Final Sweet Pea Update

I decided to put the Sweet Pea down.

Then I decided not to.

then I changed my mind and changed it back again.

I asked her what she wanted, I tried to listen with my third eye.

I pondered what it was like to be in her body living her days, what would I want?

I don’t think I’ll ever be sure of what she wants, or what I want, but this is what it’s like:

I hear her click clack limping gait when she gets up off of one of the piles of blankets, little nests everywhere, strewn throughout the house. She is incontinent and poops in her sleep. It wakes her up after the fact and she wants to move away from the little turds. The poop is easy to pick up and flush down the toilet, easier than all the poopy cloth diapers I washed for 4 years when I was a young mama, better than all the plastic bags full of dog shit in landfills, but I earnestly don’t want her to pee in the house, so my senses are heightened. I am ready, at any time of night and day, to leap up and cheerlead her disabled body, that envelops her sweet spirit, that wants to please me, down the 3 steps at the back kitchen door, so she can pee outside. “Come on, you can do it, let’s go potty outside. Here you go, I gotcha.” I stand at the bottom of the steps and catch her like a football, like a child jumping off the edge of a pool into trusted arms. She ends up between my calves and I rub her back legs and tell her she’s a good girl.

So yeah, It’s her legs….all of them. The front ones are stiff and her left foot is curled inwards.I can tell it hurts and the vet said the way she walks and holds her head below her shoulders indicates permanent neurological damage. Her back end is not getting the electrical juices she needs to feel, so it seems a bit atrophied and she can’t keep her legs from crossing and getting tangled and all wobbly…and she can’t tell she’s pooping. There’s also the hard mass under her left ribcage. It doesn’t seem to hurt when I touch it, but something somewhere in her body hurts piercingly on occasion. When I rub her down with love there will be a moment when she winces in pain and lets out a high pitched cry. I always say sorry and my heart cracks and weeps a bit.

She can’t do much but sleep, eat, bark adamantly at strangers, and her happiest moments of expression are when I return from being out. She is spry and spunky for a short bit, smiling and barking, and wagging her tail. I am surprised by the immense amount of love we have for each other. She does have a lot of love and alertness in her mind, in her eyes. I cuddle with her and she makes my heart swell in a good way. She likes to be near Casper. She enjoys hobbling out to see the chickens and goats once a day. So I see both suffering and joy in this animal that entered our lives unexpectedly.

Death is not an end.

I’ve watched my body change. I have felt pain and joy come and go. Essence is the thread sewn through impermanence which gives the illusion that we are something solid and to not be in this body would mean we are no longer, but I believe that death is a portal and there is freedom for Sweet Pea, The Old Puppy on the other side.

The hard part is I must choose to bring death to her. The beautiful part is she has been steeped in comfort and love for the last days of her life. I have an inkling her life before was very rough.

There is a unique type of ache with brief loving encounters whether it be a person, an animal, or even a time that was only meant for a season of your life and not the whole story.

RIP Sweet Pea. Thank you for teaching me more about unconditional love and loss.