Sad dog stuff

This was going to be my day today: slippers, pink soft socks, leg warmers, polka dotted fleece pants, and assorted other fleecey garments and a long double-looped pink scarf around my neck. Inside. I love scarves and leg warmers, even in my writing room. They're like little blankets. There was also a blanket involved, by the way, the lap blanket. You might get the impression our house is cold. It is, but we're used to our winter garbs and we're okay with it. The point is, after walking Shiloh (my 13-year-old Siberian husky who went through radiation a few months ago for a nasal tumor) very slowly around the block, and after showering, I was going to wear my garb for the rest of the day and not leave the house. I was going to drink candy cane truffle coffee and write. Delightful plan. But not so much.

Shiloh had a really, really awful nose bleed in the midmorning, and it finally stopped, but then I wanted to get her her favorite lunch because I don't know how many lunches she has left, so I had to take off my leg warmers and polka dot pants and put on the sort of things grownups wear out into the world to go to Safeway for a rotisserie chicken. She enjoyed it tremendously, as did Leroy her canine step-brother who must, on some level, understand Shiloh is sick. I wonder if he understands the connection to the unexpectedly luxurious lunches. Back into the polka dots and leg warmers for me. But after lunch, Shiloh had another really, really awful nose bleed. It was horrible. Called her regular vet and her oncologist, and found out there's not much to be done about it. Started her on antibiotics anyway, so I got to get respectable again to go pick those up. Talked to the vet tech about future euthanasia options (don't know how much in the future, next week, next month -- how do you know? How do you know?) and started to cry. It turns out our vet does home visits, which makes things seem a slight bit less horrible.

It's not just the nose bleed that is freaking us out. Saturday night was a bad night. I woke up about 4 am to hear Shiloh's nails scrabbling about on the wood floor and went down to see if she needed help standing up, as she sometimes does. She did need help, but even with help this time she couldn't stay up. She couldn't walk, and it panicked her. Her heart was pounding and her legs were shaking like crazy, and when we finally got her outside to pee, which was where she was trying to go, she collapsed in the grass, in the rain, and we had to go out and help her back in. She weighs 80 pounds, so it's not so easy. When an 80 pound dog stops walking, that must be it, right? It took a while to calm her down so she would just go to sleep and not keep trying to get up, and then by morning she was okay, and she hasn't had a repeat of Saturday night so far. She's aged so quickly. For years our dogs didn't seem to change at all, and now in the space of months, it's hit her all at once. So she'll be getting plenty of rotisserie chicken, and Leroy will be reaping the benefits too, without actually having to be sick.

So I'm not really wanting to leave the house. I hate the thought of being gone and Shiloh not being able to get up, or getting a hideous nose bleed. Luckily, I'm not so into leaving the house anyway! Well, sometimes. But right now I just want to cocoon and write, so it works out fine. I would love to get snowed in, like we did a few years ago for a week. That was such a delight. It was when Shiloh was still spry enough to "escape" as is a well-known Siberian husky tendency. The streets had frozen smooth as an ice-skating rink and Shiloh managed to slip out the door and get away from us, but the driveway was so slippery she "ran" away at the slowest slippiest pace! Still, it was faster than we could go, so she had herself a little wintertime ramble about the neighborhood and then came home. She used to be so fast. When she would escape there wasn't a chance in hell of catching her. It was a very very sad day for Jim and I the first time we could catch up to her. That was a few years ago.

She's standing right here panting and looking at me kind of blankly, so I think I'd better give her some love. Hope all your pets are happy and healthy. Here's a picture of her looking unthrilled by her last bath, and then one of Leroy.