OPD Syndrome

Dax in his older but still full-sighted years.

It has been 18 months since our beloved dog Dax left us. Ever since then, the girls have been suffering from what is known as OPD Syndrome. It's characterized by an overpowering need to visit with every dog you see on a walk, to the point that you will cross the street to be on the same side as a dog you see coming, just so you can visit with it.

My friend Nicole's sweet older dog eventually warmed up to their new puppy Kenai.

School friends who own dogs are visited more frequently than those without, and my girls spend more time with their family dog than with their friend.

OPD Syndrome is more commonly known as Other People's Dogs syndrome. 

The only cure? To get a dog of your own.

Ruby, who has found a forever home with my friend Missy and her family.

The start of school this year was particularly stressful for our family. Wayne was home for the first day of school but was on a business trip the rest of the week. One day I came home to find both girls in tears for different reasons. I spent the evening reassuring one, emailing the teacher for the other, reassuring the other, getting everyone fed and so forth. Both girls asked if they could see a dog that evening.

We called a friend and asked if we could take their dog on a walk, to which she readily agreed. When we stepped out the door our next door neighbor was out front with his dog, an intimidating looking mix of Chow and something else big and muscular. Hank the Tank sat in front of Lindsey for some petting, leaning against her more heavily the more she rubbed. Eventually he laid down and let her rub his tummy. Such a tough guy. 

We went on our way and walked Mae, the sweetest goldendoodle and best walker ever. We returned from the walk feeling a bit better, but still not great.

Has anyone see Mae?

After Wayne came back from his trip, he and I were discussing the situation and how both girls were seeking out companionship with dogs during this stressful time. For the first time since Dax died, the conversation opened up to the possibility of getting a dog.

Before I knew it, it had leaked to the girls that we had been having this discussion, and we were being worked on. Promises were being made, lists of all the benefits of dog ownership. We had a family discussion about those promises.

Yes, you SAY you'll walk the dog after school, but when it's 10 below out, are you really going to? And we had a very real discussion about how we know we will outlive the dog. All of our hearts were broken when Dax died -- would the benefits of dog ownership outweigh the eventual heartache? The collective answer was yes. We've drawn up a contract for all family members to sign outlining responsibilities, turning those promises into action. So we hope.

Now the search is on for a rescue to fit into our family. People ask me what we're looking for in a dog. More than likely we'll get a mixed breed, and are just as concerned with temperament as physical features.

• No more than 35-40 lbs
• Preferably between 2 and 5 years of age (We are not up for puppy energy)
• Does not need grooming, preferably short-haired
• Low to moderate energy (a daily walk is all it needs, not a 7-mile run)
• Loves companionship and wants to cuddle
• Good with other dogs
• Trainable

We're most interested in fostering a dog through Second Hand Hounds or other organizations like that, where dogs are placed in foster homes until forever homes can be found. What a great way to ensure that the dog fits within your family before committing to adoption.

Hard to believe that we may once again had a four-legged family member.

Rocky says "Don't worry!" It'll all work out.

Blessings from the Universe

This is what our mantel looks like right now. While there are a few Valentine's Day cards up there, it is mostly filled with sympathy cards from family and friends.

The support we've gotten from everyone in our lives has been overwhelming. On the day we put Dax down a group of friends organized our girls' activities for day, so that they would be out of the house and having fun while things were happening at home.

We had the vet come to our home, a luxury I am grateful we were able to pay for.  She was kind, sympathic, patient and wonderful. I am so thankful Dax was able to pass away in his favorite place; in front of a roaring fire, on my lap. What a gift.

A good friend of mine came to be with me when the vet came to our house. Wayne dealt with Dax's passing by going for a long, peaceful run in the hush of new fallen snow. Without my friend being with me, it would have been just the vet and I. I could never have asked her to be there -- she volunteered.

As strange as it seems, a back injury which flared up the day before Dax was put down was a blessing. It gave me an afternoon to myself at home with him, resting on the couch with ice, a laptop, and a snoring dog.

Earlier in the month, I lunched with dear friends of mine. We've known each other for nearly two decades. One friend gave the others a belated Christmas gift of a CD set of "This I Believe," an NPR series of 5-minute essays. Now we don't usually exchange gifts, and I had nothing for my friend, but she had enjoyed this series so much that she wanted to share it.

