My Dog Has Superpowers

Gather around friends, and I'll tell you a tale of a dog with superpowers.

About a week ago, Dexter the Mutant Chihuahua started to throw up.  He would eat his breakfast and fwapp...up it would come, thirty seconds later.  Other than the vomiting, he was his usual normal self.  After two days of random upchucking I, being the concerned chihuahua mama that I am, took him to the vet.

Because he walked into the vet clinic looking superfly and acting like the world was his oyster, we went with the conservative approach.  A little sulcrate to soothe his stomach and some low fat easy-to-digest soft food.  Another day of vomiting and back to the vet Dexter goes.

Diagnoses are thrown around.  Pancreatitis?  No...he'd be acting and looking like death.  But to be sure the vet presses and pushes and digs around his abdomen.  If it was his pancreas he'd be whimpering and showing signs of pain.  After five minutes of investigation, Dexter is cool as a cucumber, although certainly curious as to why the vet keeps pushing on his belly.

Pancreatitis ruled out.  Blockage perhaps?  Dexter is known to eat whatever he can get his mouth around so that's certainly feasible.  Based on his symptoms of throwing up almost immediately after he eats, the vet (the extraordinary Dr. Kathy) suggests that it indicates strongly towards blockage and we do an x-ray.  The x-ray appears clean but there is a suspicious looking bit in his stomach so I take Dexter home and starve him for 24 hours.

The next day another x-ray is taken and it reveals the mysterious bit is gone.  We're 90% sure he isn't blocked.  I take him home feeling hopeful but the vomiting continues Friday night.  Curiouser and curiouser...

Saturday morning, it's back to the vet for another examination and this time blood is drawn.  It`s sent to the lab and first thing this morning Dr. Kathy phoned me.  Turns out that Dexter has a roaring case of pancreatitis.  His pancreas levels are so high, it`s on the verge of mutiny.  Dexter should be in an incredible amount of pain, he should be refusing to eat, he should be vomiting much more than he is and he most certainly should not be chasing Hannah around the yard trying to get her to play.  Normal pancreas levels are between 0 and 200.  Dexter`s pancreas level is a thousand.

For a week, his pancreas has been trying to murder him and he's been all, "Shut up pancreas.  I'll show you who's boss."

Dexter weighs 15 pounds and I'm pretty sure 10 pounds of that are his giant, balls of steel.  Now that we know the problem, we've started to treat it and hopefully in the next few days he'll be back to normal.

My dog's superpower?  Ignoring crippling, soul-crushing pancreatitis that would bring a Great Dane to his knees.

Ebony

Our cat Ebony died today.

She was the last of my original three - the cats that found their way into my heart when I was in my teens and early twenties. 

Ebony (along with Mollie and Smokey) lived with me in what I like to refer to as the "lean" years.  The years where I was single and broke and moving from apartment to apartment in Alberta.  The years where they got to eat such wholesome cat food as "Friskies" and "Whiskas" because I barely had enough money to feed myself.  The years where we lived in tiny, cramped apartments with walls so thin you could hear your neighbour blowing his nose, where instead of a door on the bedroom there was only a beaded curtain, and where a lady of the evening like to work her trade on the corner just down from our bedroom window.  (Her name was Liz and sometimes when I was walking home from work in the cold and in the dark, I would stop at the McDonald's, buy us both a hot chocolate and visit with her for awhile.)

Ebony was brought to me in the fall of 1999 by my best friend's brother.  He had found her in his yard playing with his dog.  She was eight weeks old and a tiny, bony little thing.  She was a spitfire right from the start though.  She tormented and teased the two older cats, hung off the beads in the bedroom doorway, climbed the curtains and attacked all three of us in the middle of the night.

She never grew much bigger; she always weighed less than five pounds and visitors often mistook her for a kitten, even after she was fully grown.  She had lovely yellow eyes and a silky soft black coat with a tiny patch of white on her chest.  She had severe petting intolerance which meant that although she loved to be petted, after a certain amount of time, she would turn and bite you.  She varied the amount of time she would tolerate petting just to keep us on our toes.

