Meditations on a Life of Organized Chaos: A Good Dog

Max in better days.

Max was a good dog. He wasn't flashy. He wasn't terribly talented. He could be a bit of a grump when it came to getting groomed ... okay, a lot of a grump. The only time he ever bared his teeth was if you dared to brush anywhere near his back side. He never was one to get overly excited to see any of us. I'm pretty sure that he would have just sighed heavily and turned his head away if there was ever an intruder who entered our house, but I always felt safer when he was near me any time Herman had to be out of town. He was fairly ordinary when it comes to household pets. But Max was a good dog.

We've had Max forever. Most of our kids don't know of a world where Max did not exist. We had a dog when we were newly married ... Bonsai. We weren't ready to have a dog. We shouldn't have had a dog when we were apartment dwellers, so after a year we gave Bonsai to a good family who lived out in the country and could give Bonsai a happier life. That was a gut wrenching decision for us, and it hurt me a lot to have to do that. We adored her. We didn't want to get another dog until we were in a better and more permanent place so that we could provide all that a dog would require to be happy. We were finally in that place when we moved to Waynesville and bought a house after Herman graduated from college. We knew we were ready to get a dog, so we headed down to the Springfield Humane Society to see if there was a dog there who would fit with our family.

And we met Max.

Laney and Savannah playing with Max in the outdoor area
of the humane society. They were all sooooo little!

It was so long ago, I can hardly remember why we chose Max. But he fit. He was calm enough to handle a bunch of enthusiastic children but brave enough to be a fierce guard dog if we ever needed one. Max entered a family of five (Spencer was just a baby), and he left us as a family of nine. He's seen a lot of change in the sixteen years he was part of our dynamic family.

Max was a fierce defender of our property here on the edge of civilization. There was a time not so long ago when the neighborhood opossums thought that they could get away with wandering our property at night. But soon Max became a legend among the local 'possum society. Max was a master 'possum catcher. For almost a week we would wake up and find that he had left a dead opossum at our back door. It was disgusting. But Max was happy to have served us. And we haven't seen another opossum in years. I am sure that there is a giant skull and cross bones planted right over our property on all the local opossum maps.

My favorite Max memory involves more of his great hunting skills ... and more tragedy for local livestock. We had decided that we were going to raise chickens one day. I think one of our renters had abandoned a group of chickens at our house once they vacated it, so we thought it would be a great idea to try our hand at chickenry (I know that isn't a word, but I don't know what works best in this case). Well, we read up on how to raise chickens, and one of the websites talked about how AMAZING it is to have dogs around the chickens. The site explained that dogs would simply sniff the chickens, determine that they were benign, and then leave them alone. As a bonus the dogs would work to keep predators out of the chicken area. Sweet! So we got our chickens situated in their own little area of our backyard, and once they were happily pecking away at the vermin in the ground we released Max into their presence so that he could make best friends with them. We opened the back door, let Max out, and then headed inside to relax and enjoy our new status as gentleman ranchers. After a few minutes I headed to my bedroom window to see how much fun Max and the chickens were having together. I looked outside to see Max looking up at me with a great big doggie smile on his face, and surrounding his face was a giant patch of chicken feathers. Oh no! Max was so, so proud of himself for keeping us safe from the dangerous chickens. Our poor chickens never had a chance. Needless to say, our attempt at chicken farming was short lived.

Max has been pretty active for an old dog. The vet always talked about how great it was that he could walk up and down stairs so easily for a dog his age. Until the past week he has been navigating our stairs with ease. But this past year has been a struggle for him. He was virtually deaf and couldn't really move very quickly. He spent most of his days sleeping and didn't find much joy in anything. He had lost control of his bowels, so he really couldn't stay inside the house for any length of time, so we did the best we could to make things comfortable outside. I knew that he wasn't going to make it through our winter here, and I knew that at some point we were going to have to make some tough decisions. Weirdly, we've never had to make end of life decisions for our pets before. We have had two cats in our marriage, and both of them met tragic ends. This is the first time we had a pet reach old age. I didn't really know what to do. I tried to look up advise online, and let me tell you, there are some angry pet advocates on the internet. I read angry rant after angry rant before deciding that these articles were not going to help me figure this out. A few weeks ago our neighbor came by to say that she thought that Max was stuck under our deck stairs. He liked to burrow under there, but now his hips were not working well enough to get him out of there. I told her that I knew that we were going to have to put him down soon, but I just didn't know when the right time was. She assured me that when the time came I would know.

