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Stan and I sat in the living
room tonight drinking a glass of wine. The weather was
strange today, overcast, cloudy and a wind that is unusual
for a June day. Maybe the heavens were a flurry preparing
for his arrival. His entrance into heaven is sure to be
uniquely Cyree, just as his entrance into our life was.
He came to us just short of
four years ago. It was a warm July evening when Stan and I
drove down to the Vacaville outlet stores to pick up two
foster dogs from ESRA (English Springer Spaniel Rescue of
America). Marie Clair was meeting us with two older dogs
that had been picked up by animal control just wondering in
a store parking lot. After staying at the shelter for the
required days for strays and not being claimed by their
owner Marie Claire took them into the ESRA program and
needed a foster home for them. This was their first piece
of good luck.
Donny and Marie were their
names given to them by the shelter. Marie Claire thought
Lilly and Zack fit them better. On our drive down to get
them Stan and I thought that Dylan and Lilly would be best
but the truth of the matter is none of those names fit. No,
none of those names were right. Like a fine wine that
should not be opened until it's time, names should not be
given too quickly, you must be sure that the name is
absolutely fitting first. What's the hurry?
The male immediately took to us
and I always said he was looking for someone to love him,
anyone and wasn't shy about it. He attached right away,
right in the parking lot of the outlet stores. The female
however wasn't so sure about what was happening and you
could see that she was quite stressed about their
situation. We brought them home and the male made his grand
entrance by running in and hitting the hardwood floors like
an ice skater who can't skate. He fell spread eagle, gave
out a big sigh and with his chin on the floor and all four
of his legs out from under him, he peed. He peed on my
hardwood floor for the first of many, many times.
Over the next few days and
weeks their personalities started to come through and we
tried on many names but when Stan came up with Cyrano we hit
the jackpot. Yes, he made us laugh and he had that big old
nose, he was definitely a Cyrano and she a Sally Rose. The
two never left our house to move on to what rescue calls
"forever homes." No, their fate was sealed and their next
piece of luck came when it was clear that they could not be
separated without Cyrano having a complete meltdown. If
Sally Rose was not in the same room with him he would stress
so much he would collapse his trachea. This was a habit
that after a few months he transferred to me. He was OK in
the house but could not be at the vets without me in site or
he would start his stressing and collapsing his
trachea. This all meant that they needed to stay with us,
forever. Lucky dogs.
Life around her rolled along
pretty nicely. Cyrano and Sally Rose made the spaniel count
five and the other three, Coyote, Louie and Goose were very
willing to share with the two new family members. Cyrano on
the other hand thought he would try and take over. Poor
Louie, he really took the blunt of Cyrano's strikes.
Although Cyrano did his fair share of attacks on Coyote and
Goose it was of course the other male in the house that he
hunted down most of the time. As I look at this little old
man it is hard to remember those times that I had to pull
him off one of the other dogs and really get in his face
about it. That lasted for about a year or so and then he
got old and got tired of me protecting the others so he gave
up the fighting and was just sweet old man. Thinking back
on it he was so lucky I didn't get rid of him. There's that
Cyree luck again.
As Cyrano and Sally Rose grew
older with us we started to call them the Hobbits. Why?
Well, they had hairy feet, the hairiest feet I have every
seen on a springer. Hairy feet and they liked second
breakfast. I never feed the younger dogs breakfast before
we go to the ranch for their morning runs but Cyrano and
Sally Rose were having none of that so I would feed them a
little breakfast before we went and then again when we came
home and everyone ate. Hence, second breakfast. The two of
them were such a funny pair, walking side by side on our
greenbelt walk or slowly walking the orchard rows where once
in while they would get a wild hair and brust of young age
energy and run! But run at Hobbit speed.....kinda fast.
The last two years of his life
with us got complicated. Cyree's depth perception was going
and he would have a hard time stepping down curbs or coming
down stairs. I lived in fear as he would sometimes come
down the stairs like batman, but without the flying power of
the bat cape. He would jump from the top of the stairs and
hit the wall of the landing. Finally he came to realize
that he couldn't make it down the stairs and he would stand
at the top of the stairs calling for help and Stan or I
would have to go up and carry him down. He was good at
calling for service. In April of 2006 he had emergency
surgery for bloat and we both thought he wouldn't make it
thought the surgery. Still in possession of cat luck and
nine lives he made it through that surgery and he continued
to enjoyed life. He loved his nightly walks around the
neighborhood with Stan. They had their routine and all the
neighbors would smile when they would see Stan coming down
the street with Hobbits. When we lost Sally Rose his walks
continued with Cyrano and the neighbors were always touched
by how compassionate Stan was with this old dog on his
nightly walks.
