“Please eat.”
The first time I said this was Saturday morning, as it had been 24 hours since he last ate. I was growing concerned by his lack of appetite and energy. Since he had come home he had mostly slept, and I assumed he was just tired from being in the hospital for three days. But now it was Sunday, and the extra appetite stimulant I picked up on Saturday afternoon had done nothing.
“Please eat.”
I woke up Sunday morning dreading the day to come because I could see it in my head. I knew this was it. He was not going to get better, and there was nothing left for us to do but the inevitable. I have done this more times than I can remember. The act itself becomes liberating compared to the agony you experience beforehand. There is a pall cast over everything until you are there, in the quiet room, waiting for the doctor to come in.
“Please eat.”
Waiting is so painful because you see them alive and know that they will soon be only memory. You see their little bodies breathe, you watch their little movements, you soak in their presence. All of this will be gone in minutes or hours. There is also the lingering hope – stupid, irrational hope – that they will make a miraculous recovery. I have never seen a miracle.
“Please eat.”
I had already been crying Sunday morning as I read stories from people who knew that their dog’s disease had won. The stories were filled with pain and also the deep love these people had for their pets. Reading their descriptions, though, told me we had reached the end. I got up and did my morning routine, I took the dogs out, I fed the other dogs their breakfasts. They were unaware that anything was amiss. Then I tried to feed Felix, knowing it was fruitless.
“Please eat.”
I was begging him. I felt my grip on things fail. Within seconds I was weeping and wailing, loudly and violently. I do not remember the last time I had a breakdown like this. I had spent my week from Tuesday until that moment lost in worry about this dog, and I had spent an insane sum of money to try to save him. I would have kept spending it, too. But when I got the secondary appetite stimulant on Saturday, the doctor let me know in so many ways that this was a last-ditch effort. The next step would be a feeding tube, she said, and at that point she would ask the client what they hoped to accomplish. I knew what she meant.
At the vet hospital, I held him while the techs got an IV catheter in him and checked his blood sugar and ketones. I saw the results instantly and knew. He was exactly where he was when he got there on Tuesday. The doctor offered the possibility of hospitalization at a specialty hospital and a feeding tube. We would not do that to him. Half an hour later I held him in my arms while he exhaled for the last time.
Felix was something of an add-on dog. We originally were trying to pull another dog named Balto and learned he was bonded with Felix. So, being crazy, we were going to take both of them. But Balto was adopted, leaving Felix alone in a particularly bad shelter. And he ended up being very sick with a respiratory infection, which pushed the date of his arrival back. Instead of finding some sort of transport to send him up here, I decided to fly into Ontario so I could pick him up in San Bernardino. I would have to stay overnight.
I picked him up in the late morning and decided, on a whim, to drive into the mountains. I had a little bed and a stuffed elephant for him, and we drove up through Rim of the World and Crestline and turned around at Lake Arrowhead while listening to Buffalo Springfield. In Crestline we share a hamburger and fries. He was a perfect little companion. To kill time before checking into the hotel in Ontario, we drove all the way to Pomona and back. He was perfectly happy laying in his bed and occasionally sleeping. At the hotel I fretted about leaving him alone while I went to get dinner. But when I got back to the room, he was curled up sleeping on the couch.
That was Felix in a nutshell. He was perfectly fine just hanging out and nothing seemed to bother him. A lot of chihuahua mixes are decidedly not chill, but he was just an easygoing, pleasant little dog. He loved people and people loved him. He loved life and was never happier than when he was sleeping in the sun. It was almost like he knew he had gotten a reprieve and was committed to enjoying his time on earth.
I thought we would have more time with him. It seems unfair that we knew him for less than six years. But you never know with shelter dogs if they are older than you think or younger, so time is not something guaranteed. When he passed, it occurred to us that he might have been older. But it doesn’t much matter. He was taken from us and now we are deprived of his presence in our lives, and we are poorer for it. I think I will resolve to try to live my life like he would, taking things as they come and not letting the stress of the world get to me. In that way, his spirit can live on.