Old Dogs

By Christina Svitek

Old dogs break your heart one day at a time. Their fur goes gray and their hips get arthritis. Their eyes glaze over with cataracts and their hearing fades. If you don’t pay attention, the years creep up and they no longer resemble the dog you thought you lived with. I don’t know when it happens. It just does. One day you look at your dog and try to remember when you got her and realize, my God, is she that old?
My girl Sadie is a black Lab and Australian Shepherd mix nearing the end of her 12th year of life. When she was a puppy, she was a beautiful shiny black with the tiniest hint of a white stripe on her chest. Everyone who met her thought she was a pure-bred Labrador retriever. But I knew, in the way she chased my feet as if she was herding me along and the way the fur on her back near her tail had a slow but persistent curl to it, that she had more than just Lab in her. Now, I look at her and see the white eyebrows and a snout turned almost grey. She never jumps up on my bed anymore. Several times a day she slips and falls in my house. Usually, the fall is precipitated by her intense need for food. She hears me in the kitchen or at the dinner table and in her rush to get to me; she loses her footing on the hardwood floor.
Sadie is a character. It is hard for me to imagine life without her but I realize more and more, I will have to accept that inevitability. I come from a family of doomsday thinkers. When I was young and there was a storm rolling in, my mother would gather me and any of my seven siblings she could find into the living room. We’d unplug the TV and close the curtains and wait for the storm to begin. And while I craved
comfort, needing someone to assure me that it would be OK, I seldom got my wish. Instead, mom would lean over and whisper.
“Listen…..listen. Do you hear it? The birds have all gone quiet.”
Then a pause and a look of dread. “They’ve gone quiet because they know what’s coming.”
I still shiver when I think of it. Today, when I see storm clouds rolling in, I remember her warning and strain to hear the birds for reassurance that it won’t be that bad.
I’ve learned to anticipate disaster. I’m not usually morbid. I don’t try to create tragedy. But I make certain that I will be prepared when it strikes. Somehow, in the depths of my person, I believe that if I anticipate it, if I imagine it before it becomes reality, then I’ll handle it with poise and an air of calm.
I do this on a daily basis. At times, it is quite useful. I have guessed right more often than not, and in a medical research setting where details matter, I’ve managed to avoid problems simply by anticipating and preparing for them.
Of course, this type of thinking has a cost. In the laboratory, an experiment that should take a day can be delayed indefinitely if every pitfall is examined and every question is answered. Sometimes it’s worth the delay and sometimes, the delay costs too much. As in most things, a healthy balance is what usually saves the day.
So I find myself watching Sadie and imagining her demise. At times, I work myself into a frenzy of tears and sadness. Sadie watches this of course and is sure a biscuit is coming her way. She knows me so well, because after I’ve lain with my head over her heart and felt her belly for lumps and forced her to get up and show me that she can still walk, she does get that biscuit. Two, if I’m still crying.
When Sadie was ten, I timidly asked her vet how long she might live. He avoided a direct answer.
“Getting her weight down this past year sure did help. It makes it easier on her arthritic hips.”
Ever the Girl Scout, I asked again.
“Yes, but what is the expected life span for a dog like her? How long do you think?”
Keep in mind, of course, that at that point, Sadie was quite healthy. Yes, she had her thyroid problem and her hip dysplasia and her arthritis. There were her food allergies and skin condition. Not to mention her puffy elbow (a soft callous on the elbow of her right front leg that tended to fill with fluid and bleed now and then). But she was healthy. Her vet, Dr. Fullerton, is a down-to-earth guy who loves dogs and always treats Sadie with kindness. Me, on the other hand, he treats with confusion and uncertainty. I persisted.
“Really, can’t you give me an estimate? She could have five more years, right?”
“Well, Chris,” he said with exasperation. “I doubt she’s going to outlive you!”
I knew that was the best he could do and I’d do well to leave it alone.
