Oncology
Who knew there are oncologists for dogs? There are. The one I am talking with is lithe and pale, and I stare at her fashionable copper corduroy pants tucked into long brown leather boots. There is dog fur stuck to her knees. My dog’s fur. I’d recognize those white fuzzy strands of her undercoat anywhere.
Who knew that dogs got metastasized tumors that spread throughout their bodies? They do. X-rays show our dog has a lesion under her arm in addition to the large tumor on her back; the one that brought us here on this cold Thursday in January.
Who knew that listening to options would be so overwhelming? It is. Even though I analyze data to make risk decisions for a living, I am having a hard time holding onto the facts as they are presented.
There are dollar signs floating in the air as we talk about treatments. Not just the outlay of cash, but the loss of workdays. My stomach churns. I am putting a price tag on my dog’s life, and I already know the decision we’ll make. She’s my sweet girlie but she’s not a child. I cannot cover her under my health insurance.
We transition, at last, to the crux. Talk of putting her to sleep; when to make that decision, when quality of life moves on to dignity of death.
A couple days later someone sends me a blog post from a Dr. Mel Newton titled “The Good Death.” As if there is such a thing. Maybe there is for the departing. Which is, of course, the point of the essay. Dr. Newton encourages me to think about my dog’s death not as “when should I,” but “what are you waiting for.” By the end of the read, I hate Dr. Newton.
Chance
We met Abby in December of 2009 at the ASPCA on 92nd street in Manhattan. My husband had finally convinced himself that we needed a dog, though I wasn’t fully sold on actually getting one. Taking care of a living thing was a big commitment, and dogs lived a long time. But I went along, visiting multiple shelters in both New York City and Jersey City, where we live. We looked at so many mixed breed puppies and older dogs that were in dire need of a home. I connected with none of them.
Abby’s poofy black and white coat was quite noticeable amongst the sea of short-haired brown and black dogs. She was in a glass cage by herself, and when my husband approached the enclosure, she sidled up to the glass and put her nose at the opening to nuzzle his hand, lick his fingers.
I don’t know, I said. I always think Huskies look so mean, with those masks and pale eyes.
But she’s so friendly, he said, eating up the dog’s show. He was kneeling on the floor now. She woo-wooed at him and scratched at the glass. He looked up at me with eyes as blue as hers, begging me to say yes.
Why is she here? I asked the attendant. The lady consulted the clipboard she carried.
Abby—that’s her temp name—was just picked up off the street. She’s on a stray hold. Day two of six.
Stray hold? I asked. Other dogs we’ve seen had been at the pound for months. This hadn’t come up.
We have to keep her for a minimum of six days, to give her owner a chance to reclaim her. She refers to the clipboard again. She’s not microchipped, so we can’t find her owner.
We filled out an application, more effort than I really wanted to go through, but my husband insisted she would be the perfect dog. I was skeptical, but after four days of intense research into the husky breed—even purchasing “Huskies for Dummies”—we were back at the ASPCA, an hour before her stray hold expired. As we sat, waiting, my husband kept asking if we were doing the right thing. Damned if I knew, but I responded in the affirmative, putting my hand on his leg to bolster him.
My husband was madly in love with that dog after the first walk around the block from the ASPCA. She walked so proudly next to him, a good girl in her red harness and leash.
Abby—we kept the name—was about a year old and already full-sized. She came pre-packaged knowing Sit and Paw and was fully house-trained. She hadn’t been at the pound long enough to forget her manners. But she was severely under-nourished and even more severely un-socialized. She was loving and sweet, but she didn’t know how to play with humans. Abby was mouthing way too much for a dog her age and had no bite inhibition. The books say she was likely taken away from her litter mates too soon.
One morning when out for our walk, Abby got so excited she grabbed my hand in her teeth and shook it like I was a chew toy. There were deep indents from her fangs. It took two days for the swelling to go down, and almost a week before I could hold anything again.
