I don’t want to write this post.

If I write the post, it will make it real, and I’ve done a pretty good job bottling things up until now. It’s amazing how far you can repress with the help of a busy schedule and a whole lot of negative self talk.

I mean, come on, Becky. It’s not like it’s unexpected.  Labs don’t live forever –  they really don’t. Cancer, bad hips, weight related conditions… it’s not like you see them trit-rotting around at 17 years old. She was going to be 12 this August.

Besides.  She was a dog.  And unless you’ve crossed the line from repression into outright denial, putting a pet to sleep is just something you have to acknowledge.

 

Humans live 70 to 80 years, if we’re lucky.

Dogs and cats are not nearly so long-lived.

It’s a part of life.  It’s a normal part of life that was hardly a shock, because I saw it coming, years in advance.

And yet.

I just really, really, really don’t want to write this post.

I don’t know why it is so hard for me.  I don’t know why it hurts so much that I find myself not crying, hiding away in that small, grey hollow place of true grief.

When my cat Fuego died in my 20s, I was devastated. I took two days off of work and howled into my pillow, creeping about the house with red, puffy eyes.

When Artemis died I took off the morning, and then was back to taking work phone calls by that afternoon. It’s not because it hurt any less.  It’s because I just didn’t have time to mourn her, so I swallowed it. I swallowed my grief down deep, like a cold, empty seed.

I can’t even say it’s because I miss her so much.  I started missing her years ago. She was so strong and healthy, right up until she hit 10 years old, and then BAM.  Old age.

Everyone should get the chance to own an elderly lab at least once in their life.  They really are the world’s most perfect dog. You have all the amazing good nature of a Labrador, without any of the ability to counter surf or any of the previous exercise requirements.  It feels like using a cheat code to dog ownership.

I can’t even say that I avoided writing this post because of how much I miss her in my every day life.  That sounds awful, but I began distancing myself from her as I saw that final vet appointment creeping closer and closer. There was no sudden goodbye to this one.  It came on, one day at a time.  She stopped being able to run after a ball.  She got out of breath on long walks. She became frightened of fireworks.  She stopped wanting to walk up the stairs. Her eyes, always so soft and deep, turned shallow and flat and bright.

Her eyes were no longer the same.  The lights were on, but nobody was home. She spent more and more time sleeping, and I spent more and more time not waking her up.

I didn’t want to see what was right in front of me.

These past few months her life turned into a series of simple pleasures, and my relationship with her turned into a series of countdowns, a mathematical equation where I tried to balance my love for who she was versus the difficulty of her current life.

Trying to compute where it breaks even is impossible.

Because that’s the real hard question, isn’t it?  How long can your love for them outweigh the selfishness of where they are?

I referred back to this stupid, hateful, unbelievably useful blog post more often than I care to admit.

The Good Death

I’ve always said it, and never had trouble with it before: Better a week too early than a day too late.

I’ve never struggled with the “when” before.

This time I did.

I would text my friend “It’s time.  I have to make the appointment.” and then it would be time to actually make the call and I would chicken out.  I didn’t have the money for the in home euthanasia service she deserved – I’d have it next check.  I couldn’t do it and then send the kids right back to their dad’s, I need to give them a day or two to mourn.  I was too busy at work to be able to break down and cry for a day. The ground was too cold.  The wind was to wrong.  The Tuesday wasn’t Tuesday enough.

 

Last week I walked Artemis to the backyard, the sun shining on her shiny, dark coat  The vet trailed me as we walked slowly back.  She asked me “How long has her breathing sounded like that?” and for the first time, I questioned the timing.

I didn’t wait too long… I think.  I hope.

I know if I’d been a little less selfish, I would have been writing this post last winter, instead of this spring.  Maybe I should have.  Maybe it was wrong of me to wait this long.  I dunno.

