Doggone

Too much time to think today,  I guess.  I decided to spill my guts about a recent event.  Well, two events, sort of.

About 10 years ago, we adopted a dog from a local shelter.  Her name was Rascal, so we shifted it to Roscoe.  They were vague about her background, suggesting she was collateral damage from a divorce.  She was calmly hanging out in the cages with the cats.  Probably a Rat Terrier, about 16 pounds, black white and tan with a min-pin look to her face.  The vet figured she was a least 5 years old.  Over the years we put quite a few miles behind us.  I think she was actually a cat in a dog suit, as she had that aloof quality - "Hey, I'm glad you're home.  Good to see you, I'm gonna go continue my nap now."  If you threw a ball for her, she thought it was a game you were playing for her to watch.  She was a great pet.

A little over a year ago, something changed with her digestive system.  No gory details, but like clockwork, every third or fourth day, her back end would create a technicolor mess for me to clean up.  Trips to the vet gave us strategies, but barring the REALLY expensive tests, they couldn't find a solution.  I cooked all her meals for 5 months.  We tried every better kind of commercial dog food meant for sensitive stomachs.  She got no treats.  She got only Rice Chex as treats.  She got medicines, both prescription and OTC.  I spent more than I could afford on vet visits and fecal tests and blood tests.  I got really good at cleaning the tile floor with paper towels.  I washed my hands endless times.  My son lost some appetite.  I lost some of my appetite.  She was confined to the kitchen and the hallway where there was no carpeting.  We got used to walking over dog gates.  She spent nearly all her time alone.

So, one day I got tired of the whole thing.  I made some calls and discovered that I could take her to the county animal shelter and they would take her off my hands, evaluate her condition and deal with the results.  For $20.00, if you can imagine.  So we did that.  And now I can't help but feel guilty even though I know I did what I had to do.  You see, she didn't seem to mind the whole thing, the incontinence, I mean.  She never seemed to be in any pain.  She got used to making messes in the house and didn't seem particularly distressed by the whole thing.  But she was, like, fifteen years old.  And clearly had some kind of problem...

Well, that was event number one.  Two days later my mother called to let me know that her mother, my grandma, had died.  My mother was handling it pretty well, considering that just a very few weeks earlier, on the first anniversary of my father's death, she found out that she had breast cancer.  She is in treatement and the prognosis is excellent.

I have a feeling I'm not really handling things all that well.  Stoic.  Impassive.  Strong.  (Depressed, I think.  Maybe overwhelmed.)  Most of the time I keep busy, but other times I feel so...so...adrift?  Bad timing for raising a teenager, too. 

Here Roscoe is was, in her harness, no longer tri-colored, as the brown had faded to black and white.  Hated having her toenails trimmed (she would nip me!) so she was always clicking around the kitchen.  Now there's nobody to lick up the drips and crumbs.