Being Frank About Our Pets

 Now that the election is over, let us turn to real life and death issues.

I opened Facebook this week to read this entry: 

"Megan has cancer and the doctor says she has six months to live if we don't have surgery immediately." 

"OMG!"  I thought in Facebook terms. ("Ohmigosh!") I

Wow! A child afflicted with cancer. How horrible! 

Reading on I learned "Megan" was the family pet. (The names have been changed to protect the identity of the dog. We wouldn't want her to be embarrassed.) If you are a pet owner, you might know cancer can affect those loved ones, too. 

Our Butterball developed cancer, received surgery, lived a short while and then had to be put to sleep. 

Butterball was not our Thanksgiving dinner but our pet Poodle and I did not name him. 

He was named by his previous owner who gave him to us because the dog was malformed. One of his testicles was up inside his body instead of hanging in a manly way. The owner wanted dogs to enter in shows and that "problem" disqualified Butterball. It makes you wonder what the judges of Poodle shows are looking at.

Butterball went blind and had been in pain for a while when the vet said the best option was to put him out of his misery and my wife scheduled the day it was to be done. 

Butterball (or simply "Butt" as we called him most of the time) was truly a member of our family. The first year we had him, he played in the snow with us until I noticed how red his little legs were getting. He even went with us to Grandpa's house and Grandpa doesn't like dogs. 

So, it was an emotional time as the awful day approached. 

I was working the night before we were to take Butterball to the vet's office. My commute home from the office took about an hour. On the way home I tried not to think about our friendly pooch on my drive home through country roads long after dark.

About five miles from home, someone's dog ran into the road and I couldn't avoid hitting the animal. It was late at night, there were no nearby houses and I was distraught. 

I started thinking about Butterball and wondered what I could do for the dog I hit. I stopped but I couldn't find him. I turned the car around and shown my lights down that lonely stretch of state highway. Apparently the dog had crawled off into the tall weeds along the road but I could hear no whimpering and could see no bloody trail on the road. There were no nearby houses with lights on that would indicate someone had let the animal out of the house to do its business. 

So, I got back into my car and continued home, upset about injuring or killing someone else's beloved pet while our own Butterball was going to be put to sleep the next day. 

I might have imagined the accident but my car was damaged by the impact and I decided to stop at the nearest police station and report the accident. 

Before I could get to the next town, the image of a woman talking on a cell phone flashed into my view. She was walking down the edge of the road, paying no attention to oncoming traffic. I swerved to miss her. 

I nearly stopped the car to verbally rip her apart. What did she think she was going? Did she want to suffer the same fate as the pooch up the road? 

But I drove on and reported the accident at the sheriff's office. 

Now it was after midnight and later than I had anticipated. I realized my wife would probably wonder had delayed me. 

At home, I told her briefly about the dog and the woman before we went to bed for a few hours of fitful sleep before taking Butterball into the vet. 

But the drama was not over. There was a preparatory shot for pain before the one that would stop the dog's heart, we were told. 

Linda and I were in the room when the vet attempted to give the first injection. Unfortunately, it put the dog into extreme pain and he began screaming in agony. 

The doctor seemed to panic. He threw down the needle and tried another shot. 

"Give him the final shot!" I yelled at the doctor, furious at the whole situation. 

Eventually, our poor, blind, Butterball was out of his misery. Outside the vet's office, Linda and I held each other and cried. 

So, yes, I do sympathize with my Facebook friend. 

I won't remotely suggest tragedy of a pet with cancer can be compared to a human with the disease. But we do love our animals, don't we?

Now, we have a cat we would give away in a heartbeat, but that's another matter. 

Frank Phillips is a freelance writer. His blog can be found at frankphillips.blogspot.com. He can be e-mailed at frank.phillips@gmail.com. 

We lost our dog

We lost our dog.
He had been sick a long time. I thought I was ready for it, but I wasn't. I don't think any of us were.
We kept hoping our 18-year-old miniature poodle would just go in his sleep and we could scoop up his remains and take them to the vet.
But it didn't work that way. I guess it seldom does.
Linda called me at work. She had taken Butterball (that was his name) to Dr. Froderman and Doc said it was time to put him to sleep. He was full of cancer, which didn't surprise us.
I was working nights and Doc asked Linda if he should do it while Butter was still there.
She refused and when she called me, I told her not to take him in alone.
"I thought you would want to say good-bye to him," she said.
So, I came home late that night. I tried to pet him. He was on the couch and he just growled at me. I think he was in pain.
The next morning, I picked him up and we took him to the vet's office. Linda drove.
I think he knew what was happening. He didn't growl this time, though he shook like he always did when we went for a car ride.
At the vet's office, a lady, leaving with her pet dog, exclaimed, "Oh, what a pretty dog," which didn't make me feel any better.
Inside, we were escorted right into the examination room where Butt had been so many times.
Doc brought in two syringes. One, filled with maroon medicine, was to be a sedative. The larger syringe was to do the deed.
I admit it. I started crying when I signed the paper, authorizing the doc to put him to sleep. Linda had already cried, but tears were welling up in her eyes, too.
Doc couldn't get the sedative in.
I tried holding Butter, the assistant tried holding him. But Butter screamed like I never heard him scream before. I think the syringe needle may have been going into a tumor; I don't know.
Finally, the doctor, alarmed at me crying and the dog screaming, gave up on the sedative and nearly slammed the syringe down.
He used the big syringe and Butter instantly became unconscious.
"I'm sorry," he said through his own tears as he walked out of the room.
"Thanks, Doc," I said. And I meant it. He did a good job taking care of our pet.
For $65, Butter was cremated and his ashes scattered over a beautiful garden, according to pictures in a brochure the vet's office gave us.
He loved the outdoors. Our back yard was really his.
I think his death got to me so much because of many reasons.
We got him in Kentucky when we lived there. When he was a puppy, he was extremely intelligent and would run through the house with the kids. Once in a while he would come, put his front legs up on the sofa and look at me with the same expression on his face Ralphie has when he asks for a BB-gun in the department store.
When we moved back to Indiana, I had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to go to work, so I went to bed much earlier than Linda.
Butter would tuck me in -- he would jump on the bed and stay with me about 15 minutes and then go back into the living room with Linda.
Butter became quasi-famous on the radio.
I was news director at WCVL-WIMC, Crawfordsville.
Every Thanksgiving, when we had a new morning man, I heard the same joke on the air.
"Your dog's name is Butterball? Does he get scared every Thanksgiving?"
He went camping with us and when he spooked a deer, there was no living with him. He thought he was really big stuff.
Then, about the time our grandson was born, Butter started getting old. He foot bothered him when we were camping, so we went to the vet and Butter spent the rest of that trip with one leg wrapped in an Ace bandage.
When he got cancer, we did what he vowed we would never do. We consented to surgery, which gave him about five more years.
But time finally ran out.
He was supposed to be Linda's dog. I had a black Lab named Billy. But Butter worked hard to become my dog, too.
With his passing, another link to my days as a full-time minister, when our kids were growing up at home was severed.
Linda is recovering from breast cancer and I was concerned how his death might affect her. But she seems to be OK.
"I never want another dog," she said. "I don't want to go through that again."
We still have Bonnie Lou, Amanda's cat. She is getting more attention now than she has received since Amanda went away to college.
We love Bonnie, too, but there is a big hole in our hearts where Butter used to live.
I admit, I got tired cleaning the carpets and mopping the kitchen when Butter had his many accidents. I wasn't as patient as I should have been.
He was a good dog, Linda said. As usual, she was right.