Today Stan told me he made the
appointment for tomorrow. He said he was going to give
Cyrano a bath and I offered to do it. He said, no they had
been in the trenches together for the past seven months and
it was something he needed to do for his buddy. Yes, for
the past seven months, their have been few times that Stan
did not have this dog with him. He cared for this
old dog and refused to put him down until he knew in his
heart that he had done all that he could do. Through
sleepless night and days of full time care for Cyrano, Stan
did it. That dog went everywhere with him. He cooked for
him and bought him double cheese burgers, he bathed him and
nursed his wounds. And as he had done with bogie, Sally Rose
and now Cyrano, Stan squeezed out every last bit of life
that he could for them. I have given him an argument on all
three, he was right.
As Stan and I sat and talked
this evening we both remarked how it felt like Cyrano was
halfway gone. Like his life force was leaving us. It's time
for Cyrano to make his grand entrance wherever doggy souls
go. I am sure that he will do it with the humor and
style and everyone will know that he has arrived.
We will miss our sweet old
man.
July 25, 2006
Today we said
good-bye to Sally Rose. Stan and I held her and kissed her on
the head telling her we loved her as the vet gave her the final
injection. It was time and she was tired of the fight. Sally
hadn't been doing well lately having been diagnosed with renal
failure she had spent three full days at the vet's getting IV
fluids. The plan was to jump start her with the IV and then do
sub-Q fluids at home and return on Tues (today) to check her
kidney values. If the values improved then we would know we
were doing the right thing. That was our plan. So starting
last week Stan would drop her off at vet's along with her bag
lunch of baby food or a McDonald's hamburger and then pick her
up that evening to come home. We started the sub-Q fluids twice
a day and she seemed to perk up for a few days.
Eating in our
house is always a big event when you have spaniels. Spaniels
love to eat and they never complain about the cooking. Sally
Rose was no exception. As soon as she saw me start to prepare
the food bowls or saw me open the lid of the peanut butter jar
she was barking. Her bark of joy would radiate from down deep
in that little spaniel soul, her ears would fly up and her front
feet would leave the ground....PEANUT BUTTER, my favorite!, she
seemed to bark. Sally Rose loved food and she was the chubby
one of the group until recently. With the renal failure her
interest in food was starting to wane. She would want to eat and
start to get excited about it but then she couldn't bring
herself to eat. One day she would love the ground turkey, rice
and veggies I would make. She would clean her bowl and ask for
seconds and we would oblige. Then the next day that dish held
no interest for her. We would BBQ steak and marinated pork
roasts for her. Stan thought maybe she would prefer "dog food"
so we purchased a can of every brand of commercial dog food out
there. Stan would do a test putting out three bowl of food to
see if she preferred one over the other. She would and that
would last just long enough for us to have gone out and
purchased more only to have her say no thanks to it the next
time we offered it. Her barks of joy for peanut butter or a
cookie weren't there although she would lift her nose and let me
know she was interested in checking out what I had to offer and
when it was something that she would actually eat it, well it
was my turn to jump for joy.
Sally Rose
came into our lives on July 10, 2003. Asked by Springer Rescue
if we could foster two dogs that were found as stray in Antioch,
Stan and I drove down to the outlet stores in Vacaville to meet
the rescue worker who had pulled them from the shelter. The two
of them were found wandering the parking lot of the SaveMart
store, they had collars on but not tags and their coats had been
shaved down. The shelter named them Donnie and Marie. The
rescue person who pulled them from the shelter renamed them Zack
and Lily and then finally after some time with us trying on
names we found the names that fit, Cyrano and Sally Rose. We
were only going to foster them but it became clear that Stan
loved them too much to give them up and don't tell him this but
I did too. They made us laugh. Spaniels do that, they have a
clownish way and a real sweetness about them, but add to that
old dog cuteness and they were funny. We affectionately called
them the hobbits because they had hairy feet and liked second
breakfast and we were sure they would live to be a hundred and
fifty.
Sally Rose
loved her peanut butter and she loved going to the ranch. She
was the quiet one of the two dogs and she was slow to warm up to
us. Cyrano just came in loving us, Sally Rose wasn't so sure.
It was a good month or two before she started to come upstairs
at night to sleep but after that, once she opened her heart to
us she loved us just as much as he did, she just did it
quietly. Sit on the couch and she would join you, allowing you
to rub her ears as she laid her head in your lap and moaned with
pleasure. Go for a walk and she would tell you which way to
go. If you were going left when she wanted to go right those
hobbit feet came to a stop and seemed to be drilled into the
ground. Give Sally Rose her way and go to the right and breaks
were released and she happily went with you and forgive you your
sin.
Oh Sally
Rose!......This morning it was clear, the fight was over. We
came back home to a sad house. How can a house with four other
dogs seem so empty with the fifth one missing? You could feel
the hole that she left. You look around and see her bed, her
collar, her meds and all the other worldly objects that say
Sally Rose was here..... Was it my imagination or did the other
dogs feel it too? All of them seemed quite sedate. Do they
know Sally Rose won't be coming home?
Sweet dreams
my sweet spaniel....no more pain.