What a gift that has been! The essays are from famous and not-so-famous Americans, writing from their heart about the beliefs that guide their lives. It's not religious, and some of the essays are downright quirky. Many of them were so appropriate for what our family is feeling at this time.

My favorite essay is the one recorded by Oscar Hammerstein, famed composer of The King and I, The Sound of Music, Oklahoma! and many other classics. His essay is titled "Happy Talk," and my favorite lines are:

Why do I believe I am happy? Death has deprived me of many whom I loved. Dismal failure has followed many of my most earnest efforts. People have disappointed me. I have disappointed them. I have disappointed myself...

..Could I not build up a strong case to prove why I am not happy at all? I could, but it would be a false picture, as false as if I were to describe a tree only as it looks in winter. I would be leaving out a list of people I love, who have not died. I would be leaving out an acknowledgement of the many successes that have sprouted among my many failures. I would be leaving out the blessing of good health, the joy of walking in the sunshine.

Ultimately, that's what it comes down to: what we are humans choose to focus on. And as I've written before, I choose joy.

Since Dax's passing, I know of two people in my life who have lost a parent. Another has put her father into hospice care, and one friend's sister is battling breast cancer...again.

There are other people and places for me to put my energy now, for me to support those friends not in grand heroic gestures but in simple acts of kindness. My turn to return to the universe the blessings it has showered on me.

Saying Good-Bye Takes Time

No one who has ever accepted a pet into their lives would ever say, "It's just a dog." When that dog's existence is interwoven into every aspect of your life, the reminders of that loss are small, but constant.

When that dog's life is woven into the lives of your children, the loss is all the more difficult.

Being there the moment Dax died was not as difficult as watching our children say good-bye to him, one at a time, as they left the house that morning. His absence is felt by them every day, as I feel it.

Lindsey and Dax, September 2007.

Marissa and Dax sleeping together, 2010.

It is difficult to guide your children through the grieving process when you yourself feel the loss. I know that losing a pet is not the same as losing a human, but the grieving process is the same.

The hauntings began minutes after he died. I heard him sigh from in front of the fireplace 20 minutes after the vet had taken his cooling body out of the house. Lindsey saw him sniffing his way into the kitchen a day later. Two days after his death, I awoke to the sound of his toenails clicking on the hardwood floors. Marissa heard him snore. (So appropriate.)

It's been almost a week and the hauntings have nearly stopped.

For the first day, I did not leave the house and I did not see people outside of our immediate family. I could not bear to see people whose lives had not been turned upside down the way ours had.

That first day reminded me of the day I brought Lindsey home from the hospital. I remember sitting on our living room couch, nursing this tiny, little newborn child whom I was somehow responsible for. I saw people walking by our house, shopping bags or coffee cups in their hands, chatting and laughing together. I wanted to shout at them, "Don't you know how life has changed?!" It didn't matter to them, but everything was different to me. When Dax died, the world suddenly had a huge void that only my family fell into.

By the next day, I needed to get out, to leave the sadness and emptiness behind. Our family went to the mall and hung out in one of the sitting areas for hours. We went to a funny movie. For a while, we forgot. It wasn't until we began the drive home that we remembered we were coming home to an empty house.

We have now entered the dreaming stage.

Dreams of Dax in a better place, dreams of him when he was a young dog and could run with wild abandon. The girls have dreamed about him too and tell me their dreams when they awake.

We all went through a period when we did not want to be alone. Wayne left for a business trip just as we were getting back to our routine, so it was just the girls and I at home. We were happy to sleep together in the same bed because we all were afraid to be alone. Dax's spirit and the hauntings were so strong in our house that we were comforted by them, yet afraid to be alone with them. If any of us were alone too long, the grief would overcome us until we were beyond functioning. Both girls had a blanket of Dax's to snuggle. I would breathe deeply of Dax's scent from the blankets while they slept. By the time Wayne returned two days later, that stage had passed and the girls were okay sleeping in their own beds.

Now the milestones.

First, Dax missed his first meal at 5:00 the day he died. Then he missed his breakfast for the first time. Tomorrow marks a week since his passing, then it'll be two weeks, then a month. He'll miss Lindsey's birthday in May, and Marissa's in July (he loved to help unwrap presents, which is why their birthdays are significant). He'll miss his first birthday in August (he would've been 16). Then he'll miss Christmas. And eventually it will be the one-year anniversary of his death, with many milestones in between, and many after.

