Little dog, I'll be your candle on the water

A few weeks ago, I took my seventeen-year-old dog to the emergency veterinarian on the day after Christmas.  Ginger’s health had been slipping for a few months and she had been losing weight from about eleven pounds to approximately eight.  Her once-bulky body felt bony, although she never refrained from eating.

I’d already been told a few months prior that she was in renal failure and probably had less than twelve months to live.  She had become incontinent from time to time and often came across as if she could not see or hear well.

I knew the time for euthanasia was just around the corner.

Then, on December 26, she began bleeding from her nose a little and while eating, flipped over on her side.  Her legs tried frantically to right her body but she could not get herself up.  I am not sure if she was experiencing a seizure but it sure looked that way.

I took her to the after-hours vet that night.  The doctor could not tell me exactly what was wrong with Ginger but said I could run a number of expensive tests.  I declined.

I signed her out to take her home, knowing that I would have to bring her in for euthanasia soon.  To my surprise, I was handed a form to sign before I left the clinic asking me to acknowledge that I was taking Ginger out of the clinic against medical advice. 

I thought all I’d done was refuse to have tests completed, knowing there was no sense in undertaking them.  I felt as if I was being asked to state I was not acting in my companion’s best interest—as if I was being inhumane. 

That was on a Thursday night and I resolved to have Ginger put down on Saturday.

On Friday, the next day, my little dog seemed stable all day until the evening when, after dinner, blood began flowing out of her nose and she seemed to lapse into another seizure.  I grabbed her up in a blanket immediately and drove to the emergency vet. 

Ginger had a look in her eyes that conveyed she was utterly exhausted.  This was certainly her last car ride.

On the drive to the clinic, she was almost completely still.  Part of me hoped she would pass peacefully by natural means in the car, but periodically she would move her head and I knew she was still alive. 

There were several people in the lobby area when I arrived with Ginger and one woman, who quickly sized up my situation, offered kind words.  I was too overcome to respond and thank her.

As I waited in a room for the doctor to gather the euthanasia drugs, I sat on a bench, tears rolling down my face.  I looked into Ginger’s eyes and talked with her.  Her expression stated clearly that she was beyond worn out.

I wanted to take a final photo but she seemed in such poor condition, with blood on her muzzle, that I opted not to.  Then, I remembered the tattoo in her left ear: “80.”  Or “08,” depending on your angle.

This indelible mark was from her time in a Staunton, Virginia puppy mill with more than 100 dogs that was raided in August 2009.  I adopted her from the Washington, D.C. shelter where she had been sent after the raid and where I’d just started working. 

Her adoption in October 2009 ended a six-month period in which I had no pets—the only such period in almost 25 years since 1995 when I adopted my first shelter dog from another D.C. shelter almost half my life ago.

I pulled back Ginger’s ear while we sat on the bench next to each other and took a photo of her tattoo that coldly stated she was, to someone else, a number—and not a name.  Likely a caged breeding machine with her puppies sold off as a cash crop. 

I wonder how many babies she had. Was she sad that they were all taken from her after a short time? Did she perhaps enjoy having them with her in a cage as a break from unwanted solitude? Did she have to witness the puppies mistreated? I will never know.

The tattoo had faded over the ten years I’d lived with her as had most of the residual effects of the mill on her behavior.  Yet, she always remained somewhat timid and rigid.  She really never demonstrated joy with her body wiggling in gleeful abandon like most dogs do. 

I believe she was happy in the worry-free life I tried to provide her—but she preferred to sit back at a distance and watch.  She did not like to be held and she never licked me in the face.

My little girl tried to stand as her last act.  Prior to the injection of the drug that would stop her heart, the vet injected Ginger with what I believe she told me was propofol, used for placing medical patients under anesthesia.  With that, Ginger’s legs gave way, her body slumped and she appeared lifeless. 

I keep reliving the instantaneous collapse of her body in my mind.  There’s something awesome about death and how we can all be here one moment and gone from the body we’ve inhabited for so long the very next.  Brutally, silently.  And so matter-of-factly.

Shortly afterwards, the doctor gently said, “She’s passed.”  There it was: the end of more than ten years of Ginger in my life.  She was gone—to what destination I wish I knew.

I left her body for cremation and have since picked up the ashes, along with a framed paw print, which now sits on the mantle’s edge next to her collar wrapped around a candle.  The collar’s heart-shaped identification tag dangles below the candle.

I keep going back in my mind and asking myself if I did all I could for Ginger to ensure her happiness.  She almost always went to work with me every day, along with my other two dogs, so I don’t have regrets about leaving her home alone all the time for hours on end.  The few times I took her to an off-leash dog park, she just stood there and waddled around a little, so I don’t feel guilty about not letting her run free to play more than I did.  I think those two issues are common regrets for dog owners.

I am sure all of you have been through this situation.  It certainly wasn’t my first time.  And even though Ginger was not an effusive creature who asked for attention very often, I worry that I fell short.  Maybe I could and should have done more to bring her out of her shell.  Might I have reached more? 

Perhaps buried in her was an emotional need that she was unable to express or overcome—but sought to.  I always felt, however, she’d come to her limit and was fine with where she was.  Many of you may have had similar concerns following the death of a pet.

One thing that is different for me on this occasion of the third euthanasia of the five shelter dogs I’ve adopted since I’ve been an adult is an old song I thought about.  I found myself wanting to listen to it after my canine buddy faded away.  The song captures some of my feelings about the departure of this little dog whom I wanted to protect and cure from the ills brought on her by her first years spent in the puppy mill.

Not a smash record, the song is from a movie that also was not a big success.  The singer was the star of the film, which was geared to children, and she released it following the peak of her hit-making period.  Needless to say, it’s a virtually forgotten tune.  But I bought it as a 45 single—complete with photographic liner jacket—back when it was issued in 1977.  I loved it then and still do.

The opening violins, to me, capture a sense of heartbreak combined with a wonderment of something larger enveloping you—Nature?  God?  The unknowable hereafter?  But it is the lyrics that say so much of what I would like to say to Ginger, who I have missed more than I thought I would, given her standoffishness.  I cannot get her out of my mind—her funny walk, her quizzical looks and even her sometimes frustratingly insistent bark.

The song is “Candle on the Water” and it is sung by Helen Reddy.  It was a love theme for Disney’s Pete’s Dragon.  I’ll just paste the lyrics here for you:

I'll be your candle on the water
My love for you will always burn
I know you're lost and drifting
But the clouds are lifting
Don't give up, you have somewhere to turn

I'll be your candle on the water
'Till every wave is warm and bright
My soul is there beside you
Let this candle guide you
Soon you'll see a golden stream of light

A cold and friendless tide has found you
Don't let the stormy darkness pull you down
I'll paint a ray of hope around you
Circling in the air, lighted by a prayer

I'll be your candle on the water
This flame inside of me will grow
Keep holding on, you'll make it
Here's my hand, so take it
Look for me reaching out to show
As sure as rivers flow
I'll never let you go
I'll never let you go
I'll never let you go