Endings can be either good or bad. For losing streaks, bad luck or a bad marriage, the ending can be good. For relationships, long flights or bad marriages, the ending can be bad. Sometimes, there is no question that the ending is neither desirable nor good.
Such is the case of losing a pet.
Custer was a rescue bulldog Karen and I adopted nearly eleven years ago. He was the goofiest, most playful and loyal pet I've ever known. Karen says that when we went to get him, he glommed on to me immediately and never looked back. I wish I could say the feeling was mutual at the time, but what I may have lacked in intensity at the start I more than made up for at the end.
My buddy was beaten so badly that he had dents in his skull. Not surprisingly, when we first brought him home, if we opened aluminum foil or put on our coat, Cus would cower in fear that he was going to be hit. I never hit him, of course, but he didn't know that I wouldn't do that, such was his fear.
He certainly pushed our buttons at times, from the familiar-to-pet-owners use of the house as a toilet to his infamous destruction of a feather bolster. At the time of his latter escapade, I remember being both angry because I had to clean it up -- which I did using a snow shovel, such was the destruction -- and bemused by the absurdity of our bulldog tearing apart the threateningly dangerous feather bolster and then sitting in the corner proudly awaiting our return so he could show us his handiwork.
Custer wasn't the most beautiful of bulldogs; that laurel would fall to his future brother, Mosby, with whom he was engaged in a love-hate relationship: They loved to hate each other. But Cus had some great and unusual features. Most notably, he had the softest coat of any bulldog I've ever met. He had a somewhat elongated body, which made him look like a large white cigar from the profile. Karen loved his speckled ear. Karen also felt he was gorgeous no matter what. I felt that way once he smiled or got excited; otherwise, he was a doppelganger for my late maternal grandfather. Even Karen admitted the resemblance.
We took Custer and his sidekick Sherman on trips with us. When we were out with the pair, people almost always stopped, laughed and asked to pet them. We took them on vacations without incident. One time, when were at a gas station and had let them out to do their business, a van pulled, the passenger window was rolled down and one simple question was asked: How much?
Custer's playful goofiness manifested itself in various forms. Whether it was being paddleboarded on one of the Great Lakes, or chasing the beam of a flashlight, or barking and dancing around when he had to go out to do his business, Custer's enduring trait was personality. He would photobomb others' pictures; I never knew if he was oblivious to his lack of etiquette, just happy to be included or happy he was free to roam without fear of sanction that led to this, but countless people have some unnamed bulldog in their family albums thanks to Custer's generosity.
He would also try to chase our quicksilver fast cat Bupkes, but his loping strides didn't quite match that brash bark that accompanied them. He had the hearing of an eavesdropper when a bag of food or the refrigerator door was opened. He was stone deaf when you told him he had to do something he didn't like doing, like going outside just because we wanted him to get a little fresh air or getting a bath. Custer made it clear that his tolerance of water stopped at the lake or a pool; bathtubs just didn't do it for him. He also loathed getting his nails trimmed. Each and every visit was like a convict being dragged to the gallows.
Custer never met a treat he didn't like. I don't think I ever saw him turn up his nose at any offering. He would wolf it down with relish and then look for seconds. He made begging an art form, causing the famous statement that Custer is looking at me with kind eyes to be uttered.
Sherman and Custer were brothers who had few disagreements. The only one that I remember being concerned about took place right above my face one day. But the two of them were kith and kin otherwise. When Sherm died on October 4, 2016, Custer seemed to take it hard. He was despondent beyond out expectations. The bulldog that loved to run on the beach barely walked down the strand a few weeks after Sherman's passing. The only remedy we could think of was to get him a partner.
We found Maisie, another rescue, but she had been kenneled so long that she didn't know how to be a dog. She and Custer shared beds during the day, but what little interaction there was between them resulted from Custer getting perturbed when his visually-impaired sister would inadvertently run into him. Like a chiding parent, he would snap his jaws and snarl at her until she meekly walked away, unaware of what she had done. Still, there was one adorable moment where I caught the two of them in bed, with Custer's front leg around her, unintended or not.
Custer never met a person he didn't like. And he shed all over everything and everyone. As Karen always warned people who wanted to pet him: Be careful. He only sheds on people he likes and he likes everyone. Truer words were never spoken. If given the chance he would sit in people's laps. When I would lie on the floor to pet him, he would sometimes get distracted by a chewbone and then use me as a platform to chew his bone.
Most often, however, when I laid on the floor I could get him to let me rub his belly. It would start with me rubbing his belly from behind his back as he laid on his side, then I'd scratch his armpits until he would pivot onto his back and let me get his chest and his belly. This could go on for minutes at a time. If I was really good on a particular day, I could put him to sleep doing this.
But of all Custer's antics, the two that I will forever remember, and the two whose absence will cause me the most sadness and tears, involve the basement and the refrigerator freezer. For some reason, while he was still able to do so, Custer would follow me downstairs and wait for me at the bottom of the stairs. When I'd tell him we had to go upstairs, he would bark and twirl around, then dash up the seven stairs to the landing, where he would wait for me. I wasn't allowed to pass until he nibbled on the pad of my palm. When he was satisfied with his tribute, he'd ascend the remaining three stairs and enter the living room.