At the same time, I continue to greet and talk as if Dax is with us. When we leave the house in the morning, I'll say "Bye, Dax, keep the house safe!" When I lock up for the night, turning lights off behind me, I'll call out, "Goodnight Dax, love you, puppers."

I find comfort in calling out to him as if he's still here. I figure if we're going to hear him around the house anyways, we may as well greet him as if he is.

It's getting better. It's getting better faster than I thought it would. Maybe I have a step back I'm going to take in the near future, but for now, it feels okay.

It feels right that we helped him find peace when we did, perhaps that's what is helping me. When I look back and realize that his poor back legs didn't stop shaking and quivering for years until the vet administered the sedative shot to him, I realize how much he had deteriorated and we had simply become accustomed to it.

Through all of this, I have learned that I am stronger than I thought I could be. I never imagined that I would have the strength to be there with Dax in his last moments, yet I was. I never imagined that I would be able to have conversations with my daughters about Dax's life and death, yet I can, through my own tears.

I've learned that their seeing my tears and my own grief helps them understand that they are not alone in theirs. The fact that they saw their father cry about Dax's departure helps them understand that everyone in this family is hurting, but we're in it together, and we'll be okay.

We'll be okay.

I Thought I Saw You

I awoke this morning to the sound of your nails click-click-clicking on the floors. It was around the time you usually wake up, wanting your breakfast.

The first night of your absence Marissa felt my slippered foot under the table and exclaimed, "Oh Dax! You're so warm!" An hour later she asked if it would be okay for you to come downstairs and snuggle while we watched the Olympics. An hour after that, she asked if it was her turn to sleep with you. Each time I didn't have to say anything; she remembered by the look in my eyes that you were gone.

I had to look twice at a patch of sunlight on the floor yesterday, knowing that if you'd been here you would have found it and curled up for a snooze in the warmth.

The image of you lying on a towel carelessly left in the hallway struck me as I climbed the stairs. A patch of sunlight had found the towel and I know you would have been there.

Last night Lindsey thought she saw you coming into the kitchen just as she pulled a pan of brownies out of the oven. It was about the time you would have walked in; having not heard any of the kitchen noises, you usually arrived when the food came out of the oven and you could smell the good smells.

She nearly bent down to greet you, only to realize it was her imagination. She straightened up with disappointment and sadness in her eyes.

I swore I heard you sigh in the middle of the night, your long, contented sigh of a change of position and comfort. Only I know it couldn't have been you.

I expected to see you as I walked down the stairs this morning, and looked expectantly for you in front of the fireplace.

Empty places. Empty moments. Empty hearts.

I know that there are losses greater than ours. I know that there are parents mourning their children, friends mourning friends, husbands mourning wives, children mourning parents. But grief is still grief, and the fact that you were woven into every facet of our lives makes the loss of you palatable every moment of the day. Even when we aren't here, I have to brace myself to coming home to an empty house.

Some day I will hear your sighs in the sound of the wind. I will hear your paws in the crunch of new fallen snow. I will smile when I hear the happy barks of other dogs in the park. By then I will remember you with fondness, and think about how lucky we were to have you in our lives for 15 whole years.

Until then, those sounds are haunting our home and making our hearts ache.

Author's Note: The last time I suffered a loss of significant consequence, I wrote every day in a journal to my loved one for more than a year.  I took comfort in writing to him as if he were still on earth to read the words. More than 20 years later, my writing has moved to the electronic page and I have an audience to read it.

If you think I'm oversharing, that's your opinion. Writing is my therapy and sharing these thoughts helps me through it. By sharing I find others who have suffered a similar loss and relate to me, so I don't feel so alone in this process. 

This may be the last post on this subject, I may curtail my journal-like entries to the drafts folder. Or you may be reading more about this journey. Whichever I do, I thank you for your kindness and understanding.

Last Morning

5:38 a.m. That's when Dax awoke this morning and decided it was breakfast time.

I obliged him immediately, because I know this is his last breakfast. He doesn't know that, so it's just another breakfast to him.

The last 24 hours have been surreal. Last supper. Last time eating popcorn. Last everything. We know, and the girls will hug him with tears in their eyes, but he is oblivious and just wants down to sniff the floor for more popcorn.

