There are currently seven four-legged loves of my life: four dogs – C.T., Dakota, Daisy, and Doc, and three cats – KitKat, Sonny and Cher. This post is really only about the dogs. As I write this, I’m thinking about what my husband and I have been through this past week with having to let our sweet, precious Daisy go, and the journey we are currently on to pick up a new four-legged rescue, who is really kind of rescuing us.
Bottom: Daisy and Doc
First of all, let me share with you a little bit about the first two four-legged loves of my life.
The first four-legged love of my life was C.T., a German Shepherd we rescued in the summer of 1998, shortly after we purchased our first house. After almost a year of trying to deal with C.T.’s separation anxiety, I found the next four-legged love of my life at a flea market. He was a chihuahua-pomeranian mix we named Dakota. C.T. and Dakota quickly became partners-in-life, and stayed that way until we had to let C.T. go {cancer sucks, by the way, even for animals}, which was on July 5, 2010. After we buried C.T., Dakota began to grieve himself to death. I asked our vet for advice, and she said that we had two choices: (1) put him on medication, or (2) get him a new companion. Dakota’s grief and my search for a new companion happened so fast, but I didn’t want to lose Dakota after just lost C.T.
That’s when the next four-legged love of my life came around. I found three dogs on PetFinder that I thought my husband would like, and Daisy was one of the choices. He looked at all three photos and chose Daisy, whose name at the animal shelter was actually Diana. We renamed this little beagle-poodle mix Daisy.
Daisy came into our lives just when we needed her. She brought Dakota out of his depression and they quickly became best buddies. Daisy was still a puppy when I brought her home. She was born on April 24, 2010, and we adopted her on July 10, 2010. She brought so many smiles to our faces and so much laughter into our lives over the years. There is no way to measure the happiness and love she brought into our home.
About five years ago, the fourth four-legged love of my life crossed our yard and into our lives. My husband named him Doc, after Doc Holliday from Tombstone, which I think is his favorite movie. Daisy was named after that line in the movie, “You’re a daisy if you do!” We rescued this pit bull/mountain cur/boxer mix (we think) from the mean country roads, but he really is the sweetest dog. He loved Daisy, and yet, he feared Dakota. Doc, without his Daisy, is lost.
So now that I’ve introduced you to all four of the four-legged loves of my life, let me explain what happened to our sweet Daisy, and why we had to let her go on March 20th, the first day of Spring.
This past week has been very hard on my husband and I, as well as on Doc. You see, over a month ago Daisy was diagnosed with intervertebral disc disease, which is common among long-bodied-short-legged dogs like dachshunds and beagles. She had some back problems in the past and I had taken her to the vet for check-ups. Each time they would tell me that it could be a pinched nerve or a pulled muscle. Except this past week was different, in that it wasn’t a pinched nerve or a pulled muscle. It was far worse.
Back at the beginning of February sometime, after I had already left for work, she jumped or fell off our bed and landed awkwardly. My husband jumped out of bed and gently picked up a yelping, whimpering Daisy. He told me about what happened and when we noticed that she seemed to be walking like a drunken sailor, I took her to our vet, Dr. Tara.
Dr. Tara did a physical exam, then took Daisy about 10-15 feet away from me and had her walk to me so she could observe Daisy’s drunken sailor walk. She came back into the exam room and said that she thought Daisy had IVDD. Surgery was an option, if we had $4000 or more just lying around the house, which we didn’t. Another option was to keep her crated, walk her on a leash, try some alternative therapy {acupressure and massage therapy}, and limit her running and jumping. Dr. Tara then told me that if Daisy suffered another traumatic injury, that it could be life-threatening, that she could become paralyzed. If that happened, then we had 12-24 hours to get Daisy to the Emergency Vet for surgery, otherwise, Daisy would be permanently paralyzed.
That thought shook me to my core. Daisy was my world, more so than Doc {my heart hurts admitting that, but it’s true}. When Daisy was a puppy, she would whine and cry all night. I would take her into the living room where I would lay on the couch under a blanket, with Daisy nestled on my chest, and softly sing to her…
“When I was just a young pup,
I asked mommy what will I be.
Will I be pretty?
Will I be smart?
This is what she said to me…
Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future’s not ours to see.
Que sera, sera…
What will be, will be.”
