My two little shi tzu's are reason enough to stay alive and endure utter physical dilapidation, chronic pain, and emotional leprosy. The female, eleven, I think, is a year older than the male. She reminds me of me, as I have been in a time-warp since she came puddling into our lives, my daughter's replacement for a similar old family pet who sadly expired. I had been up with the older pooch until the earliest roosters had crowed in Germantown. Littlebit indicated she wanted to go outside. She couldn't stand up but for a few seconds, looked around, looked back at me, and as if in apology, lay down and took her last breath lieing in the grass and the cool dawn due.
I can't remember if tears flowed as I lay Little Bit in her bed, wired her mouth shut so she wouldn't look so awful with that gaping dead mouth, and combed her wiry hair a final time before Sara, our last at home, awoke to see our Littlebit one last time. I put a ribbon in Littlebit's hair as a final touch of care. I think Sara took it better than I did. I can't count the number of dogs and cats and other critters I've interned over the years. Some stand out more than others. Littlebit did. Her passing was sad in itself, but it also marked an emotional end to an era of family life. Sara would leave the nest shortly after, and the newly acquired replacement named Baby by Sara became my charge as I had guessed she would. I cringed at the thought of calling after Baby (I always trained these little dogs to take a short little route on the sidewalk out front, and then let them go unleashed once boundaries were learned). Inevitably it happened; a female jogger was passing by as I called out pleasantly, "Baa-b-yyy. Come here baby." Fortunately, all it got was a knowing smile from the jogger. She must have seen the little girl dog that charmed everyone she saw.
Baby was a little ball of energy, fur, and mischief. This breed of dog has a pampered history, raised by Chinese empresses for dynasties, to be spoiled rotten little empresses and emperors themselves. Though loving and easily bonded to a few masters, they learn quickly, but can not be forced to do anything. They can only be coaxed. Though needy and totally incapable of surviving without human care, the little devils are fiercely independent, if only in their own minds. Even now, Baby, stone deaf, cold blind, and plagued with various symptoms of old age, CANNOT be forced to take her pills. She has to be tricked into it, and she will spit them out if she detects them in her food. The process requires several frustrating attempts to get meds to slip down her gullet. Or not. She lies in apparent state twenty-three hours a day, then she gets up and is frisky like a puppy for two separate half-hours during the day. If we are not immediately there to escort her through the door, she will leave a puddle in front of it as if to say, "I tried; you missed it; bad humans."
People wonder why I don't have her euthanized. Why does a Greek euphemism make killing sound so acceptable? Even, "Put her out of her misery," is a sorry attempt to make the act sound humane. I am positive that Baby wouldn't vote for being put to death--for being sick and hard to care for. Maybe sometimes she does. But her will to survive is admirable. I can also relate to her.
The other reason I won't do such a thing is that the little boy dog, her brown and white mate, that's one-year younger wouldn't know what to do. Baby is even still the dominant one. It has always been that way. This breed bonds to mates and masters for life. Biggin will hold his pee and wait for Baby and try to rouse her so she can lead the way on their little trips outside. When he can wait no more he will come tell me to take him out, all the while picking at Baby to come lead the way. At the last minute he will go on his own, a new experience for him.
Biggin got the best genetic disposition of any dog I have ever had the pleasure to know. Where Baby looks like a Star Wars ewok (sp), Biggy looks like a wookie or a down syndrome child in the face. His teeth are crooked and he has a prominent under-bite. His glassy eyes bug like an alien's and may be slightly crossed. His hair is natually long, straight and ultra-soft. Until very recently he was full of energy, and would endlessly chase and retrieve a ball, almost back to me, but instead he carefully pushed it under the end-table and then yelp for me to get it out, our own special game of his making. He still tries at times.
He used to bring my shoes whenever "out" or "go" was spoken or when he sensed the cues that I was going somewhere--doing his part to try and ensure thathe was going too. Now he just pickis up anything and shakes it in excitement. He has numerous stuffed animals and colored balls that his mate cares naught about, but which his high-interest mind requires for constant entertainment. He has a giant mouth and can carry a ball much bigger than you would expect. Both he and Baby will take an empty toilet paper roll in their mouths and walk around getting laughs, for the sheer purpose of entertaining people. They love to be laughed about and fussed over.
Though neither has seldom if ever had unkind words or commands spoken to them, the nature of the little male seems to have thrived most under these conditions. He always wants to please as does Baby but Biggin is less independent. He carries himself like a tough, "manly" little dog. He makes me laugh walking briskly down our driveway, short stocky legs churning to stay always just ahead, with his little coal balls swinging like a big dog's and his bowed hind legs kicking up sideways as he trots. He sniffs and reads and hikes and scratches the earth like he's King Kong. He'll growl when annoyed, usually at children or other dogs, and occasionally at my wife, who laughs and threatens him. But he has never bitten anyone. He can let loose with a fearsome houndish bawl, when the doorbell rings or if my son's outside half-lab gets too near Baby.
