Farewell, Dear Friend

Courage  1/20/2000 - 4/19/2012

 A week ago today I lost my best friend and faithful companion of 12 years, my sweet Jack Russell Terrier, Courage, to metastatic cancer.   In mid-March she appeared to be perfectly fine, toodling along with me while I worked in the yard, digging for moles and chasing Meow the Cat.  Even then she was being ravaged by an ugly beast that likely began as a slow-growing mass in her brain, then spread to her colon, her lung, her hip, and God only knows where else.

In retrospect there were little things, small signs that I attributed to her advancing age; sleeping more, tiring easily, little "accidents" on the rug.  I recalled several months back seeing her walking back and forth under the foot board of our bed, and at the time I thought she was scratching an itch.  I remember clearly saying to her,  "Girl Dog, if your back is itching come here and I'll scratch it."  Just after her diagnosis while researching brain tumors in dogs I came upon an identical behavior.  She wasn't, as I thought at the time, scratching herself, but rather rubbing her head on the foot board, a common sign early on in the course of brain tumors.

Nothing is the same without her.  Bedtime was for burrowing under the covers and snuggling against my side.  A snack on the sofa or a dinnertime meal meant sharing with the dog who sat patiently waiting for a tasty morsel.   I have cleaned for the last time the nose prints (which I referred to as "pupkus") from the picture window, though the indentation made from years of lounging on the sofa cushion remains as a constant reminder of her favorite spot from where she kept watch over her little corner of the world and sounded the alarm whenever someone, or something, dared to breach the perimeter.   She loved nothing better than to bark ferociously from her side of the door, only to greet the interloper with unbridled joy, whether it be man or beast.  I tended to judge first-time visitors based on how they reacted to her and if you weren't receptive to her wagging nubbin of a tail and if you didn't stoop to give her a pat or a rub I took it personally.  

My house is quiet.  There is no click-click-click of doggy feet on wood floors.  No bark of excitement when my husband's truck pulls into the driveway in the evenings.  I have swept away the last of the errant white hairs that found their way into, and onto, virtually everything in the house.  I have packed away blankets on which she spent her last days and on which I frequently joined her for what I knew were the last cuddles, the last moments with my faithful friend who, whenever I was ill or out of sorts, afforded me the same comfort and closeness.

She passed peacefully in my arms, with the help of a caring, compassionate veterinary staff who understood her pain and mine.  Their kindness will never be forgotten.

Rest in peace, my sweet girl.  You were, and always will be, the Best Puppy Ever....

 "I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race; for if we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?

The misery of keeping a dog is his dying so soon. But, to be sure, if he lived for fifty years and then died, what would become of me?"  ~~ Sir Walter Scott