The girls planned to sleep together in the same bed with him last night so that it was fair that they both sleep with him the last time. But every time they tried to shut their eyes they got sad about missing that snuggle time with him, so they didn't fall asleep. They eventually ended up in our bed and I in Lindsey's with the dog, who let out stinky toots all night from all the treats he'd been fed that evening.

I have been on this grief journey before. I didn't know when the journey would start, but once it did it was the most difficult time of my life. It seems so strange to pick the day to start that journey to mourn your dog. To make an appointment with someone to end the life of a creature you love so much, and then pay her to do it. Weird.

I know what to expect. The emptiness when you come home at the end of the day. The times you ask, "Where's Dax?" then realize, he's not here and never will be. Re-remembering every morning that you don't have a dog to feed anymore and getting sad about it all over again. Sitting on the couch and wishing you had a warm little body to snuggle next to you. Having a bowl of popcorn and seeing the kernels that accidentally drop to the floor remain uneaten.

Dax is snuggling with me right now, and it seems odd to be sitting here writing this. How do you share last moments with a dog? At this stage in the game he does not want someone to pet or kiss him, he just wants to be next to you, finishing out his night's sleep with contented snores. (Which is what he's doing right now.)

I share my last moments with him by being that warm body that he wants to curl up next to. By writing my thoughts about what an amazing dog he has been for our family, so patient and willing to put up with our girls' shenanigans.

5:50 a.m., February 15, post-breakfast snooze

He always wanted to do exactly what you wanted to do, no matter what it was. If you wanted to go for a walk then he did, too. If you didn't, he wouldn't pester you for one. If you were sick and needed to sleep all day, he was right there beside you, snuggling and snoring the day away, even when he was a young dog, when most young pups wouldn't leave you alone and wanted to play or run if you were home to do so.

He loved chasing bubbles. One of my favorite videos is of him and Lindsey when she was just a baby and we discovered for the first time that he loved to chase bubbles. We would blow the bubbles at Lindsey, and Dax would run up and bite them as quickly as he could before they got to her. He would leap and jump and twirl around to catch as many as possible. Lindsey chortled that baby laugh that is so funny to hear and both Wayne and I were doubled over in laughter, tears squeezing out of our eyes from the sight and sound. We finally had to stop when the bubbles began frothing from the sides of his mouth, his eyes dazed and wild with obsession.

Now, he can't see the bubbles to chase them and couldn't chase them if he saw them. He doesn't "hoover" the floor clean like he used to, because he can't see the bits of food, even though he can smell them.

His medical issues are numerous and challenging, and we are simply putting off the inevitable by making him suffer through the pain of moving his arthritic joints and the embarrassment of not being able to control his bladder. (And he is embarrassed, too, you can tell.)

I will be there with him in his last moments, to provide familiarity and comfort. I have to do this, because I cannot imagine not being there for him in his final moments, when he's always been there for me.

Wish me strength for this afternoon.

The Hardest Appointment

We've recently made the difficult decision to put our dog down.

Wayne and I adopted Dax in 1998 when he was 10 weeks of age. We had only been married for 3 years when we welcomed him into our lives. We affectionately call him our first-born.

Dax and I the day he joined our family,  October 1998.

Through three houses, three job changes between the two of us and two babies -- now two growing girls -- he has been our ever patient, sweet and snuggly dog. 

Now, at age 15, he has a growth that the vet believes to be cancerous. He has lost sight in one eye, has limited sight in the other and is completely deaf. 

I've lost track of how long ago he lost his hearing. To be honest, when he first started having difficulty hearing I thought it was by choice, with a screaming infant and a loud toddler in the house. Turns out he really was losing his hearing, and now he is completely and utterly deaf. 

The arthritis in his back legs is so bad that just standing still his legs shake and quiver. He has lost control of his bladder, resulting is numerous accidents in the house, even when we're home and let him out every 20 minutes.

None of this makes this decision easier. Despite his ailments, he still loves popcorn and will come running as quickly as possible at the smell of popcorn popping. He loves to snuggle. He burrows under the covers and curls up next to a girl's leg to sleep. A roaring fire and a dog bed are his favorite comforts.

And, we seem to be going about it in an odd way. We've selected a date weeks in the future, February 14th. Yes, I know that's Valentine's Day. I feel awful to plan it this logically, but the girls have a release day from school that day so they won't need to be concentrating in school, but will be out of the house. Monday the 17th is President's Day, so they will have a long 3-day weekend to be sad and get as many tears out as they can before they have to get back to reality.

