It’s hard losing your best friend, even one with four legs, bad breath, and a tendency to steal food. In any event, it’s still hard losing your best friend as I did a few years ago.
What makes it most difficult is that I drove him to the vet knowing he would not be coming home with me. That drive to the vet, the final decision and the drive home still seem like a blur. But after years, I still recall that blurriness in great detail with all of the associated guilt. You just can’t drive someone that was such a big part of your life somewhere and leave him to die, even if it was the right thing to do.
Every vet will tell you that the most compassion you can give your dog is having the courage to end the suffering.
But this wasn’t just any dog; this was Buster, an Italian Greyhound that occupied the front picture spot in my wallet even after I had a child. I did compromise and get a wallet that allowed two pictures in front but you get the idea. Buster went to parties with me, slept in my bed and kept my wife on edge with his overzealous nature of claiming parts of the house with a strategic leg-hike. We had family pictures taken and he was always in them. We had birthday parties for him (August 2) and his Christmas gifts were always wrapped. In his mind, Buster wasn’t just part of the family; he was the centerpiece. That was true in my mind as well, and truth be told, at the time, I had more pictures of Buster than pictures of anyone else in my family.
Soon after I got Buster as a puppy he became quite sick. One vet advised me to take him back to the pet store to get my money back. Get my money back?? Finally a vet diagnosed his problem, kept him overnight and told me that Buster was going to be ok with a little care. The first day back from the vet, Buster slept 10 hours on my chest. The only thing I could reach was a book on US Presidents so I read it that day for hours. Let me know if you want to know who the 14th President was and where he was born.
Twelve years later, Buster had a massive seizure and he was never the same. I knew it was over when I let him outside to do his business and he walked right by his all-time nemesis – the backyard squirrel – and he didn’t even care. I drove him to the vet a week later. This was the same vet that saved his life back when he was a puppy. This visit was a little different though. It was a real treat – me crying uncontrollably while the vet kept saying that it was time. I didn’t have the strength to go with them for the final moment.
You see I got Buster when I was 28 years old, six years out of college, married one year and feeling pretty good about life. When he died around Christmas twelve years later, I was 40 years old and staring at a divorce after 13 years of marriage.
During his life, Buster was always there for me. He was there when he was just a puppy when my grandfather died and he was there a year later when my dad fell off a roof landing on his head suffering a skull fracture and brain damage. He was there a few years later when my grandmother died and he was there a year after that when my other grandmother died. He was also there when my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he was there 10 months later when she died. And, of course he was there, stumbling around and disoriented, that one Christmas when I scooped him up and drove him to the vet.
Time went by so quickly during his life.
It’s been a few years since he died and I still don’t have a new dog. I’m not sure I want to start tracking a new era.
I do realize that there are real problems and struggles in life and other than living as my best friend for 12 years, Buster didn’t do much else for the world to make it better. But if you’re a dog lover, you know.
But he’s still around, kind of. I have an oil painting of him and it stares at me every morning. Pretty much what he did when he was alive too – staring at me to make sure that everything’s alright. That’s why that drive to the vet was so hard.
I have his picture at work with this saying – “Strive to be the kind of person your dog thinks you are”.
That’s pretty good advice.
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