Toby

Toby Tuesday

| halfnutswilltravel

tobyI left Toby in the room with my girls – his girls – to take care of the paper work before the vet came in to do the kind thing.

Between signing documents and receipts, a man brought in his exceptionally gravid English Bulldog in active labor.  She was rushed in for a c-section.  The exchange, the swapping of a worn out life for a brand new one, or maybe three or four, was tangible.

Toby was ready, and when we were, too, it was done.  He fell asleep on my chest and woke up down the hall, or maybe under someone’s porch, or in a warm kitchen.

Swollen eyed and snotty, we emerged from the examination room.  Before we left the twenty four hour vet clinic, I slipped the Bulldog man a napkin with my e-mail address and phone number.  If he ended up with a puppy who needed a home, could he contact me?  Please?

I hope he doesn’t call.  I made Toby a promise.  I’ll never adopt another dog until I can love it the way I’ve loved him in the last few weeks.

It won’t be soon.

Toby Tuesday

| halfnutswilltravel

A week ago we gathered family into the small veterinarian office to say our goodbyes.  I explained that he’d perked up when friends visited and that by dinner time he’d accepted a nibble of chicken from my hand. 

The whole time we spoke,  Toby stood on the table.   That morning,  he couldn’t even lift his head. 

I couldn’t do it. 

We devised a plan and the vet administered some more antibiotics and pain meds.   By the next morning, she told us, we’d know the right thing to do; he’d show more small improvement,  or he wouldn’t. 

All of this was coinciding, outside of our awareness,  with the wearing off of a 24 hour anti nausea medication Toby had been given on Monday.  Maybe that explains his convulsing and limpness,  but not the fever,  high white blood cells, or fluid in his lungs.

I’ve continued to give him antibiotics and pain meds and each day he has improved a little.   On Thursday,  he pooped for the first time in a week.   On Friday,  he walked himself to our back yard to spend some quality time in the sunshine.  By Sunday, he began fighting back with enough strength that it now takes two people to administer his medication. 

The fur hanging in his eyes made him look so sad and burdened, so I tried to give him a trim.   I cannot be trusted with scissors, and the services of a professional were called in to clean up my mess.  Now bald, I watch him waddle and I realize his back legs don’t always work like they should.  There are some hard, jagged lumps under the skin over his upper torso.  We will see the vet again at the end of this week, and I believe we’ll find out we’re treating an acute symptom of something much worse.

But that’s ok.   I’ve had time to love him now,  and I’ll keep doing it until he needs me to make the final,  loving call.   Last week, we weren’t there.   Not even close.  By needing me to keep him alive, Toby made me want him to live. 

When he took his turn for the worse,  I was in New York at a writer’s retreat.  I got to hear the story of a woman who, in the final hours of her husband’s ex-wife’s life, was asked to do something extremely easy,  yet personal to bring comfort to the woman who had been her natural enemy.  She described that moment of care-taking beautifully,  as it transformed years of animosity, not into pity,  but forgiveness and humanity.   

I was reminded of a quote by Benjamin Franklin.  Just as last weekend,  I am still paraphrasing,  but the gist is this:  If you want to make a friend of an enemy,  ask them to do you a favor.  Ask to borrow their book, or a cup of sugar.  Ask them to apply your chapstick when your arms no longer work.  Ask them to hold you down and squirt antibiotics into your throat when you are dying, but still non – compliant.  Once your enemy has helped you, they are vested in your well-being.   They are a part of your success.  They will root for you. 

And I know from experience,  that hot-wired connect goes both ways.  

If you’re being weighed down by your dislike or outright hatred of somebody and you’d like to stop feeling so crummy about it, quit waiting for them to change.   Stop judging them and go help them.

I mean,  if you tell me you like hating people, then carry on.   I don’t buy it,  and I’d love to bake you some cookies,  or help you pull weeds, or something – but you keep doing you.

But for those – and there are many – who are genuinely in despair about the  politics of nearly – half of the country, maybe we can try to find ways to help them out with their personal struggles – not so that their ideology wins,  but so that our own peace and well-being does. 