My husband became anxious and wanted to take her back to the ASPCA. I balked. While I had not been keen on getting her, I now spent most of my free time with her. I walked her twice a day. I discovered she’d only pee on grass and that I needed two bags when we were out because she would poop, walk a little more and then poop again—but not always. I learned she loved ice chips in her water. She met me at the door every day and padded behind me companionably wherever I went in the house. I had to step over her when I got out of the shower. She brought me her toys and fell asleep on the floor draped over my feet. She’d cuddle up next to me on the couch and lay her head on my knees while I scratched endlessly behind her ears.
No, I said, firmly. They will destroy her. I know she didn’t mean it. We can’t throw her away.
My husband’s shoulders slumped. He covered his eyes with his hands. I knew how much he had also invested in her these past couple of months. I saw how meticulously he brushed her, how he picked her up and carried her way-too-skinny forty-pound frame in his arms while she nuzzled his neck. And how he quietly cleaned up the magazines she shredded without saying a word to me about it.
I immediately found a trainer to work with us one-on-one to get her play interactions under control and enrolled in weekly group training classes. For over a year we learned how to understand her, how to socialize her, and how to manage her. Abby turned out to be a gentle soul who truly loved being around people. She reciprocated the loyalty I showed her hundreds of times over. Abby never hurt me, or anyone else, ever again.
Abby proved to be patient beyond measure with everyone, even our son. From the time he could crawl, he shared his toys, his food, and that one time, his toothbrush with her. We respected Abby’s space and body by keeping her safe from unknown hands and unwanted attention, including our own kid. The only crack in Abby’s temperament was with the large brown poodle that lived below us; their mutual over-reactions puzzled us humans every time we pulled our grumbling dogs apart as we passed in the lobby.
Growth
Mast cell tumors are a pretty normal thing for dogs, but not usually for Huskies, our oncologist, Dr. B tells us. I wonder why, but I don’t ask. She is sincere, knowledgeable. I let it pass.
At home, I google “mass cells.” I didn’t even get the spelling right. My clumsy attempt at research is to help me comprehend what I couldn’t grasp when we were in Dr. B’s office.
Jesus. There’s so much terminology that I don’t understand and don’t want to read. What I extrapolate and internalize is most mast cell tumors aren’t fatal, just an itchy, histamine filled inconvenience. Until they metastasize or rupture internally and bleed out.
I need to share this with people who know her. Her friends. I text my son’s nanny who vacuums the house in a particular order to not freak Abby out. I send the exact same text to our dog walker who called our attention to the weird way Abby’s fur was standing up on her back. He found what we missed.
Doing more tests to see how bad things are; seems to be in lymph nodes. Surgery isn’t an option. Tumor is too big. So, steroids and Benadryl to make her more comfy.
Dr. B calls me at 5:30pm the next day; I am working from home. I ask her to pause while I close my office door. I do not want the kid to overhear.
It’s spread, she says.
Spleen, liver and, as suspected, that lymph node. Belly is clear. I forget to ask why that is important. Dr. B’s next words are stark.
The time has passed for any extreme measures.
Horror floods in, laced with relief of a decision taken from my hands. My mind whirls so fast I’m light-headed. It’s just three weeks since we realized the lump removed in September had returned. It’s been a fast, downhill trip ever since, ending at rock bottom four days ago when Abby scratched herself bloody and we saw how large the lump had become in such a short time. I should have called the vet earlier, followed up with the specialist sooner. If I had been watching her more closely, if I had been paying attention, perhaps this could have been avoided.
She’s having trouble walking today, I say, swallowing my anguish. Did the tests or the shots from yesterday occur in her right shoulder?
A pause.
That is the leg where the impacted lymph node sits. It’s likely related to that, Dr. B says decisively. The steroids may get it under control.
Fucking coincidence, I think, anger burning my throat. She was walking just fine yesterday, before seeing you.
Stop it. It’s the nature of the disease, my rational brain chides me. Dr. B goes through the new doses of steroids and Benadryl. I scribble, big cursive loops sideways across an already messy page.
We hang up. I stare at my handwritten notes and then at my laptop screen, full of armchair research and last hopes. I close the browser window.
