 |
| Mousse's last bask in the sun, a week before his death. |
But something different happened...probably a mini-stroke, that took out his sight overnight. He only had to run into walls and trip over things and fall down stairs for two days before I called "The Angel of Death" and arranged for Mousse to die.
Euthanasia is such a dichotic thing. Mercy killing. It is a twisted kind of kindness, to end the suffering of a creature with a painless death. We should all be so lucky. But as I spent the last hours with Mousse by a warm fire, my insides burned with the knowing that someone was coming to stop his heart forever at my request. You know you are killing your dog. You know it is his last moments of life. And you are there to bear witness to the unbearable. It is the weightiest hard.
 |
| Out for his last pee. He could feel the grass, and follow my voice. Look at his tail, a blur. It never stopped wagging. |
Mousse came to me as a foster dog. The man who rescued him agreed to pay "doggie child support" as long as it took for Mousse to be adopted, and since he was a good friend to whom I owed many favors, I took Mousse on. I told my friend, "You may be paying me for awhile, he's huge and black. On the 1-10 scale of hard dogs to find homes for, he's SO a 10. If he was small and fluffy and white, you'd be paying me for two days. With this one, it may take two years." I was a little off with that guess.....Mousse was with me for four years. Every single prospective home fell through. I even took him to "Mardi Growl" events with beads around his massive neck, and his huge, 120-pound body as a billboard, big white letters painted on his fur: "I'm homeless!" on one side, "Please adopt me!" on the other, and his name written across his wide ass. Mousse was a big fat foster failure.
 |
| Waiting for The Angel of Death, by a warm fire with Mummy. |
For reasons no one knows, Mousse was meant to be with me the rest of his life. But while waiting for the euthanasia, I wondered..... of all the people who have had a part in this dog's life, why is it up to me to order his death? Why do I have to be the one to comfort his last breath? Why me? This is too hard! I guess the easy answer is..... because I was the one Mousse loved the most.
When it was time, I opted for pre-sedation. The shot of Telozol made him yelp, and I hurt for that. The Angel of Death said she does not pre-sedate when she does her own dogs, because she's so good at what she does, she hits the vein the first time and it is over in seconds. I said, "What a hell of a thing to be good at." I told her, "Don't go anywhere, I have 8 more dogs for you to do someday." Maybe I'll opt for no pre-sedation next time. I felt such gratitude for her....a woman who is good at killing dogs.
Mousse slumped in my arms, sedated, and I laid him down. The Angel of Death put the tourniquet on his forearm to inject the *Fatal Plus that would stop his heart. I had a friend there to hold my hand. All three of us were sobbing. Three crying people and one dying dog. She put both her hands around his huge barrel chest to feel that his heart had stilled; when she took her hands away and started capping her syringes, I knew he was gone. The instant-ness of death is so disarming. Alive one second, forever gone the next.
 |
| It's done, sweet old Boy. You're a pup again, in Heaven! |
I loved Mousse so reluctantly at first. He was such a hard one to handle, as if I invited a bull into my china shop. But every pound of him grew on me. He became a presence as big as he was, and he added so much to our lives. All dogs do, don't they? That's why we have them. And that's why we go through the anguish of their deaths over and over; their lives with us make the painful parting worth it. I'll miss you Schmoosh Schmoosh. I thought I saw you in the garage this morning...the shadow of your spirit. You stay here as long as you want, old boy. My friend Sherry put it best: "He won't even know he left, he's been living in Heaven on Wood Thrush Ridge all along."
 |
| Mousse in his burial shroud, still in the wheel barrel, with his toy. Oh sweetness, you just look asleep. It is so hard to put your baby in the ground still warm. |
*Footnote:
For anyone facing euthanizing your pet, be sure it is done with a euthanasia solution called Fatal Plus. It is used at most shelters, and it is water-based, which means, it injects quickly and does not sting. I have been through euthanasias with other euthanasia solutions used, and once with disastrous results...it took my Greyhound Dece 10 minutes to die. Fatal Plus is the only one I'll allow.
