Five years ago, after having a miscarriage I made the rather hasty decision to get a puppy. I can still remember that it took about 2 weeks to finally come home with one - the first weekend foray to PetCo and their adoption fair almost resulted in me bringing home a 6 month old deaf St. Bernard, but in a rare moment of sanity I resisted (he was wicked cute). It was during the second weekend trip that I found Lily, or rather that Robert found Lily. I was looking at her sister a dusty brown bundle who was almost the color of the Arizona desert in fall and winter, when Robert tapped me on the shoulder and in his arms was a jet black sausage. There is no other word to describe Lily at that age - she was a sausage.
The first night we brought her home she got out of her puppy crate and I found her the next morning curled up on a pile of books in the living room. This set the pattern for several more nights until she finally got used to the crate. From the start Lily was a challenge. We had been spoiled with Raleigh, he potty trained really fast, he never chewed, but Lily - oh Lily. Lily chewed her way through a French/English dictionary, all of my shoes, and several novels, and she adopted the spare room of our house on Fairoaks as her own indoor bathroom. She was hard work. But she was also so rewarding, if you accidently stepped on her she would yelp then sit with her paw in the air acting as if you had caused her indescribable pain - more than one friend fell for this trick. She never got used to mirrors, and would bark at her own reflection, and get quite indignant about the "other dog" in the room. She was a hussy who would happily roll over for extended tummy rubs. She never learned the command "roll over" but she knew "roly poly." She walked to heel immediately without prompting, she aced puppy classes, and she was in many ways more obedient than Raleigh. Friends who were scared of dogs warmed to and even loved Lily, she was ridiculously easy to love. She was always a "fraidy cat", she was always skittish, and no amount of training, no amount of love, no amount of security did anything to abate her fears and anxiety.
When we moved to Boston she spent every day standing on the front seat of the car, refusing to sit down much less lay down until it got dark. At rest areas she would hide behind my legs to bark at people - and in every hotel she would curl up at the foot of the bed, reveling in the treat of not sleeping in her crate.
In Boston the more tricky parts of having a dog with so many fears became more apparent. Lily was scared of trash bags, of plastic grocery bags, even pillow cases - anything you could shake in order to make room inside of it. She was scared of water bottles, would go ballistic when anyone came to the door, loud noises - car horns, construction, trucks, people talking loudly while going past the house would set off a storm of barking. She could turn on a dime, and poor, mellow Raleigh was usually the recipient of these sudden episodes of aggression. We did more training, we saw a doggy therapist, we tried Prozac, we made her walks longer, we set more boundaries. We loved her.
When we found out we were pregnant, we worried about how Lily would react to the baby, but when Poppy arrived we realized that we had been worrying for nothing. She loved Poppy from the second we brought her home, all her instincts to be protective of me switched to being protective of Poppy. She would gently take food from Poppy, sitting patiently and waiting until Poppy offered her the tasty treat. She would oh so gently take the toys Poppy offered her on an hourly basis (we would then spend the next 10 minutes chasing Lily around the house to get the toy back). Poppy would squeal in delight - plainly in cahoots with this now 70 pound barrel of a dog.
Three of four weeks ago Lily started to change; while she stayed devoted to Poppy she seemed to distance herself from us. Her days were spent upstairs on the bed, only coming down when I came home from work. She was more nervous than ever, barking more, oftentimes at nothing. She became irritable with the cats, and very irritable with Raleigh, snapping at him. We practiced watchful waiting, and on some level I began to prepare myself for the worst. This weekend it became readily apparent that Lily was really sick and that we could do no more. We gave her 5 years of love and affection that she may never have otherwise had. We gave her more chances than any other owner would have, we never gave up no matter how difficult her behavior became. We will never know what caused such a rapid decline in Lily's health, or why she had so many "issues" in her short life. Physically the vet suggested an overwhelming infection, or a tumor, what emotional scars she had, well we will never know what she was exposed to before she found herself in the shelter in Tucson, but we all agree she was exposed to some immense cruelty.
Today at 2.15, I sat on the floor with Lily in the "quiet room" at the Angell Animal Medical Center while a lovely vet administered a lethal dose of a general anesthetic. It was very peaceful; she really did just go to sleep. We donated her body to the vet school, in hope that someone can learn from her.
God speed my little Putt Putt Lily Butt. We loved you so much, and that is why we made this hardest of choices so you no longer had to suffer.
Newborn Poppy
