About six months ago, I turned and looked at Bax, our beagle
mix, and realized that our time with him was drawing to a close. The years had weathered him, although he
never lost his youthfulness in his eyes.
His muzzle was gray, and the black floppy silk ears were speckled with
white. After losing Bos just six months
prior, the notion that we would lose him sooner than later, filled me with a
sense of dread.
And even with my the heaviness in my heart and gut, I was
still amazed at the absolute joy it brought me to watch him be the dog that my
kids had known for their whole lives.
Even in his final season, his quest was simple: love, love, and love some more.
On a spring day in 2000, I waited out back for my Mom to
pull up and take me to have my wisdom teeth removed. Needless to say, it wasn’t a carefree day,
and to top it off, I was still healing from the loss of our first pregnancy
just a few weeks before. As I sat down
on the back porch steps, I heard the sound of a chain dragging against the
sidewalk. As I stood up to investigate
the sound, a beautiful black and white dog came happily up to me with the chain
still around her neck. And along with
that chain, came the most beautiful, fat puppy I’ve ever seen. He was still nursing, although it looked like
his Mama would have preferred otherwise.
About that time, my mom pulled up and noticed my visitors. We thought for sure someone had to be looking
for them, so we loaded them into the car and canvassed the neighborhood. Although we came up short, we made the
decision that they would ride in the car to the dentist’s office, and that we
would have a better idea of what to do with them when I was looped up on pain
killers. Needless to say, Macey, and her
baby, Baxter, became part of the Thorne family the minute they walked up onto
our porch.
Baxter was a baby in every conceivable way. For a full 24 hours after his first set of
shots, he whimpered and whined as if someone was stabbing him in the injection
site. If he couldn’t see us in the
house, he tore through it like a crazed maniac – tearing up pretty much
anything in his wake. He would howl at
all hours of the night, and we didn’t have an intact venetian blind to be
found. At one point, the Vet put him on
doggy Prozac to calm his nerves a bit.
But all the while, he was our baby.
And, during the time he went from a pup to a dog, I was pregnant with
Sam. From the minute I found out I was
pregnant, Baxter never left my side.
When my belly was gigantic, he would still manage to carve out a space
on my lap in the recliner. While in the
hospital for Sam’s birth, BJ had blown up a giant photo of the dogs for me to
concentrate on during labor, and it helped immensely.
So, it was no surprise at all that the moment we walked in
with a new baby, Baxter made his way over to him, gently stuck his nose in
every possible space in the car seat and breathed him in. From that moment, he became his dog. Oh, he loved me still, but his ultimate life
plan was to be the best snuggle bug that any kid could ask for.
With every kid we brought home – and you know that’s quite a
few in our abode – Bax did the same thing.
He’d smell them, roll on their blankets, and claim them as his own. When one of them was sick, you would find Bax
curled up with them on the couch – keeping watch as he kept them warm. Not one time did he EVER act anything but
loving to them when we didn’t get to them in time to stop them from pulling his
hair, or poking his eye. He was the most
gentle, loving being I’ve ever witnessed with children.
About two weeks ago, I noticed that he wasn’t eating. He’d still take food out of our hands if we
offered it, but he stopped with the dog food completely. About a week after that, he became so weak
that he could barely get up and down our porch steps. My sense of dread became overwhelming at that
point, as I realized that his end was indeed, near.
On Saturday morning, we awoke to a frail, shadow of the dog
that Bax had been. He couldn’t stand on
his own, and when we would take him out, he would collapse in the yard as if he
was giving up. I knew what we had to do,
and I told the kids to love him until they could give no more, and prepare themselves
for the hardest thing a human can do for their beloved furry family.
His doctor said that he was in acute kidney failure. She gave him some IV fluids, a shot of pain
meds, and sent him home to spend some time with the family who loved him beyond
reason. I sat and held him in my arms
until all of the kids came home. I
explained the situation, and told them how sorry I was that it was at this
point. All of them, in their own
hysterical, jaded, and beautiful way, told him how much he meant to them, and
they thanked him for being this beautiful creature who had kept them safe and
warm. Carrying him to the car for his
final ride, was honestly the most gut-wrenching thing I’ve done. Bos was loved by all of us, but he was MY
dog. Bax was an unrelenting angel to my
babies, and their pain was almost too much to bear.
Doc Shroeder gave him an injection to relax him and calm
him, and BJ and I spent the better part of ten minutes gently rubbing his head and telling him how
much we loved him. When he closed his
eyes in peaceful slumber, we were the last faces he saw – the last voices he
heard – the last humans he smelled – and we thanked him, a million times over,
for being what he was to our kids.
He wasn’t a dog. He
wasn’t a man. He was a selfless being
that showed more love and gratitude in his thirteen years on this earth, than I
could hope to in a lifetime. Although
our hearts are heavy, and we miss him more than it seems possible, we know that
he is happy, and he is where all dogs go:
Heaven.
Batty Beagle – you were, are, and will always be, our
family. Our lives are better for having
had you in them. Though your time on
this earth was relatively short, you taught us more about what it is to love
selflessly than we could ever meausure. Run,
Bax, fast and furiously, and know that we will await the day that we meet
again, and we will talk of our adventures. We love you, Sweet Angel Dog, now
and forever.
