Our Golden Retriever, Piper, died a couple of months ago. She was two weeks shy of 11, senior citizen age for most dogs and elderly for her size (100-ish pounds) and breed.
She wasn’t a hunter, and after she displayed an early disdain for thunder, fireworks and the report from a Remington 870 16-gauge, I surrendered any hope of turning her into a waterfowl or upland field companion. She quickly settled into the role of family pet, wholly devoted and shamelessly spoiled.
When Piper arrived, at 10 weeks old and with feet already the size of oranges, our twin daughters had just turned 19 and were launching their college careers. My wife, Katy, and I became primary tenders of the pup, supervising the rigors of house breaking and surviving the challenges of furniture chewing, sock eating and other annoyances of puppyhood adolescence. Piper was our first Golden, and at times, she could be unrestrained, even when subjected to strict disciplinary actions. She tried my patience. I sought advice from my friend Soc Clay, the master of outdoor photography from South Shore (Greenup County) who has reared four Goldens and has deep experience with, and unabating love and admiration for, the breed.
“She’ll start to calm down in a couple of years,” he said with a laugh. It proved to be an optimistic prediction.
Our daughter Rebecca lived at home during her undergraduate college work, and she and the dog quickly became inseparable, equally devoted, and remained so. But the dog-daughter bond between our daughter Sarah and Piper proved just as strong and lasting. Early last year, Sarah suffered a fractured ankle and spent nearly 12 weeks at home during her convalescence, the most amount of time she had continually spent under our roof in a decade. Piper, then approaching double-digit age, her muzzle graying and joints beginning to stiffen from arthritis, slept at Sarah’s bedside, her devotion to her injured human almost cult-like, if that term can be applied to a dog.
As the years passed, Katy perhaps developed the tightest bond with Piper. Piper was a constant presence in the kitchen—under the dining table, in the garden. Always near, always close.
She developed a cough for which our veterinarian could find no specific cause. We were advised to watch her, which we did. Months passed with little or no apparent change. She regularly bounded to her feet when the door opened, tail thumping, ready for attention.
Always a robust eater, she suddenly began displaying scant interest in food. Alarmed, we contacted our vet. The diagnosis was swift. Pancreatitis.
Meds were prescribed, along with a special diet. Dr. Sally, typically a beacon of optimism, seemed troubled. He had cared for this dog since she was a puppy. The first time he saw her, he cupped one of her paws, which seemed clownishly huge, with his own meaty hand and predicted: “She’s going to be a big girl.” She proved his prediction accurate.
We now stood in the same treatment room as we had a decade before, each of us—dog, dog owner and dog doctor—grayer, heavier, stiffer and slower, as I asked the impossible: for my veterinarian to look into his crystal ball and not tell me what I knew was coming.
“It can be serious,” he began, “especially in older dogs.”
We took Piper home. She drank when prompted. The food was ignored. She had always been a difficult dog to pill; my wife and I got the meds down her with effort. Always playful, her energy level waned. Rebecca visited daily. The reunions remained joyous, if subdued.
After a week of Piper refusing food, we returned to the vet, who, as always, was greeted with a tail wag.
The examination was brief. Options were narrowing.
We returned home. Then, inexplicably, Piper rallied. She took some food. Drank heartily. We went for brief walks, played in the backyard. Sarah visited for the weekend. The reunion was, as always, joyous. Our son-in-law Thomas visited. Another joyous reunion.
Sarah packed to return to her home and, weeping softly, asked the impossible of me, as I had our vet.
“We’re just going to take it a day at a time,” I replied.
That night, our dog lying at the foot of our bed, my wife and I listened to her breathing, sometimes deep and regular, more often shallow and rapid. She had trouble lying still.
“What should we do?” Katy asked.
“We can’t let her suffer.”
A couple of days later, we returned to the vet’s office. The last trip to the vet is caring, compassionate and heartbreaking. There is no way around it. We had phoned Sarah, as she had requested. Rebecca sat in the floor with her dog, Katy and I nearby. Dr. Sally walked in, greeted, as always, with a tail wag. He spoke to Piper and gave her a mild sedative, then shaved a soap bar-sized spot on her foreleg and left the room. Her breathing steadied. There were tears. We petted this animal, who had become part of our family in ways none of us could have imagined, and spoke to her. Rebecca, sobbing softly, kissed her head. Dr. Sally returned and injected the drugs, which quietly and quickly stopped her heart.
“It’s the hardest best thing to do,” my friend Dave Mull shared in a social media condolence.
I’m not sure exactly what dogs are. But they’re not just dogs.