Still, the weather did exactly what I wanted it to do.  It was warm, low 70s, with a picture-perfect sky. We were in that cool spot beneath the branches of the giant tree and the breeze ruffled the leaves, making that soft, slippery whispering sound that always soothes me.

The kids were in the house, waiting to say goodbye until after it was over.  You can be there, but only if you can avoid sobbing.  Artemis hates it when we cry. Remember how she sometimes leaves the room?  She deserves to not have us be sad or worry about us, in that moment. They agreed to be inside.

The weather was warm, and Artemis was happy.

 

 

She was not relaxed, because I had made 3 pounds of bacon earlier that day, and then mixed the leftover spoonfuls of bacon grease in with dried cat food, and was feeding it to her a little at a time.

Cat food: The forbidden treat.

Her eyes were frantically bright with her greed as she finished the bowl.  She resented the vet messing with her hind leg, and swiveled her hindquarters away away from her in irritation as the vet put in the sedative. Artemis laid her head on my shoulder as the needle went in, which almost broke me, because how do you replace the weight of that head that has leaned against you for almost a decade?  How do you savor it enough to make it last forever, when it’s the last time?

But Artemis hated crying, so I sobbed once, and then stuffed it down, hard. I’ve found if you blow out a short, sudden, hard breath, you can usually make your voice stay steady despite tears.

Good dog. Such a good, strong, steady friend.  Best dog ever.  Best dog.  Such a good, good girl.

Artemis heard none of it – she was too intent on being hand fed bacon-grease-cat-food. I had her lay down, which she obeyed, as she always did, and continued to feed her.

She stayed awake long enough to lick the bowl and snuffle the last scrap. She huffed the ground in front of her, and tilted forward to fall asleep, snoring on the soft grass.

Such a good, good girl.  Such a good dog, yes you are.

When the final shot went in, there was no fanfare, no final exhalation.  One moment she was softly snoring, my hand on her fur, the next moment she was gone.

I hate that moment, when the that true, true friend that was with you through all those memories and beautiful, hard years is just… gone.

She was good. She was strong. She was kind.

She had a wonderful life, with one family. She lived on a farm, and roamed the house at will, and ate an entire pillowcase full of Halloween candy, wrappers and all, EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

There really aren’t many regrets I have for her. My only regret was that I should have made that final vet appointment a few months earlier… except that the day was so perfect, and her passing so beautifully peaceful, that it’s hard to actually regret it.

And yet.

I am so utterly sad to have to write this post.

I am so sad that I am almost angry about it.  I resent it. I resent that dogs live such a short time. I don’t want to say goodbye to my friend. I don’t want to stop making memories with her. I don’t want to be strong in front of my kids, so that I drag them unnecessarily into my own grief.

Mostly, I just miss her.

She slept in my room for nearly 12 years. She got me through lonely years of staying at home with the children, hard years of marriage and my divorce. She was my steady friend.

I got her because when I was looking for a dog,  DragonMonkey was 3 and Squid was 1. They needed a trustworthy dog who could put up with their  out of control antics.

The boys are in high school and junior high now.

And the twins?  The twins are four years younger than her.  They don’t ever remember a moment with out her. They grew up hanging on to fur, while she patiently let them. They laughed as the boys careened behind her, tying her collar to a wagon then throwing the ball, giggling as they rocketed down hills doing “summer sledding”.

I had all that, and now I just have a stupid paw print on a stupid foam pad, waiting for a picture insert I can’t bring myself to order.

I also have a card from the vet hospital that’s sitting in my car, unopened, because I know it’s going to say something like “For your loss” or something about rainbow bridge, and the card will be cream, or blue, with swirly font, and it just irritates me that I have to read something like that.

I’m annoyed I can’t quit talking to her, even when she’s not here. When I let the dogs out in the morning and  I say “Good girl, Artemis” without thinking, or a long kiss and “Artemis, ‘mere,” with no response, I feel my breath hitch as I realize what I just did. You shouldn’t be able to surprise yourself into sadness.  It’s like tickling yourself, but so much worse.

