Isabelle

My dog is at the end of her life. I know. I've seen this look before when my grandpa was dying. He was withered to skin and bone, his eye sockets sunken into his temples. I took pictures of him and my grandmother. I look back on them now and see the sharp contrast in their features, even as she was aging, she was still full of life, while he, he was being drained of it. And how she knew this, every day. Knew that she was caring for a dying man. Knew that each day, each moment could be his last, and being there with him through that.

Isabelle is eight, maybe nine. That's pretty old for an English Mastiff. I took her to the vet this week for runny eyes. The musculature around her face has atrophied, as has the rest of her. She has taken on the appearance and gait of an old Disney hound dog. "C'mon Disney dog," I'll say to her as she plods along on her walk. There's nothing to be done about her eyes. Probably just the result of so much skin hanging down around them now. Her sockets, sunken, going deeper each day. Her eyes black and beady, glazing over some, in sharp contrast to the fur around her muzzle, which is turning whiter. She's dropped 15 pounds in the last three months.

The vet took blood for a test, then Isabelle had other troubles this week, so I took in a fecal sample. That was normal, but the blood test showed some high areas. I've seen those before too, in my cat Mocha who I just had put down because of a liver tumor. The vet couldn't tell me for sure what the high numbers indicate - they'd need more tests, she said, "a blood smear, a stomach x-ray - oh, it's really easy to do…"

"No more tests," I said. "We've been through this her whole life. She's getting old."

The vet told me of other medications to try. New vet. Didn't know the history. That we'd been on those pills already, and off of them, onto something else, along with three other pills for a total of five pills twice a day. That in addition to special food for urinary health. I began to understand how it is people feel when they go through this with a loved one and are at this kind of stage of understanding there really isn't any more to be done.

"Just make her as comfortable as you can," the vet suggested when I said I was going to focus on her end of life care. She prescribed an anti-diarrheal medicine to help with the most recent issue.

Driving home, I was flooded with emotions. I was angry that maybe they did their test incorrectly and there really was something I could give her a pill for and make her all better, only they were too incompetent to find it. Maybe I should demand they run the test again. I felt guilty that I hadn't done enough. Maybe I should put her through more tests, just to be sure. But, sure of what? That she for sure has a tumor? That she for sure has cancer? I don't need to know these things.

I pulled into the driveway and looked to see her in her usual spot on the side porch. She slowly rose as I got out of the car and shuffled across the porch, down the stairs using the one-at-a-time baby steps I had taught her so as not to damage her joints, and ambled across the yard to meet me, Disney dog style. I hugged her and scratched her big floppy ears. She melted into a big brindle puddle at my feet and rolled over to have her belly scratched. How could I resist?

Inside, I grabbed a jar of peanut butter and began to prepare her newest remedy - three pills in a spoonful would be no problem going down. My husband came into the room, and I couldn't help but break into heaving sobs. How could I ever have done this alone? How do people do this alone?

He will take her to the vet to have it done. I can't be there at all.

Today seems to be an okay day for Isabelle. I cleaned the goop out of her eyes. We walked down the street. She had a better stool than I've seen from her in a while. I think for a moment that she's doing just fine and all of this is just overreacting. But by the end of the block, she is tired, panting heavily. We turn around to go home, and the walk is one slow step at a time. I give her all the time she wants to stop and sniff first a tree, then the grass. She snorffles through her droopy muzzle, "Rooting out truffles?" I ask, the same line I've used for years. She stops and looks up at me, her black eyes small and round behind protruding bone, then she steps up and moves to a new smell. In the morning sun, her shadow on the sidewalk, I see her body looks full and large, her legs strong, and her tail wagging, wagging.