Ten-Finger Exercises

unsuccessful avoidance of pain

All I want to do is play solitaire tonight. I don't want to go finish cleaning up after the week's company, getting ready for the ones that will be coming this Friday. I want to bury my head in the sand, and solitaire seems like a good way.

Saturday night I had trouble sleeping. I had only nodded off when bumping and crashing sounds wakened me about 2 a.m. It was Seamus on the screen porch, falling. The cyst on his head, which had been growing like a little horn, had ruptured and dripped all over his furry ear. He was disoriented, stood with his head in the corner and couldn't seem to remember how to lie down. I did what I could to help, steering him by his harness to a sleeping position, and gave him a pain pill which he takes for arthritis. Evidently it relaxed him and he did sleep.

I called the priest at 6 (No, no last rites for dogs) to tell her I would be skipping the 8 o'clock service and would see her at 10. My kids and grandkids were still here, and I was tired and upset about the dog.

Last week was very hot while the kids were here, and instead of walking the dog in the orchard, I walked him around the back yard while the children swam. He has been taking himself on yard patrol regularly recently. Maybe he knows it keeps him from getting so stiff. I brought him inside for a couple of the hottest days. When it was a little cooler on Saturday, he followed the two doggie visitors around the yard with interest, which is about as much activity as he ever could muster with other dogs. So I wasn't prepared for him to crash, but feel guilty anyway. If he'd had a little more of my attention...if this, if that.

I put peroxide on his cyst, and washed and trimmed the hair on his ear as best I could. He doesn't like his ears messed with. Not that he growls, just that he's uncomfortable and wants to get away. And I took him for a short walk, which he appeared to have little, but some, interest in taking. Today he still headed for the gate as soon as I got him on the leash, but it was work for him. We cut it very short, came right home, and he collapsed in the street and peed himself. After a couple of minutes he was able to get up and make it back to the yard, where he drank a lot of water after standing and staring at it for many minutes.

It looks like his days are about over, for real this time. Bill asked if he should start digging the hole yesterday, but I still thought maybe he was pepping up. Not today. I called the mobile veterinary van this morning, feeling like I was calling the knacker. Sadly, they are now only mobile one day a week, Wednesday, and did I want to bring Seamus into the hospital for evaluation. No. I wasn't sure, but I thought not. If I did, I'd take him to his regular vet.

He got up and mosied over to the chain link gate by the carport that he likes to stand at, looking out at the street and waiting for us to come home. Bill cried, said Seamus didn't even know we were at home, but I disagreed. He lay down out there on the cool flagstones, and Bill put water out there near by. That seemed as good a place as any to lie down and die, but it didn't happen.

We both went to work, leaving him there in that favorite place, but I came home at 1. He was back on the screen porch. Called our vet just to talk, and he said the cyst rupture would not be life threatening in any way. He said dogs do become senile, which we've observed. He told me to use clippers on his ear around the wound, put antibiotic ointment on it and Diaperene or some such thing on the ear that would be irritated by drainage, and keep him inside away from the flies. And if he didn't get better, back to enjoying life at least in some measure, that it would be time.

Seamus would hate the clippers on his ear, so I trimmed as well as I could with scissors. He won't come inside, so I've sprayed the porch with fly spray, hoping that will help somehow. Our big window fan quit working, but I think we have another we can rig up on the porch to keep him cooler tomorrow. He's wagging his tail slightly when we approach, but not much more, and doesn't seem to care if I stay out with him or pet him, although he does rub his ear against my pants. I've cleaned his bed and put fresh padding for him to lie on. Otherwise, all I can do is cry and/or play solitaire.

We could probably find a vet we could take him to for euthanasia, but we want to bury him here in the place he always liked to dig. He had a little ritual. At bedtime he'd run out in the yard, dig furiously under the magnolia tree, then run to the back corner of the lot, and come back across the fish pond bridge towards us and then back out again, looking back, inviting us to play. The hole isn't very deep from his efforts. It was more for show.

It's breaking my heart. He's been my friend for thirteen years or more. I got him from the pound when he was about two. When I was going through my divorce, he was my comfort and my pal. He'd jump in the car and we'd go everywhere together. He loved Bill. He loved to go for walks. He was the most even tempered dog I've ever seen. The good times are over now.