Kirkepiscatoid

I got some tough news from two of my friends today.

Their beloved Bo has a yet to be diganosed soft tissue malignancy and it's probably fairly dire b/c it appears to have eroded into a rib. Right now, Bo seems in good enough spirits, so there is no urgency with any decisions. Bo is spending the night at the University of Missouri vet school, and everyone will have a better idea of what they are dealing with in a few days. They have been blessed that even though he is 12 years old, he's always been a very "young" 12. Most big dogs are already pretty old by age 12.

He had a small mass for some time. Of course, none of us thought much of it, because older dogs often get benign fatty tumors. but then recently he started having more masses.

But this is all tough duty, even for "dog extended family" like myself. There will be decisions to be made, things to think about, and a LOT of tears in this family, and mostly, my job will be "just be there." It is hard to walk through these decisions with a dog...in some ways harder than with people, because it seems to be accelerated b/c of the shortness of a dog's life, and also because active euthanasia is always one of the options on the table. It's hard for us to understand what a dog thinks, what a dog feels, when thinking about treating something vs. not treating it. I have found in my own case, I have to always step back and ask myself, "Am I treating the dog, or am I treating me?" At any rate, it is tough, whether you are the owners or just the friend of the owners.

I kind of know what Bo is to this family. He is that kind of dog that I think, sometimes, a person only gets to have once in a lifetime. I think if you have been a good person, you are allowed ONE dog that is different than any other dog...a dog that seems "more than a dog" in more ways than most dogs. If you have really courted God's favor, you are allowed more than one. It's not that you love your other dogs in your life less, it's just that this "one dog" is different. That one dog you are allowed to have makes you question everything you think you know about the mysteries of the cosmos.

Bo is that dog in this family. He represents a time in Bo's dad's life when he was very alone and at times, Bo must have seemed to be all he had in the world that was loyal and true. He represents the gift of "learning to love" in the case of Bo's mom. She was attracted to Bo's dad b/c Bo was in the first picture she ever saw of him, and it broke the ice to exploring a relationship that led to marriage. She didn't like Bo at first, b/c he didn't get along with her dog Rex. But she learned to love him, and I am sure learning to love Bo was part of the plan of learning to love all the things that came with this new family she chose.

When I think of these two friends, I don't just think of them, it's "them and Bo and Zera." All four of them are part of a family I dearly love. So, this news about Bo cuts into the security and stability of my extended family, too.


Here is my "once in a lifetime dog." J.R. was my dog of my young adult life. I got him right after college, and he was my dog when I was teaching school for a living, my dog of my medical school years and part of my residency. He was a cast-off. A lady gave him to me b/c her husband mistreated him and she feared he'd kill him. He was damaged goods. He was deathly afraid of storms. He never did learn to be comfortable around "blond men." But he was smart--smarter than just the ordinary "Sheltie smart" in a lot of ways. He probably knew about 300 words. He babysat the small children at our med school parties. If you asked him in a totally different part of the house, "Where do we keep the cheese?" he'd scratch the fridge. If you asked him "Where do we cook the weenies?" he'd scratch the stove. I did NOT teach him this. He made me wonder if the Hindus weren't on to something about reincarnation.

I was always amazed at what I COULD teach him. He would spin in a circle in the direction your spun your finger...clockwise...counterclockwise. He won a year's worth of dog food in a contest b/c I taught him to tap a telegraph key and just by dumb luck, he tapped out "eat" in Morse code! (then again, maybe it wasn't dumb luck!) He made me believe in Jim the Wonder Dog. The picture above was J.R. wearing my hood and cap from my med school graduation in 1991. We all joked maybe the wrong one of us graduated!

When he got old, he got arthritic and "down in the rear" and I eventually had to put him to sleep when life was just too painful for him. He got fearful that he could not get up and whined and cried with a horrible tone to his voice, because his old joints hurt too bad. It became just not fair to expect him to lie there in fear till I got home. I cried for days after I had put him to sleep, even after I brought his successor Mr. Willis Woo home.

(Ok, I admit it. I lasted five whole days without a dog. I caught holy hell from my grandmother for not "mourning J.R. for the appropriate time frame" but all in all, Mr. Willis Woo was a godsend. The flip side of that was I remember when my grandmother was dying of cancer, she was petting Mr. Willis Woo and I overheard her telling him, "I'm sorry I didn't like you at first, because you were not J.R. But now you are the most loyal of them all when I can't even get out of bed. I'm sorry I thought that.")

But thinking about dear Bo this evening, I remember J.R., and it helps me understand exactly why Bo and his mom and dad need your prayers.