[Originally posted on my other blog, http://ceruleanblues.wordpress.com]
March 30, 2014
When Jesse was in veterinary school he would sometimes travel for weeks at a time for externships and fieldwork. On those nights, Mr. Bones and I would be alone in the house. He would be on high alert, in full-blown “protect Mom” mode—ears lifted, nose twitching, growling softly at the slightest sounds. We’d go to sleep in bed, and he’d usually take Jesse’s spot, resting his head on the pillow and stretching out next to me. Sometimes Bones would wake up, listen for a moment, then hop out of bed and trot down the dark hallway. I’d wake up, too, pull the covers to my chin and hold my breath until Bones would come back and lightly jump onto the bed. He’d turn in a circle a few times before stretching out again and sighing. I don’t think I realized it at the time—I was probably slightly annoyed at being woken up—but Bones’ constant vigilance made me feel safe. He was looking out for me. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen. He’d go down the dark hallway first and check things out.
Jesse and I adopted Bones from the Marion County Dog Pound in Fairmont, WV, in September of 2000. I was 23-years-old and Jesse had just turned 22. I remember it vividly. The day before, we’d gone to the Monongalia County Dog Pound and played with two Beagle-mix dogs, both about a year old. We went home, and over a few beers that evening we decided we’d return the next day and adopt one of them. When we walked to the kennel where they’d been, other dogs were in their place. We asked the woman working if both dogs had been adopted; she walked through a door in the back and came out frowning. “Next time you see something you like, don’t wait,” she said. Of course, I had an emotional breakdown right there on the concrete floor.
We drove a half-hour south to the Marion County Dog Pound in Fairmont. There, we met two Beagle-mix puppies, littermates. One was outgoing and friendly; the other stayed in the back of the cage and barked at us. The pup’s mother was there, too, but she was afraid to come close. The worker said that the litter and their mother had been left in a box next to a dumpster behind a shopping center. We chose the barker with the white tip on the end of his tail, paid the $20 adoption fee, and headed for home. The puppy was skinny, covered in fleas, and immediately threw up in our car. We were in love.
I wrote some of what happened next in a post a few years ago (http://ceruleanblues.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/a-birthday-tribute-to-mr-william-bones-my-best-friend/), but I’ll repeat it here. After only a few days, our new puppy surprised us with explosive, bloody diarrhea. It was a Sunday (the only day pets get sick) and most veterinary clinics were closed. But we dialed Cheat Lake Animal Hospital and the practice’s new owner, Dr. Jean Meade, answered the phone. Bring him right in, she said.
The rest is history: Mr. Bones was diagnosed with parvovirus, a serious illness that often kills puppies. He spent about a week in the clinic’s quarantine ward, and he has the distinction of being Cheat Lake Animal Hospital’s first parvo puppy. Jean and her colleagues saved him. Almost fourteen years later, Jesse is a veterinarian and practices at CLAH, where he himself has helped save many parvo puppies.
And after a long, amazing, adventurous life full of love and joy, Mr. William Bones passed away during the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, March 22, 2014.
There isn’t anything I can write that can adequately describe what a wonderful creature Mr. Bones was. Simply, he was my best friend, my constant companion, my confidant, my little man in a dog suit. He had a way of appearing next to me whenever I felt sad or lonely, or whenever I was laughing. Or eating. I guess he was always next to me—checking on me, making sure I was OK, seeing what I was up to. A few weeks ago, if I’d been sitting in front of my computer for this long, Mr. Bones would have visited me at least twice, ambling up to my desk chair and gently pushing his nose against my leg before padding softly away. No one checks on me now.
Mr. Bones had a wonderful singing voice, a rich baritone. When we lived near a volunteer fire department, he’d howl along with the siren. Before the days of voicemail, when the answering machine would click on and beep, he’d yelp and howl and lay his ears back. He hated the smoke alarm, the doorbell, the UPS man, thunder, gunshots, fireworks.
