Butter
01-07-2009, 08:22 AM
My 11 1/2 year old Rottweiler, Max, was put to sleep at 6:25 PM last night.
He had stopped eating and had pretty much lost use of his back legs. He was fine before Christmas. But around Christmas he stopped eating, and just went downhill really fast. He had a history of minor tumors, and had some breathing problems toward the end, but never seemed to be in too much discomfort, but had become unable to move himself around, and would barely eat for the past 2-3 weeks.
Admittedly, I'm not dealing with this very well. My wife, Andrea, was there and we were able to share the experience together... except it was the kind of experience you'd just as soon scrub from your brain with antiseptic and just remember the good.
The vet's office was awesome. Andrea called and explained the situation, and they are always busy but said to explain things to the front desk and they would bump us to the front of the line. Which they did.
So, Max is able to walk into the office, and stand on his own. With one seat available, Andrea takes it and....
Max had always been a very sweet, gentle dog. He had some unique quirks, though. Like sometimes he would lay on the floor and put his paws together and just scratch at the floor sideways. Like 15-20 times, he would just sort of scratch away with both paws simultaneously while laying on his side. And he didn't like affection. I think he never grew up with my parents showing affection. So, when he moved in with us, he wasn't used to all the hugging. Every time I would give Andrea a kiss for work, he would be there to try to break it up. Not aggressively, but he would bark, and come right over next to us to make sure no one was getting hurt. This was funny, but also funny was his inability to tolerate the kids' rough play. When my sons, Ethan and Alex would wrestle, who would be there but Max to break them up. So whenever we were out of the room, we knew when things were getting out of hand, because Officer Max was there to bark his early warning signal for us to come check on things.
And then, there was the time that my parents visited Andrea and I in South Carolina for Thanksgiving, 1999. It was our first grown-up, non-college-y looking place, on the 2nd floor of this non-descript apartment complex in Greenville. My parents brought Max with them, and we were happy to have him because he was never any trouble. Max was but a lad of 2 1/2 then, but was always well-behaved and well-trained. But he never liked when strangers approached the house. He would always bark warnings at them to stay away. Well, one day, Max saw some people somewhat far off out our balcony door. He would get all worked up and would just bark semi-regular barks every 20-30 seconds or so, and pace and be generally nervous. After about 5 minutes of that, my mom would tell him to stop. So he looks at her, but then in a fit of teenage doggy defiance, he continued to pace and bark. My mom kept telling him no, and Max gradually drew down his response. But never completely so. For a solid 20 minutes, Max's barks got quieter and quieter, but he kept doing them in defiance of my mother. The last few were not even so much barks as they were "Muffs". "Muff". "Muff". Like he wanted to bark but he knew it would get him in trouble but he had to do something. So he "muffed" quietly. He muffed for another 20 minutes in direct disregard to my mom. And he was a teenager. So we forever referred to this as Max's moody teenage period.
And he loved getting his back section scratched. When you sat down and he wanted to be petted, he did not lean his head on you. He leaned his butt on you. So you would scratch his back legs and his back half. Everything above his tail was fair game. And he loved it. He would stay there for hours if you let him. You knew he was in the mood for affection if he leaned his butt on you. And if you didn't oblige, he would stay there until you did SOMETHING. Even a small pat was often good enough.
---So, Max is able to walk into the office, and stand on his own. With one seat available, Andrea takes it and....
Max leans his butt onto Andrea. She starts crying and pets it a little. Then Max collapses onto the floor like it was all over. He never collapsed like that before. He didn't die or lose consciousness or anything then. But he flopped onto the floor like he was giving up. Andrea loses it, and a couple other patients' owners come over to console us. We get called back into the office after another minute. Like I said, they only made us wait maybe 3 minutes, but in that 3 minutes, the choice was pretty much made.
The doctor told us that they could run some tests, but that with his age the prognosis was not going to be good. He had fluid in his lungs and likely more tumors inside somewhere, but that even if they treated it, he'd have trouble being his old self again. Max had lost that twinkle in his eye, and would never get it back.
I pet Max and just stared at him directly in his eyes until he closed his eyes for good so he wouldn't be alone at the final moment. Then Andrea and I paid the bill and left. I have never cried so much in my life. Seriously. We go home, and the kids are just as upset as we are, which I guess is good in some ways but not really. The thing that really gets me is when Alex tells me he would give the whole house up just to have Max back. So would I, Alex. So would I.
I'm still near inconsolable today. I don't know why I'm at work, I'm not going to be any good for it today. After this I'll try to plug away and forget it as much as I can. But I won't be able to, not ever.
I guess the whole reason to relate the tale is that I always thought I wouldn't be that bad when Max went. I knew his time would come, but I always thought I would handle it with ease, and move on. But I can't. Dogs really can come an irreplaceable part of your family, despite what I always thought. And I would always kind of make fun of people who treated dogs like little people and would fawn over them at every opportunity. But it turns out, family is what you make it. And these little balls of fur and unconditional love just become part of you. And when you lose that, it is unbelievably sad. When you have to decide to end its suffering, it's just moreso.
So I apologize to everyone I ever made fun of, to everyone who didn't even know it, to those of whom I thought "get over it, it's just a dog". Max was just a dog to everyone else. But to me, he was family.
