Choosing to Say Goodbye: Rowdy’s Story

Pets are an excellent addition to any family, especially dogs. I’ve had dogs as pets my whole life. My dog Rusty bit my face when I was a child. He gave me a scar I carry to this day. I learned to never surprise a dog with a hug. Jack was my favorite. He was part German Shepherd, part Rottweiler. He was a big sweetie who looked after my kids and played the role of gentle giant to perfection. Kippy was a Yellow Lab that never learned the proper way to play fetch. Yuki was adopted by my daughter, Carole, but ended up with me because her landlords didn’t allow pets. Then there is Rowdy.

About fifteen years ago, I was in Noah’s Westside Animal Hospital here in Speedway with one of my dogs. Maw was in the hospital for her alcoholism, and Paw was at home alone. On the wall in the room I was in was a flier with a picture of a small puppy. The puppy looked like he was smiling, and one of his ears stood straight up.

There were tabs at the bottom of the flier with a phone number. On impulse, I called Paw and told him about the flier. He wanted the number, so I gave it to him. He ended up with the puppy, which he named Rowdy.

Rowdy is technically a Puggle, part Pug and part Beagle. He’s tan, with white paws on the front and a white muzzle. His body is long, leading me to think he has some Corgi in him. His front paws splay outward, giving the impression that he’s posing whenever he stands still.

Maw was pissed when she got home and found a dog in the house. She was the same with Babe, a Chow given to her by my brother Tom. Yet she fell in love with Babe, and she fell in love with Rowdy. Their house had a fenced-in backyard, and they installed a pet door in their back door so Rowdy could go in and out as he pleased. He had his own spot on their couch, set up with a dog bed. He was playful, energetic, and clearly had a herding instinct, as evidenced by the way he would play with a person’s hand that was dangling from the couch or dining room table. Maw and Paw loved taking him out on walks, and he was definitely a fixture in their home.

Paw passed in December of 2018. As he was in the hospital, my sister “smuggled” Rowdy into Paw’s room (I found out later that many hospitals allow this, but it didn’t change the feeling of an important mission!). The sheer joy exhibited by Rowdy as he wagged his tail so hard his body wiggled was only matched by the smile on Paw’s face as he got to see his buddy one last time. I’m pretty sure Rowdy was the only one in the room with dry eyes.

Maw passed a year later, in January of 2020. She and Rowdy were inseparable during her final year. In Rowdy, she had a connection to Paw. Her one frustration was that she could not get Rowdy to eat. I always found that funny, as Rowdy was a fat little torpedo of a dog, so clearly he was eating something. I figured this had to be a result of her alcoholism. What was really frustrating her was that Rowdy wasn’t eating the way she wanted him to eat. Every time I visited her, she vented about him. “I can’t get him to eat his food! I put all sorts of things on his food, but he just won’t eat!” I would look at her and reply, “He’ll eat when he’s hungry, Maw, regardless of what you feed him!” She finally settled on topping his food with crab salad. When she told me, I nearly eye-rolled myself into another dimension.

With Maw and Paw gone, my brother and sister wondered who would take Rowdy. Tom lived in St. Louis and traveled extensively. Shelly lived close, but lived in an apartment that didn’t allow pets. Robin and I said we would take him, because we had a fenced-in backyard, and we figured Yuki would be a good companion for him. Robin had one condition for us to adopt Rowdy. She looked me in the eye and declared, “I am not going to feed that dog crab salad!” Clouds formed above her head, lightning crackled, and I noticed a very strong smell of vanilla, but I am the man in this family, so I looked her right in the eye and sternly said, “OK.”

Like it does for everyone, Time has come for Rowdy. His muzzle is a silvery-white color, his eyes are slightly milky, and he’s deaf. He also has a collapsed trachea, arthritis in his spine and hips, and dementia. We started noticing Rowdy wandering aimlessly around the house, or finding him standing in a corner. We don’t have a dog door, so Rowdy learned to yelp when he wanted to come back inside. Several times, I heard him yelping, and I went to the back door to see him yelping at the woodpile or the door to the garage. Once I heard him yelping out in the yard. He had trapped himself in the garden and was jumping into the chicken wire that surrounded the garden.

Indoors, he was peeing in the house. It started with a spot here and there, with the frequency increasing to the point where it was a special day when he didn’t pee in the house. His collapsed trachea caused bouts of wheezing, which increased in frequency and severity to the point where he would throw up. The vet tried prescribing Gabapentin for arthritis pain and Denamarin for the dementia. The Gabapentin made him sleepy, and we didn’t see a change with the Denamarin.

During the last vet visit, I spoke with the vet about Rowdy’s quality of life. She listened to all the symptoms I described and said that if Rowdy were her dog, she would have him euthanized. She gave me a sheet from an organization called Lap of Love. The sheet included a scorecard to guide people on when to consider euthanizing their pet. A quick look at the scorecard caused my heart to break. It’s time.

Rowdy had bouts of shivering, which I learned was a sign of pain. The vet increased the dosage of the Gabapentin for the pain and prescribed a muscle relaxant for the collapsed trachea. He has bad arthritis in his upper spine and hips and is covered with various lipomas, or fatty tumors, some of which were tender. The increased dosage of Gabapentin causes him to sleep all the time. Basically, Rowdy is in hospice care. All that is needed now is to schedule a time to have him euthanized.

I don’t want the last living vestige of my parents to go. I don’t wish Rowdy to go. However, at some point, we all must pass away. Maw and Paw are sitting in the sun on a bench in a beautiful garden with Babe. They are saving a place for Rowdy. There he will be once again energetic. He will feel no pain, and his tail will wag so hard his whole body will wiggle. Sometime later, Robin and I will join them.

Pets can be a significant part of the family, an endless source of joy. Saying goodbye to the life that brought that joy is the price we pay for the years of love we’ve received. The trick is knowing the right time to help them peacefully cross the Rainbow Bridge to the eternal joy of the hereafter. Lap of Love provided a concrete tool to assist us with our decision.

Soon I will say one last time, “Good night, Old Man.”