All Dogs Go To Heaven

So much for my last post (which was a month ago)! Despite Griffin (16 points, 10 rebounds, and about 3 “wow” plays per game) and Landry’s (tied for 4th in the league in tackles) individual successes, the Clippers are currently 1-10 and losers of 6 in a row, while the Redskins just got housed on Monday Night Football this week…to top it off, Landry is now being accused of spitting on opposing players during games…not a good week for my man-crushes. Anyway, yesterday I got a call from my parents, and sadly they had called to tell me that the family dog, Dayton, had passed away.

Dayton had definitely lived a full life, and it was definitely her time. She was 17 (going on 18) years old, which might not be uncommon for little dogs, but Dayton was a lab-retriever mix. Relatively speaking, she was a big dog, and that is a long, long time for a bigger dog to live. Honestly, I had kind of been prepared for when she would pass for a while now. You had the feeling that it could have happened any day now every day for the last two years, but Dayton just somehow kept hanging in there. She could barely get around anymore, and she was constantly having accidents in the house. In fact, she had had so many accidents that for the last year or so my Mom has half-jokingly vowed that whenever Dayton did happen to pass away she was immediately ripping up the family room carpet and getting all the carpeting redone. When our whole family went to the beach for a week in August, we all wondered how Dayton would deal with it, but she survived…the two long car trips, being carried up and down 2 flights of stairs in a giant Rubbermade tub several times a day just to go to the bathroom, and everything else. I think we all started to get the feeling that, as fragile and feeble as she had become in her old age, Dayton was just going to go on living forever. Unfortunately, time catches up with us all though at some point.

I had talked to my Mom and Dad over the phone a couple of times last week, and they had informed me that Dayton hadn’t been doing very well the last few days. Through all her problems (her lack of balance, the loss of some of her senses, her accidents, her loss of strength in her legs), Dayton was still able to do a couple basic things necessary to survive. She could get up and move when she really had to or wanted to, and she was still eating food and drinking water! Anyone who has grown up with dogs knows that as long as the dog at least still does those things, they are still going to be alive and kicking. Well, last week Dayton had stopped doing all of those things. She couldn’t get up, she didn’t eat, and she didn’t drink any water. On Thursday of last week, my Dad said that as he was making himself a sandwich or something, he saw her perk her ears up little. He offered her some lunchmeat, and she took a few nibbles, but that was all she could manage to do. Amazingly, despite not eating or drinking, Dayton kept hanging on. My Dad said that every morning he would come downstairs and wonder whether or not Dayton would have made it through the night, and each morning she was still alive...but on Tuesday afternoon, she apparently couldn’t fight anymore. She died peacefully in the same room that she had spent the majority of her life.

It’s hard to justify comparing the death of a pet to that of a human being, but in many ways it is just as sad. It is a different kind of sad, and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what is different about it, but it’s sad none of the less. I’m 25 years old. We got Dayton the year we moved into our new house, almost 18 years ago. The math isn’t all that tough…that’s the majority of my life, as well as my younger brother and sister’s lives. It is, after all, just a dog, but it’s not hard to see how something or someone becomes a part of your life after 17 or 18 years. Everyone who has ever had a pet could list a hundred things that they will always remember about that pet, so I will leave that part of the story out. It’s one of those things where every pet story is both unique and similar to everyone else’s at the same time. If I started down that road, I don’t think I would ever stop! Naturally, everyone thinks their own dog is the greatest dog to ever live, but Dayton really was a good dog, and she will always be my family’s first dog as well. I know my parents’ house will be a little emptier the next time we go over to visit. I do believe though, much like the title of that kid’s cartoon movie from back in the day, that all dogs go to Heaven. (I was always a sucker for that movie.) I think my Mom said it best when she said, “Dayton, Nonna will be waiting for you with a nice piece of Italian bread when you get there”…and Dayton will devour the bread, tail wagging all the while.