing bread truck with our crew when we would ride from one field of veggies to the next.  Mel moved with us to the tip of Michigan's thumb to take on starting a farm for a brewery on the shores of Lake Huron.  That being one of the more exhausting spells of our life, the three of us would often ride back home in the late evening to eat dinner and collapse on the grassy hill overlooking the lake and  listen to the lapping sound of Huron closing out the day.  Mel was there when we discovered we were pregnant and decided to move back to the Dayton area.  She ate up the suburban life while I took a job managing Aullwood Farm, another rather trying time in life jumping into a turbulent work environment while growing May Rose inside me.  Mel was ever the stability in life...acclimating to all the change we introduced her to.

And finally she moved back to wide open spaces as we entered this latest chapter building a life here on our Foxhole Farm.  She settled into the wild existence of a young family, offering her ears for baby May to pull on, always up for any form of attention.  Our sweetie made friends with the neighborhood UPS delivery man who shushed me from calling her away from him and gave her extra biscuits.  One year, much to her delight my mom left boxes of Christmas chocolates at Mel-level during an overnight stay and she succumbed to one of her vices: fine chocolates with caramel centers :).  This would be one of the few times she would make an unexpected trip to the vet in her lifetime.  Here in our first house and on this land, Mel played a large part in making it home.

When Mel began to show obvious signs of a change unfolding inside of her last month, Rich and I were sure that the usual suspect was at play: Mel had likely eaten something irritating while out on her farm rounds.  Over the course of a few weeks, a series of good and bad days played out.  Lower appetite and more frequent urination trickled into spurts of labored breathing and weight loss which began to expose her bony framework.  Weight was shedding everywhere but not from her abdomen which began to look obviously swollen.  Having hands on her all of the time, how did we not notice the hardness in her belly?!  Even at Mel's annual vet visit months before, a thorough physical rub down turned out a few little benign aging-dog growths but not this hard mass in her abdomen.  This was about the time when Rich and I began the grieving process.

A trip to our trusted vet's office for x-rays confirmed our suspicions: a ghostly image of Mel's insides showed a tumor which nearly tripled the size of her stomach, pressing against her diaphragm and leaving inadequate space for her internal organs to perform optimally.    When told by the vet that we would know when it was her time and to bring her in, any sort of denial we had allowed to blanket our hearts fell away.  When asked if I needed to make a follow-up appointment at the receptionist's desk, the hold-it-together-until-I-get-us-into-the-car-plan also fell away.

And so we had 'hanging in there' days and bad days for about two more weeks.  The kids, who are more aware of changes than most adults, knew Mel was different and we discussed the reality that she was 'sicker than a cold'.  One morning after breakfast, I told them the update from our vet and expressed my gratefulness for being able to love on Mel that much more, before we would have to say a final goodbye.  The kids doted on her, and I found it almost unbelievable how Jack at his young and wild age found it within himself to give her regular kisses and gentle love.  All the while, Mel lost energy but would still lock eyes, weakly wag her tail for visitors, and manage to get up and check in with the sheep on her trips outside for the facilities.  Mel, ever the people-pleaser never failed to hold her very frequent pees until outside.  Even though it was hard for her to get up from lying down, she would stand by the door and sweetly look over her shoulder for someone who could make the time to let her out. She, Rich and I still closed our nights out together as we have for the past nine years, Mel lazing about on the floor and us on the couches, with Mel eventually coming over for last pets before finding her sleeping spot on the cold tile floor which must have felt so soothing on her inflamed belly.  A few times during heavy breathing fits, I brought the kids over to love on her for what I thought was the end.  

