Everyone wishes for a perfect life. Everyone’s definition of a perfect life varies. Mine has never been what I would consider especially grand. It’s always been a modest living with someone I love in a decent place. We reasonably know as adults in this world, at least today’s world, that there will be challenges to overcome. I’ve faced a great deal many challenges, some won, some lost.

Owning pets has always been a challenge. They are a lot of work. We had a dog growing up who was my best friend. She jumped, she ran, she played, and she’d sleep next to me, or I’d sleep on her. I’m not known for full-on crying, but the day she was put down after living out all of her life was one of the worst days. Since then I’ve come into being quite the cat guy, adopting an older cat from a deceased relative, whom lived out a few more years before having to be put down for thyroid problems. We got more cats, fostered cats, still have a few of those cats. When my wife wanted to get dogs, it was going to be the first time I had a dog since our family dog passed away. The thought was delightful and terrifying. We lived in an apartment with little yard, having a dog seemed like a pain in the ass. But I like dogs, and since we didn’t have kids, it would be nice to have one again.

We adopted/rescued a dachshund who had been found on the streets around Hartford. Presumably his owners either abandoned him or he got loose. With no one claiming him, it was either be adopted, or likely be destroyed. We adopted him. We named him “Dyson” because he liked to put his nose to the ground and sniff out anything that might be food, probably from being outside. Besides being a bit thin, he was in otherwise excellent health and after shots and everything he became the first dog to our family.

My wife always feels you can never have one of something. The cat needs someone to play with. The dog needs someone to play with. So with little warning I came home to a second dachshund, “Toby”. He was also a rescue from a couple who could not keep him. He looked like he might’ve been abused and had some trouble adjusting to a new home, but he and Dyson got along very well together. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with heartworm, and even though we acted on it pretty quickly, he did not respond well to the treatment and had to be put to sleep to spare him the pain and suffering. We only had him a short time, but it was long enough that we bonded with him and he bonded with us, so it was especially hard to let go.

“Penelope” was our third dachshund, this time adopted from a breeder. I had just bought a new car the day we went to pick her up, and she threw up all over my wife and some of the car upon leaving to return home. She continues to live up to that reputation of being a pain in the ass, going to the bathroom wherever she wants, and wrestling the cat. Like Toby, she too took to Dyson and he reciprocated that affection. Some people have issues introducing new pets to the home with existing pets, but Dyson always accepted anyone that came in, and even though one of our cats who doesn’t like to be bothered would whack him (and Penelope) from time-to-time, it felt like we had four cats living in our house, two of which were actually dogs.

Which brings me to now.

I woke up early on a Saturday to bring both of them to the park where a dog-theme fair was going on. My wife, a dog groomer, was working with her shop in a booth. We spent the day outside, they got to be held and sit in laps, walk around, and get treats. It was like any other day. The next day, he was in pain around his lower half, but still walking. We thought it might be constipation, because he ate a bunch of treats and he occasionally has that problem. She worked with him throughout the day and got him to poop, so we thought he might be okay. The next day he went to jump on the couch, and immediately yelped and fell back, dragging his legs on the floor.

The first hospital we went to didn’t have much to offer being so late in the day, and had us go to a twenty-four hour emergency vet across town. There, they looked at him and diagnosed that he might’ve done something to his back, but that to find out if it was a slipped/heniated disc, he’d need an MRI. We don’t have a lot of money having bought a house the year before, so with their recommendation, we tried crate rest and some medication. The fear was that if he lost “deep pain” in his legs, that would be a sign that he needs surgery within hours. That happened a couple days later after not really responding to treatment, but after wrestling with the costs, we brought him to another place a ways away that does specialized surgery. There, he placed his odds of walking again at 50-50. We pretty much assumed at this point that he might not walk on his back legs, but he’d at least live, and would just need a wheelchair and to have his facilities dealt with by-hand. But in that same breath, he also warned us that if the damage is severe, it could continue up the spine and once set, he’d basically die fairly quickly. It was a ten percent chance. After figuring out how to pay for it, we went ahead with the surgery. The surgery went without an issue, and in the couple days after, he seemed to be eating and awake. But in the last two days, he started showing signs of advanced spinal damage, and was not responding to any further medication. My wife and I decided to let him go.