His family tree was a mystery. We knew from seeing his mother that Bones was at least half Beagle. Years later, we had a DNA dog-breed test run (yes, really) and it came back 50% Beagle, 25% Boston terrier, and 25% “untraceable,” which means “mutt for more than three generations.” But he grew bigger than both Beagles and Bostons, a trim 35 pounds or so, with long, thin legs and delicate white paws. His snout was long, too, and ears a little shorter than a Beagle’s, and less flat. His fur was softer than a Beagle’s, too, and lacked the greasiness of most hound breeds; it was soft, so, so soft, and would hold the sun’s warmth. He had the softest ears of any dog I’ve met. You could build another dog out of the extra skin around his neck. Wow, I loved him…
I still hear him barking upstairs when I pull my car into the garage. I see him out of the corner of my eye, standing next to the table waiting for food. When I take the leash off the hook, I hear the soft thump as jumps down from our bed, hear the tags on his collar jingle, hear his feet trot down the hallway. At night, I feel his back pressed against my legs. I can feel his warmth. His fur is stuck to my clothes and his saliva stains the back windows of my car. His anti-seizure meds sit on the counter, the bottle half full. His collar is on the counter, too—not around his neck. Not anymore.
Mr. Bones was agile and sure-footed, and he loved to hike. He loved to climb on rocks, too, and never, not once, did he shy away from a sheer boulder or steep cliff. He scaled objects no dog had any business climbing. When we’d take him backpacking, he’d have a pup-party when we’d settle on a spot to camp, streaking around the perimeter with a big grin on his face.
He seemed happiest when hiking, camping, and exploring the woods. Bones’ favorite places included the Hemlock Trail at Cooper’s Rock State Forest (the last place we took him hiking before he passed away) and Heritage Park (also known as Brown Farm) in Blacksburg, VA. The Hemlock Trail follows Laurel Run, a fast-moving but small creek; Bones loved to dive off the trail and scoot down the bank to the creek, wading onto the slick rocks for a drink. He’d also hop onto the trunks of fallen hemlocks and trot along the smooth logs, sometimes ending up directly over the rushing water (which made me very nervous). At Heritage Park, he’d jump on top of round hay bales and run, leaping, from bale to bale. We’d run on the ground alongside him, all of us laughing.
Mr. Bones has hiked sections of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, New Hampshire, and North Carolina, and a portion of the Allegheny Trail on the West Virginia / Virginia border. And many other trails in many states. Eight or nine years ago, the two of us hiked a trail labeled “intermediate” in Grafton Notch, near the New Hampshire / Maine border. The three-mile loop was so steep in places that metal ladder rungs had been attached to rock faces—I had to scoop up Bones, lift him above my head, and heave him up and over the sheer rocks. He’s backpacked several times in the Otter Creek Wilderness of the Monongahela National Forest, explored the coast of Delaware, listened to a chuck-will’s-widow calling all night outside our tent in the Carolina Sandhills, and scared a moose away from our campsite along Maine’s Rapid River. His last two camping trips were to Shenandoah National Park, VA, and Raystown Lake, PA, both last summer.
For about ten years Jesse, Mr. Bones, and I were a trio. Jesse and I had only been living together for a few weeks when we adopted him. I was in my first semester of graduate school. Bones saw us through many of our lives’ milestones: our wedding, two Master’s degrees, a veterinary doctorate, a book publication, the birth of our first child, and most of a second doctorate. Bones helped me immeasurably after the shootings at Virginia Tech—he stayed close during my late-night panic attacks and uncontrolled weeping, and he even provided comfort for grieving strangers on campus. Bones has been with me for all of what I consider “my adult life.” I’m not sure I know how to function without him.
Our trio became four when we adopted Liza Jane in the fall of 2009. In a lot of ways, we chose her with Bones in mind; we wanted a dog smaller than him, and we wanted a fairly calm dog that wouldn’t push him around. At first, Bones’ expressions seemed to say, “When is she leaving?” but after a few weeks, they became best friends. Liza hasn’t eaten much in the week since Bones died, and she’s been very subdued, not wanting to leave us. She’s lonely without him, too.
Mr. Bones surprised me after our daughter Laurel’s birth. I figured he’d tolerate her, but I didn’t predict he’d fall in love. An epileptic since age two, when Bones first met Laurel we thought he was going to have a seizure; when we came home from the hospital, we set Laurel’s carseat on the floor for the dogs to meet her. Bones stuck his nose against her skin, her blankets, and he started to tremble. His eyes glazed over. He looked anxious, but it wasn’t epilepsy; I guess it was love. One of my deepest regrets is that our next baby (due in September) won’t get to meet and spend time with Mr. Bones.