This has been a hard decision. Part of me knew that making the appointment that far out means that if we change our minds we can always cancel. And for a couple of weeks I couldn't sleep and had to pop Zantac a couple of times a day over this decision.

It doesn't seem right to pick the day my dog should die, when he would probably be perfectly content to carry on as he is, possibly for years. Yet he can't be comfortable and cannot communicate his pain. He can't take prescription pain meds for the arthritis because his liver enzymes are so elevated; we're quite sure that his liver would fail by medicating him.

Then I spoke to a friend who had to make a similar decision with her cat who had kidney disease. Sure, there are treatments, and sure, the cat could have lived longer. But because my friend had to give her cat an IV once a day, the cat cringed every time my friend came near. She stopped being close to the people she loved the most, for fear of a pinprick and pain. That's not living. My friend put the date a couple of weeks out, and every time the cat seemed to improve she got her hopes up that perhaps they wouldn't need to do this, but then she would get worse again. She felt guilty when she didn't pay attention to the cat, which happened quite often with a newborn in the house. Her recommendation was to move the appointment up and stop torturing myself with the time between now and then.

And yet, somehow, her relating this story brought me peace with this decision and with the timing of it. We will enjoy every minute that we have with Dax, and the last few days we will spoil him rotten. He will have all the popcorn he wants, raw cookie dough, snuggles and warm fires. 

Now, when Dax has accidents in the house I am more patient, because I know that this won't last much longer.  I'm not as annoyed when he is awake at 5:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning, insisting on being let out and fed, because I know that some day soon I'll be able to sleep in on the weekends. And I'll be honest, I am very much looking forward to finally taking down the gates we've had to put back up at our home, in order to limit his accidents in one area of the home. Baby gates are so incredibly annoying, and it feels like we went from having to put them up for babies and toddlers to putting them up for the geriatric dog with little break without them. 

I will miss him terribly. And I have no idea how I am going to be able to handle being the one who is there when the vet makes her final visit. But I now have peace that he has lived a wonderful 15 years with us, and that we are doing the right thing by him.

UPDATE: Jan 29, 2014 Due to the number of canceled school days due to weather, our kids' school district has now decided to hold school on February 14th. When Lindsey got the news she told me tearfully that she couldn't possibly be at school around all her classmates when she was going to be bursting into tears throughout the day. We've now had to change our plans to February 15th, Saturday. In the meantime, Dax's physical condition continues to deteriorate, making walking and eliminating challenging for him, further re-inforcing that the time is right for us to ease his suffering. Wish us well through this difficult transition.

The Mystery of the Missing Dog



(FYI, dog is not actually missing. Here's photographic proof.)

When Dax was just a pup, we had a kennel for him in our basement. This wasn't just a crate, it was a large space made out of 3-foot sections of metal fencing, so he had a 9 square-foot area for himself while we were at work.

We bought him a little dog bed, which he promptly chewed up. We bought him another one, which he also decimated in about a day. We then decided to go the blanket/rug route, as he didn't seem to go through those too easily and they were cheaper to replace, anyway.




Finally he stopped chewing on the blankets, and we thought that perhaps the chewing stage of puppyhood was done. So we bought him a bed again, this time something that resembled a puppy bean bag, made out of all fleece and one that dogs could scratch and push into any shape to get comfortable on. Something kind of like this.



Everyone say "Awwww!"

Unfortunately he began nibbling at the seams, but at least it was taking him a while and the dog bed was still usable while he nibbled away.

One day I came home from work and went downstairs to get him out, only to see an empty kennel! I stared in wonder and amazement. Hmmm, the gate is shut, there's no way he could jump over the 4-foot sides, where did Dax go?

The only thing in the entire kennel was the bed ball, which began to move. And move. Eventually a little head popped out of the top of the dog bed. Dax had completely eaten a hole into the ball and wiggled his way in, and that's how he slept in the dog bed.

He slept in the bed that way for some time until he finally opened a seam up so far that all the stuffing came out all over. That was the end of the dog bed ball.

Zombie Dog

After reporting several months ago that our beloved dog Dax has a serious eye condition, he is still here with us, with a new nickname: Zombie Dog.

His eye which has a floating lens in it goes from looking normal to being milky white in color. Usually after a few days it goes back to normal.