A lot of people consider dogs to be dogs. They’re cute and furry, and love you to pieces, but when something bad happens and the cost is very high, most people chose not to and put them to sleep instead. It’s a decision that I accept and reject. I accept it because people are free to choose, and often it is ethically right to spare an animal pain and suffering. But in many cases, especially when it comes to something like the loss of legs, most people might make the decision to end the animal’s life because it can’t walk on all four feet. You see animals with missing limbs often on TV or on the internet, and they appear just as happy as any regular animal. We live in a society that finds itself increasingly grappling with people with “special needs” but there are few pet owners out there I feel willing to take on a “special needs” pet. But above all, when you consider your pet as essential to your family, like we consider all of our pets, you want to do everything you possibly can. That costs money, and a lot of money. I’m not sure how many people asked me about pet insurance, and I know it’s out there, and I regret not considering it before when you consider that this is a very real risk with dachshunds, but you always figure that you’d be equipped to handle these things somehow if they arise. We continue to beat ourselves up emotionally for not just getting him to surgery sooner and possibly saving not only his life, but his legs, and I wouldn’t be here typing this or shaking the dirt off my jeans from digging a hole next to my garage out back. I’ve never dug a hole before for an animal, her brother buried Toby at their old family home, and my father buried the cat I adopted years back. Digging that hole wasn’t the hardest part, watching her sister place the box inside and then me raking the dirt over the hole was emotionally the hardest fucking moment of my life. I could barely talk or breathe, much less move my arms. Hell, it’s pretty bad just typing all of this out right now. Why? Yeah, he was an important part of this family, but he was a dog. Death is inevitable, if it wasn’t now, it would be in ten years or so for him.

But that’s the point. In ten years, if he passed away of age or a condition, I’d still be pretty sad, but I could at least say he lived a good life, and I’d have ten years worth of photos and memories to consider. My hopefully-soon-to-have children could have memories with him. For someone like me, who is terrified of death myself, I grapple with mortality and existence on an almost daily basis. I often think that is why I enjoy Emily Dickenson poems about death and immortality the most, because she was purported to also deal with similar issues. But when you consider we live in an age where we continue to manipulate mortality, what really fucking hurts is knowing that had we had the money or the means to pay for it from the beginning, we should have just shot first and asked questions later. People think I am crazy, they’ll say that isn’t worth it, or that vets are blood-sucking leeches, and this and that. They probably are, and I’m always weary of vets taking me to the cleaners because they probably see me as an emotionally clueless pet owner willing to pay top dollar for the goddamn inevitable. I guess I still have a shred of humanity left in me, because I can’t blame those people, and I can’t even blame myself for the bill I will be paying off in the next year. I’ll continue to justify to myself that I did everything I could, and that even thought he was only three, he got to at least live two of the best years of his life with this family, this crazy, fucked up, psychotic-as-shit of a family.

But as much as I want break down and soil myself over my constant misfortunes in life, we still have Penelope, and I feel even worse for her, because she was attached to him. She doesn’t deal well alone, and only being a little over one, hasn’t spent any time at all being the only dog. She has at least one of our cats who will play with her, but I don’t profess to understand how lonely she probably feels. I imagine a lot of that will pass over time, and we’ll probably get another dog down the road, maybe another dachshund, maybe something different. There are always dogs to be rescued and given new homes, I just can’t help but feel sometimes that something out there, God or otherwise, has a vendetta against me and doesn’t want me to ever be happy. I know that sounds hilariously stupid, but that seems to be my track record these days. I’ll especially be upset if we turn out to be having a kid in the coming months because then it’ll have felt like a really shitty equivalent exchange.

I’m sorry, Dyson. I really am. I wish we had known what to do sooner, and maybe you’d still be here. I’m sorry I am too much of a problem to have come seen you today. Just understand that we love you, and did everything we could. I hope you find something out there wonderful.

My life closed twice before its close
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me

Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

-Emily Dickinson