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- I hate to say how much I think about it. I have money set aside so it can happen at home, where she’s comfortable.
- Whenever you’re ready, baby
- Gotcha day: December 2013
- Tail as old as time
- A girl’s best friend
- Not yet, mortality
- New life, who this?: January 2024
- Ail in the timing
- November 2024
- All that to say, my bad for downing an undetermined amount of tequila at your baby shower
I hate to say how much I think about it. I have money set aside so it can happen at home, where she’s comfortable.
It feels callous to plan for it, although logically it’s better for her. I’ll be a wreck when the time comes (I’m already a wreck), but surely I’ll at least be more present for her when I know she’ll be taken care of the way she deserves.
I’ll feel guilty either way, I suppose.
For wondering if I should prepare for her to be around by the holidays. Knowing she likely won’t.
For the possibility of giving up too soon, the thought of which will haunt me even if it’s in the name of avoiding her suffering.
For not being ready, for holding on too tight.
I want to get this right.
Whenever you’re ready, baby
My big, beautiful dog, my protector, my soul girl, waited until I finally found safety to let me know she was getting old.
When Stella and I first found each other, she was almost two years old and badly neglected. She was a Christmas gift puppy whose owners lost interest. At nearly two years old, she hadn’t even been spayed.
I’ll never forget the picture my mom sent in the middle of my college criminal justice class, saying she was going to be taken to a kill shelter if she wasn’t rehomed ASAP.
She’s a lab retriever, far bigger than the dog my housemates and I had been looking for. But I’d seen all I needed to see.
After hearing her story, I left class (to my cranky-ass professor’s fury) to call my mom and agree: that was my new dog.
Gotcha day: December 2013
I drove the 3+ hours home from school that weekend to pick her up.
When I walked into her previous owner’s home, it was love at first sight. Stella was absolutely gorgeous, with long black hair refracting red in the light.
I’d later learn the owners had never bothered to socialize her with other people or dogs (a fact which showed itself over the years), yet she was immediately so sweet to me. She “sat pretty” on her hind legs as a greeting, putting her paws on my waist and gazing into my eyes as though she knew right then that I was hers.
She came with only a pinch collar and a leash. Not a toy in sight. No tears were shed by the previous owners when I put her in my car. They didn’t seem to care enough to come outside and say goodbye.
We rode the entire way back to campus with her curled up in my front seat. She alternated between napping and calmly staring at me. I hoped she liked me.
I had to teach her she was allowed on the bed. Until her final days, she always asked so shyly and politely before jumping up on the furniture. And the answer was always a resounding, “Yes, PLEASE!”
She’d sleep with her full weight on my legs, warming me through the freezing Midwest winter.
Tail as old as time
Stella was by my side through everything. My furry little shadow was never more than a few steps away anytime I was home.
A real tripping hazard, to be honest.
She came into my life just weeks after I finally managed to break things off with my first college boyfriend (who was also my first abusive partner).
For the entirety of our nearly two-year relationship, he used his blatant mental health issues as a manipulation tactic. If at any point he didn’t get his way, he’d threaten self-harm. To him, his depression excused every abuse, criticism, and woman he slept with behind my back.
Looking back, I genuinely don’t think I was ever interested in dating this person. I felt shackled to him by his threats and intensity. I didn’t yet have the life experience to understand that I couldn’t be responsible for his happiness just because he tried to convince me I was.
To say he was having trouble letting our relationship go was an understatement. One night, just days after I got my sweet Stella, he broke open the flimsy storm door that led into my bedroom from the patio.
Big mistake on his part.
Little did he know I now had a reactive guardian angel to keep me safe. She lost her mind barking, startling me awake and undoubtedly scaring the shit out of him. She managed to bite him right on the ass as he ran back out the door. I scrambled to grab her collar and keep her from going after him.
That’s my bitch.
A girl’s best friend
Stella stayed by my side as I went on to endure five more years of abuse shortly after graduating college.
This guy was a violent, alcoholic narcissist. He was as toxic and cruel with her as he was to me, although he claimed to love us both.
He’d even go so far as to get jealous of her loyalty to me, and spent our entire relationship trying to gaslight me into believing she actually loved him more.
But during our massive fights, when I’d inevitably be forced to sleep in another room for my safety, who always chose to stay with me?
That’s right, my girl Stella. Every single time.