 

Mostly I’m just sad.  I’m sad I’m sitting here at my desk, typing on my computer, writing this stupid post that I just really, really, really don’t want to write, and there’s no scratchy-soft fur at my toes. There’s no solid presence there. And it SUCKS.

So, yeah.

I used to joke that I was going to write Artemis “Bad Dog” Bean on her tombstone, because she used to counter surf and eat EVERYTHING.  The sheer quantity of food she could manage to shove inside her was absolutely mind boggling.

She once ate two large pizzas.

She once dove headfirst into a bag of dog food and ate 17 POUNDS.

She once ate 19 fresh chicken eggs off the counter.  That was actually preferable to the time she ate SIXTEEN BOILED EGGS.

You really haven’t smelled dog farts until you’ve lived in the house with a dog that has eaten sixteen boiled eggs.

You never actually saw the evidence – you would just turn around and notice that Artemis now resembled a beach ball with legs poking out of it, and then try to find what was missing.

I remember the time she kept breaking into the pumpkin garden and eating enter pumpkins.  I couldn’t figure it out – no food was missing, no trash was missing, the dog food tote was still full… and yet Artemis could hardly walk and her farts were peeling the paint off the walls.

It was a complete mystery till she started pooping out elephant-sized turds with pumpkin seeds in them.

Every year – EVERY SINGLE YEAR – one of the kids would leave their bag of Halloween candy down and she would eat it.

Not some of the chocolate, not some of the candies: the whole dang thing, 100% of the candies, wrapper and all. In case you’re curious, most wrappers just look weird, but 3 Musketeers Wrappers really do sparkle in a dog turd.

I’m sure chocolate is poisonous to some dogs, but it sure wasn’t to Artemis.

I’m deeply convinced that my method of refusing to feed her till she pooped normal again was the only thing that kept her from dying/needing surgery after all her food escapades.

She was wonderful and 100% trustworthy with all the animals.  She completely ignored the horses – Reverie tried to chase her one time, but Artemis continued snuffling the grass.  Reverie’s angry charge came to a screeching halt. She unpinned her ears, and snuffled her once as Artemis continued to nose around the grass.  Artemis’ lack of response confused Reverie so much that she never chased her again.

She smiled more than any dog I knew, and learned at a young age that I couldn’t resist the backwards head tilt.

She was a powerhouse of a dog who could sniff out a ball in any circumstances and out charge any dog after a ball. It wasn’t even that she was faster, I think she just wanted it more than they did.  I think she only failed to find a ball twice.

She used to wag her tail so hard while she looked for the ball that twice she actually sprained it, and for weeks afterwards her tail hung flaccid behind her.  It looked weird, and made us laugh.

I absolutely could NOT keep the kids off of her.  Every time I entered a room, she’d be laying down in front of them, basically encouraging them to ride her.  I used to chide her for it.  How was I supposed to teach my horde of children dog manners when she basically was unteaching them every time my back was turned?

She was perfectly obedient, except for occasionally wandering off and the counter surfing (which was solvable by making sure all food was put away at night.)

I do mean PERFECTLY obedient.  She had a perfect recall, 100% of the time.  She heeled off leash.  She knew “leave it” and “go potty” and “find it” and “go” and “come” and “go get it” and “load up” and “go to bed” and “gentle”.

She knew them 100% of the time, regardless of who said them.

She never growled at another dog.  She preferred playing with little dogs to big dogs, and would lay down to gently wrestle with them, with just her giant block head.

She was beautiful.

She raised my babies with me, with her amazing patience and her love for small things. She was a source of strength when I was lonely, or life was hard, with how she would creep up beside me and press against my leg, or my foot, or lay her head in my lap.

It’s hard to feel truly desolate, when you have that gentle well of love looking up at you, burying her roots in your soul, tethering you to the here and now.

She was so good, through and through.

And she is so missed.

Artemis Good Dog Bean
August 2012 – May 2024