Goodbye Max. We'll always love you.
He had stopped eating and had pretty much lost use of his back legs. He was fine before Christmas. But around Christmas he stopped eating, and just went downhill really fast. He had a history of minor tumors, and had some breathing problems toward the end, but never seemed to be in too much discomfort, but had become unable to move himself around, and would barely eat for the past 2-3 weeks.
Admittedly, I'm not dealing with this very well. My wife, Andrea, was there and we were able to share the experience together... except it was the kind of experience you'd just as soon scrub from your brain with antiseptic and just remember the good.
The vet's office was awesome. Andrea called and explained the situation, and they are always busy but said to explain things to the front desk and they would bump us to the front of the line. Which they did.
So, Max is able to walk into the office, and stand on his own. With one seat available, Andrea takes it and....
Max had always been a very sweet, gentle dog. He had some unique quirks, though. Like sometimes he would lay on the floor and put his paws together and just scratch at the floor sideways. Like 15-20 times, he would just sort of scratch away with both paws simultaneously while laying on his side. And he didn't like affection. I think he never grew up with my parents showing affection. So, when he moved in with us, he wasn't used to all the hugging. Every time I would give Andrea a kiss for work, he would be there to try to break it up. Not aggressively, but he would bark, and come right over next to us to make sure no one was getting hurt. This was funny, but also funny was his inability to tolerate the kids' rough play. When my sons, Ethan and Alex would wrestle, who would be there but Max to break them up. So whenever we were out of the room, we knew when things were getting out of hand, because Officer Max was there to bark his early warning signal for us to come check on things.
And then, there was the time that my parents visited Andrea and I in South Carolina for Thanksgiving, 1999. It was our first grown-up, non-college-y looking place, on the 2nd floor of this non-descript apartment complex in Greenville. My parents brought Max with them, and we were happy to have him because he was never any trouble. Max was but a lad of 2 1/2 then, but was always well-behaved and well-trained. But he never liked when strangers approached the house. He would always bark warnings at them to stay away. Well, one day, Max saw some people somewhat far off out our balcony door. He would get all worked up and would just bark semi-regular barks every 20-30 seconds or so, and pace and be generally nervous. After about 5 minutes of that, my mom would tell him to stop. So he looks at her, but then in a fit of teenage doggy defiance, he continued to pace and bark. My mom kept telling him no, and Max gradually drew down his response. But never completely so. For a solid 20 minutes, Max's barks got quieter and quieter, but he kept doing them in defiance of my mother. The last few were not even so much barks as they were "Muffs". "Muff". "Muff". Like he wanted to bark but he knew it would get him in trouble but he had to do something. So he "muffed" quietly. He muffed for another 20 minutes in direct disregard to my mom. And he was a teenager. So we forever referred to this as Max's moody teenage period.
And he loved getting his back section scratched. When you sat down and he wanted to be petted, he did not lean his head on you. He leaned his butt on you. So you would scratch his back legs and his back half. Everything above his tail was fair game. And he loved it. He would stay there for hours if you let him. You knew he was in the mood for affection if he leaned his butt on you. And if you didn't oblige, he would stay there until you did SOMETHING. Even a small pat was often good enough.
---So, Max is able to walk into the office, and stand on his own. With one seat available, Andrea takes it and....
Max leans his butt onto Andrea. She starts crying and pets it a little. Then Max collapses onto the floor like it was all over. He never collapsed like that before. He didn't die or lose consciousness or anything then. But he flopped onto the floor like he was giving up. Andrea loses it, and a couple other patients' owners come over to console us. We get called back into the office after another minute. Like I said, they only made us wait maybe 3 minutes, but in that 3 minutes, the choice was pretty much made.
The doctor told us that they could run some tests, but that with his age the prognosis was not going to be good. He had fluid in his lungs and likely more tumors inside somewhere, but that even if they treated it, he'd have trouble being his old self again. Max had lost that twinkle in his eye, and would never get it back.
I pet Max and just stared at him directly in his eyes until he closed his eyes for good so he wouldn't be alone at the final moment. Then Andrea and I paid the bill and left. I have never cried so much in my life. Seriously. We go home, and the kids are just as upset as we are, which I guess is good in some ways but not really. The thing that really gets me is when Alex tells me he would give the whole house up just to have Max back. So would I, Alex. So would I.
I'm still near inconsolable today. I don't know why I'm at work, I'm not going to be any good for it today. After this I'll try to plug away and forget it as much as I can. But I won't be able to, not ever.
I guess the whole reason to relate the tale is that I always thought I wouldn't be that bad when Max went. I knew his time would come, but I always thought I would handle it with ease, and move on. But I can't. Dogs really can come an irreplaceable part of your family, despite what I always thought. And I would always kind of make fun of people who treated dogs like little people and would fawn over them at every opportunity. But it turns out, family is what you make it. And these little balls of fur and unconditional love just become part of you. And when you lose that, it is unbelievably sad. When you have to decide to end its suffering, it's just moreso.
So I apologize to everyone I ever made fun of, to everyone who didn't even know it, to those of whom I thought "get over it, it's just a dog". Max was just a dog to everyone else. But to me, he was family.
Goodbye Max. We'll always love you.