Au Revoir, Zoe

On July 4, I received this email from Roger/Lapinbizarre along with a picture of Zoe.

The current problem, however, is my old chow Zoe, the last of the dogs I have raised from a puppy. Her very uncertain legs gave out on her two nights ago and there is no sensible option to "putting her down". She barked almost non stop for 18 hours from yesterday morning - annoyance and some fear, I suppose, at not being able to get up. She's also nearasdammitt blind. But she's quieter today. Thanksgiving (sic) gives her a 24 hours respite, but I will have to take care of things sooner rather than later. Her brother lost the use of his back legs three or four years ago. We let him hang on for a couple of months in hopes that he would regain it (he was younger and had had surgery for a problem which might, with determination on his part, have been turned around) but he did not. A half-paralyzed dog, with the best will in the world, turns into an unhappy, messy creature - rashes, bedsores, etc. No point in putting the poor girl through that.

The picture is Zoe in better days. I responded that Zoe looked like a lioness.

Roger answered:

She was indeed a lioness - and she has kept he looks; her hair is as full today as it ever was - far fuller than in the photograph - and not a gray hair on her at 13 1/2 ( very good age for a chow). She was the only living thing who, when I pitched a fit about anything, would come to me and sit by me while everything else, two and four-legged, took to the hills. I called her my "still, small voice of calm".

And then today:

She was in a weary, agitated state over night so I took her to the vet's first thing this morning. The vet agreed that it was time, so we proceeded from there. I brought some pieces of roast pork that I fed to her as a "last supper" - her appetite was intact - before and as the anaesthetic was administered, and I left when it had taken effect, before the lethal injection. I'm getting the ashes back and plan to bury her and her brother - four years dead but still in a dresser drawer at a friends' house in the country, with their highland cattle, llamas, donkeys, pigs and goats. In the city they'd be dug up and scattered within years.

So far I'm feeling better than expected. The anaesthetic stage was slow (three or four minutes) and gentle, so I got to pet her as she slowly went to sleep.

It seems Zoe had a gentle going. I offer my prayers and sympathy to Roger. It's so hard to let the dear ones go.