Perhaps an Obituary

WARNING: DEPRESSING POST!

I've got to get this off my chest, where it has been sitting for about a week too long.

You may have read two posts ago that things in the Smith house were feeling a little tense, in part over 12 year old Jake the Dalmatian, who has been a constant presence in our house as long as we've been a legal "we"; in fact, it was two months after we were married that Brian and I called about an ad in the local Pennypower for a Dalmatian puppy. Being the sap that he is, Brian cut out that ad for safekeeping once we brought Jake home. We still have it.

The life and times of Jake have been interesting, to say the least. Jake's best friend/sister/wife (we could never tell.....), Elle, was ours two years before that, and for a very long time all of us made a home together, soon joined shortly by a couple of cats (my animal rescue instinct was strong and my resolve weak!). And thus there were six, two human, the rest somewhere in between.

While Elle was the wiley one -- always into something, and smart as a whip -- Jake was the dumb, cuddly one of the bunch. I don't mean him disrespect; really -- it's just the truth. Jake wasn't particularly oozing sense, but what he lacked in brain power he made up for in his very loving nature. Jake *craved* attention. And he never figured out that he wasn't a puppy, nor a lap dog. In fact, up until very recently, Jake attempted to climb into my lap. Jake weighs 60 pounds.

When Jake was six, we packed all of the Smith mammals up and moved them to California where I could work on my Ph.D. This is the specific point in time when I remember things going downhill for both dogs. We had almost nothing of a yard, and walking our two strapping dalmatians became a dreaded chore, as they were unpredictable with other dogs (dragging me along.....). Once, when I was pregnant, they pulled me over while I walked them. After this incident the regular walks stopped, which was sad for everyone.

But California also challenged the animal relationship in other ways, because living in a condo complex brought new animal worries as well. A dog that barked more than 5 minutes equaled a $100 fine for the owner; the same fine was issued if an escape happened. We lived in fear that our animals would do something other than sleep. Our garage became the animal sanctuary.

So it was with great anticipation that we expected our move to KC to resolve so many of these dilemmas. And for the most part, it did. Honestly, we never expected Elle to make it out of California. When Elle died last Christmas, we were both sad and amazed that a dog with such arthritis and cateracts (not to mention the victim of several strokes), could have made it as long as she did with her mind as clear as it was. Until the night she died Elle was mentally with it.

But not so with Jake. Elle died peacefully in our basement, where she slept. We both led Jake down to sniff her body, the only way we knew to let him know what had happened. Maybe his indifferent response was fueled by the fact that he already knew what was coming. After all, she had given us the enormous gift of dying on her own; we'd already agreed that if she was alive by morning we'd have to bring her to the vet to have her put down. Things were just that bad -- when your dog can't walk, and won't eat, it's all rather obvious.

While Jake seemed initially nonplussed about Elle's death (after sniffing her briefly he ran back upstairs as if nothing had happened), over the next few weeks and months poor Jake lost ten pounds, began to whine and cry almost incessantly, followed me everywhere, and started to sleep 10+ hours a day, in addition to the time he spent sleeping at night. In short, when he wasn't sleeping, Jake was sad and clingy.

And then the bladder incontinence began, the urinary tract infections that would never resolve, and closely behind this (no pun intended!) the bowel incontinence, and the bony growths that started to fuse his spine. While in the big scheme Jake seemed relatively unaffected by these things, from a cleaning perspective I was constantly flustered. But then his mind started to slip; what I knew was that over the past few months Jake's behavior closely mirrored Brian's grandfather's very recent demise to Alzheimer's. Jake had become irritable, absolutely unpredictable, forgetful. I could live with the fact that he was following me everywhere (even to the bathroom!), and I could begrudgingly clean up after him, but I couldn't take him parking himself in the middle of the kids as they played, and then growling at them when their play disrupted him. He has snapped at both of my sons.

This past Saturday afternoon -- a week ago tomorrow -- Jake disappeared from Brian's parents' farm, where we took him with us for Christmas. At one time Jake and Elle ***loved*** that place. It was pure freedom. Without Elle, however, I suspect that Jake saw the farm as nothing more than too much space, and he was constantly pleading to come inside. So perhaps you can understand my confusion and worry when, after being pushed outside because of his whining during Christmas dinner, Jake was no longer waiting at the door once the meal was finished. I don't know if he went off to die, as people say that dogs sometimes do. I really hope that's what happened. I had always thought that if there was any place that Jake and Elle should die -- a good death -- it would be on Brian's parents farm.

No, I am more concerned that he became scared and disoriented in the woods -- which stretch forever -- and that he is there now starving and thirsty. Or that some backwoods maniac is using him for target practice, which has happened. So despite doing everything I know to do, there is no Jake with us in KC. Between us Brian and I have spent hours in the woods calling for a dog that has never come. I have put up signs, put out notices, and searched that god-forbidden place -- the Springfield Animal Shelter, with its five day "limit" -- twice in person and about a million times on email. Oh, the animal shelter.....that awful place where dogs with empty bellies and scared eyes go, and most often never leave. This was my first time visiting one of these -- an actual "pound" -- and I left crying after both visits; the smell, the hopelessness was all too much.

It didn't help anything that after my "lost dog" post on Craig's List, one day later a Dalmatian actually showed up at the shelter. I've received 15 or so emails from CL's readers who've been kind enough to pass on that information. The picture on the shelter's website looked absolutely nothing like Jake, not to mention the fact that that dog was a female. But still I had to return to make sure that there wasn't any chance that this was my Dalmatian; I couldn't leave Springfield with the sliver of a chance alive that the picture was just off or that they had inadvertently typed "F" when they meant "M". And the animal control people were very kind to me as I stood there and cried, looking at what was either a very young or very malnourished female Dalmatian with matted hair and wild eyes. Every dog there looked like a victim. And none of them was Jake.

So here we are, with dog bowls everywhere and table scraps with no one to eat them. I have put the dog bed in the garage. I don't want to get rid of that stuff yet. I just can't. Most of all, I'm so selfishly overwhelmed by the fact that I wasn't the best mother to him that I could have been; after our human kids arrived he admittedly took some neglect. My guilt over this is, of course, now a little too much to bear. But wherever he is, if he is still with us, I hope that he knew that we loved him. Pure and simple.