When I first got Sadie, I lived in a duplex and I imagined she would curl at my feet under my big oak writing desk and keep me company as I churned out great works of art. I soon learned that Sadie didn’t like it under my desk and eventually, she simply didn’t fit under there. When it came time to move, Sadie supervised as I tore up carpets, refinished floors and washed the walls of my first house. She happily christened our new back yard.
As the years passed, she was there when I lost people and animals that were dear to me. My friend, Mary, died unexpectedly and much too young. Bill, a former co-worker, passed suddenly of a heart attack. Steve, a mentor who guided me through one of the more difficult times of my life, succumbed after a year and a half battle with throat cancer. Each time, Sadie stayed near as I sat on the floor and wept for my loss.
Then there was Peyton, my sister’s golden retriever, who was euthanized, a victim of miscommunication at the local shelter. When Elvis, the rambunctious Lab and Springer Spaniel mix belonging to my brother and his wife, died, I stayed on the phone a long time crying and trying to explain to my baby brother what I thought heaven would be like and that his Elvis would most certainly be there. Of course, I couldn’t forget Juniper, the mutt my father adopted before I found Sadie. He was the only male left with my father in what had become a “too female” household. Juniper died with my father stroking his coat in the living room one summer evening. My sister tried to get my father and Juniper to the vet in time to save him, but that was not meant to be.
So I watch and wait. Sadie loves it, I surmise. In her own dog way, she knows something is up and, of course, she uses it to her advantage. She reminds me that the biscuits are kept in the linen closet. She sits dutifully at my feet while I eat dinner. She supervises my lunch preparation and happily eats the apple scraps after I’ve peeled and sliced her favorite fruit.
And I know I will lose her. I can imagine it and I can plan for it. But I know that when it happens, it will hit me like a fist in the gut and for a while, the wind will be knocked out of me. I know I will have to remember to breathe and I know that nothing will prepare me for the emptiness. I cannot listen for the absence of sound to warn me. I cannot get the exact date and if it comes down to it, I may have to make the decision for her. I may have to help her make a graceful exit.
There it is. The awful truth. Nothing
I write or plan or imagine will keep it
at bay.
Still, I look to my mother and her approach for comfort. I try to think it through and anticipate and somehow believe that this will make it easier.
Someone told me once of a couple who had two aging Greyhounds. When the dogs eventually died, this couple who had had no human children grieved them like the children they had become. They swore they’d never get another pet. No animal would ever hurt them like that again. They just couldn’t survive it.
My response to this story was surprise. I hope I don’t react that way when Sadie is gone. I wonder what this couple learned from their dogs. Hadn’t they known, like Dr. Fullerton reminded me, that their dogs would not likely outlive them? Didn’t they understand that this was how it happened? Didn’t they know that when we make a commitment to an animal, when we decide to take them into our lives, that’s part of the deal? We get to have them and enjoy them and laugh at them and experience all of it. We just have to give them up sooner rather than later.
I know that I will lose Sadie. I also know that I would no more give up Sadie than I would have given up Mary or Bill or Steve. Even if I had known that those friendships were going to be cut short, I would still have chosen to have those amazing people in my life. We cannot choose how long the people or animals we love stay in our lives. We can choose to NOT have them in our lives by never inviting them in. But the time frame isn’t up to us.
Knowing the storms were coming when I was a kid didn’t help. I still felt the fear and uncertainty and, until the storms passed, the fear remained. Knowing ahead of time didn’t make it less scary. And even worse, the fear kept me from seeing the waves of rain puddling along the curb or the lightning performing across the summer sky.
I still cringe when storm clouds gather and I think of worst-case scenarios. I am one of the first people to suggest we go to the basement or into an internal room for safety. But sometimes, for a few minutes, I stay at the window and watch. Sadie, though deaf with old age, senses something is going to happen and she stays near me. And together, we experience a little bit of the storm.