She survived a nine-hour moving trip to BC in a blizzard so severe that at one point, when I turned to my brother as we were inching through the mountains in the dark and the blowing snow and asked him if we were going to die, he replied gravely, "Probably."

When I married Ben and we moved in with him, she developed a deep hatred for his cat Kaneyko.  We spent the next eight years keeping them apart in our tiny house and planning elaborate and detailed ways to give them both the attention and love they deserved without having to re-home either of them.  It was difficult, but worth it.

She spent a great deal of her later years in our bedroom.  She wasn't fond of the dogs and she was content to sleep most of the day under the covers of our bed. 

On Sunday morning we noticed that her balance was off.  By late that night she was lethargic, weak and dehydrated.  I took her to the emergency vet and for nearly two days they gave her IV fluids to rehydrate her.  They did blood work and discovered that her kidney values were off the chart.  She was suffering from severe kidney disease. 

This morning they called us and said there was nothing else they could do for her.  Her kidney values had not come down with the IV fluids and she was starting to vomit and develop ulcers in her mouth.  We had her transferred to our own vet clinic and we met her there to hold her one final time and tell her goodbye.

We are so grateful to Dr. Kathy for rearranging her crazy schedule to fit us in.  There is comfort in familiarity and in having someone who is not just a vet, but a friend, help us to say goodbye.  We are also comforted by the knowledge that Ebony did not suffer, that she went from being good to not good in a very short period of time, and that we had a chance to be with her and hold her before she died.

Cats are creatures of habit and our Ebony was no exception.  After thirteen years together, we had our own rituals and habits, her and I.  And while her death today was painful and sad, it is the absence of those rituals and habits in the coming weeks that will hurt the most.  Never again will she sit in the bathroom and watch me apply my makeup.  Never again will I wake in the middle of the night to feel her small body sleeping on my hip, and there will be no more early morning whiskers tickling my cheek as she bumps her head against my face and makes her high-pitched purrs.

Tonight I will open the door to our bedroom and instead of being greeted by a small black cat crawling out from under the covers of our bed and meowing softly, there will be only silence and emptiness. 

It is that emptiness, the absence of her and our small but meaningful rituals, that leaves a hole in my heart that will never fully close.

Sleep sweet Ebony.  You were a good cat.

A Valentine's Letter to the One I Love

Dear Harold,

It's Valentine's Day today.  As I write this you are five hours away at a work conference and I am sitting on the couch, wrapped in 3 blankets with a box of kleenex beside me and one large fuzzy dog and two small fuzzy dogs plastered on my shivering, freezing body.  I have the plague you see.  Or possibly just a really bad cold.  Either way, I am pretty sure I am dying as my numerous texts to you have indicated.

I have a red and raw nose, my eyes are bloodshot, and when I speak I sound like an unholy cross of Fozzie Bear and Darth Vadar.  Earlier today I sneezed so hard that I peed my pants a little.  I keep nodding off on the couch (possibly due to the large amount of cold medicine I have ingested) and every time I do, Dexter the Mutant Chihuahua sticks his tongue up my nose.  I wake up snorting and sputtering and coughing and wondering why the dog is suddenly so obsessed with my snot.  Is it superhuman snot do you think?  Has my plague/cold given me super powers that the dog can sense and is trying to steal?  Also, isn't love grand?

We've been married 8 years now (Or 7?  No, I'm pretty sure it's 8.  Or it could be 7... you know what? I'm just gonna call it 8) and this is the first Valentine's Day we've been apart.  Not that it matters all that much - you've pretty much made your peace with the fact that you have married the least romantic woman in the entire world. 