He definitely isn't seeing much out of that eye. It's easy to surprise him if you come up on his right. To let him back in the house after letting him out I slowly open the door until it hits him in the shoulder, because he doesn't see that it's opening until he feels the door on him.

He is snuggly and tolerant as ever to our girls, to whom his advancing age means nothing.

What a sweetie.

My Dog's Guide

I like to call him our first-born.

After all, he was born in 1998, a whole 5 years before either of our daughters, neither of whom know life without him in it.

I wrote a while ago about how he has an eye problem which requires an expensive surgery, one we have opted not to do. His quality of life is impacted, but as long as his eye condition is controlled with medication and drops, the condition is not painful nor life-threatening. This is what we've chosen to do, for as long as we can.

One day this past week Dax awoke early and wanted to start his day. I could hear him snorting and sniffing for attention from his sleeping companion, my daughter. Before he could wake her I got up and carried him to the top of the stairs, then set him on the floor to walk down the stairs, like he usually does. I started down the stairs but he didn't follow me. I looked back to find him sniffing and searching for the top step, reaching a paw uncertainly in front of him to try to feel his way.

I carried him all the way down the stairs and to the side door. I set him on the floor again and opened the door, only to have him not find his way out the door. On and on this went until eventually I had to carry him out to the back patio for him to relieve himself, then carried him back in. He found his breakfast by smell, and then found his way to the rug for his treat by routine alone.

It was pitiful. And thankfully it was temporary.

Once the day got started and more lights were turned on, his vision seemed to return and he was able to move around again with confidence. I can only guess that his limited vision is impacted by low light levels, and returns once there is more light.

He has always been a companion dog, preferring his humans to being alone, but he is more so now. He follows me around constantly, mirroring my every move as I go up stairs and down, cooking or doing laundry, or putting the kids to bed. If I am sitting in a chair he can access he will jump up and make himself comfortable right next to me. If he can't sit next to me, he will stand or sit near my feet.

I have come to realize that I am my dog's guide. I hope I am a good guide in the autumn of his years.

A Tough Decision

Our dog Dax has had various eye issues through his life, being the bug-eyed little canine that he is. Recently he had some inflammation in one of his eyes, so I began putting drops in his eyes left from the last incident and when it didn't get better in a couple of days, dutifully took him to the family vet for "the usual."

Unfortunately his diagnosis is nothing but "usual."

Turns out that at the ripe old age of 13 his ligaments holding his lens in place have given out, so his lens is flopping around inside his eye. He is currently looking over the lens and is farsighted, though he does have his vision. As long as the lens is towards the back of the eye it's not much of an issue, but if it moves to the front of the eye he would have intense pain, inflammation and it could cause a plethora of other issues which would need to be dealt with immediately.

The recommended treatment is surgery to remove the lens, leaving that one eye permanently far-sighted, but at least without pain and swelling.

Unfortunately this surgery is expensive, and that's for the procedure alone. It does not cover the cost of the medications he would be on for weeks after, or the required four follow-up visits. All told, we would be paying several thousand dollars.

Did I mention he's 13?

The challenge with this condition is that it is not nor would it ever be terminal -- it has everything to do with quality of life. If we were told he had cancer, that treatment would cost several thousand dollars and he may get one or two good years after recovery, that decision would be easy. If this eye condition goes untreated and worsens he will be in pain, but it won't kill him. That's not really fair to the dog to ask him to live with that kind of pain.

The other challenge is that if we really wanted to we could swing this, and for that I feel immensely fortunate. For many others, if their dog was given this prognosis surgery would be completely out of the question. It's not out of the question for us, but it does not come without sacrifice. At the same time, we are anticipating some major repairs on our aging house (see prior post about our 1928 sewer line) and need to be saving money for pay for those things. And did you know that our property taxes have gone up by double digits each of the past 5 years?

I know, these are all first-world problems, and I will say it again -- I am very blessed. But I also feel very blessed to have Dax in our girls' lives and want to keep him in their lives for as long as possible.

I feel strongly that when you accept a pet into your life you accept them for the entirety of their lives. As pet owners we do this willingly knowing that we will outlive these creatures that we come to so love. But when it comes to decisions like this, I have to remember he is a pet, not a human.

For now he is on medication to help with the pain, reduce the swelling and hopefully keep it from worsening. Right now I'm looking for more options, and would love to hear some from you.

