My wife Chris and I took a tour of Northern New Mexico last week. We had a great time. We did a century bike ride in Red River, toured Taos, fished the San Jaun River and San Antonio Creek and best of all spent two days touring the Chacoan ruins at Chaco Canyon National Monument.
What an amazing place. Imagine something on the order of Machu Pichu but in our own Southwest. The scale of the ruins was remarkable and the history of our native Puebloan cultures is truly amazing.
We didn't take our little dog Darcie with us. Instead, she spent the week with our law student daughter, Claire, up in Albuquerque.
In retrospect this was a great idea for a couple of reasons.
First and foremost Darcie really can't travel with us anymore. She's really disoriented and much better off at home. We would have left her in the care of a house sitter but our regular person was unavailable and we didn't feel right breaking in someone new.
Secondly, it gave Claire an insight into Darcie's continued mental and physical decline. Claire picked Darcie out at the local animal shelter when she was in third grade about 18 years ago. I remember her walking right up to the cage and saying "I want that one right there, Dad."
"Are you sure you don't want to look around some more?" I asked. "Nope, she's the one," was the reply.
For Claire, the inevitable prospect of Darcie's demise has been unimaginable. I think she thought Darcie might just live forever. They've been together for almost 75% of Claire's life.
So, it was a good thing for Claire to take care of Darcie for a week. She now understands and maybe even accepts that Darcie won't be around much longe
r.
Claire got to see first hand what we have seen with increasing frequency over the last year or so. Darcie is in age related cognitive decline. She spends most of the day in her bed. When she is up she paces around the house following Chris or me from room to room. She still greets us as if she knows us but the problem is that she doesn't remember that she greeted us five minutes ago as if it was the first time she had seen us that day.
She's quite irritable. She'll snap at us when we brush and groom her. She's startles when we walk up behind her and she's in almost constant pain if she doesn't get her medication.
On the positive side, she still eats and lets us know when she needs to go out. She's not having accidents in the house and she wags her tail when we pet her. We don't pick her up much anymore because it seems to be painful for her and she can't go down our wooden steps to the bedroom. Too slippery.
Just this morning I heard her yelping out in pain. She couldn't get out of her bed. I had to gently help her get to her feet.
All this brings to mind how we go about managing our dog's final days. I had a discussion with my friend and colleague, Dr. Debra Horwitz the noted behavior specialist, about dealing with the eventual death of a long time family pet. There will come a time when her quality of life is so bad that we will have to consider our options.
Dr. Horwitz thinks that when a pet can no longer ambulate it's time to consider a humane ending to their life. If you have to lift them out of bed to take them outside so they can relieve themselves, the end is near. Couple that with the inability to eliminate normally and you have a bad situation for both the owner and the pet.
Darcie isn't there yet, but she's close. We can manage her pain, but when she can no longer rise on her own and walk out into the yard we'll have to re-evaluate the situation.
It will be really hard for us to say goodbye to Darcie. We've shared a lot of time together. I can't really separate Darcie and her life from the lives and adolescence of my children. It will be a passing not only for her but for all of us, too. Sort of a goodbye to raising children and a passage to another part of our own lives.
I think Claire feels the same way. With Darcie gone, so is her childhood. I think she is mourning the impending loss of both. And honestly, so am I.
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