Do you remember our first Valentine's Day?  I don't remember how long we had been dating but we had been friends for years so I remember it felt natural and right.  You made a reservation at one of my favourite restaurants, and I'm pretty sure what you remember most about that dinner is the gaping look of horror on my face when they brought out your lobster dinner and it was the ENTIRE lobster...face and all.  Or perhaps what you remember is when you told me to pick a movie at the theatre after dinner and I chose "Monster", a movie about a female serial killer.  Romantic yeah?

You'll be coming home in two days but as I'll most likely be dead from the plague by then, I thought I would tell you some of the reasons why I love you and how happy you have made me the last 8 (7?) years.

I love you because you're kind and thoughtful and make really good French toast.  I love you because of how fiercely you love your children.  I love you because when your father was dying, you spent every moment you could with him, encouraging him, listening to him, and loving him.  I love you because you love and respect your mom.

I love you because you love and respect my mom.  I love you because you talk to my dad about Nascar.  I love you because you love our pets as much as I do.  I love you because you always remember your sibling's birthdays and call them.  I love you because you love to cook and you're good at it.  I love you because it doesn't bother you that I can never remember how long we've been married.

I love your unending desire to learn new things, your interest in photography, your willingness to parallel park the car for me, your sarcastic sense of humour, you uncanny ability to do long division in your head, and your obsession with the Food Network.

I love that you call me the Girl, that you can make me laugh, that you care about my friends, that you occasionally become weepy over inspiring stories of athletes who have beaten the odds.  I love that you put up with my weird obsession with zombies and that you don't care if I haven't shaved my legs for weeks.

I love that you don't mind that I put our conversations on the internet for the world to see.  I love that my Asshole Cat can practically scratch your face off in the middle of the night and you just shrug and say, "He's just being a cat."

I love you because when I am sad you cheer me up.  I love you because you like to dance.  I love you because you want to travel and meet new and different people.  I love you because you went to every single stupid Twilight movie with me and didn't complain once.  I love you because you make me coffee in the mornings.  I love you because you take the garbage out.  I love you because you'll play Monopoly with me.  I love you because you believe in me, think I'm funny, and call me on my bullshit.

And I love you because even when I have the plague and look like this:

You still think I'm beautiful.

Happy Valentine's Day honey.

Love K.

At the Gate

June, over at Bye Bye Pie posted a lovely short story she was sent. 

At the Gate - by Myla Jo Closser

A shaggy Airedale scented his way along the highroad. He had not been there before,
but he was guided by the trail of his brethren who had preceded him. He had gone
unwillingly upon this journey, yet with the perfect training of dogs he had accepted it
without complaint. The path had been lonely, and his heart would have failed him,
traveling as he must without his people, had not these traces of countless dogs before him
promised companionship of a sort at the end of the road.

The landscape had appeared arid at first, for the translation from recent agony into
freedom from pain had been so numbing in its swiftness that it was some time before he
could fully appreciate the pleasant dog-country through which he was passing. There
were woods with leaves upon the ground through which to scurry, long grassy slopes for
extended runs, and lakes into which he might plunge for sticks and bring them back to—
But he did not complete his thought, for the boy was not with him. A little wave of
homesickness possessed him.

It made his mind easier to see far ahead a great gate as high as the heavens, wide
enough for all. He understood that only man built such barriers and by straining his eyes
he fancied he could discern humans passing through to whatever lay beyond. He broke
into a run that he might the more quickly gain this inclosure made beautiful by men and
women; but his thoughts outran his pace, and he remembered that he had left the family
behind, and again this lovely new compound became not perfect, since it would lack the
family.

The scent of the dogs grew very strong now, and coming nearer, he discovered, to his
astonishment that of the myriads of those who had arrived ahead of him thousands were
still gathered on the outside of the portal. They sat in a wide circle spreading out on each
side of the entrance, big, little, curly, handsome, mongrel, thoroughbred dogs of every
age, complexion, and personality. All were apparently waiting for something, someone,
and at the pad of the Airedale's feet on the hard road they arose and looked in his
direction.