Well, that time came last week. Max was burrowed outside next to our fence one day. That wasn't unusual. It was one of his favorite places to lay down in our back yard. But on that day it was raining pretty heavily, and I thought it was weird that Max wasn't trying to move at all to get out of the rain. Max has never really minded getting wet, but this was really unusual. I knew something was wrong. I ran outside to see if I could help him, and I found that his back legs weren't really working at all. I was able to get him standing, but he was struggling to move forward. With a little bit of work I was able to get him into a sheltered spot where he could be comfortable, but that was it. I knew that it was time to end his suffering and help him get to a better place. But how to do that? I had no idea.

We took Brownie to the vet last month, and I talked to our vet about Max and how to do end of life stuff. I got the feeling from her that she would be making me feel terribly guilty about our decision. Maybe that isn't the case, but it was my big concern. I looked up local veterinarians, and one particular one got great reviews for the most part. The negative reviews were all from people who were angry because they wanted him to do expensive procedures on their animals, but he told them that it would be more humane to put the animal down rather than subject them to these procedures that would only make the end of their lives more difficult. That's the guy I wanted. I called last Friday and was a mess as I talked with the receptionist. I told her that I didn't know what to do. She was very nice and patient, and she told me that it seemed like the right decision to bring Max in and have them help him go to sleep painlessly. Unfortunately there were no openings until this afternoon. Oh no! We were going to have to wait all weekend.

Most of the weekend was okay, but the last two days were awful. Max was in so much pain. He was pretty patient and slept through most of it, but when he was awake he would whine and whimper. It was so hard to hear him and not be able to help. I cursed myself for not calling a month ago and taking care of him when he was in better shape. I hated that I let things get so bad that his last few days had to be so miserable. Ugh!

This morning I woke up at 4:30 to get ready for seminary. I could hear Max whimpering, and it broke my heart. I planned on coming home, getting the kids off to school, and then spending some good quality time with Max before taking him to his vet appointment at noon. Unfortunately/fortunately Max had other plans. Right as I was getting ready to head out to spend time with Max, Herman came in to tell me that Max had died this morning. I immediately burst into tears ... those ugly sobbing tears. I was so upset that he was alone when he died. I wanted to be there. I wanted to help him feel a little better. I wanted to do something. But Max was dead. The fortunate part was that he was finally out of pain. His misery of the last few weeks was over. But, oh man!, I was surprised how much of a mess I was as I grieved.

Spencer and Katie were super troopers for us as they volunteered to dig a grave for him. Digging a grave in our area is no joke. There are more rocks than dirt in most places, and digging any depth requires a pick ax. But they are strong, and before long we had a good spot set aside for Max. Burying him was pretty difficult. I hate to think of him in the cold ground. But he's in a good spot where we can visit easily every day if we choose. It's so weird to think of him being buried and gone. He has been around for almost all of our years here in Waynesville. He has been everywhere. JoJo was probably most upset by the news that Max had died after he left for school since he has spent the most time playing with him and taking care of him at the end. He made Max a nice little grave site sign that told the time of death. JoJo was sure that it happened right as he got on the bus this morning, so he listed 7:25 as the time of death. Making this sign helped JoJo to feel a bit better as he remembered our good dog.

Everything feels a bit more empty around here tonight. Brownie doesn't quite know what to do. She's been digging holes like crazy all day, one of her go to activities when she is feeling stressed. Losing a pet is hard. I had forgotten how hard it can be since it has been so long since we have had to lose any of our pets. I wish it didn't have to be so hard. But I guess that's the price you pay when you fall in love with a pet. It's a price I'm willing to pay for the chance I had to be with Max for all these years. I'm glad he's in a better place. I'm glad he's no longer in pain. He was ordinary, but he was practically perfect. He was a good dog.