I’m Coming Up/Only/To Hold You Under

Barreling through the one-two emotional KO. Let’s see if I can do it.

There was a storm here. Last year. Maybe in the last week or so of October? I know the group Halloween party was after it, but also after actual Halloween. My dates are fuzzy.

We lost power for six days. The basement flooded spectacularly and everything was fucking horrible.

Jethro lost his mind. Look. We thought

On every occasion
I’ll be ready 

we could help him. We couldn’t. We put him on antianxiety drugs at last, and he actually lost his mind. Immediately. Everything got exponentially worse. And we didn’t have power, even. It was panicked dog shit in the dark in the middle of the night. Sleeping in separate beds as I slept with the bugging out dog in a vain effort to keep him from pacing until he shit himself in the middle of the night and Mister slept in the guest room peacefully like a fucking oblivious jerk. Barking at nothing in the very wee hours of the morning. Crying for no reason at all hours. Incalculable quantities of panicked drool.

I don’t want to _<can’t> lay out the whole horror of Jethro’s final days. This is about the pain of his death.

We took him back off the meds. He kind of came back. Not really. I kept sleeping in the bed with him while Mister slept separate. Arm like a vice over his heaving ribs, trying to keep him pinned to some comfort. Murmuring soothing coos at his panic while trying not to wake up all the way and somehow preserve some rest for myself against his overwhelming suffering.

He used to stand in the middle of the back yard at the end. Like a wraith. Just standing, his dark body almost invisible against the wet leaves. No longer barking, no longer running the length of the fence. Still and silent. It would take me minutes to find him against the silent rise of the back lawn to start asking him to come in.

He was never a well dog, we learned at the end. We didn’t know. We didn’t know how to get the vet to pick up on how to tell us. I have learned, but at his expense. He was downhill from day one, but we were so busy buying the house and being hopeful for him, we had no idea. He was safe with us. He trusted me. For most of the time, at least.

His dog parent came with me when we finally accepted it was best for everyone to let him go. November 10 last year. I cried so hard three days before that Mister sat me down and reminded me that I could cancel the appointment. But even with the power back, he was a mess. He was skittish, scared, unable to control his body. He couldn’t even settle on the couch with me anymore. He would bolt upright every ten minutes or so, like he heard a gunshot no one else did. He had no peace. That discussion was what made me sure it really was time. If we’d done it later, how much worse would his life had been? What would waiting have helped?

Nothing really went wrong until the day of.

Mister opted to watch Dog Parent’s kid instead of come with us. I tried to be brave about it. It barely succeeded. I am still angry about it on some level. It was the wrong call on his part. There were people on hand to child-wrangle. Good people. We have good people in our lives.

Dog Parent made me stop to get him a last slice of gas station pizza on the way. Jethro starting drooling and panicking while he was inside buying. He always hated car rides.

And to know you is hard
We wonder
To know you
All wrong we were

We got there, they put us in the room, and he was OK. Not great. OK. This was the first time I had had to kill my friends. They asked if we wanted to do the two part euthanasia, and Dog Parent said it was better. Paralyzing him would help everyone, it would be more peaceful. And the vet _{<the wrong vet, BTW. The vet Henry and I do not like. Something got garbled when I made the appointment, and they gave us the wrong fucking vet>} said it would be easier for him. The only thing that dog ever really needed in his whole fucking horrifying life was a goddamn break, so I said yes. We fed him a whole bag of treats they supplied and they stuck a needle in his back.

Really too late to call, so
We wait for

As soon as it started to take effect, Jethro flat out panicked. He shit, as he was wont to do. He paced. He cried. He started to lose control of his back legs. We tried to force him into a relaxed position. He drooled and gibbered and cried and fought. He cried. We tried to make him comfortable. He drooled and cried.

Morning to wake you, that’s all we got
To know me as hardly
Golden
Is to know me all wrong

The four years I spent building trust and love with this dog disappeared. He drooled and cried and hyperventilated and there was no consoling him. There was no comfort, only terror. It was like every fucking thing he had ever feared had come to pass in this tiny, hot room, and he drenched my jeans with spit and tried to fight as his body gave out and betrayed him.

At every occasion
I’ll be ready for the funeral
Every occasion
once more it’s called the funeral
Every occasion
Know I’m ready for the funeral
Every occasion
Oh

By the time they came back to give him the last shot, I was ready to do it myself. Just to end his fear. I held him. I talked to him. I stroked and patted him and I might as well have not been a person to him by then. Jethro died in panic and terror and I couldn’t stop it. I barely protected and harbored him and I profoundly failed at the end. He had no respite and comfort in almost any of his life and nothing I did ever got ahead of his suffering and dread.

One billion-day funeral
– Band of Horses

I am so fucking sorry to him forever. He was a good, sweet, trusting and kind person and he got the shit split of every possible situation and the only thing I ever did right for him was adopting him before the shelter killed him. He got one break. It went a fairly long way, but nothing saved him from dying in misery and terror in the end.

There. That’s it for tonight. These are my epistles as a dog killer. As the Butcher of those who love me beyond devotion.