That the interest passed as soon as they discovered the new-comer to be a dog puzzled
him. In his former dwelling-place a four-footed brother was greeted with enthusiasm
when he was a friend, with suspicious diplomacy when a stranger, and with sharp reproof
when an enemy; but never had he been utterly ignored.

He remembered something that he had read many times on great buildings with lofty
entrances. "Dogs not admitted," the signs had said, and he feared this might be the reason
for the waiting circle outside the gate. It might be that this noble portal stood as the
dividing-line between mere dogs and humans. But he had been a member of the family,
romping with them in the living-room, sitting at meals with them in the dining-room,
going upstairs at night with them, and the thought that he was to be "kept out" would be
unendurable.

He despised the passive dogs. They should be treating a barrier after the fashion of
their old country, leaping against it, barking, and scratching the nicely painted door. He
bounded up the last little hill to set them an example, for he was still full of the rebellion
of the world; but he found no door to leap against. He could see beyond the entrance dear
masses of people, yet no dog crossed the threshold. They continued in their patient ring,
their gaze upon the winding road.

He now advanced cautiously to examine the gate. It occurred to him that it must be
fly-time in this region, and he did not wish to make himself ridiculous before all these
strangers by trying to bolt through an invisible mesh like the one that had baffled him
when he was a little chap. Yet there were no screens, and despair entered his soul. What
bitter punishment these poor beasts must have suffered before they learned to stay on this
side the arch that led to human beings! What had they done on earth to merit this? Stolen
bones troubled his conscience, runaway days, sleeping in the best chair until the key
clicked in the lock. These were sins.

At that moment an English bull-terrier, white, with liver-colored spots and a jaunty
manner, approached him, snuffling in a friendly way. No sooner had the bull-terrier smelt
his collar than he fell to expressing his joy at meeting him. The Airedale's reserve was
quite thawed by this welcome, though he did not know just what to make of it.

"I know you! I know you!" exclaimed the bull-terrier, adding inconsequently, "What's
your name?"

"Tam o'Shanter. They call me Tammy," was the answer, with a pardonable break in
the voice.

"I know them," said the bull-terrier. "Nice folks."

"Best ever," said the Airedale, trying to be nonchalant, and scratching a flea which
was not there. "I don't remember you. When did you know them?"

"About fourteen tags ago, when they were first married. We keep track of time here by
the license-tags. I had four."

"This is my first and only one. You were before my time, I guess." He felt young and
shy.

"Come for a walk, and tell me all about them," was his new friend's invitation.

"Aren't we allowed in there?" asked Tam, looking toward the gate.

"Sure. You can go in whenever you want to. Some of us do at first, but we don't stay."

"Like it better outside?"

"No, no; it isn't that."

"Then why are all you fellows hanging around here? Any old dog can see it's better
beyond the arch."

"You see, we're waiting for our folks to come."

The Airedale grasped it at once, and nodded understandingly.

"I felt that way when I came along the road. It wouldn't be what it's supposed to be
without them. It wouldn't be the perfect place."

"Not to us," said the bull-terrier.

"Fine! I've stolen bones, but it must be that I have been forgiven, if I'm to see them
here again. It's the great good place all right. But look here," he added as a new thought
struck him, "do they wait for us?"

The older inhabitant coughed in slight embarrassment.

"The humans couldn't do that very well. It wouldn't be the thing to have them hang
around outside for just a dog—not dignified."

"Quite right," agreed Tam. "I'm glad they go straight to their mansions. I'd—I'd hate to
have them missing me as I am missing them." He sighed. "But, then, they wouldn't have
to wait so long."

"Oh, well, they're getting on. Don't be discouraged," comforted the terrier. "And in the
meantime it's like a big hotel in summer—watching the new arrivals. See, there is
something doing now."

All the dogs were aroused to excitement by a little figure making its way uncertainly
up the last slope. Half of them started to meet it, crowding about in a loving, eager pack.