{It’s my take on the theme song that Doris Day sang for her show, The Doris Day Show.}
Daisy would drift off to sleep and then I would drift off to sleep as well. I would sing that song often to my sweet Daisy, like when she would come into the bathroom and lay beside the bathtub while I bathed, or after she had to have knee surgery and had to be crated. Anytime she started to whine or cry, I would start singing to her and she would settle down. The last time I sang that song to her was last Sunday afternoon, as I sat in the floor beside Daisy, who was laying in her crate.
You see, Daisy was improving. I was walking her on a leash; we kept her confined to the breezeway and the back deck; she was absolutely not allowed to run or jump, period. I was doing twice daily acupressure therapy on Daisy’s back and she was getting her mojo back, so much so that over the past couple of weeks, she had started dancing around on her back legs, jogging {as best as she could} around the yard while still on her leash, and jumping up and down off the furniture. I tried to catch her either before she jumped up or jumped down, but I wasn’t always fast enough.
Prime example was last Thursday, when I brought Daisy and Doc back into the house from their evening potty break after I got home from work. She was following my into my dressing room, or so I thought. I heard her jump onto the chair by the picture window, but when she jumped down, I could tell just by the sound that she landed hard and awkwardly. I rounded the corner and in four steps, I had reached her and was helping her up. She didn’t yelp or cry. She just kind of shook herself off and acted like everything was ok. Little did I know, but she was seriously injured.
Friday morning, after I had already left for work, my husband noticed her walking awkwardly and leaning/falling over to her left side. It was more noticeable on Friday evening after I got home. It was far worse on Saturday morning, and by noon, Daisy couldn’t walk at all. By Monday night, we realized that her situation was far worse than what we initially had thought. I called the vet’s office first thing Tuesday morning while on my way to work. They could see her at 9:45 a.m. My husband took her to see Dr. Will, who coincidentally did Daisy’s knee surgery, and who is married to Dr. Tara. By 10:00 a.m., my husband was telling me over the phone that we had to make a decision, but that he had already made it.
“We have to put her down, and I am having her cremated because I cannot bury another dog.”
His sobs came through the phone, and I laid my head down on my doctor’s desk and sobbed as well. That jump down from the chair had broken her neck, and within 48 hours she was a quadriplegic. She was the kind of dog that needed to run, jump, and play around almost constantly. And for the last three days of her life, she was confined to a crate, paralyzed, unable to move, jump, run, or play. She could still move her head, and her eyes were at times bright, and yet other times, they were dull and almost lifeless.
She and I spent our last night together in the living room, me on the couch and her in her crate. She would whine and cry until I leaned over to scratch her head or touch her. I got little to no sleep that night, but neither did she. When I left for work that Tuesday morning, I knelt down in front her of, planting sweet, gentle kisses on her head and nose, telling her that I loved her so much. Little did I know that that would be the last time I would shower her with kisses or stroke her head.
I brought Daisy’s ashes home from the vet’s office on Friday morning. I let Doc sniff the cherry colored box and his tail set to wagging. He watched over me as I read the Certificate of Cremation, and then placed the certificate and the box in the glass cabinet under our television. I can see the box from my place on our couch, or better yet, I can see Daisy from where I sit.
Which brings me to today, Saturday, March 24th… my husband and I are traveling to North Carolina to pick up a new four-legged rescue. She is a one-year-old Australian blue heeler/Texas heeler mix named Daisy, but we are changing her name to Kate. Why Kate? Because Kate was the name of Doc Holliday’s girlfriend in the movie Tombstone. We have a theme going with our furbabies! You’ll see our newest rescue on our personal Instagram feeds {@vanessa_h_wood or @rpmgarage22}, as well as the one for our pets {@daisy_doc_kitkat_sonny_cher}.
My husband needs this rescue dog in his life as much as, if not more than, Doc. Both of the men in my life – my human and my furbaby – are lost. As much as I love and miss Daisy, I am trying to be strong for them and yet I’m balling my eyes out in private.
I like what my husband wrote in his last Instagram post about Daisy’s passing. “Please, do not pray for us. We would rather you hug an animal, treat it with kindness, maybe even let it lick your toes…one of Daisy’s favorite things. Maybe even ‘rescue’ one…like Daisy rescued us.”
With all my heart I believe that as much as we like to say that we rescued Daisy {or any one of our family pets}, I honestly believe that it was our rescued pets who rescued us.
Thank you for reading this very long post, and maybe even crying along with me. It may take years for my heart to heal, but I will cherish the memories I shared with Daisy.
Yours Truly,
Vanessa
