OK, I think I might finally be able to officially do this... I apologize - this will be long. I think I have a lot to get out.
Cabo was the dog I loved more than anything else in this world. I was lucky enough to have him with me for almost 10 years, and I would give everything I have just to have him back for even one more year.
He came to me when he was four, from the Humane Society. He had been there for months, and they feared they would have no choice but to euthanize him because he had begun to shut down. He had been on TV, on the radio, and in the paper, as Pet of the Week. He had been adopted out once and returned because "he barks when we leave outside all day and night." I had actually noticed him there before, on one of our many trips, but felt my then-husband would think he was too large and hairy. On one of our many visits, we were talked into looking at him, and it was all over for me. He was my dog, and had simply been waiting 4 months for me to realize it.
He loved everyone, but he was a mama's boy from the start. When my then-husband and I got divorced, there was no question that Cabo was coming with me. He was the kind of dog that even people who don't like dogs like. He went everywhere with me, and everyone in my neighborhood knew who he was - right down to kids, gang members and homeless people. I never felt unsafe walking in that neighborhood, even when he wasn't with me, because everyone knew who he was, and therefore knew who I was.
When he first came to me, he was very dog aggressive, especially on-leash. But, somehow, we got through obedience training, and when I went on to assistant-teach at the same obedience school, he would come with me to be a demo dog. We used to go to class twice a week, once so I could teach, and once just because he liked to go. Eventually, we were even able to go to the dog park together, and he never had an issue off-leash. He mellowed so much that when we would go back to obedience class just for fun in his later years, my friend Greg, who originally taught us, would say "Cabo isn't fun anymore - he doesn't want to kill anything."
He loved cheese. He didn't like his belly rubbed, but loved a doggy head massage. He had the highest, girliest bark ever. He loved to chase squirrels (in Michigan), and even caught a possum once and was so confused he just ran around in the back yard holding it, until I called him away. When he didn't want to do something, he would pick up his paw and softly lay it on you. He never really learned to play, but did like soft fleecy toys. When he ran with them, he ran the last couple feet wildly shaking the toy from side to side with his head down, causing his front legs to have to splay outward as he ran to avoid the toy - his special "floppy walk". You could dress him in anything and he would wear it without complaint. He was afraid of thunder, and the only thing that would ease him was to be covered up with a towel. He hated to be picked up. He would tap dance on the kitchen floor at his dinner time. He saw me through a divorce, and the follow-up to a bout with cancer. Even dirty, he smelled so good to me.
When I lost him, he was almost 14, and a year prior, had a bout with pancreatitis that he never really recovered from. He just kept going slowly downhill. We spent so much on tests and medicines, but nothing ever was conclusive, or really helped. He would stop eating and get so weak, and then we would put him on a new medicine, and he would be his old self. But then he would go downhill again, and finally the antibiotics didn't help. His last couple days were heartbreaking for me - I don't need to describe it, we have all been there. But I kept telling myself that he could come back from this, until even I realized he couldn't. On his last day, I lifted him to the couch and layed with him, smelling his head and offering him cheese, which he ate only to be polite, and because it meant love to him.
Letting him go was the hardest thing I have ever done. I thought I would die. So many people have a milestone in their lives when they first felt like a grown-up - having a baby, buying a house or car, getting married. I never really felt grown-up until I had to deal with the weight and responsibility of making the decision to send him to the bridge, and then being mature and strong enough to be there for him during it. I felt a thousand years old. At the same time, though, I felt like a little kid who finally realized that death meant never seeing him again, and cries and screams and wonders why things have to die. Even after more than a year has gone by, I still torture myself a thousand times a day over whether I moved too soon, or waited too long and kept him with me out of pure selfishness, but I did the best I could for him.
I don't know what I believe about religion or the afterlife. I go back and forth. When I let him go, I wanted so badly to feel he was still with me, to get some sort of "sign" or something... I even hoped he might haunt me. I see little bits of him in Ranger, even though they are so different, and that helps some. But, if I would ever sit down and pray for something, I pray that he is in a better place, and happy, and knows I love him. I hope that I see him again some day.
Rest easy, Mr. B.
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