I will see you again in the place where no shadows fall

I had originally intended this blog to be a socio-political type blog, but I need to type some things out so I can process them.

The Tale of the Best Australian Shepherd, Ever

Sheila thought she belonged in everyone's lap. She did.

Today, I had to do one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I had to take my 15-year-old dog, Sheila, to the vet to be euthanized.

***

I first saw Sheila when she was only two days old. My aunt, at the time, was living in Tulsa and had come down for a visit. In an attempt to keep her entertained, my grandmother suggested we go to the SPCA and see some of the animals, since my aunt and I are both animal lovers. We enthusiastically agreed.

When we got there, there she was: a beautiful, tiny, red merle Australian Shepherd amongst a litter of 6 other tiny, two-day-old Aussie pups and their beautiful blue merle mother. I had never had a dog before, though I had grown up around my aunt's dogs, but I nonetheless knew almost immediately that I wanted to have the little red merle as my own. In the coming weeks, I visited her frequently and very easily picked out a name for her: Sheila, because that's Australian slang for woman. She became Sheila Matilda because of the song Waltzing Matilda. I looked forward to the day I could bring her home.

Sheila after her first bath

When she was just three weeks old, however, my grandmother came to pick me up from school and had Sheila in a laundry basket in the front seat. I was obviously quite surprised; I remember saying "Sheila! What are you doing here?" in a surprised tone, and my grandmother, somewhat flabbergasted, sighing and saying "Get in the car." It turned out that, despite the five other three-week-old Australian Shepherd pups at the SPCA, they had decided to put the mother down because she was, quote, "bleeding from the rectum." They never really investigated why or what to do about it; they just euthanized her, and, at three weeks old, Sheila was left on our hands. I was furious at them, as you might imagine. While I was looking forward to bringing Sheila home, this was not how I wanted to do it. Moreover, now we had to bottle feed her every few hours throughout the night. Nonetheless, we did it all; we bottle-fed her, got her used to solid food, potty trained her--all of it. For all intents and purposes, we were all Sheila ever really knew.

She loved us all enthusiastically, and I loved her every minute she was alive.

She loved being outside.

***

For the last few months, Sheila has been rapidly declining. She has been in the advanced stages of dementia for some time now, and a few weeks ago I was told of this and had to begin to accept Sheila's coming end. That was hard enough. Then, last Saturday, my grandmother and mother and I decided that today we would do the humane thing and end her suffering. After the fear and disgust of last week's election, combined with finding out my grandparents voted for Trump, it was too much to handle.


I was surprisingly able to sleep last night, even though I've been in the habit for the past few nights of waking up at 3:30 or so and eventually drifting back off to sleep. I had my alarm set for 6 a.m. and when it finally went off I was ready to get up. I knew that the dreaded day had come but there was something in my unconscious that prevented me from completely accepting this; I got up and went about my morning as I usually did with little to no emotion attached to it.

The big difference between this morning and most mornings was that I took an unusually long time to get ready; typically I'll pull my hair up, maybe put on makeup if I feel like it, put on some decent work clothes, and head to work. This morning, as though my sub- or un-conscious brain were trying to delay the inevitable, I woke up, brushed my teeth, washed my face, put in contacts (I've been in the habit of wearing glasses), fixed my hair, decided I didn't like it, re-fixed it a bit, did some rather extensive makeup, dried some clothes to put on, went back and did my hair yet a third time, took my pills and vitamins, and checked Facebook, all before heading out the door. Outwardly I continued to show no emotion, even as I made the drive back to Angleton to see Sheila one last time, who had been living with my grandparents since I moved out of their house.

I thought I might cry after she passed away, but even before that, the moment I saw her, I broke into tears. The thing is, I didn't get emotional because I knew she would leave us soon, but because of the state in which I found her. My grandparents had been doing everything they could to take care of her, but even then, she could barely move, had been howling in confusion and probably pain, had a strange growth on her eye, and had basically peed on herself because she couldn't get up to go outside and, when she did, according to my grandfather, all she did was walk in circles. That was the proverbial straw that broke my emotion-camel's back; I sat down with her and pet her, trying to soothe her, and talked to my aunt who was doing the same. Soon my aunt and I loaded her into my aunt's SUV and headed off to the vet.

I sat in the back with Sheila. The ride there was nerve-wracking. I kept pulling Sheila close to me and holding on to her, which seemed to comfort her enough to keep her from howling for short periods of time and also from sliding off the car seat. It was nonetheless very hard to deal with. I kept thinking to myself, Sheila's already gone. This isn't my funny, happy-go-lucky dog who runs in the back yard and gets in everyone's lap and begs for treats; this is a shell of her former self. This isn't Sheila.

We eventually got to the vet and some vet techs came out with a smallish stretcher of sorts to carry her in. I was stunned to learn she had also lost a vast amount of weight, despite the fact that she had apparently been eating quite a bit; according to my grandmother, her blood work had been quite good, but something else was very, very wrong. I could feel her spine and when they weighed her at the vet, she weighed 15 pounds less than she once did, which is quite substantial for a dog. They then took her into a room and placed her on a blanket while they got everything ready; I followed them back because I wanted to say goodbye to the beautiful canine I had known since she was 2 days old.

With every moment my resolve strengthened; I was sure that what we were doing was the right thing, and that she had, in fact, been suffering for too long. This amazing dog did not deserve to suffer even a second more.

I had already been crying a bit by that point, but the worst was yet to come. The vet, who was very nice and sympathetic, took her for a bit to put in an IV, and then brought her back and placed her on a blanket on the exam table, and so the end began. He first injected a sedative and some anesthetic into the IV as I pet her on the head and stared her in the eyes, saying "I love you, Sheila. I'll always love you." She quickly drifted off to sleep but continued to make some grunting and huffing noises. It wasn't much longer until the vet injected the meds that would stop her heart; very soon after, he listened for a heartbeat and said, quietly, "She's gone." He then left the room to give me some time to grieve alone.

I'm glad he gave me this time. I haven't cried as hard as that in a very long time. I continued to pet her on the head, giving her kisses on her head and snout, stroking her beautiful red-merle fur, and reiterating that I would always love her and instructing her to sleep sweetly. I could have probably stayed in that room kissing her and crying for much longer; I'm not sure how I was able to eventually pull myself away from her, but through sheer force of will I did, and then gently knocked on the door to alert the vet that I was done saying my goodbyes.

It seems so surreal, and I'm constantly on the verge of tears, even though I'm back home with my spoiled-rotten cat, Loki. On the days leading up to this I had been feeling paralyzing fear to the point that I had my first full-blown panic attack in a long time, as well as extreme sadness over the loss of such a beloved soul. However, ultimately I'm happy that she's not suffering anymore; no one deserves to suffer like she did, and I'm glad I could be there to take it away for her.

Let's waltz Matilda one more time, Sheila.