Bones had a hemangiosarcoma—a cancerous tumor—on his heart. We noticed that he was having trouble breathing the evening of March 3; Jesse found the tumor on ultrasound the morning of March 4. For the next three weeks, we spoiled our old dog—lots of treats, snuggling, extra time outside, even venison cooked just for him. Jesse took him to the animal hospital three or four times to pull fluid off his heart; the tumor would bleed, and the sac around the heart would fill with blood, preventing proper circulation. Before getting fluid pulled, Bones would be depressed and very quiet, but almost immediately afterwards he’d be back to his old self, even chasing Liza and Laurel down the hallway and playing with toys.
We knew that one day the tumor would kill him, but we thought we’d have several more weeks or even months. We’d had a trip scheduled to Arizona—mostly for me to do research for my vulture book, but also to escape the horrible winter and to relax in the desert for a few days. We decided to go; obviously, if we thought Bones would die while we were away we never, never would have left him.
The day before our trip, Jesse pulled fluid off Bones’ heart again. After, Bones followed us around as we packed our bags and cleaned the house, acting just like he’d always acted. On my way out the door to the airport, I gathered the biggest handful of treats I could carry. Bones hopped up onto his spot on the end of the couch and waited patiently for me to deliver the treats. I spent a few minutes petting his face, his ears, and hugging him. I specifically told him do not die while we were in Arizona. And then we left.
Our friend Holly stayed with him that Thursday night. She said he greeted her with a wagging tail. On Friday afternoon he was still acting like himself, and he even tried to nose a can of wet dog food (a luxury!) out of Holly’s hands. Holly left around 3pm. Around 10pm, our friend Emma arrived to take care of the dogs, and she found Bones unresponsive, pale, and cold. She rushed him to the animal hospital. The veterinarian on duty, our friend Shannon, pulled blood off Bones’ heart, and like the previous incidents, he quickly returned to normal.
Emma brought him home. She texted that he’d trotted into the house. She took him outside and he went to the bathroom. He ate a few bites of canned food. She lifted him onto his (our) bed with Liza Jane, and then Emma got into bed, too. She texted me a picture of Bones relaxing on the bed, drooling, a very peaceful look on his face. In Arizona, I breathed a huge sigh of relief and fell asleep. In West Virginia, the three of them fell asleep, too. When Emma woke up at some point in the wee hours of the morning, she discovered that our beloved Mr. Bones had passed away. She texted Jesse; he didn’t hear it, but he woke up (also at some point in the wee hours of the morning), saw her message and called her. Then he gently woke me and whispered, “Bones is gone.”
I sat up. Laurel was sleeping in the bed between us, and she hadn’t stirred. Jesse and I both started to cry as quietly as we could manage. I felt like vomiting. I should have been there with him. He should have been stretched out next to me when he died. I felt like I failed him. But dying peacefully while sleeping in bed, at home, comfortable, surrounded by familiar sights and smells—we’d all be remarkably fortunate to die like Mr. Bones.
When we’d gone to bed in our hotel that night, we’d left the patio door open to let the breeze into the room. As we sat there crying in the dark, a whole chorus of coyotes began yipping and howling out in the desert. They grew louder and louder, sounding almost joyful in their frenzy. I tried to hold my breath and listen. Maybe all good dogs get to become coyotes when they die, chasing rabbits around the sagebrush, rolling wherever they want, sleeping in a den. Maybe Mr. Bones was with them now, somewhere out there in the dark.
Bones was always going first—around a bend in a trail, up a steep hill, down a dark hallway. A few steps ahead, making sure it was safe, returning to check on me, then going a few steps ahead again. I’m not a religious person, and I’m fairly certain that when living things die, they die—no heaven, no hell, no reincarnation, just the slow return of our bodies to their elemental basics. But if there is some sort of communion of spirits after this life ends, I expect to find Mr. Bones there, waiting for me, wherever there is. He went first, again. He’ll check it out and let me know if it’s safe. If it is, I’ll follow him.