It's with a broken heart
that I tell you our little Star went to The Rainbow Bridge
at 11:30 last night.
One day five years ago our friend Jude Fine of the Senior
Canine Rescue Society in Calgary called us to ask if we'd
foster a 10 year old female Springer. We'd adopted our
Springer Nicki from Jude 2 years earlier and then adopted
Opus through ESRA 6 weeks after Nicki. Having a 3rd one (to
only foster of course) didn't seem like a big deal. We met
Jude halfway between Calgary and our home in Saskatoon to
pick her up. Her family was getting divorced and neither Mom
or Dad wanted her - although they'd had her since she was a
puppy. Although not abused she was neglected - hadn't been
spayed, was in the early stages of pyometra and had several
mammary tumors.. She also had a growth under her neck which
later turned out to be a spindle cell tumor.
She jumped up in the back seat of our car without a backward
glance and we heaaded off on our 4 hour drive home. I'm sure
we hadn't driven more than 15 monutes when she got down off
the seat and was nosing about the floor. The next thing we
knew she was squeezing her way in between the drivers door
and drivers seat and in no time at all she was happily
curled up on Bills lap. It was love at first sight for the 2
of them. Our vet told us that sometimes a dog will come into
a home and look at 1 person and say "I pick YOU" Star
definitly picked Bill. She was a shameless flirt with him
and would follow him anywhere - taking the garbage out,
working in the garage, going to the store - wherever he went
she was right behind him. He called her his velcro dog.
As we learned more about her tumor we felt that it would
make it difficult for her to be adopted and so we happily
failed fostering (as if Bill wuld have let her go!!). Less
than 2 months later the tumor was gone - completely - no
sign of it anywhere. Our vet and the Vet College in
Saskatoon were dumfounded. We always felt that once she knew
we were keeping her she didn't need to play the sympathy
card with us any longer.
When we moved to Nova Scotia 2 years ago our pack of 3 came
with us on that long drive across the country. She was a
trooper in the car - they all were. As long as she could be
beside Bill I think she'd have gone to Siberia and back.
She was a mother hen - wanted to know where everyone was at
all times. She'd waddle around the house with a worried look
on her face till she'd located everyone then she was happy
just to be. Whenever we fostered she turned into a
completely different dog for a few days - the mother hen
turned into the rooster just looking for a fight. Didn't
matter that she was smaller and older - it was HER house and
she made sure they knew it. After she felt they knew their
place she'd revert back to the mother hen and sleep with
them, groom them etc.
She had a little tiny nub of a tail that we called her
Timbit tail. She was also known as the Sidewinder due to the
fact that her back end just never seemed to follow the
front. Her round belly earned her the nickname of the
Unibody Dog - she was the same size from shoulder to butt.
When she ran at the off leash park she'd run on ahead but
always keep us in her sights. She was always on the lookout
for a quick and easy treat - she once slid just the sausage
out of a bun that a friend of ours was holding. She was so
stealthy that the sausage wasn't missed till Dana went to
take the next bite. And there sat Star, contentedly licking
her chops!
At around 7:30 last night I fed she and Clancy their dinner
and within about 15 minutes she started vomiting. Her
breathing was rapid, she paced, couldn't get comfortable. If
she drank a bit of water it came right back up again. I was
worried about bloat. We took her into Halfax where there is
an all night emergancy vet clinic and they X-rayed her
immediately. The X-rays showed no bloat but there was a huge
mass on her spleen. The mass had ruptured and the spleen had
been pushed up into the stomach - hence the vomiting. It was
hard to believe that this desperately sick little dog was
the same on who had run at the off leash park earlier in the
day and eaten her breakfast with gusto. The on call vet gave
us our options - surgery or letting her go to the Bridge.
There was no way we'd put her through surgery - she was 15
and it might give her 2 months. We discussed bringing her
home and calling our own vet first thing this morning to get
her to come to the house as she had done with Opus last year
when it was time to let him go. The vet gave her a shot of
narcotic that would last 5-6 hours and enable her to at
least sleep but he warned us that once the narcotic wore of
she would be in pain and could die before we could even get
hold of our vet. We knew that we were only prolonging the
inevitable.
So we laid her blanket from home on the floor of the clinic,
laid her on it and then lay down with her. Within seconds it
was over and our little Star-Baby was racing across the
Bridge to be reunited with Nicki, Opus and Jude. Somehow I
know she'll find a way to keep close to Bill - a bond like
that can't be broken even by death.
We know that this can be endured and that there will come a
day when the memories of her don't cause tears and an ache
in the heart but it's been a difficult 2 years. Our original
pack of 3 - Nicki, Opus and Star have all gone to the Bridge
- Nicki in May/05, Opus in April/06 and now Star. Our
beloved friend and rescue mentor Jude also left us last
year.
Don't worry little Star - I'll look after Dad for you.
Megan, Bill and The Clancy Man in Nova Scotia __._,_.___
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