Getting a drink was always a two-person affair. Custer could be dead to the world in his bed, but once I opened the freezer component to the refrigerator, he'd jump up and wait by the side of the opened door. I'd pop a couple of ice cubes in his mouth and he'd happily chomp away. When he was done I'd give him another pair of cubes. This made him tremendously happy.
Age and infirmity wore Cus down. His happy-go-lucky self morphed into the canine equivalent to a couch potato. He'd have occasional spurts of energy, but more often than not he was happiest in his bed, on a tile floor or the garage floor, lying down on his belly to cool himself off. He would struggle to his paws and then shuffle outside to do his business. When he was younger, he would sprint back in the house after pooping, as if he was celebrating a great feat. Toward the end of his life, he walked so slowly his age was all too apparent.
The end came suddenly, although Karen and I had been discussing its eventuality for nearly a year. Cus had been having dry heaves followed by what seemed to be a throat clearing. This would go on for about a minute and then he'd be fine. While I was on a phone call, Custer threw up. He hadn't been visibly sick, so this came as a surprise. Karen cleaned up his mess and he laid back down. Later in the afternoon I got down on the floor to rub his belly. He rewarded me, as was his wont, with licks on my face and nibbles on my palm's pad. I got up to watch a movie with Karen before dinner and while we were watching the movie, Custer vomited yet again. Not once, but three times, with plenty of substance as well as bile. As he was standing to retch, he fell over, as if he'd been pushed over from the side. We knew then that he was beyond seriously ill. I jumped down immediately and cradled Custer, reassuring him, senselessly, that everything would be all right. Karen quickly called the veterinarian. We threw paper towels on the piles of vomit and bile and I carried Custer by his mortal enemy Mosby, who was too startled by the events to move. I put Cus in the back of the car and we sped off.
Along the way Karen and I discussed various scenarios, probably in an attempt to buoy our spirits, although we both knew, in our hearts, that this was Custer's final car ride. I dreaded the thought. A few months back we'd watched the movie The Art of Driving in the Rain, and after it ended I absented myself to bawl, thinking about how I would handle Custer's end.
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It's been over four months since my buddy left us. I'm still heartbroken. I don't make a public spectacle of my grief; I don't claim he went over the Rainbow Bridge or anything of the sort. For those people that do that is their business. All I know is that my buddy's gone and I miss him dearly.
I miss him when I go to the basement and he doesn't come down with me, wait until we're going upstairs where he can whirl like a dervish and then race up the stairs to wait for me, where he'll nibble on the pad of my palm without breaking the skin. I miss him when I get ice out of the freezer for my drink, waiting and drooling until I give him a piece. I miss him when I get down on the floor where he'd sidle up to me and lie down for a belly rub. I miss him when I'd ask him whether he'd need to go out to do his business and he'd whirl again like a dervish and bark that loud, stentorian bark of his. I miss him going out to do his business and then sprinting back into the house. I miss loading him into the car for a trip, when he'd jump up to help me get him in the car. I miss him when I'd give him a bath and he'd look glumly at me as if to ask if it was really necessary. I miss pointing the flashlight's beam on the floor and make myself silly laughing at his imitation of cat chasing the light on the floor. I even miss his insouciance when asked to take a walk or go outside with us and he'd quietly demonstrate his defiance by lying down on the ground, refusing to move.
The end was far too quick and sudden for me. We got him to the vet and because of Covid restrictions, he was taken in without us. After a few minutes the tech came to get us; our greatest fears were realized. We went into the room for the last minutes I'd ever have with him and I quickly laid down on the floor. Cus, as if oblivious to what was about to happen, licked my face all over as was his wont. It was as if, as Karen said, he knew and was telling me it was OK. If that was so, I disagreed mightily. I questioned whether I was doing the right thing, whether I should be fighting harder for him to stay with us. Yet, in my heart of hearts, such a decision would be a selfish one that would only prolong his agony. Custer was the best pet I'd ever known and he deserved my selfless compassion.
The vet walked us through the steps and administered the drug. Slowly, Custer's heart stopped beating as I held him. I didn't want to let him go, even though I knew he was gone. As I released my embrace, his tongue quivered gently. A post-mortem electrical impulse, but a last flicker of his spirit. My goofy, loyal buddy was gone, gone to play with Sherman and wait for Karen and me.
We somehow made it home. I wasn't sure I'd be composed enough to drive but somehow I was. The house, still filled with two other dogs, seemed empty. I felt a large chunk separating from the rest of it and falling through my chest, hitting every rib on the way down.
Over the next few days, I beat myself up over the most trivial of things. I was too taken up with my own grief to do what I should have done. I should have asked the vets for a piece of ice, one last piece of ice for my buddy. It's something I still have trouble with to this day. It would have been a fitting way to say goodbye.
Custer's photograph, the only good one I ever took of him, graces my bookcase. I can still feel his soft fur, smell his stink, sense his wet tongue on my face.
I will miss that boy until the day I die.
Until then, I hope Custer is having fun with Sherman as they both get heaven ready for me and Karen.
(c) 2021 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
His sweet eyes looking up at you from the toilet. He had the best behind. He loved loving. Sherman was aloof, but Custer wanted all the loves.
ReplyDeleteHe loved you more than anything on earth. Even ice.