It's Killing Me That My Perfectly Healthy Dog Might Die One Day

Learning to roll over, sit, and stay in the moment.

Our dog Shirley is dying—in my mind.

She’s perfectly healthy according to the vet.

According to x-rays and bloodwork and degrees.

But I have a feeling.

The shelter said Shirley was three years old, but she’s always seemed older.

Our one-year-old pup, Raindrop, needed a playmate, and Shirley was the shelter’s go-to for training and calming other dogs.

She’d been at the shelter for a while. Her sister, Laverne, was adopted without her. Later, Shirley also got adopted, but was brought back. Twice.

“The problem is Shirley doesn’t really like men,” the shelter guy said. He looked at Steven. Then at me. Then he said, “She’ll probably like Byron best.”

That was three years ago.

Just like Shirley trained other dogs at the shelter, she’s trained all of us.

She taught Raindrop how to howl.

She taught us to yell, “Loud noise,” as a courtesy to her before we use the blender.

She barks at guests when she’s ready for them to leave.

A few weeks ago, we adopted my mom’s 12-year-old dachshund mix, Belle. Shirley became morose.

“She’s probably just yielding to the new, most senior member of the household,” Steven said.

“OR MAYBE SHE’S SICK!” I said.

I started counting the white hairs on Shirley’s snout. I compared photos from when we adopted her to now. I considered the way she looks at me sometimes.

Strangely, I don’t feel this way about Raindrop or Belle. They seem fine.

Raindrop is playful. Belle is energetic. Shirley seems pensive.

“Are you thinking about death?” I ask her.

Shirley looks at me as if to say, “Just give me a belly rub.”

I cry. The snotty kind. “I hope we did right by you. Thank you for protecting us. You’re a great sister and friend.”

When I was a kid, I didn’t use stickers. I was saving them.

I don’t wear my favorite clothes. I’m saving them.

I pre-mourned our previous dog, Tilda. Previous relationships. Previous jobs.

At one job—where I was happy!—I worried every day I’d get fired, and had the stress and diarrhea to prove it. I was getting fired in my mind every day. Traumatizing myself. The kinder thing would have been to actually get fired. At least then it would have only happened once.

Shirley takes her time on walks.

She eats slowly.

She naps in the sunshine.

Maybe it’s not pensive. Maybe it’s presence.

She rolls over. She just wants belly rubs. Probably without me weeping about nothing.

“Keep belly rubbing,” she says.

“Okay, okay,” I sob.

“At this rate, you’ll probably die first,” she says.

“I love you,” I say.

She rolls her eyes. “That’s the spot.”

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Life, death, dogs.

I try to make sense of it.

See it here.