(Update: As this story was being prepared for publication, on June 10, 2006, Chris helped Sadie make her final exit.)

Nonfiction Honorable Mention

More Heat

By Mike McKaskle

In 1972, my brother Steve married into a family who owned over half the farmland in Pemiscot County, Missouri. His new bride, Kaye, was the youngest of three sisters. There were no sons and neither she, nor her older sisters, nor their spouses had any interest in farming. Just before Steve’s graduation from college, Kaye’s dad made him an offer and just like that, he became
a farmer.
I am sure my brother had seen a few tractors and maybe even stood next to one, but that was the extent of his farming experience. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Steve embraced this one with an energy and enthusiasm that gradually won the hearts of the old farmers in Braggadocio, Missouri. My brother had everything to learn but also had a good teacher in his new father-in-law.
One of the hardest things for Steve to learn was how to fill up his time between the fall harvest and the spring planting season. One evening that first winter, he and his wife had me over for dinner. Toward the end of the meal, Steve pulled out a copy of The Whole Earth Catalog and asked me to read a section about a farmer who was making methane gas from chicken droppings. The farmer was using the gas as fuel for his tractor, his pick-up truck and for heating his home. For the price of postage, he would send complete instructions on how to duplicate the process.
It was obvious my brother was seriously considering this as a winter project. When I asked him if he had sent for the plans, he told me there was no need for that. He already understood the process well enough to proceed. I next inquired as to where he was going to get enough fresh chicken droppings. He reminded me that he was raising hogs. They produced plenty of droppings, and he was confident that there was no difference in the methane producing properties of the two varieties of feces.
I vaguely recall Steve’s theorizing that heat was the key element in the process. I also remember that he seemed disappointed in my lack of enthusiasm for the project. I left his house that evening assuming I would hear no more about it.
A few weeks later, on a cold and windy Sunday afternoon, Steve called. He asked me to drive out to the farm and meet him at his shop. There was something he wanted to show me. When I asked what it was, he said, “Just meet me at the shop.”
Steve came out of the shop door just as I was pulling up. I was barely out of the car when he asked if I recalled our conversation about making methane gas. I said yes and followed him into the shop. It was an old barn-type structure with a dirt floor and lots of places for the wind to blow through. So as I stepped through the doorway, I was surprised by how warm it was inside.
In the middle of the room, there was a blazing gas burner set up underneath an old 55-gallon metal drum. Attached to the top of the drum was a pressure gauge with copper tubing running to an old oxygen cylinder. With pride, my brother explained how he had filled the drum half full of fresh hog feces and sealed it by welding the top back on.
Steve then explained his theory of hog excrement fermentation. He told me he had discerned that heat was the key element in any fermenting process. By adding the gas burner, he hoped to speed up the production of methane gas. When the gauge indicated that sufficient pressure had built up inside the drum, he would open the valve and allow the gas to flow into the empty cylinder.
Leaning my head close to the drum, I could hear the hog droppings boiling inside, but the needle on the pressure gauge had not moved from the zero mark. I asked Steve if maybe the gauge was faulty, or if there might be some leaks. He then described how he had pressure checked the whole system after sealing the drum and installing the pressure gauge. He did not respond to my question about the gauge itself. He simply said, “I think we need more heat.”
He salvaged two more gas burners, along with another bottle of propane from his father-in-law’s fish cooker. We rigged them up under the drum. Once all three burners were lit, it was clear there was now plenty of heat. Flames enveloped the bottom of the drum and lapped up the sides. It wasn’t long before the bottom of the drum gave off a faint orange glow. We began to hear pinging noises caused by the increasing pressure inside the drum and the resulting expansion of metal. Steve finally acknowledged having questions about the pressure gauge, which was still reading zero.
Suddenly, we heard the sound of a vehicle approaching across the gravel lot. My brother seemed alarmed by the prospect of an uninvited guest at this critical stage of our project. I followed him outside and recognized Gary, one of Steve’s in-laws, behind the wheel of his pick-up as it ground to a halt in front of the shop.
As we approached the driver’s side of the vehicle, Gary rolled his window down and asked if we wanted a beer. This was pretty much his standard greeting. My brother declined on behalf of both of us because, as he explained later, taking Gary up on his offer would mean a long visit. Instead, Steve invited Gary and his wife to drop by later that evening. Gary seemed pleased with that idea, said goodbye, and headed back across the gravel lot. He had just pulled onto the blacktop and was almost out of sight when there was an explosion inside the shop.
Steve and I ran to the door. As we stepped across the threshold, we were greeted by a sight and smell I recall to this day. While my brother turned off the gas, I surveyed the damage. Every exposed surface, including one side of my brother’s brand new John Deere tractor, was coated with hot, steaming hog excrement. There was not much left of the drum. I was just about to laugh when my brother, who had clearly lost his sense of humor, said, “Let’s go.”
I rode with my brother as he stopped by the homes of his three farm-hands, telling them he needed their help over at the shop. As we rode along, Steve explained that he kept these workers on the payroll through the winter months. Helping us clean up the mess would give them something to do. When we arrived back at the shop, I didn’t follow Steve back inside. Instead, I made up an excuse about having something I needed to do and awkwardly made my exit.
Over the years, my brother and I have rarely talked about the events of that cold December day. It seems to be an embarrassing episode he would just as soon forget, but I have told the story many times and enjoy it more with each telling. I helped my brother with planting and harvest over the next couple of years following the methane gas debacle. At least once during each season I would pick up the odd wrench or hammer and find affixed to it a small, greenish-brown piece of hardened organic material. I would show my brother, and we would both just smile and shake our heads.