Tricky Stuff

***Chad and Bernie chillin'--literally; December 8, 2008***

My mind is playing tricks on me. You know, wondering if I did the right thing. Maybe I jumped the gun. She was fine only ten days before. I'd say that's probably normal when one decides to end another creature's life humanely. Euthanasia is oft described as "mercy killing," and that's exactly what I did. I mean, I didn't put her down because she "had a cough." I did so because she was on the brink of misery, sprinkle in that I couldn't possibly stay home with her day after day, and there you have it. I saved her from the inevitable. But she was perfectly fine only ten days before. Really, she wasn't. She had a large mass in her throat and odds are that I would have come home one day with her heaving, gasping for air, a painful and miserable feeling for her and me both. You did the right thing. Yeah, I did.

The issue of betrayal comes to mind, wherein she is in Puppy Heaven now growling at me because I sent her packing once she wasn't her full-on self. Of course, the only time she'd ever growl at me was when I'd get on my hands and knees and "chase" her, growling at her, trying to stare into her eyes, illiciting a perfect growl from her. She wouldn't look into my eyes, locked eyes in a tense moment is a fighting cue for a dog. She wouldn't look in my eyes when I was growling. She's not growling at me now, either.

Another mind trick is that I hear her. Really, I do. I'll be reading, hear a noise, and I pop up, anticipating her entrance. It only lasts a second. I know now she won't be here when I get home, so I don't even look at the backdoor when I pull in the driveway. It's too empty, it makes Chad sad. Her cute little paw prints are covered with fresh snow now. I can't decide whether that's good or bad, probably a little of both. 

I promised to tell you why at times I had a "green dog." Well, in Tahoe, probably within the first year I had her, I'd jump on my bike and ride the city streets with Bernie, loose, running behind me. As I said, she couldn't stand for me to be out of her sight, so this was a good way to get her a nice run without worrying about losing her. We'd travel sleepy Tahoe streets, travel them fast. One time, there was a cat. Bernie saw the cat from half a block away. I just watched. Bernie ran, ran so fast. Kitty cat, kitty cat, kitty cat. Kitty cat decided to go up a tree when Bernie closed in, up the pine tree. So up the pine tree Bernie went--not very gracefully, not very high, but up she went. I've never seen a cat climb so high so fast. I laughed, Bernie and I moved on, both of our sets of ears peeled, listening for fire trucks to rescue the kitty cat. Either that or there's a skeleton way up in a tree in Tahoe today. So many times, though, I'd lose her on these rides. I'd turn around and she'd vanished. I'd go home. She joined me 15 minutes later--green and wet. What the ?&*? There's no water in Tahoe city limits, save for the big beautiful blue lake (I have a print of her in that lake, I know I do somewhere). So I'd watch her and finally figured it out: She was sneaking off for a swim in an overflow pond. Being that it never rains in Tahoe, the pond basically had no water in the summer, just gooey sludge. So Bernie came home green. Bernie got a bath.

"Bad dog" would quickly turn into laughs and licks and kisses, then the shiny little puppy would curl up for a cat nap.