The Eldest Child

Our dog Dax turned 13 on August 1st. I happened to have the day off work that day, and the girls and I tried to make him feel special that day.

He was greeted with birthday wishes from the moment the girls got up.

He got to chase bubbles outside, one of his favorite activities.

He opened presents, which he actually does because he loves to rip paper. It is a guilty pleasure of his, one he rarely gets to indulge.

Special treats were purchased and plied upon him throughout the day, for which we were richly rewarded with stinky toots late in the evening.

And he got special snuggles from the eldest.

Lindsey likes to think that we made Dax feel special on his special day, the way we try to for our girls on their birthdays.

But I have a feeling that Dax would've been happier had we all been at work and school and he could have slept all day.

Five Years in a Dog's Life

Five years ago we hired a company to re-glaze our bathtub. I still remember that I was about 8 months pregnant with Marissa and was questioning whether or not we should spend the money on this particular home improvement. It turned out to be well worth it, the tub held up for the entire 5 year warranty period and looked like a brand new tub.

I had come home early from work all those five years ago to inspect the final work and pay the worker. I remember the man saying that Dax had kept out of his way, but only after determining that the human was moving around too much to actually have a lap to settle in. Dax had satisfied himself with settling in Lindsey's room at a respectable distance from the noise and smell, but close enough to sidle up for a pat should the opportunity present itself.

Fast forward five years. The tub is now flaking, it's time to re-glaze. So we hire the same company since we were pleased with their work the first time around and they were always so good about coming back for touch ups during the warranty period.

I came home early from work today, to again inspect the final job and pay the worker. I'd been home for about 5 minutes when I heard Dax come up from the basement. I went upstairs to check in on the work and Dax accompanied me, sniffing and smelling the worker like he hadn't seen him before.

The guy says, "Oh, was he here the whole time?"

Dax, who had been happily snoozing in the basement, had never even heard the man enter the house, noisily sandblast off the old glaze or do any of his work. He is too hard of hearing for that anymore.

Makes you realize how long five years is to a dog.

It Might be Time to Mow

We almost lost the dog today.

Criminal Behinds

This is the face of a guilty dog.

Just moments before this photo was taken, he farted so loudly I swear I thought it was one of the kids. And he doesn't have short little ones, they are long, drawn out toots that go up at the end, like a question mark.

I looked down at him and said, "Dax, did you fart?"

And this was the look I got in return. Note how he won't look me directly in the eye, and his ears are pulled back.

Guilty as charged.

A Tale of Our First Born

And I don't mean Lindsey.

Our dog Dax will turn 12 this summer. He became a member of our family on October 16, 1998. While he has perhaps fallen in favor with the arrival of each daughter, he is still an integral part of our lives, even moreso because our girls love him so much.

Since I rarely include him in our family shananigans, I thought I'd tell a story on him. He can't talk so he can't defend himself on this one.

In the year 2000 we were living in Mankato and had the opportunity to have my dad and stepmom and Wayne's parents to our home for Thanksgiving. We had not put on a Thanksgiving dinner for any kind of company yet during our 5 years of marriage, so I was a bit nervous about the meal not turning out.

As the time for the meal drew closer, Wayne and I got busier and busier as each dish came near to completion. My dad chuckled and said we looked like a three-ring circus, rushing around each other in the kitchen getting everything out. (Of course, I had refused any offers of help.) At the last minute I remembered the corn that needed microwaving. As I whipped the corn out of the freezer, a container of green beans fell to the floor and split open. Thankfully only a handful of green beans scattered across the floor, but Dax was furiously eating them up as I tried to clean up the rest. He got four or five eaten before I could shoo him away.

We got the whole meal on the table, and sat down for the dinner. We all looked across the table at each other and I took a deep breath, glad that everything had turned out and that we were all finally gathered to relax, enjoy eat other's company and relish the meal. My mother-in-law began the prayer, and then the sound began.

The sound of Dax, noisily throwing up green beans in the living room.

It lasted through the prayer and several minutes into the meal. I think he got a green bean stuck in his throat which is why he kept making such a lovely retching sound for many minutes after everything had cleared his stomach. Of course I had to excuse myself from the table to check on him and clean it up.

Thankfully I have wonderful in-laws and animal-loving parents, so everyone laughed at the dilemma. It definitely made our first time hosting Thanksgiving a memorable one.