Losing London

Last week, I was awoken near 6 AM by a scrambling, scratching sound from downstairs. I woke Lou, "Do you hear that? Do you understand what it is?" He sleepily replied, "It's London." I woke him not because I didn't know, but because the noise signaled a need for a conversation neither of us wants to have.

My London girl, for the first time, did not make it up the stairs  to sleep beside our bed. She got caught on the hard wood floor at the bottom of the stairs and could not gain the traction to stand up.

I went down to try to help her stand. She resisted; London has always hated being picked up or manhandled. One of the few thing that has not changed as she's grown older.

I never, ever wanted to be someone who let my dog live too long. But now we are faced with an actual decision, and I can barely bring myself to think about it.

We had a pact, I reminder her. You weren't supposed to get old.

Almost sixteen years ago I saw an ad in the Centre Daily Times for a litter of puppies, blue eyed, mutts born of an AKC registered Siberian Husky. I was ready to fulfill my lifelong dream of having a dog of my own - I called the number in the ad and could barely understand the woman who answered, so think was her Central PA patois. Finally, I figured out she was in McAlevy's Fort, a place I'd never heard of and would never visit again.

I got terribly lost going to find my puppy. It was deep in dark, rural Pennsylvania, where I'd only lived a few months. I had to stop and call for directions many times - in an age before cell phones - including stopping at a stranger's house and begging use of a phone. I chose a house that had the most Christmas lights, figuring psycho murderers were unlikely to be so festive. I think the old couple there was more scared of me than I of them, and it took me a few minutes to remember how to use their rotary dial telephone.

But I did manage to pick her up, my London girl, the only dark haired pup in a pile of blue-eyed Border Collie look alikes. Her mother howled a full-throated wolf song as we left. I tried to put the tiny little ball of fur in the back seat, but she cried until I ended up driving with her in my lap, and from that moment on I was head over heels in love.

As I stroked her head, we remembered together. Remember, London, how scared you were that first night, so I slept with you on the floor? Remember our first time getting separated while hiking, me spending hours crying and calling your name, only to stumble back to the car to find you waiting for me? How you ran, crying like a puppy with excitement when you caught sight of me, and how the car was covered with muddy paw prints from you anxiously jumping at the doors to try to get in? Remember the morning you decided, with no provocation, that the throw pillows on the couch had to go, and I awoke to find you proudly settled in a sea of fluff? How you chewed the ears on Lou's childhood teddy bear, an act for which he's never totally forgiven you? The ridiculous songs I've sung to you, throughout the years, silly songs I'd make up with your name, so you would know they were about you? How scared you were of open deck stairs, and how you still walk around to avoid grates on the sidewalk? Or how, when I cried, you would press yourself up against me and put your head in my lap to try to make me feel better?

She was never an easy puppy, my London girl. Her energy and sharp intelligence manifested itself in chaos and destructiveness, early on, and she was impossible to tire out. Long hours spent hiking up and down hilly trails would result in tired humans and a "Let's go again!" smile from the dog. She was never more Husky than when it snowed, and she would wake me up at dawn any snowy day, excited to run mad circles through the drifts, stick her head in the piles, and pounce madly through the snow. I felt bad moving her to DC, where snowy winters are few and far between, and it makes me sad that for the past couple of years she hasn't seemed as excited about our visits to the snowy climes of Upstate NY. We always hoped to take her to Colorado, where she could run far and free in the snow. I regret never having done that.

As crazy as those early days were, she settled into the World's Best Dog. For years, those who knew her puppy insanity would marvel at how good a dog she'd become. Smart enough to do agility and learn tricks. Kind enough to be trusted with anyone. With a guilty enough conscience that she seldom got into trouble - I used to brag you could leave a coffee table full of hors d'oeuvres alone in a room with her and she wouldn't touch them. Most of the time that was true.

She was there for me in some of my loneliest moments. And that was when I made her promise she would never grown old.

But she did. And while most of her decline has been frustrating backslide we have learned to live with - slow, dragging walks; fecal incontinence; insatiable food focus; light snapping as her blind eyes perceive hands near her face to mean food - up until the past couple of weeks, she seemed happy. Excited for her supper. Coming to us for petting with that big, happy London girl grin.

Now she doesn't seem to enjoy anything. "Maybe it was just a bad morning," Lou said. But I don't think so, and I miss the days when I could make both London and myself feel better by curling up next to her, cuddling, on the floor. She doesn't seem to want even that anymore.

Denver, knows, I think. He's begun to attack and try to dominate London in a way we've never seen before. As wolves attack weakened or dying members of the pack. We yell at him, we rescue her. But maybe he is smarter than we.

We have returned from our weekend away, and London is struggling to even stand. "It's time," Lou says. I pet her soft head, which suddenly seems so gray, and look into her dimming eyes.

It's one thing to say you'll know when the time has come to make the decision to put your dog down. It is quite another to actually make it. To say the words. To make the phone call.

Especially now. There has been too much death and dying in the past month. I don't know that I can handle another box of ashes coming home. Although, ironically, I feel better equipped to disperse London's ashes than I do Harper's.

My family is getting smaller and smaller. And I'm feeling number and number.

This was a hard weekend, a sad weekend, for many, many reasons. A weekend of many sneakaways to cry (thank goodness for waterproof mascara!).

I really don't want to say goodbye to my London girl.

"What do we do?" I asked Lou. Call the vet, he said. Tomorrow.