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The cup is already broken


THAT WAS FUNNY – This is my favorite of the photos taken by the professional photographer because he caught us in a casual moment and it looks like Max is laughing along with us. Photo by Ernie Stripling

It all began because I was doing something I should never do. I was surfing a dog adoption website for what was available at our animal shelter.

I had been shopping the site for several weeks when a pure-bred doberman named Max showed up.

I had to work, so I sent the Fella to have a look at him.

He called me and said, “This dog is awesome.” I told him to adopt him right away, but he wanted me to meet the dog first, so he stayed with the dog until the place closed.

We showed up the next morning, and although we had a little competition, we got the dog.

We were told he was owner-surrendered and Max was actually this dog’s name, not an arbitrary one given to him at the shelter.

Max, who we estimated to be between 2 and 3 years old, came home with us and I spent weeks acclimating him to our resident cat-holes.

Years earlier, I had owned a dog who was marvelous in every way except one, he loved to chase cats, shake them and essentially kill them.

It’s quite traumatic to witness this event, and I didn’t want it repeated, so I took great measures to ensure that Max knew the cats were not toys.

I harbored a secret hope the animals would bond and even cuddle. I was naive.

At first, the cat-holes divided and conquered. I would watch them engineer a tormenting session. And the poor dog, because of my fear of the damage he could do, was never allowed to respond.

Eventually they got used to Max, and he got used to them. I wouldn’t call it friendly, more like a d tente.

Max was never high energy. And he was truly awkward negotiating anything that required him to climb.

He could take 10-hour naps and then get a full night’s sleep. And he never exhibited even the slightest interest in guarding, which dobermans were actually bred for.

If I had any hope of this dog stopping something bad from happening, it would be because the baddie took pause at the sight of a doberman.

To be fair, dobermans have a reputation for being nonreactive until there is a clear and present danger at hand. Then they react.

We were never in a truly dangerous situation, so I don’t know if Max would have shown up in the moment.

He was terrified of the vacuum. And of reprimands.

We needed to merely raise our voice a little to get immediate compliance.

When the Fella and I hugged, he would get in between us. He would lean on me while I was cooking. He would put his head in my lap while I was eating dinner. I learned to eat with one hand so I could pet Max.

Max loved nothing more than love.

MAX Photo by Ernie Stripling

We had him about 18 months when he started losing weight.

We took him to the vet, who ran blood tests and said there was nothing wrong, just up his iron and feed him more.

We fed him more, and he gained weight, but then started limping for no reason.

The vet took X-rays, and the Fella got the report.

He has a tumor, he reported. The vet said to get a second opinion, and probably a biopsy.

I went to get the news from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

What my vet told me was he was 90 percent sure this was cancer, but he couldn’t be certain without a biopsy. The tumor was way up in the dog’s hip and no reputable vet would attempt to get it out. It would cripple the dog.

He again said to get a second opinion. Then he delivered the blow. “I’ve seen people spend $18,000 trying to keep their animal alive and the best they got out of it was a few months. My advice is to enjoy him while he’s still around. Eventually, he’ll poop out on you.” The rest was implied.

I went home and had a meltdown, then scheduled a second opinion.

The dog started getting nose bleeds. We stopped them with ice packs.

At the second opinion, a vet I’d never met, came in with the X-rays and said, “Get a third opinion ‘cuz this thing’s nasty.” I thought, “Geez, if this is what you say to a patient you’ve just met, what’s the unedited version?”

He suggested $1,000 in tests, and a biopsy to determine the type of cancer. He was pretty sure this cancer was secondary, and the dog probably had tumors in his chest.

Max had a nose bleed while at the second vet’s office. He stopped it but told me these nose bleeds were bad news. The dog would probably need a blood transfusion, which cost around 10 grand.

“What if his nose starts bleeding when I’m not around?”

“He could bleed out.”

I thanked him and his staff, paid for my second opinion and went home to collapse in a pile of grief for a second time.

I made an appointment with a third vet.

While walking the dog, the Fella and I discussed the situation. All indications were that chemo would make the dog miserable, and most likely only prolong the inevitable. Even if we had unlimited funds, I don’t think we would have choosen to put Max through it. So what was the point of a biopsy? Whatever it was, we weren’t going to treat it. “It feels like the illusion of control,” I told the Fella.