Reality
I open the door to our apartment and my eye is immediately drawn to the pop art oil painting hanging on the wall in front of me. We’ve had it for over a year and have only just recently hung it here. The dog in the painting has downward pointing triangle ears, its coat a mish mash of polka dots, stripes, and swirls. This dog with all of its angles looks nothing like my dog, but yet, it evokes her. How it sits proudly upright on pink and green stripes, how it gazes at me with such warmth, such kindness reflected in those simple black-dot eyes. It’s waiting for me to reach out to touch its beautiful smiling puppy face. To boop its purple triangle nose.
On the back of the canvas, in addition to his signature and date, the artist wrote “Andy Forever.”
I look down the hallway at my own dog, all soft and rounded with age, laying on her side. She hasn’t lifted her head since I came through the door, something unheard of a few weeks earlier. I walk over to her, kneel down and nuzzle my face into her neck, where her coat is thick and full, careful to not disturb the bright teal bandage criss crossed over her chest and across her upper back. Her fur is soft, and it tickles my nose. I smell the coppery richness of dried blood. I hear her lick and swallow and I promise her some ice chips to crunch. I take a front paw in my hand, feel the smoothness of the short fur, the roughness of her pads on my fingertips, and raise it to my face, marveling at how her feet always smell like cheese Doritos.
Planning
I’m walking through the park with my seven-year-old son, on our way to school. It’s sunny and bright and crisp.
You know Abby-Monster is really sick, right? I look at him side-eyed, not turning my head, trying to be cool about this.
Yeah, I know. He’s nonchalant. His steps are steady.
And, I pause, swallowing hard, if she gets more sick, we may have to take her to the hospital, and she may not come home.
He is quiet. His little towhead tilted downward, his long hair hiding his face. Cogs turning. Then he looks up with his gap-toothed smile.
So that means we’ll finally be able to get a puppy that I can love?
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Little shit, I think.
Well, it will be a while before your Dad and I are ready to get another dog.
Why?
We’ve had Abby-Monster for a very long time, from before you came along. We’ll miss her too much when she’s gone.
Oh. He pauses. He stops walking. Gone, like when Poppy died?
We are standing in the middle of the walkway. A few other families, schoolmates of his, float past us.
Yes. Like Poppy.
His little heart-shaped face pales, and his eyes go soft. Now, he’s able to relate. He lost his first family member just a year ago.
I miss Poppy. Grief bleeds into his voice.
And we’ll all miss Abby, too, buddy.
Voice
Don’t you find it weird, I ask my husband, that she hasn’t spoken since she went on the drugs?
Yes; it’s like she’s suppressed with antidepressants. That makes me saddest of all.
Why hadn’t I noticed until now, I wonder, as tears spring up like fountains and stream down my face in the darkness of the car. It’s been almost two weeks. I crane my head over my left shoulder to look at Abby, laying on the flattened back seat, head between front legs, eyes flicking between me and the back of my husband’s head.
Huskies are known for many things: their wolf-like appearance, fluffy tail, and blue eyes. But for owners the most impactful traits are their tremendous shedding—tumbleweeds of fur blowing across the floor—and their voice. Their woo-wooing—not quite a howl, definitely not a bark—is a melody of ever-flowing conversation; the pitch and length can convey talking or singing.
Our Abby-Monster has a wonderful voice. During her early years she constantly talked to us, at us, about us. A few times at the dog park, with other huskies from the neighborhood, she managed to reach the apex of a howl, but never for long. She did it to show she could, and then backed off with an air of superiority. As Abby lorded her magnificence over the other dogs, I puffed up with pride.
When Abby was upset about something, the woo-wooing took on a high-pitched whine; we called it her cry. When she was mildly peeved, she’d open and close her mouth, performing scales. When she was really trying to convey her irritation or unrest, it seemed like she was pushing sound through her nose. That particular closed-mouth whistling sound drove the whole family nuts, especially on those occasions we had to take her for a drive. Abby was actually quite fine in the car, the tell-tale stress signs of flattened ears and panting noticeably absent. But she insisted on being heard. The whole trip.
