RIP, Max 2005-2018

Some sad news to report today.

Yesterday, we said goodbye to our dog, Max. My girlfriend has had him since all the way back in 2005. He was in my life since 2012, and has been my dog as well since that summer, when I loved in with her.

Max was my first official dog.

That said, there was a dog who almost felt like mine when I was a kid. Her name was Candy, and she and I were close. There was one time when she followed me to the school bus stop one morning, and she tried to get onto the bus with me. Later that day, while I was in class, I heard a bunch of my classmates going, "Awww!" simultaneously. I turned to the window, and there was Candy, walking around the school grounds, probably having traced my scent and looking for me. It breaks my heart to this day to thin about that, to feel that loved. 

The thing was, she was not my dog, as I stated earlier. She belonged to somebody else, and so she was only around every now and then. She would show up at our door, and we would feed her and pet her and everything. I would often play with her, and sometimes, her litter of puppies. But she would inevitably disappear. This kept on going on until there reached a point when she no longer ever showed back up. There was no definitive point when I could say she was lost.

With Max, that definitive point happened yesterday. He had been sick for a while, having been diagnosed with diabetes and losing his sight back in 2014. Since then, he had grown weaker, and seemed to have lost most of his hearing. I also strongly suspect that he lost at least some significant part of his sense of smell, because there were times when the cat that visits us was literally right in front of him, and he was not aware.

This steady decline in his health had been going on for years. But in recent months, the levels of his decline seemed to reach a fever pitch, if you will. This was when his hearing really started going earlier this year. It used to be that when one or both of us would come home, he would wake up and come to the door to greet us, more often than not with tail wagging. Since some time in the spring, however, he would just sleep through it.  Also, my girlfriend cared very deeply for this dog, and she spent a ton of money, not to mention considerable time simply worrying and stressing, as there were medical emergencies, and his health continued to visibly deteriorate.

Then, last weekend, it reached a climax. He threw up, but not just in a normal manner because of overeating. He had this harsh almost cough, which was very loud, and which he did several times before throwing up, which he also did several times. He held himself up on visibly shaky legs, with her holding him. At one point, she even set up a blanket and lay down next to him. It was taxing for all of us, but especially Max and her. The next day, Sunday, she found some kind of growth on his ear, and when she rubbed it, it popped, and he bled quite a bit.

We discussed this, and I told her that I had not realized before just how bad he was getting. There are things that you do not necessarily notice when they happen so gradually. We came to get used to his blindness, and his bumping into things. He got bumps as a result, but he still seemed happy and responsive, even often energetic. But that energy went away over time. He had diabetes, and so he had to keep getting shots and stayed on a strict medication diet. Then, once his hearing went as well, it seemed a matter of time. She began to feel that maybe it was time. A few days later, when Max had another harsh vomiting spell while I was absent, she texted me and said that she could not take it anymore, and asked if I would make the call and make arrangements to have him put to sleep. I said I would.

Yesterday was the day. My son happened to be with me, so we were both a part of it. The doctor came, and she informed us of some things, of what to expect, and such. When she inspected Max, she noted that his stomach was bloated, and that he had glaucoma that was visible in his eyes. She also said that while he may have seemed to recover in the past two days, it was just a matter of time before his health would seriously decline once again. She wanted me to assure my girlfriend that see had made the right choice, even if he seemed to have recovered enough t have more strength than earlier. It is better to do this while he has some strength, rather than have his body continue to fail him, while he does not understand, and has to suffer through it.

And so, we surrounded him and comforted him as much as possible. My son gave Max several treats, which he enthusiastically gobbled up while accepting our petting him as signs of love. He ate through the first injection and several minutes past it, because he is used to shots, having regularly needed at least two injections for at least four years now. 

Eventually, though, he tired, which is of course what the first injection is meant to do: to literally put the dog to sleep, or at least, as she put it, to get him very high. He began to be motionless, barely reacting as she lifted his hind quarters to place a pad meant to capture any fluids that would escape him. She took a paw print on clay, and took some hair samples for us to keep. Then, he was given his final injection, and was gone within a couple of minutes.

It was sad, very sad. I have had a hard time dealing with it, and that is obviously doubly true for my girlfriend. When she got home from work (she wanted no part of the actual process), I had made sure to remove any evidence of the actual event. We cried and talked about our memories of him. Hers are obviously more extensive, since she had him as a puppy. I told her that he at least knew he was loved, and had given him as great a quality of life as he could have gotten. 

He was a good and friendly dog, and will be missed. Let him rest in peace.