“I’m tired of these horrifying vet visits,” I continued. “They are making it impossible for me to enjoy my time with Max. I want to stop.”

“Let’s hire a professional photographer instead,” the Fella suggested.

It was an inspired idea and a very good example of why I married the Fella.

We did just that and had a wonderful afternoon with the photographer and our dog, while he still looked and acted happy and healthy.

We also started him on anti-inflammatories and began to spoil him in ways we never had before. He started sleeping with us, something I thought I would never allow. We fed him from the table. We took him everywhere possible.

We got the grim diagnosis in mid-September and I thought the dog would be dead by Thanksgiving.

Every day in those first weeks, I went to work terrified that I would come home to a dead dog in a pool of his own blood.

And then I let that go. I had to. If I had any hope of enjoying my dog, I had to release my fear of his death. I knew pre-grieving my dog would not spare me one second’s grief after the fact. So I managed to surrender that fear.

And he rallied. Doggoneit.

He felt great! No one had bothered to tell him he was dying, and he ran like he’d never run before. He played with my sister’s dogs like there was nothing more awesome than flying across the yard.

He showed no signs of being sick.

People started to doubt that he was sick at all. Even our vet, who lives in our neighborhood and would see us around, commented that he could be wrong. It could be an old break that didn’t heal properly.

The dog would act with healthy enthusiasm and I would say, “He’s dying, can’t you tell?”

Family became convinced the dog was fine. To which I would respond, “I’m happy for him to slowly die over the next 10 years.” But I never doubted the diagnosis.

I knew he truly was very ill and would eventually poop out on us, as my vet so eloquently put it. But for today, he was here, he was happy, he was enjoying his super-spoiled existence. So I just did my best to enjoy him, one day at a time.

He sailed through Thanksgiving and was doing fine when on Pearl Harbor Day I got the call that my mom was being rushed to the ER in the middle of a pandemic because she was losing her eyesight due to a brain tumor.

And my reaction surprised me.

The last time my mom was in the ER, I was near hysterics from fear of losing her. This time, I was calm. I went into action mode, doing what I could to support my mom and help my sister through the event.

My mom’s emergency brain surgery was a huge ordeal that lasted until right before Christmas.

I might occasionally worry about what might happen, but I never got caught up in fear.

It took me a while to understand why.

Max had taught me how to live in peace with the possibility that someone I love might be gone at any moment.

There’s a Buddhist parable I once heard. This is how I remember it: Let’s say you have a delicate teacup you greatly treasure. You treasure it so much you keep it safe on a high shelf so it never gets broken. By doing this, you deprive yourself of the enjoyment of this precious object. However, if you can regard the cup as already broken, then you are free to enjoy it and when it does eventually break, you will know that it has simply fulfilled its destiny and you enjoyed your cup while you had it. This is the way to treasure what is precious.

My dog was my already-broken cup. And he taught me to enjoy my Mom, even while fearing her loss.

Mom came home right before Christmas. It was a slow recovery, but she’s doing well. She even got her lost vision back. The doctors weren’t sure this would happen.

The dog was fine through Christmas, and then started showing signs again of being ill.

He started having nosebleeds again.

On the night of Jan. 1, we couldn’t stop the bleeding. We tried everything. We finally went to bed, knowing Max might not be with us in the morning.

He made it through that night, and his health deteriorated rapidly.

We put him to sleep on Jan. 5.

The Fella and I lay down next to him and made sure our faces were the last things he saw.

The cup broke.

We were devastated to lose the best dog either of us had ever had.

And I am profoundly grateful that we chose not to put the dog through treatment. He had the best three months of his life with us. He was happy, and we were happy.

I am also grateful to Max for the life lesson he taught me.

I wasn’t looking to learn a profound life lesson from my dog, but he taught it to me anyway.

He gave me the ability to put aside my fear and enjoy the moment available to me.

Even if I knew we would only have him for a short time, I would adopt him all over again.

He was precious to us, delicate and irreplaceable. And our lives are better for having known him.

Joy Burgess-Carrico is a Messenger graphic artist.

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