And so we lived like this for about a week, saying goodbye to find her hanging in there and willing to take a few bites of turkey or a little nubbin of the kid's cheese.  Part of me hoped she would let go and a more selfish part of me wished she would live in any capacity for the rest of my lifetime.  I've lived with her on my heels or the kids' for 9 years.  I think this was the stage in the grieving process where the big giant gap in our lives introduced itself.  For the last week of her life, Mel would go on wanderings.  She would go out for her pee and stare, panting out into the farm.  Then she'd look over her shoulder to see if I was still there, and just amble, into the tall pasture grass, to the sheep to stare into their paddock.  Then she would turn and walk over to the southern pasture and stop, panting, staring.  A few times I would let her wander out of my sight, to find her digging in the woods underneath a fallen tree.  Was she nesting?  Was she digging for soil to ingest to fill nutrient deficiences in her starving body?  A couple of times she dug hard enough that she cut her nose.  We realized with the innumerable hiding places on the property, we shouldn't let her out of our sight any more.  Or should we?  Should we interfere with her process?

Refusing to lose her, we decided to keep eyes on her.  She would begin to end these wanderings lying in the woods routinely.  Just after midnight on her last day with us, I woke to hear her little paws on the tile by the door.  I got up to let her out for a pee.  She then walked over to the periwinkle patch and collapsed.  Not able or willing to come back inside with me, I stepped inside to get my shoes on to carry her into the house.  In that short time, she had meandered off.  A half an hour of scouring our woods and the surrounding fields with my lamp, I admitted defeat to the darkness and spent a sleepless night waiting for the sun to come up.  At 5:30, I resumed my search to find her lying on the outskirts of our back woods by the hammock, feeble but breathing.  I carried her to the house and she drank a bit of water for me.  She would sneak off one more time later that morning to the woods; all four of us scouring the dense woods which we realized she was drawn to, we found her resting in a thicket. Rich carried her back this time just as the sun began to bake the farm.  May pulled out her watercolors while I made another pot of coffee and she painted "Mel going to her woods".  Although I was happy to have Mel cool and safe inside, I wondered if we were disrupting her wish to lie in the woods and to be alone.  She was experiencing something primal, something we won't know until our day comes.  My internal conflict surged that day.

Rich and I took turns leaning into the heavy workload that the late spring farm dishes out to us.  One of us would hang by or in the house with the kids, checking regularly on Mel where we laid her in her bed and the other running ourselves ragged with our labors.  It was when the kids were watching an evening Sunday movie with Rich that I slipped out to get the last rows of tomatoes planted.  Mel only moved her expressive red eyebrows to glance up at me as I kissed her head and headed out. Half an hour later and I stepped back into her room to see her still and gone.  I had wanted to see her bony body at peace, and yet I collapsed with her, finding it inconceivable that she was actually gone.  

I laid with her until Rich had put the kids down and then the two of us laid with her, Rich's first ever pet and sweet girl.  We walked into the setting sun to the maple tree which flames red in the fall and sees the sunset from its vantage point every night.  It's a tree which we can see from our big picture window in the house.  We exhausted ourselves digging into the parched earth, deep enough to find the cool, wet, deep soils which seemed a refuge from the warm and cracked topsoil, victim to this drought we are in.  We laid her on a bed of dames rocket I picked from her woods and took her in for the last time, sharing stories and professing our love for her and for what she gave to us in her lifetime.  And then we buried her, one of the harder things I've done, knowing we would never get to see that sweet face again.  She was laid to rest within an hour of the Memorial Day fireworks beginning, one of the few fears of hers.  I smiled knowing she wouldn't have to hide from them again.  I smiled and I cried knowing she wouldn't have to live with this monster inside of her anymore.

In a time and in a world rife with complexity and rough edges, it's not until we lost Mel's sweet company that I realized how much solace our relationship with her brought me.  It's such a simple love that we shared.  I feel grateful that our souls were able to tangle with each other in this lifetime.  What an incredible love she was.  And now as Jack says, she is up in the stars with Pom-pom the lamb.  But also as Jack says: I didn't want Mel to die for a few more minutes.

Rest in peace, sweet Meldog.  Love you and miss you incredibly.


Thank you for reading :).

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