"Look out; don't scare it," cautioned the older animals, while word was passed to those
farthest from the gate: "Quick! Quick! A baby's come!"

Before they had entirely assembled, however, a gaunt yellow hound pushed through
the crowd, gave one sniff at the small child, and with a yelp of joy crouched at its feet.

The baby embraced the hound in recognition, and the two moved toward the gate. Just
outside the hound stopped to speak to an aristocratic St. Bernard who had been friendly:

"Sorry to leave you, old fellow," he said, "but I'm going in to watch over the kid. You
see, I'm all she has up here."

The bull-terrier looked at the Airedale for appreciation.

"That's the way we do it," he said proudly.

"Yes, but—" the Airedale put his head on one side in perplexity.

"Yes, but what?" asked the guide.

"The dogs that don't have any people—the nobodies' dogs?"

"That's the best of all. Oh, everything is thought out here. Crouch down,—you must
be tired,—and watch," said the bull-terrier.

Soon they spied another small form making the turn in the road. He wore a Boy
Scout's uniform, but he was a little fearful, for all that, so new was this adventure. The
dogs rose again and snuffled, but the better groomed of the circle held back, and in their
place a pack of odds and ends of the company ran down to meet him. The Boy Scout was
reassured by their friendly attitude, and after petting them impartially, he chose an oldfashioned
black and tan, and the two passed in.

Tam looked questioningly.

"They didn't know each other!" he exclaimed.

"But they've always wanted to. That's one of the boys who used to beg for a dog, but
his father wouldn't let him have one. So all our strays wait for just such little fellows to
come along. Every boy gets a dog, and every dog gets a master."

"I expect the boy's father would like to know that now," commented the Airedale. "No
doubt he thinks quite often, 'I wish I'd let him have a dog.'"

The bull-terrier laughed.

"You're pretty near the earth yet, aren't you?"

Tam admitted it.

"I've a lot of sympathy with fathers and with boys, having them both in the family,
and a mother as well."

The bull-terrier leaped up in astonishment.

"You don't mean to say they keep a boy?"

"Sure; greatest boy on earth. Ten this year."

"Well, well, this is news! I wish they'd kept a boy when I was there."

The Airedale looked at his new friend intently.

"See here, who are you?" he demanded.

But the other hurried on:
"I used to run away from them just to play with a boy. They'd punish me, and I always
wanted to tell them it was their fault for not getting one."

"Who are you, anyway?" repeated Tam. "Talking all this interest in me, too. Whose
dog were you?"

"You've already guessed. I see it in your quivering snout. I'm the old dog that had to
leave them about ten years ago."

"Their old dog Bully?"

"Yes, I'm Bully." They nosed each other with deeper affection, then strolled about the
glades shoulder to shoulder. Bully the more eagerly pressed for news. "Tell me, how are
they getting along?"

"Very well indeed; they've paid for the house."

"I—I suppose you occupy the kennel?"

"No. They said they couldn't stand it to see another dog in your old place."

Bully stopped to howl gently.

"That touches me. It's generous in you to tell it. To think they missed me!"

For a little while they went on in silence, but as evening fell, and the light from the
golden streets inside of the city gave the only glow to the scene, Bully grew nervous and
suggested that they go back.

"We can't see so well at night, and I like to be pretty close to the path, especially
toward morning."

Tam assented.

"And I will point them out. You might not know them just at first."

"Oh, we know them. Sometimes the babies have so grown up they're rather hazy in
their recollection of how we look. They think we're bigger than we are; but you can't fool
us dogs."

"It's understood," Tam cunningly arranged, "that when he or she arrives you'll sort of
make them feel at home while I wait for the boy?"

"That's the best plan," assented Bully, kindly. "And if by any chance the little fellow
should come first,—there's been a lot of them this summer—of course you'll introduce
me?"

"I shall be proud to do it."

And so with muzzles sunk between their paws, and with their eyes straining down the
pilgrims' road, they wait outside the gate.

One Day (In Pictures)