For a poor, little, naked shih-tzu who only knows two tricks, he sure is a wise and dedicated sensei. 

Toby Tuesday

| halfnutswilltravel

Toby.jpg

Behind every good dog, there is a larger, quirky, more photogenic dog, and for years I’ve been using cheese to bribe Good Dog to get out of the frame so I can take my Woody Wednesday shots.

I’ve not been a good mama to Good Dog.  I could have pet him more.  He would have liked that; he isn’t touch averse like Woody is.  But he is smaller and it’s a further reach to pat his head or tickle his chin.  What’s two more feet?  I wish I’d made the effort.  I know he does, too.

He was a replacement for something we never should have let go.  We lost Mushroom, TallGirl’s Siamese cat, to mental illness – the collective mental illness that was my marriage.  That year, it was the mere existence of the cat that made Him unhappy, and I believed it was possible to fix someone else’s unhappiness.  I wasn’t a very good mama to TallGirl, either.  The cat – her cat – found a new home.  Oh God, she was so sad.  This fluffy, white puppy would surely stem the flow of sadness bleeding out of my eleven year old.  He didn’t.  He couldn’t.  How could he?  Especially from the laundry room, where he lived his first two years because he might pee on a carpet and there would be unhappiness again.  Or still.  Best not to find out.  She still bleeds for Mushroom, and I am bleeding for her.  And now for Toby.

I did not want a dog named Toby.  Eleven and a half years ago, we drove home from the puppy mill that wanted to put him down because of his defect – the one blue eye – trying to guess what he wanted to be called.  In hindsight, I don’t think he cared.  We rejected names like Rex, Jared, Fluffy, DogDog, and Snowball.  We couldn’t use Snowball because that’s what TallGirl wanted to name her little brother before he was born, and she might someday decide to use that name for her own child.  I won’t stop her.  TallGirl and her dad decided they were going to turn on the radio and name him after the next song we heard.  Please don’t judge me for where the radio was tuned.

How Do You Like Me Now by Toby Keith sealed his fate.  I was limited in how much I could protest.  Toby was my shortest boyfriend, ever.  He didn’t want me to wear heels to prom.  In our photos, what you can’t see under my full length dress is that even in flats, I still had to bend my knees just a little so that the difference was not obvious.  Embarrassingly, he was also my cousin.  Somebody could have mentioned that sooner, and I feel they should have.  Articulating my objection would not be worth the embarrassment.  My suggestion that we name him Keith instead was voted down, and that was that.

Is that why we never bonded, Toby and I?  He sure liked me.  Have I subconsciously neglected the four legged one because of the shortcomings of the two legged one?   It was benign neglect, I assure you.  He had food and shelter and veterinary care.  I gave him other people that would adore him.  Mike thinks he’s the bee’s knees.  But while I never wished him gone, I did sometimes wish he wasn’t here.

He likes wearing stinky things, noisily licking himself while we eat dinner, and snoring against my bedroom door late at night.  He licks walls and appliances and scoots his butt on the hardwood floors.  But he is a Good Dog.  And he has been Woody’s companion animal for the last decade.  They are the odd couple.

He’s not been feeling very good lately; vet trips, a couple of routine surgeries, and four different antibiotics.  Last night I climbed into the bathtub with him.  Did he trust me, or was he just too tired to fight?  As the warm water enveloped him, he stopped shivering and relaxed into me.  I rolled him onto his back, cradled in my lap.  He looked me right in the eye and spoke to me in a language I know well.

Wheeze.  I can’t breathe

Cough.  I can’t breathe.

Whimper.  Help me.

The vet – our kind, caring vet, says there is no amount of money we can spend to change what is now inevitable.  There is also no end to the amount we could spend to delay it by a day – maybe two.  Many times over the years, we have been prepared to lose Woody, but Toby?  I can tell you we never imagined he would go first.  Or at all.  Toby was forever.  There is a twenty-five year old notebook that says so in a box somewhere in our basement.

I made the appointment for seven o’clock tonight so that family can say goodbye.  There will never be enough time for me to tell you how badly I wish I had been a better mama.  There should have been Toby Tuesdays.