I have a new routine now, one that’s been going on for the past week. The alarm goes off at 5 am. Silently, without a word, I roll out of bed. I shuffle over to the bathroom, the only sound my dragging feet on the carpet. I attach the hose to the sink faucet, and adjust the temperature of the water. In the cold darkness of the morning the water always feels hotter than it really is.
Trying to ignore the band around my chest that makes it hard to breathe, I whistle softly for Dakota. Like always, at the sound of my whistle he limps in. “Go,” I whisper. He hesitates for just a second, then steps over the side of the tub, one foot held gingerly in the air. He rests his forehead against my chest, a barely audible sigh escaping his tight lips, as he shuts his eyes tight. I try to detach, stop feeling, go somewhere else as I take hold of his foot. I look desperately for any sign of improvement. The top of the foot looks like a gunshot wound. Necrotic flesh, white and ragged, stands out against the angry red skin that surrounds the wound. The drain cut by the vet into the bottom of Dakota’s foot oozes clear fluid, the red edges of the hole gaping as I flex the toes. His foot feels hot and full in my hand, now swollen to twice it’s normal size.
Dakota turns his head towards me as I turn on the water and start the debrieing. The jets of water rip into the wound, the strings of flesh jerking back and forth in the flow of water. The next part is the hardest. I take a deep breath, cussing the foulest epitaphs imaginable under my breath. Starting at the hock, I start wrenching and twisting the fluid-swollen limb, milking the septic fluid out the open drain in the bottom of his foot. Dakota turns and looks at me. His eyes are on fire, they burn into me with their intensity. I feel no threat, but I know he’s looking for an object to unleash his wrath on. It’s a look of pain and anger, of wanting to exorcise the pain and frustration the only way he knows how. But he won’t do it. Not to me, the immediate source of his misery. When we began this routine, I thought to keep the girls away from him, concerned for their safety, but they give him a wide berth, sensing the danger that he now contains.
Not a sound escapes his lips, no whines or growls. Our eyes meet, I murmur made up words that have no meaning except I love you, it’s going to be all right, trust me. “Cush cush,” I whisper, as I lean my head against his side. The pads of my thumbs bear down relentlessly into the tight, swollen flesh of his foot as we continue. I watch his ribs rise and fall rapidly as he starts panting from the pain. Toxic looking viscous fluid seeps from the drain in his foot, swirling in a red kaleidoscope as it mixes with blood and the water of the spray.
I stare at the drain in the bottom of his foot, trying to make it just a slit, a disembodied laceration, not a part of the flesh and blood creature that shares our bed every night. Dakota’s eyes never leave my face. I don’t know what he’s looking for, what he expects to see. I try to hide my guilt from him. I speak much braver than I feel. I’ve failed him.
Once, somewhere, I read something, a fast blurb of wisdom. “To a dog, every man is a god.” To which, in my mind, I always add “Are you living up to his expectation?” We are their gods. We provide the necessities of survival, food, shelter, vaccinations, protection from harm. Some of us go even further, providing purpose, meaning, training, direction, and love. In return we get the love that only someone who has been consoled by a wet tongue and warm furry body can understand. The perfection of unconditional love and complete admiration.
Your dog doesn’t care what color your skin is, how much money you make, how big your house is or even if you live in one. We are their gods, we petitioned for the position in a deal some dark night, long ago in our collective past, when a hand in a fire-warmed cave reached out with a hunk of meat towards one brave ambassador. A contract more binding, and longer lived, than anything ever dreamed up or created by the lawyers of today.
The best parts of me, the parts I look to with honest pride and think yes, that’s me, are only evident with my dogs. But now, I’ve failed to keep my part of the bargain.
Dakota’s soft but insistent whining woke me up in the predawn hours this morning. I let him outside to do his business. He sat before me, crying softly as he shook his leg, the pain and swelling refusing to go away. He looked up at me with his soft brown eyes, waiting for me to fix it. I could only stroke his massive head and whisper words of empathy.
I have no answer. Neither does the vet. The surgery that should have fixed things only provided temporary respite. I realize once more how irreplaceable this dog is. Not just as stud, but as friend, a family member. How lucky I was he chose me, that day when we went to look at the litter. I remember the little buckskin bundle of fur that wobbled over to my lap and promptly fell asleep there. My eyes fill and the now familiar tightness in my chest constricts yet another notch.
In a few hours we’ll all go into the bathroom again, to repeat the process one last time for the night. I’ll watch the corded muscles of his thighs quiver as he stoically, silently, endures the torment of my ministrations. We’ll go to bed, Dakota exhausted by the ongoing ordeal falling asleep quickly. Like every night for the past week, I’ll lie awake late into the night, stroking the flank that nestles up against my side, and wait for the morning and a change in his condition, afraid to hope but even more afraid not to.
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