Soapbox

Rocket- the Final Scene

I've been making a mental list today of all the things that will never happen again.

~I won't see him trot down the street in his jaunty red coat.
~I won't enjoy the way the tips of his silky black ears bob up and down when he trots ahead of me.
~I won't ever stroke those silky black ears.
~Rocket won't ever acidentally tumble down the stairs to me while I'm on the laundry room level.
~I won't ever watch with affection as he runs toward the steps or even just a curb, gathers himself for a jump too early, leaps with 4 paws spread… and lands in a sprawl.
~He will never again jump off the deck steps with his coat flapping behind him like a Superman cape.
~I won't have to spend hours in the spring brushing him, marveling at how a small, short-haired dog can have such a dense coat.
~No one will ever quietly but determinedly insert his head under any hand within reach, so insistent on getting you to pet him that we joked his theme song was You Must Love Me.
~When I come home, there won't be two dogs to meet me.

    Rocket was the kind of dog of whom non-dog people would say "I might get myself a dog… if it could be just like Rocket. "

    Quiet and unassertive, small enough to be non-threatening but big enough to hold his own, Rocket came to us one Easter Sunday when the family had gathered in Amesville to say goodbye to Julie and Craig's beloved dog Babes, whose time clearly had come. As she lay exhausted, with adoring children stopping by to pet her and say farwell, a little black and white dog wandered into the yard. Rail thin and covered with fleas and ticks, his bright dark eyes and bobbing ears caught my young daughter's grieving heart and didn't let go.
     I was still in Columbus, about to leave for Amesville when the phone rang.
      "I want to warn you Trace" Julie said "there's this little stray dog here, and Katie is determined that you are going to adopt it."
       "Us? We already have a dog" I insisted.
       "I know. The neighbors say they've seen it wandering about for a while now- it's clearly half-starved, so I let her give it some of Babes' food, and she really, really wants to bring this little guy home. Seems like a sweet tempered dog," she added "and cute. …Looks a little bit like Babes, actually."

    When I arrived in Amesville I took one look at that little cheerful, border collie/terrier-ish face, with the tiny white line up his muzzle, and then at the hopeful face of my daughter and thought Oh crap- I am taking home another dog!
   Rocket and Boomer always got along well. Well, Rocket was so non-dominant that he got on with everyone. Whatever he experienced while on his own left him easily frightened by loud noises or sudden movements and flapping laundry was his particular phobia. But the funniest part was the way he would herd the big herding dog if he knew Boomer was up to no good. 
   Katie decided she would teach him how to roll over. Rocket was so incredibly food motivated that she figured it would be easy. The problem was, he was too food motivated. The thought of the impending treat would get him so excited that sometimes he just couldn't complete the entire maneuver before jumping up Now? treat now? Sometimes he would forget to even lay down first and as soon as she held the treat up he would try to roll- resulting in a spin instead.
   Rocket wouldn't chase balls or frisbees (though he would chase dogs who were chasing toys and bark at them in true border collie fashion) but he loved little soft stuffed things. We called them his Babies and he would carry them round in his mouth for hours, sometimes whining as if he wanted to tell us something about them.
   When Tucker the Destructer came along all the remaining babies were disemboweled and shredded, but by then Rocket didn't really seem to care about them any more.

   As Rocket got on in years he got gray, and his back legs started to shake. Sometimes I worried that he would fall over, they shook so much. Then I started putting fish oil on his food- and the shaking stopped! His hips were awfully weak though, and on a slick surface like the kitchen floor they would sometimes just slide out from under him. Nobody said old age was graceful.
   He became very hard of hearing, and soon it was clear he was getting senile as well. Sometimes we would find him standing and staring into corners. But he was still a sweet old dog, and pretty game, when he had the energy.