As Abby got older and chilled out, she would only use her voice when she really needed to make a point. Like when I forgot to refill the water dish (one woo), or I was too slow in taking her out in the mornings (a long drawn out woo-wow-ow as I tied my shoes). And, still, at the beginning of any car ride.
The day we got her diagnosis, Abby used her voice several times during the afternoon to convey to the vet, to us, to all the techs that crossed her path that she was done and wanted to go home. Then, the very next day, when she couldn’t walk—the lymph node under her front leg swollen and enlarged—she didn’t cry. Not once. She just endured. When we upped the steroids and reduced the Benadryl, the swelling went down and the grogginess faded. She felt better and happily, could walk.
But she hasn’t spoken to us again. She seems robbed of her voice, and I can’t help but think that, like Ariel the littlest mermaid, Abby traded her voice for legs.
Lost
I look at her, curled up on the back deck as soft snow falls around her, white smudges on her black coat, and wonder if she knows she won’t see this place, her favorite place, all green and lush again.
She won’t sit beneath the grove of pine trees and hear the summer wind passing through the branches, lifting her nose high as the scent of deer or honeysuckle or nameless other things pass over her.
Dogs don’t plan for the future, or yearn for the past, the experts all say. They live for the moment, feel what they have right this minute. Right now, she feels the snow on her ears, the twitch of her left one the only tell-tale sign that she is awake.
Later I tell my husband about our walk down to the creek. She actually jogged a couple a’ times, I say. She did really well.
It’s the steroids, he says. Don’t get your hopes up.
I look at him, irritation flaring, but I say nothing. He’s preparing me. And preparing himself; I see it in his face, all drawn and pale. She’s his dog too, I remind myself. Still, I wish that he’d just let me have this moment.
But in my core I know it’s time.
I lost her in the woods once. The first Christmas after we bought this little cottage in Wayne County, Pennsylvania. We went for a walk through the snow and trees and she bounded ahead, pulled along by the cacophony of scents. I kept calling her back and then, that last time she didn’t come. The white of her butt and tail disappeared through a copse of old trees. She was gone for over an hour. Huskies are known to get so carried away with running and exploring that they forget where home is.
When I finally found her, she was running towards me through the trees, mouth open and tongue hanging to one side. Eyes happy. Her whole demeanor was ecstatic—and completely unapologetic. Oh, there you are, she seemed to say. Where were you?
Our walk today was slow, and she never left my side. She looked for ways around the fallen trees instead of jumping over them. She paused at any incline or decline, needing encouragement. Her beautiful pale eyes were a mix of happiness and wariness. I got the point and turned us toward home before she lost her dignity.
Today—this walk—it was our farewell. I knew it because she told me.
Forever.
We said our final goodbye to Abby on a rainy February morning. Right before the pandemic took hold here on the East Coast.
We had taken her back to the vet, to revisit how she was doing. She had been having some good days, and was a bit more alert and energetic than she had been for a couple weeks. She wasn’t getting better, of course, and we talked about what her natural end would really be like. The stabbing in my chest made it hard to breathe.
Those of us who have committed to an animal will most likely find ourselves at this crossroad. I could not abide having her suffer. But I also could not picture a home without her. To go without hearing her nails click on the hardwood or feel her flop down next to me on the couch. To not see her sit when I get ice out of the fridge dispenser, waiting for me to share with her. To not hear her scramble up and pound down the hall when my husband picks up her harness and leash. To walk into my son’s room each morning to wake him for school and not see her curled up on his rug, next to his bed.
It’s been lonely without Abby. Me, my husband, and my son all feel the emptiness, hear the echo of her presence in all the places she occupied with each of us. Her absence was amplified during months of COVID-19 lockdown at the cottage. When we came back to the city, to our apartment, we went through it all again. Chew toys under the couch, stray bits of kibble, phantom sightings.
I don’t know if we chose the right time. Did we rush it? Should we have given it a few more days, or weeks? I worry that I did her wrong, even though I know I gave her a good death.
I also know that I was extremely lucky to have her for the time I did. She was special, no one like her across the whole universe. And I will remember her.
Abby Forever.