The house is too quiet, especially at night. Sadie had taken to endlessly pacing every evening, around and around the kitchen island, her nails clicking on the tile. Later, while falling asleep, I would hear her sigh and snort and snore. Now, laying there and just staring into darkness, the house is silent. It is an awful way to fall asleep.
"Once you have had a wonderful dog, a life without one, is a life diminished." ~ Dean Koontz
***
Sadie Barkington Bogle was born on August 12, 2006, in Canal Fulton, Ohio, at SunWood Kennels. The smallest of the pack, with a tail cut a bit too short for showing, she was put up for sale with her sister and brother. When we received the call that pups were available (we had been on a wait list for months), the hubs and I raced to Ohio to claim her. We had originally wanted two puppies (some ridiculous notion of them keeping each other company), but an older couple and another woman had already claimed the brother and sister. It was the runt or nothing. And when we picked her up, too shy to play she tried backing away and hiding, she peed in my hands. Yep, this was our dog.
***
We brought Sadie home two months after our wedding, in October 2006. The hubs and I were racing into "adulthood" at top speed - we had just gotten married, and found our first home - a 1934 beauty in Moundsville, West Virginia, with a view of the haunted penitentiary and no bathroom on the first floor. Not ready for kids, a dog made sense to us. Deciding on the breed became the problem - the hubs loved rat terriers and I loved golden retrievers, each of us clinging to the breeds with which we had grown up. Our compromised became what was described as a "mid-sized" breed - the Boston Terrier. Of course, as it happens, we got the smallest, weighing usually 16 pounds through life, down to 11 pounds at the end, Sadie was always smaller than most. I decided to treat her as I would want to be treated if I were a dog; no doubt I may have been going through a reincarnation phase. But it stuck, and that dog was spoiled for life. Not happy in her crate, I regularly snuck her into bed with me, for her to burrow under the covers, get overheated, and pant her way out, over and over again. The hubs didn't like being woken up by the loud panting and even louder farting, covered in dog hair, but knew that this wasn't the hill he wanted to die on. In the morning, we'd get up and get ready for work, while Sadie snoozed with her head on my pillow. Cracking ourselves up by saying, "Sadie is not a self-starter," we'd gently wake her up and move her off the bed so we could make it.
***
Oh, how Sadie enjoyed those three years all to herself! She went on road trips with us, got dressed up as a little Russian woman by Caroline, and had free reign of our energy. We lived in Oklahoma when I had Britton, and Sadie took it upon herself to poop right in front of the nursery's door. For everything that the internet will say about dogs not being petty and vengeful in their actions, Sadie must have been gifted because she could be both petty and vengeful, and she made both known by pooping in the house. But I could never stay mad at her. I tried disciplining her (showing her the poop, stern talking) the first or second or third time she did this, but her reactions were worse - she'd shake and cower, and it took excessively more time to get her over the scolding than the scolding lasted. Unlike children, I wasn't shaping a future contributor to society, so I essentially moved forward with the mindset that Sadie was perfect, flaws and all.
"If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went." ~ Will Rogers
***
I think Sadie is in damn near every Christmas card photo we've taken since we got her. Her picture is around our house. I have artwork and mugs and fabric that depicts Boston Terriers solely because of Sadie. Her breed is iconic - even Children's Place has a cardboard Boston Terrier peeking over their sale sign at the mall. I loved having a unique breed; strangers instantly migrated towards her (and sometimes away from her, like at the vet when she could clear a room with her nervous farts). I don't think I can own a Boston Terrier again, and yet, I would love another one.
"You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us." ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
***
I mention the vet a lot, and that is probably because Sadie went to the vet a lot. She had both luxating patellas (knee caps) fixed, one surgery requiring us to travel from Charleston, West Virginia to The Ohio State University (seriously, "The") in Columbus, Ohio, because we could not find a single board-certified surgeon in the state of West Virginia. She ate charcoaled grill bits and came down with pancreatitis, requiring a plasma transfusion. She had demodex mites as a puppy, and the treatment gave her a life-long obsession with her food. She had a mast cell tumor in the right thigh removed. In November, she tumbled down the last couple of stairs and hurt her neck, and I took her to the vet, who thought she might be having some neurological issues. And when I pointed out her swollen anal glands, he ignored me. We would later spend 3 months fighting infected anal glands, to the point where removal was recommended. But at the surgery consult, the surgeon ignored the increasing neurological issues. I found another vet and she confirmed my suspicions, that Sadie's neurological issues - pacing, head pressing, getting lost under chairs and behind furniture, blindness in her right eye, deafness in her right ear, incontinence, and difficulty eating - made anal gland removal surgery a ridiculous course of action at this time. All her symptoms pointed to a brain tumor; she'd never recover from surgery. I had an appointment with the neurologist on March 21st.
***
The hubs and I had been battling the washing machine for months. We finally broke down and bought a new one, to be delivered on Monday, March 4th. I worked from home that day, so that I could accept delivery of the new washer. Sadie was having more trouble - she had fallen into the pool twice, because she couldn't see it or had stumbled, so she couldn't go outside alone anymore. Not that it mattered - she was completely incontinent. Once the washer was delivered, I set about opening the box to check on the condition. This required me to cut around the base of the cardboard box, which of course required me to sit on the ground. And while I was down there, Sadie stumbled over and tried to get into my lap. Now, you must understand - for a couple of weeks now, she seemed to not know who we were. Only when I held her, and tucked her head under my chin, would she fall asleep in my arms. Otherwise, she was pacing or wandering - she had no interest in snuggling on the couch anymore. I hugged her as tightly as she would let me, rocking her, sitting on that cold tile floor, and I cried. I cried because I knew in my heart what I couldn't let myself believe or say out loud, I cried because Sadie wouldn't get better and there was no vet alive that could change that, I cried because I had let Sadie get worse than I thought I would solely because she didn't seem in pain, I cried because I was so thankful I was spending a day alone with my dog.
"Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made." ~ Roger Caras
***
At 6:02 pm, Sadie had a seizure. I won't let myself remember too much, except I can't forget the awful sounds she made. We raced her to the emergency vet, but the seizures kept coming. They offered a wide range of investigative measures - cat scan, MRI - but we knew our decision. She had fought for too long, she was staying for us, and we couldn't let her do that anymore. They brought her into me, wrapped in a pink baby blanket, and I snuggled her and kissed her and told her all the things I needed to say. I felt that everything I said was inadequate, and I trust that she knew how much she meant to us. Then it was time to let her go. I held her; I could never abandon my dog in her final minute. I watched her go still, and then the light leave her eyes. I scratched behind her ears, the hubs gave his final goodbyes, and we handed her off to the vet. By the time we stumbled to the parking lot, we were inconsolable.
"I think we are drawn to dogs because they are the uninhibited creatures we might be if we weren't certain we knew better. They fight for honor at the first challenge, make love with no moral restraint, and they do not for all their marvelous instincts appear to know about death. Being such wonderfully uncomplicated beings, they need us to do their worrying." ~ George Bird Evans