Stella has always been reactive toward strange animals and men. It’s a hard-earned, fear-based jumpiness stemming from her neglectful previous owners.
Unfortunately, it became far worse while we were squeezed under his thumb. It sickens me that he was able to make such a negative impact on her as well.
Can’t blame her, of course. I’m undeniably more reactive now, too. And while I try not to blame myself for my own abuse, I find it much harder to not blame myself for hers.
Despite her reactivity, when a stray puppy in need, a shih tzu barely 5 weeks old, fell into our laps, she begrudgingly made room for her in our lives.
Over the years, they became the best little friends. My big dog, little dog deluxe combo.
Not yet, mortality
The same night the dogs and I moved back in with my parents after escaping this abuser, my dad and I discovered a mass on Stella’s neck that turned out to be an impossibly fast-growing thyroid tumor.
I was devastated, to say the least. I’d just lost my home, my partner of many years, and all sense of stability.
Not her, too. Anything but her.
Stella had a favorite toy, this silly $2 hamburger with a squeaker I found at a local grocery chain. She loved them so much that I hunted down more online, stockpiling a dozen replacements for when they got shredded.
The night I found out she’d have to have emergency surgery to remove the tumor (the placement and swelling of which threatened to cut off her breathing), I covered her in the squeaky burgers. She went wild with happiness, gleefully jumping from burger to burger as I sobbed for her unjust mortality.
Incredibly, magically, surgery to remove half of her thyroid put the cancer into remission. She was the same spry, loving goofball she’d always been. I was overjoyed.
Nothing I lost during that dark period in my life held a candle to what I got to keep.
New life, who this?: January 2024
Three and a half years after escaping our abuser, fleeing across the country, and working to rebuild our health and safety (as the world continued trying to stomp all over us), the dogs and I took the huge step of moving in with someone new: a loving and caring partner I’d been seeing for a little over a year.
The apartment we share is incredible and was chosen with my and the dogs’ past trauma specifically in mind. There’s a security system and other measures to help me feel safe. I’m able to walk my sweet girls at night in a well-lit area without fear.
There’s a giant, brand-new, rarely-used dog park right behind our building. For the first time in years, I’m able to let the dogs off-leash to run and play outside. They don’t know what to do with themselves, so I sprint from one end of the park to the other while they chase me.
It is, without a doubt, the safest place we’ve ever known.
Ail in the timing
Exactly one week after moving into our new home, Stella stopped eating.
She’d thrown up the night before, something not too unusual for her. But since then she’d refused even the highest-value human food. She panted hard nonstop, despite the chilly temperature. Her general demeanor seemed labored.
I pride myself on my ability to communicate with my ladies. I can usually pretty well read what they need with just a look or whine. When she looked at me over that day, in my heart I knew exactly what she was telling me:
Mom, you’re finally safe. We’re finally safe. We did it.
It’s almost time.
To my amazement, an appetite stimulant helped her bounce back for a while, although her age showed more with each passing week. I started to have the creeping thoughts about confronting that looming choice no pet owners want to make.
I cried when I noticed she’d stopped asking to jump up on the bed.
November 2024
When I got a new job recently, I immediately used the pay increase to set aside money for Stella’s death care expenses.
I contacted an amazing mobile service that provides compassionate hospice care to pets in their homes, so I know she’ll have a comfortable and low-stress passing whenever the time comes.
I wonder what it’s like to go through the rest of my life without my best friend. My confidant, my bed hog, my little bear. I can’t believe I’m going into this new year, my first real safe year in over a decade, and it will have to be without her.
In all of the ways humans have disappointed me, Stella has never been anything but a joy in my life. Her “gotcha day” is in just a couple of weeks. Eleven years.
I want her to have the absolute best death possible.
All that to say, my bad for downing an undetermined amount of tequila at your baby shower
I’ve shared thousands of incredible memories with this beautiful animal. We share a language of such deep love and understanding that it goes far beyond needing actual words. But this loss is going to be massive, and if I don’t try to write it out it may swallow me up.
I don’t mind if no one else reads this, I know it’s a morbid topic and there’s enough to be sad about without taking on this weight with me.
I’m sure I’ll revisit it often in my grief. If it helps bring solace to someone else out there, all the better.
My heart is shredded. I’m shredded. But if I could do it all again, I’d gladly endure every second of the pain her death will cause me.
Because she is, and will always be, my good girl.