    He really wasn't comfortable with stairs, which isolated him on the living room level in the evenings when we were all upstairs. Walking down the hall I would see him standing with his front paws up on the bottom step, looking up to where all the people were. The sight of his wee gray head and slightly confused dark eyes peering up always tugged at my heart, and I would go sit on the bottom step for a minute and stroke his still-soft ears… until he would wander off again.
    Around Christmas, Rocket stopped wanting to eat his kibble and we noticed he wasn't drinking much water. I got some big bones to boil for a thin broth which he liked and started experimenting with cooking his food. Pretty soon I hit on a recipie: brown rice, a chicken breast, sweet potato, carrots, maybe some peas or spinach. Then into the nutri-bullet with a little broth to whiz into a paste that he could lick up. But he wouldn't eat much at a time, so soon I was feeding him 4 or 5 times a day, plus extra fluid offerings. If I didn't keep an eye on him he would sometimes pee in the house, so I had to be careful not to be away from the house for too long, and did a lot of washing of the throw rugs in the kitchen.

    It was a gradual thing, so I hadn't noticed how much of my day was focused on Rocket's care. I made a raised platform for his food bowl, since he had trouble bending his head to the floor. I learned to listen whenever I woke up for the click-click of toenails that told me Rocket was awake, because if he was on the move, I needed to get him out before he made a puddle. Tucker became my helper: when I heard him walk over to the bed, I knew that he had heard Rocket downstairs stirring. I kept boots by the back door so that I could slip my feet in and run out to carry him down the steps when I just couldn't bear the thought of him landing in a sprawled heap.
    Looking back, I had become his hospice nurse.

    Tuesday night Rocket had a small stroke, While he recovered his strength the next day, his already confused mind  lost its grip completely. He had been a wanderer for a while, but this was different. It reminded me of the way a zoo animal paces compulsively, and he seemed unable to stop. For hours he would prowl around and around the house, getting stuck behind chairs and in corners when he would wander back there and seem unable to understand why he couldn't got forward. After a few hours I would finally manage to coax him into laying down and he would sleep for an hour or two, only to lurch to his feet and start walking again.

    At night I gated him into the living and dining rooms, because the carpet there gave him better footing. I moved chairs and boxes to block off  places where he could get stuck and spent the night in the living room chair. Every so often he would wander over and let me pet him. Sometimes the attention seemed to soothe him, other times I wasn't sure he had any idea who I was or what I was doing.
   By Friday morning we were both exhausted, and I knew it was time to set him free. I was sure that it was time… but oh, it hurt.

   Anyone who has ever loved a pet has walked this road. The road starts out so sunny and broad, with lots of running and sniffing, and chasing sticks and good dog treats. Sometimes it ends abruptly, sometimes it slowly stretches into rough terrain and deep shadows.
    I'm not sure how difficult Rocket's road has been the past few years. But one thing is clear: the little dog who started down this road with me left his gray, weak body behind. His spirit had already fled the pains of this earth.  All I could do was walk to the end of the road with what was left of him, as I promised I would do all those years ago when I told Katie we could bring  him home.

    Of course Katie took off work and drove up to help him go, just as she had brought him to us so long ago. At the designated hour, after carrying him over to Tucker to say goodbye, we took him to the vet's office. I left him in his little red coat, because I made it for him, and he looked so jaunty and brave in it. Wrapped in a towel, I held him in my arms and stroked his head while the vet told him what a fine fellow he has been and gave him his injection. And then, just as with Boomer before him, his fine little heart stopped beating there with my arms around him.
    Katie lives in Athens now, so while it broke her heart to say goodbye, hopefully she isn't wounded over and over each day by the hundred little ways in which Rocket is no longer with her. I am. No little black and white form curled, napping on this rug or that. No small food bowl to trip over in the kitchen.  A tuft of dark hair in the vacuum cleaner. Small footprints still frozen in the mud of the back yard.
    A score of times a day I am confronted with the things I will never see or do again because Rocket is no longer with me. Sometimes, they just make me wistful, and sometimes I weep, in a mixture of grief and guilt, and relief. What a hard road it was for both of us those last 2 days.

    But there is, perhaps, one last part to this story. As Rocket was slipping away and we prepared for the end, a new young dog was coming into the circle. Just as Rocket had come while Babes was leaving us, Julie found a dog in need of a home, sweet in temperament, who seems perfect for her family. Nothing is official, but I can't help but wonder if Babes and Rocket aren't both perhaps behind the scenes, arranging things. We'll see.

    As I walked with Rocket to the shadows and he slipped into the darkness without me, I could only hope that the old dog he was will meet the dashing young puppy that he used to be, and the two of them will run on together.