When Biggin was a puppy we couldn't resist letting him in our bed. He would wiggle as if wagging his entire little limber body, and slip under the covers and play games and make us gut-laugh, until he finally got puppy-tired and would squeeze in between my wife and I, and lay his little odd-shaped head right on the pillow next to us. If he got a whiff of breath he was sure to lick a taste or two. If he considered the breath fitfully unfit and to his liking, he would rub his body in your face as if the perfume were from a dead mouse or bird outside. He was a good reminder to floss. Biggin's favorite position for sleeping is Since he was a puppy, Biggin's trademark skill at assuming awkward rest positions places him in the strangest positions, apparently in total comfort. My grown son used to twist him into head-downward pretzel-twisted poses of contortion, where Biggy would stay contently until moved. That's how he gained Pipe-Cleaner as Craig's special nick-name.
My wife has long-since developed allergies and the inside dogs do contribute. We can't put them outside. This breed will not survive outside. But she has bared them from access to our bed. Baby could seem to care less. But Biggin, even after years, will hear me say, "I'm going to bed." Away he races me to the doggie barrier that jails off the bedroom, and makes his best effort to squeeze through ahead of me. Sometimes he makes it; he can no longer propel himself onto the taller-than-usual bed (it's a wonder he ever could; his legs are jointed backward). If he makes it this far, I risk censure from my wife and lift him up onto the bed, where he delightfully becomes his young puppy self, hiding and rolling on top and then under covers and growling and frolicking until I warn him aloud, half for entertainment and half seriously, "You better hide under the covers. Momma's going to catch you here and we'll both be in trouble."
Oh, he understands so well; he cowers for a moment under a clump of blanket, and literally trembles, more from excitement than from fear. He hears my wife readying for bed, turning off lamps and last minute things. He can't stand the delay and stretches his body and neck up as far as he can to try and peer into the room from whence cometh impending doom. At last he barks. Then Momma comes into the bedroom and he hides. She knows our tricks and we are both scolded. She reaches to push Biggin or lift him off the bed. He murmers, yes mumers, a hateful growl. The scene has played out many times over the years and never fails to entertain. Occasionally Momma folds and allows him reprieve. Of course this is the strongest kind of positve behavior conditioning.
Biggin loves infants. Especially newborns. He gently slips up with his tail wagging and tries to steal a kiss on a baby ear. When the little kids get big enough to purposefully pull his hair, he growls, and gets in trouble for it; we can never afford to take chances with our grandchildren or visitors, but I understand his benign warning. I have to refer to the babies in our life as "waa-waa's", while talking to Biggin until he learns their individual names--or else he becomes confused regarding Baby-the-dog's name. It's an honest mistake. But once he knows a child's name, he gets excited when you say that so-and-so is coming over.
He must be at my side, in my lap, or under foot. He actually prefers to climb onto the back of my easy chair, placing himself on higher canine ground than his master. He has a better self-esteem than any person I've met. He requires more sleep now that he's older. Same as when he was a puppy. That's okay. I do too. He takes time to go pick at Baby and try to get her to play. Sometimes he becomes romantic, as it were, and she tolerates his attempts until he becomes too much a bother and she barks and nips at him. She is certainly his wife. He likes the play and jumps back and pesters her until he tires and he comes back to my proximity.
If I am not around, and my wife is, he must be right next to her. There is a definite pack instinct of order. He is always the beta something. He knows his place.
Bigin lives to entertain and to love his dogs and people. Unlike Baby, he must eat the same thing at the same time daily. Even if he's not hungry, the food must be there. When it's overdue he gets in my lap and rakes once at my face--just a little reminder that it is time. I can put him off momentarily by telling him to "wait a few minutes." If the minutes come and go, he will be back, more intense at this time. You can't ignore him. When finally the announcement is made, "Okay, let's eat," he is a jumping, spinning-out, galloping-in-place, bundle of hair and humor. He attacks his nearest stuffed animal, choosing one that squeaks if available, and ceremoniously "kills his food". This is really what he is doing whether he knows it or not. Enough of his canine instinct has been retained to necessitate that he kill a toy, a shoe, a ball, anything available before he eats.
Baby came to me at a time that I needed her happy little personality to save me from the darkness. I was facing multipe chronic lillness. It worked. Then came Biggin, adding to that delight. The pair have kept me alive. Now they will be going very soon. Probably Baby first. She is close. But I know firsthand that you can linger far longer than all indications appear to say. I only hope that I don't win this race for passing. Without Baby, Bigin will be lost. I must be there to help him cope, as he and she have me. Then I must remain for him, if for no other, because he will not survive my passing. I am sure of it. it will be hard for me to endure the passing of either--but I am human. I have survived many pets passing, if not these final pets. Trulely, better me than them.
Euthanize the sick or old dogs. I'm sure there are those who feel the same about me. Maybe they would be putting me out of my misery if a word became sanitized enough. If I decide to go before I expire, I will take that liberty myself. But for now, I DO have a purpose. Perhaps to most, a silly, insignificant purpose. But it is important to me. Let me tell you, if there is a Heaven, and I believe there is, and if I qualify, and I hope I do--there will be soft, special, entertaining little spirits there. Perhaps these will be angels.